I like civil disagreements like this. Makes me glad we're not in the "good ol' days" where any sort of opinion difference lead to muskets at dawn.
Banning things for flavour reasons, because they don't fit the narrative of your world, makes sense. If you decide magic doesn't work, then by all means ban spellcasting classes if you want. If you didn't, they'd be a trap option. In your monk example, they would make the scenario pointless, so players can accept that.
But those are things that are evident to creatures in the game. If magic worked, this is knowable to the inhabitants (by experiencing it). There are some things it would be very strange to ban. Using your monk example, you may very well say that such monasteries don't exist on your world, but would you ban creatures from punching other creatures?
That's kind of a flawed argument - reducing the argument to its most illogical extreme. Just because monks don't exist, doesn't mean you can't punch. Limiting a class from the game -even if it's just because you don't like the flavour or the mechanics - doesn't mean a thing. If a GM doesn't like bards, he or she is allowed to eliminate them from their game. Doesn't mean characters can no longer sing.
And some things you cannot ban for story reasons because they only exist as game mechanics. If you think a d12 for hit points is too powerful, if you ban the d12 it won't be a story reason. Creatures are unaware of game mechanics. You could ban it for game balance reasons, but not story reasons.
Sure. But not sure how this is relevant.
[quote[I've found the 5E MC rules to be very good. What you gain on the swings, you lose on the roundabouts. My Pal2/War3 doesn't get two attacks like the Bar5, nor does he get 3rd level spells like the Clr5. I get the impression that some people
assume they are unbalanced, and ban MCing based on that pre-conception.[/quote]
They absolutely can be, when you start getting wishy-washy on the rules. Look on any character optimization board - you'll find a good chunk of the builds make use of a multi-class combination that can be abused.
First, the solution to having players of mixed skill is not to ban skill but to develop more skill.
Trust me, it's really not.
If you have some people who are good at, say, soccer, and some not so good, do you ask the better ones not to play so well to gives the others a fair chance, or do you have them teach the poorer ones to be more skillful? Do you have the mathematicians promise not to solve complex equations on the grounds that some people aren't so good?
The difference here is, to use your example, you're suggesting that optimization a character or using the game to make powerful characters IS the game. I don't think it is. A better example would be to say "Do you have mathematicians promise to make sure they try their hardest to be good at soccer?"
In other words, I don't feel I SHOULD be teaching players how to better optimize their characters. That's not the point of the game for me. I should be teaching them how to have a good time, and not have them worrying about keeping up with the Joneses.
The point of the game is to play. That's how we enjoy it. No one should be able to tell us how to play it, except the people in the group that are playing it. By barring some of the rulesier elements, we've found a good middle ground.
It's in our nature to help our friends, so we can forgive those who try to help their fellow players make a more effective character, but I understand that this may be annoying. But 5E single classes are robust enough to work well without MCing, therefore there should be no problems playing alongside a skilled optimiser who can't cast 3rd level spells or get two attacks.
Sure. But what about the skilled optimizer who uses the rules to be flat out better than his companions? In 3e days, I remember deciding to play a guy in a detective campaign who was all about perception. He couldn't do anything else, really. Unfortunately, everyone else was a power-gamer. My awesome perception guy.... had the lowest perception in the party. And two of his companions weren't even really trying!
In 5e, those situations are less likely to happen, but they CAN happen. And having players look at combinations ("Warlock Fighter! Warlock Ranger so I can stack hex and hunter's mark! Warlock X so I can blah blah blah... why do all the good multiclass combos involve warlocks?") can really invalidate others in the group.
Of course, optimisers tend to build more effective characters, but that would be true anyway!
Exactly. This is why you limit the options, so there's less to optimize. Trust me, if you play BECMI, this behaviour goes away REALLY quickly. And strangely, people continue having fun. Who'd have thunk it?
There are many things to like about RPGs; role-playing is one thing and optimisation is another. Some people prefer one more than the other, but it is a fallacy (the Stormwind Fallacy) to say that if you like optimising that you can't be a good role-player.
First, I never said anything of the sort. What I did say was that I wanted to limit the amounts of optimization in my game. As the GM, I have the right to steer the game in a direction where I will be having the most fun. I've done that. No one else should be telling me I'm wrong for doing so. I'm not telling other people they're wrong for playing the game their own way.
Second, my own optimizing players are proof against your "fallacy". They can be wonderful gamers. Last session, one of these players spent a good chunk of time arguing for possession of a pair of suede, rhinestone-covered boots. They had no value, and barely fit. But he wanted them. It was a fun time, and no mechanics were involved.
HOWEVER, if they, say, had a very minor bit of mechanics on them that didn't jive with his character, he'd make sure that +0.5 to insight checks would go to the guy who needed intuition. So, by getting rid of the fiddlier bits of mechanics, it frees the player up to have a bit more fun with the game.
