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

[Maxperson]

I will again reiterate; he was there during the discussion of our characters. My character was not finished; just started. His stats were complete, skills, spells, and equipment. I had not chosen his background yet, and only mentioned it when we started session zero. And, once again...he approved it.

You keep saying that he approved it like that means anything. He asked you to make the characters during session 0. It really doesn't matter why he asked it. It was asked and by ignoring that, you did show disrespect to him as DM. I'm with Hussar on this one.

 

[Lanefan]

It's an enormous part of current pop culture. Check out r/dnd and related subreddits, dnd hashtags on twitter, instagram, and tumblr, etc. Most of it is about people's characters.

I don't do twitter or any other 'social media' so no surprise I'm missing what's there.

As for fanfic culture in general...dude it's huge. I can't even begin.

Fanfic as in writing something homebrew for a pre-established franchise e.g. the Harry Potter setting? That always seemed pretty niche to me.

 

[Lanefan]

Agreed, being heavily invested in your character has been the "norm" for D&D for a long time. Perhaps not in the very first Gygaxian dungeons, where player characters dropped faster than flies . . .

D&D is collaborative fanfic. Each player is (likely) invested in their character, and hopefully the group is collectively invested in the story.

I think you're defining 'fanfic' much differently than I am. I see it as, for example, writing a short story about Lucius Malfoy's upbringing in the Harry Potter setting - the author is using the pre-established and well-known setting wholesale and just adding some more fiction on top of what already exists...and often inserting a version of self in there as well. And it's single-author written work, and almost always amateur (I don't count the extended-universe Star Wars novels e.g. works by Timothy Zahn as fanfic). A narrow definition.

You seem to be suggesting fanfic covers almost every type of post-original storymaking, a much wider (and thus perhaps less useful) definition.

Put another way, just because Ed Greenwood invented Forgotten Realms doesn't define every game played in that setting as FR fanfic.

I also don't connect being invested in one's character during gameplay as having anything to do with fanfic. But if you're then going home and writing stories about that character, now you're into a form of fanfic I suppose, except there's no well-known franchise or setting to pin it to.

 

[Lanefan]

Not everybody plays RPGs to win.

I rather doubt they play 'em to lose...

 

[Raunalyn]

You keep saying that he approved it like that means anything. He asked you to make the characters during session 0. It really doesn't matter why he asked it. It was asked and by ignoring that, you did show disrespect to him as DM. I'm with Hussar on this one.

Maybe you didn't read the rest of it, or see my question from earlier. I didn't finish my character...I did everything but create the background.

My question is what, outside of background, is different about using a standard array to create your character abilities, your race, class, spells, and equipment before the session than it is during session zero? I can see waiting for the background (which I did), but not the rest of it.

 

[Don Durito]

I find these days, the preference seems to be to create characters beforehand, and to basically do a lot of the session 0 stuff over facebook or Discord chat or something like that.

Which suits me. Session 0 always bored the hell out of me, so I'd rather start the game as soon as possible.

 

[Maxperson]

Maybe you didn't read the rest of it, or see my question from earlier. I didn't finish my character...I did everything but create the background.

I got that. You said it a half dozen times. The point is that he asked you to create it there. Not do most of it and finish later. If you wanted to do most of the character at home and just finish it up, you should have discussed that. I know I like to be present during the entire creation process. It's fun for me to watch the players.

My question is what, outside of background, is different about using a standard array to create your character abilities, your race, class, spells, and equipment before the session than it is during session zero? I can see waiting for the background (which I did), but not the rest of it.

It's about what was asked, not about what you think makes sense. See above for just one reason why you might be asked to make the entire character at session 0.

 

[Lanefan]

My question is what, outside of background, is different about using a standard array to create your character abilities, your race, class, spells, and equipment before the session than it is during session zero? I can see waiting for the background (which I did), but not the rest of it.

Maybe the DM is going to use a different array than the standard? Maybe the DM isn't using array at all and is forcing point-buy or rolling; or is using some entirely different mechanisms for char-gen?

I'd never even start char-gen until I'd first heard the DM's house rules at roll-up night, even if there turn out not to be any.

 

[Raunalyn]

Maybe the DM is going to use a different array than the standard? Maybe the DM isn't using array at all and is forcing point-buy or rolling; or is using some entirely different mechanisms for char-gen?

I'd never even start char-gen until I'd first heard the DM's house rules at roll-up night, even if there turn out not to be any.

Nope, standard array. He was there when we discussed concepts, races, and available classes. Same thing we've done every time we've started a new campaign. We asked him what wasn't allowed, and that was it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't do twitter or any other 'social media' so no surprise I'm missing what's there.

Fanfic as in writing something homebrew for a pre-established franchise e.g. the Harry Potter setting? That always seemed pretty niche to me.

It isn't. Fanfic culture is also much broader than what you seem to think. Headcanon, fanfic stories, cosplay and art and such of OCs, etc is all part of it, and alltogether, it's a huge part of fandom.