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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 8119017" data-attributes="member: 6704184">I DM more than anyone else in my group, and I disagree with pretty much all of this except what I've bolded. I don't deserve, expect, or want, any deference outside of the times where we are actually playing and the group needs to defer to me as the person running the game, and I certainly don't put up with a demand of deference from anyone else. Especially to the point where I'm supposed to either play a thing I don't like, run the game instead, or leave. No. It's a group activity, we are either all onboard or we play something else. Now, I'm blessed with excellent DMs that I trust to run a good game, so as long as I'm not uncomfortable with the proposed game, I'm not going to say no to it out of hand, but I will say things like, "Okay, I'm not super stoked about the idea of playing holy swashbucklers in a fantasy roccoco France (absurd, of course I'd be stoked about that), but perhaps if there is a culture similar to a fantasy Celtic Ireland meets Gothic Vikings that I can be a mercenary from? Or perhaps a second Church that is of the same basic faith but with a schism, and I've come at the command of my church leaders, so I'm more like a Eastern European Knight with a glaive rather than a light sword and light armor?" etc, and we would discuss the world and find ways to modify the premise or the supporting elements so that I could actually be excited about the campaign and my character. And one very valid avenue for that would be playing a character that the other character see as an outsider in terms of faith, either a Doubter or a Heathen or a Heretic, perhaps the Church needs an Alchemist on this mission, or perhaps I am involved against my will by those the knights are hunting down and must help the knights for my own survival, whatever. The idea that a character who isn't faithful can't fit a game about the faithful is just...completely alien, to me. If I were writing such a story, I doubt I'd do so without such a character amongst the protagonists.That seems like an unfairly rude response to a completely coherent character to play in a "religion is important in this game" campaign. You realize that "religion is important" and "all PCs need to be religious" are not anywhere close to the same statement, right?CoS always comes up in threads like this, too, and I just...don't understand people who think that only grim brooding characters are appropriate for the game? Y'all forget the cowboy with the giant cowboy hat and his foppish rival in Stoker's Dracula? I mean, having a couple straight man characters is all well and good, but it's much more fun for many players (and certainly I as a DM prefer to have at least one) to play something like a teenage airship mechanic with a robotic arm and a pet mouse that jaeger pilots her arcane cannon, and who is absolutely outside of anything remotely like anything she has experienced before in this strange, dark, land. Dracula would be fracking boring if all the characters were like Van Helsing, steeped in darkness and accustomed to dread. The story literally only works because some of the characters are full of light and life and humor and have no earthly business in a situation like the one they face.</blockquote>

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