In my experience, those players who put a lot of time and effort into optimising also put a lot of time and effort into character, while those who are not bothered about the game mechanics also tend to be less bothered about the whole thing. Exceptions exist, of course.
So, you're all against this Stormwind Fallacy bit, but then in the next paragraph you argue the exact same thing about the people in the other camp? That's funny stuff, man.
I've seen PLENTY of players who fill up entire journals about their characters... and don't know how attack rolls work. And I've seen power-gamers who couldn't tell you how old their character was, how tall, or even where their character is from... but could tell you exactly what their modifiers were for an off-hand attack on a rainy day.
I'm DMing LMoP, and have taken them from 1st to half-way through 4th. I encouraged them to consider feats, and even hoped that some would MC. No-one has MC'd so far, although the dual-wielding rogue wants a fighter level to get the style at some point. When he does, it won't be a free lunch; that fighter level has cost him a rogue level! There are a good mix of feats and ASIs.
Sure. Sounds like fun. If it were my game, it'd be exactly the same, except the rogue wouldn't be able to tread on the fighter's toes at all. The game would be functionally very similar, just one option would be barred from the players. Not a big deal.
As to feats, in the history of D&D spellcasters tended to be interesting and varied in play, but fighters tended to be limited to 'I hit him with my stick' every round.
I spent two, three years playing 1e. I can tell you right now that fighters, while they tended to do one thing in combat, were not at all "limited" in play. Maybe in combat, but so what? Sometimes having a clear goal in every fight is a good thing. It definitely appeals to some players.
The 5E feats allow the non-casters to do cool stuff too! In the game I'm DMing, the newbie paladin player was 'helped' by her friends to choose Shield Master at 4th (instead of +2 Str). She now is not only more effective, she also enjoys playing her paladin more than she did before. She now has options to think about; when should I shove? Should I push 5 feet or knock prone?
So... a player wanted to make a choice, and the other people coerced her into another option? That's exactly the sort of thing I hate. She now has options to think about. Not every player wants that. It's good she's having more fun, so that's a plus. But I'd be concerned about players exerting their wills on someone else.
The game isn't ALL about concept though. I can't rock up to a table and say I wan't to play Elric, who is the most powerful sorcerer in the world with the most powerful weapon in the world, and be upset when the DM reminds me that we're starting at 1st. Our concepts are limited by the rules of the game, and therefore we must consider the available abilities and weave or concept around that.
Right. Our concepts are limited by the rules of the game. So if the GM decides to not allow an OPTIONAL rule into his game, it's ultimately not going to affect things one iota.
Feats and MCing give more choices and therefore more playable concepts, but they don't subtract any choices from those players who don't want to use them.
It's an illusion, though. If you have a concept that's not supported by the rules, you can ALWAYS go to the GM and say "can I play this?" My 5e group has an awakened bear as a PC. We found a way to make it work.
Having a lot of tools ultimately means you can only build what the tools allow. Having few tools can mean that people push the envelope and do something interesting. It's like the iphone. It was only allowed to have one button - and it pushed the design forward as a result (not that I'm saying we like iphones, necessarily....)
As you've just shown, it isn't MCing or feats which make sucky players suck, therefore banning feats/MCing isn't the solution. Educating them is, and if they do not want to be bothered with that (which is fair enough) they can't complain when other people are 'better' than them. Do the work!
"do the work"? What?
It's my job to let them have fun. They do have fun, because I've set up the game to fit my group. Forcing them to play a game with a bunch of rules so that one or two people in the group have more fun at the expense of everyone else is bad GMing, not good.
In real life, if I came to your table I'd be impressed if we could discuss it between us and come up with a character we both liked, feats/MCing and all. If you wouldn't entertain the thought, I'd feel frustrated. I'm sure I could make a PC without feats or MCing, but I'd always be thinking that my PC would be so much cooler if...
"My PC would be so much cooler if I had 100% control over who and what he becomes". Well, that's not how I run a game. You have a character background, but once he hits the campaign, things are going to happen. He'll be in adventures you won't predict, he'll get ability boosts, curses, and weird diseases. He'll gain strange abilities from that demon curse he got, and that deity he met will let him see in the future, but at great cost. Ultimately, in my games, you DON'T have control over your character's path. Just where he steps and which roads he walks down.
That's how we like to game. And honestly, it's awesome.
For me, the most important thing for a player is that he thinks that his own PC is cool. If he doesn't think that, why would he want to play?
Agreed. And luckily, we think all of our characters are cool. And none of them needed an optional rule to get there. Why anyone would think they NEED that optional rule to be cool, I honestly don't understand.
