D&D 5E As a Player, why do you play in games you haven't bought into?

[doctorbadwolf]

This to me is completely avoided by Session 0. This is where we both go through the setting, and also come up with character concepts as a group. It's something I do anyway, never realized that players would green light a setting but not want to adhere to it.

IME, it only happens when the DM doesn’t communicate with the players.

 

[Umbran]

and outlines things that flat-out won't work (evil characters, the faithless, whatever).

So,here's a point to consider - what you think "doesn't work" and what the player thinks doesn't work may be two different things.

Specifically, we can go back to the FR example of the Faithless. You, the GM say, "religion is important in this setting, and those without faith are incredibly rare." The player notes, however, that if they aren't playing a character whose power comes from devotion to a god, it has no impact on play. The doom of the Faithless happens after the character is dead! The character is no longer in play at that point... so who cares?

There are a number of thigns that GMs can think are terribly important, but that importance is not backed up by the things the players actually care about.

 

[Blue]

I appreciate where this concern is coming from but I dont think that D&D is based on the premise that the creative choices of the DM are the only ones that matter. Surely a key question facing DMs is how can I widen and include the choices of the people they play with and make a world that they can effect and change. I think this especially true if you play with friends, as I do.

I think the key question is "How do I provide the most fun". In some cases it's being inclusive. In other cases it's the limitations and changes that gives something a unique feel, like Dark Sun. And after playing for close to 40 years, doing something fresh is a real bonus. In that case, trying to be inclusive for one player is actively harmful to the fun as a whole because of how it would break that experience the DM is trying to craft.

So it depends on what is presented, inclusivity to character creation choices can be good or immersion-breaking bad - there's no one true way.

(Dark Sun cuts out all divine classes and a number of races, changes most of the other races so that playign them as members of that race as seen in other campaigns doesn't fit, and adding in some unique races and classes. It was republished for multiple editions, selling well enough to warrent it coming back multiple times, so we can see that having a strongly flavored setting can be popular, even if explicitly not inclusive. I use it as a clear example of limitations and popularity, but it's not the only one, especially when you include homebrew.)

 

[ph0rk]

So,here's a point to consider - what you think "doesn't work" and what the player thinks doesn't work may be two different things.

Doesn't matter - it is on the DM to be explicit. They're creating the world, and it is their job to be both flexible and anticipate situations that are untenable.

If they can't do this at the outset, it increases the mismatch problems.

So, with the alignments issue: A clear statement "Alignments matter in this world, and player characters of evil alignment are prohibited".

Explicit rule in the campaign document, that the player must pretend to not have read or must go to the DM for a specific allowance - that results in a conversation.

 

[Blue]

So,here's a point to consider - what you think "doesn't work" and what the player thinks doesn't work may be two different things.

Specifically, we can go back to the FR example of the Faithless. You, the GM say, "religion is important in this setting, and those without faith are incredibly rare." The player notes, however, that if they aren't playing a character whose power comes from devotion to a god, it has no impact on play. The doom of the Faithless happens after the character is dead! The character is no longer in play at that point... so who cares?

There are a number of thigns that GMs can think are terribly important, but that importance is not backed up by the things the players actually care about.

That's a rather mechanistic view on it. If a DM told me religion was going to be important in play, I would expect that there would be church vs. church action, a holy war, differing sects of a god - some with heretical viewpoints, lots of moral choices that focus around the religions, corruption within the churches, NPC reactions will differ based on any obvious holy symbols I wear, and all of that. I expect that it will be important above and beyond what the mechanics are explicitly because the DM has just communicated to me that it will be. I wouldn't assume the DM was intentionally misleading me and it would be no more important than it is in other games as defined by the mechanics.

Look at the Ravnica published setting. Choice of guild (or to be one of the rare guildless) is a big deal. You go into that assuming that it's going to be part of the plot, part of the culture, and will impact the characters in more ways then just what the mechanics of a guild background in the book bring.

 

[Umbran]

Doesn't matter - it is on the DM to be explicit.

You seem to have missed my point. I agree that the GM should be clear. However, being explicit is not sufficient. It is not enough for the GM to state explicitly that a thing matters. It has to actually make a difference in play. If it doesn't... it isn't actually important.

So, if you want a game in which religion is important... make it so those without faith cannot be healed by divine magic or raised from death. Suddenly, it'll actually matter to the players.

 

[jgsugden]

There are four basic approaches a DM can take to running a game for their players:

1.) Out of the Box - You're playing a stock module/adventure, and don't design a dang thing if you can help it. You're there to implement someone else's vision and let the players explore it.

2. ) DM's World - The DM has a lot of ideas and puts them together to create a world they think will be fun to explore. They set up story hooks, create fun places to explore and try to make something the players will like - but in the end, the world is theirs and they're running the game they want to run. This creates a consistent and (hopefully) immersive world, but sometimes it is not something that interests the players.

3.) Player's World - The players provide the DM with the things they want to explore and enjoy in the campaign, and the DM crafts a world to give them that opportunity, even if it is something they do not find interesting. The design is there primarily there to pull together the desires of the players and make them mesh together. The drawback here is that you often get a lot of highly varied storytelling going on, and it can be difficult to mesh them in a cohesive story world.

4.) Hybrid World - The DM has an idea, but before going too far with it he finds out what intrigues the players and folds it into his design. In this pattern, the major storyline often comes from the DM while secondary storylines are products of the origin stories of the PCs.

If you look at Critical Role as an example, Campaign One was a Hybrid World scenario. There was a major storyline pre-stream that focused on Pike and Grog. There was a short one that focused on the family of Vex and Vax. There was a story that explored Grog's tribe. Percy's family story was a major storyline, and there were a number of short stories about Keyleth. Mercer bounced back and forth between their stories - but in the middle you had major storylines that had nothing to do with their origin stories. Kraghammer, the Conclave, Vecna... these were stories their PCs wandered into rather than stories that grew out of their origins.

Campaign 2, however, is much more a Player's World. All of the stories have been driven by the history of the PCs (after a brief introductory period of Carnivals, Demons and Gnolls). Uk'otoa, the Traveler, Yasha's lost time, Caleb's origin, Veth's curse and family, Molly's origin, Cadeuces' family ... only Beau has really been along for the ride (outside of one or two brief interludes into her family history). Otherwise, everything spawns from the seeds that Matt pulled out of their origin stories. Now, I think that Matt worked their origins into the story he planned to tell (Molly specifically), and I expect the big swings that come down the road will be no more tied to their origins than Vecna's tale was for Vox Machina, but the campaign, so far, has been more about their origins than in Campaign 1.

So - back to the original question - why does a player choose to play in a DM's World or a Hybrid World if the DM's contributions do not make them happy? Usually, it is a lack of other options. Many of the groups I've been in have switched DMs from time to time. When we do so, we often see different styles at play. My game may have been a Hybrid, while another DM really wants to run the idea they had without worrying about the player's ideas, and another DM may just want to run a WotC stock adventure path. Personally, I have so many character ideas floating around that I never get a chance to play that I can find something fun to run in almost any game - so I enjoy the DM's World and Hybrid World models the most. However, to play with my friends, I will play in the Stock Adventure Path or one where the DM let Players set the stage. However, I watch some of the players in my group groan when the Stock Adventure doesn't meet their expectations - but it is the only option if they want to play with the group that week.

 

[ph0rk]

So, if you want a game in which religion is important... make it so those without faith cannot be healed by divine magic or raised from death. Suddenly, it'll actually matter to the players.

I mean, that's the sort of more explicit I mean.

If religion matters so much that non-believers do not fit in the setting the DM needs to state that. If there is a mechanical penalty for being a non-believer, the DM needs to state that.

Merely stating "religion is important in this setting" is not explicit enough. If there are to be mechanical effects they need to be plainly set out as they would be in a setting book.

If the DM can't or doesn't think to state that, they are failing in their responsibility to make peculiarities of the setting clear to the players - and should expect conflicts of the sort discussed.

Merely saying "religion is important" is not enough; in part because "religion" can mean a variety of things. "Religion is important" is a section heading, not a sufficient statement in and of itself.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I just cannot fathom a player who would deliberately go into a campaign, knowingly playing a character that is 100% opposite to what the group agrees to play. It's the tavern owner PC in the travel campaign. Or the evil character in the heroic group. I don't really see the difference.

I can think of three answers, from personal experience.

1) The player isn't thinking about it with the kind of clarity you're presenting it with.

I would say this is usually the issue. I've played with "that player", and not only that, I've been that player myself. Specifically, my brother wanted to run Castle Falkenstein, which is a ridiculous Victoriana-y game which presents a ludicrously romanticized (even by RPG standards) take on an alternate 1800s. In particular, the game, on original release at least, pretty much demanded that you buy in to the naughty word. That you think etiquette and sword-duels and flouncy dresses and top hats and speaking very formally and so on is AWESOME SAUCE (to be fair a lot of Mike Pondsmith's games rely on strong player buy-in to a pretty dramatic setting-aesthetic).

I didn't. So instead of building a PC to work with the setting, I built a technically-setting-appropriate cowboy who didn't believe in any of this naughty word and was basically there to shoot a whole bunch of fancy nobles the moment they tried to force it on him. At the time, this seemed entirely reasonable. I was 17. I didn't even really think "Oh I could just not play my brother's game", because that would be madness. So instead I just built a character to basically "take down" the game. It wasn't even malicious. I wasn't mad at him or his campaign, I was mad with the setting itself. A couple of years later, I could see how silly/immature that was, but at the time? No. And I think it's quite possible someone might play into their 30s without ever encountering this situation, and thus might well react poorly to it the first time they do. Especially if they're playing with a long-established group. Which brings me to...

2) The player is in a long-established group, which agreed on the setting, and doesn't think that the player should have to "sit out" the game (and to some extent, they may be right, depending on the group), so instead of just doing that, they either make a disruptive character, or a reasonable character but one which just doesn't fit the setting.

3) The player always makes essentially the same character, and eventually they hit a setting or a scenario where that character doesn't work, but they have no real conception of making any other character.

None of these require any "malice aforethought" or anything like that. They're more about people not thinking about their options. The DM and rest of the group can be part of the problem. I've seen groups be quite coercive about how something is going to be awesome, and to not listen to actually pretty well-stated and well-explained objections from a player or two. And the group/DM probably don't want the player to sit out the campaign, so encourage them to stay in.

Hell sometimes it's:

4) The DM really messed up explaining the setting, or just didn't explain the setting, and simply expected buy-in (this latter being most common with DMs with some experience but not very much running pre-gen adventure paths, in my experience). Sometimes the players are making a character that makes complete sense to how they understand the setting, but the DM just has totally failed to explain it to them.

 

[DnD Warlord]

The problem is we are not always on the same page. Heck words mean different things to different people.

I remember a player pitching a “pacifist” that only later did I find out in his mind meant “never start a fight but always finish one”

I had a new player back in 3.5 days that I told we don’t use alignment anymore but you have to be an okay guy... no torture ect... and he took that to mean he could not play a fighter because fighters have to hurt people...

min non D&D I just was introduced to shadow run. I own no books for it. I was told to expect a game like a TV show I loved called Leverage. So I made a con man with no combat skills but lots of con stuff and sociol stuff and some hacking and maxed out my starting money... the game master got pissed when I tried to not get involved in a fight... 4 sessions in I have been attacked every game and I got annoyed and blew up at theGM. “How many times did sofie or Hartson (the hacker and con woman) have to fight or get stabbed or shot, and how many times did Elliot (combat guy) have to be part of the con on leverage”. The other players (one who has played SR for years) said “you should have thought more A team, how hard is it to play Face”. I responded not hard... if I had made face.
The GM finally said we all had to stop quoting TV shows...but that was his pitch