D&D as humanocetric ... or not?

[MGibster]

Well not for nothing but a samurai in ancient Egypt sounds like a potentially cool story. Clash of cultures, stranger in a strange land....plenty to work with.

This is the equivalent of a player asking if they can be a mage when we all agreed we were playing Vampire. I used to call that Snowflake Syndrome until snowflake became an insult during the last decade. I see it as a good indication that the player and I are not on the same page so far as our expectations of what the campaign is going to be like. Yeah, fish-out-of-water and stranger in a strange land stories can be kind of cool. But if I'm running a Samurai campaign and someone wanted to play an Ancient Egyptian I'd be annoyed.

 

[MGibster]

I get what folks are saying in regards to gaming being therapeutic without claiming it's therapy. Just hanging around with your pals shooting the breeze can be therapeutic but none of us think of it as group therapy. I'm fine with including some pretty ugly things in my games unless it bothers one of my players. We're all there to have fun.

 

[Lanefan]

Pull something = turning my game into a soap opera. We explore dungeons, not characters. I expect characters not to have backstories. A characters' story is what happens in the game, not before it.

Ah, but even without any backstories involved, "soap opera" can just as much arise out of what happens during play. Once the PCs get to know each other, in-party romances, jealousies, flirts, couplings, breakups, pranks, etc., etc. are all fair game; and IMO it does the game a dis-service if these things aren't given time to play out in character.

That, and if I'm playing a character for any length of time it's nearly inevitable I'm going to want to explore it and figure out what makes it tick, and then roleplay the results.

That said, there's a difference between a) playing one's character and b) using one's character to try and sort out real-life issues; the latter rarely ends well.

 

[Zardnaar]

Ah, but even without any backstories involved, "soap opera" can just as much arise out of what happens during play. Once the PCs get to know each other, in-party romances, jealousies, flirts, couplings, breakups, pranks, etc., etc. are all fair game; and IMO it does the game a dis-service if these things aren't given time to play out in character.

That, and if I'm playing a character for any length of time it's nearly inevitable I'm going to want to explore it and figure out what makes it tick, and then roleplay the results.

That said, there's a difference between a) playing one's character and b) using one's character to try and sort out real-life issues; the latter rarely ends well.

Yeah it's kind of an unspoken rule to leave your personal BS at home. Doesn't really matter what it is.

Real life drama tends to drag the group down and/or bust up the group.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah this is s what I prefer as well. 1-2 outsiders are fine but not the majority.

Assuming you're doing a regional type game.

Wouldn't matter in Sigil I suppose.

"I'm a traveling Samurai". Ok fine. "I'm a traveling Viking". Ok fine. "I'm an elf from far away". Erm sure. My Kender from Krynn came via Spellhamming". In some cases I would just end the campaign session 0 and tell everyone to roll new characters.

Failing that no game.

I guess a lot of this has to do with how you plan out your setting; and whether you place communities of, say, Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits close enough to the party's starting point and-or adventuring area that characters from those races would be halfway common.

It also depends how much travelling the party is likely to do, what playable races they're likely to meet there, and whether at that point players can either cycle out their current PCs or replace their dead with a PC of the newly-encountered race(s).

For example, in my current campaign I made them all start with Humans as they were in an almost-exclusively-Human land, and told them that other races (Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, Part-Elves, Part-Orcs, others*) could come in once the party got out of that realm and into the wild-lands; which would likely occur in the first adventure. Seemed to work out OK.

* - others includes various things (Gnomes among 'em) that are uncommon enough to only be accessed by an unusual roll on a racial abundance table.

 

[Zardnaar]

I guess a lot of this has to do with how you plan out your setting; and whether you place communities of, say, Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits close enough to the party's starting point and-or adventuring area that characters from those races would be halfway common.

It also depends how much travelling the party is likely to do, what playable races they're likely to meet there, and whether at that point players can either cycle out their current PCs or replace their dead with a PC of the newly-encountered race(s).

For example, in my current campaign I made them all start with Humans as they were in an almost-exclusively-Human land, and told them that other races (Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, Part-Elves, Part-Orcs, others*) could come in once the party got out of that realm and into the wild-lands; which would likely occur in the first adventure. Seemed to work out OK.

* - others includes various things (Gnomes among 'em) that are uncommon enough to only be accessed by an unusual roll on a racial abundance table.

The travel plans were not Egypt and the immediate environs. They're roughly in not Libya now.

Gnomes exist but they're up near not Poland area.

There's a big Dragon empire nearby so I'm building up towards that so prefer people to be local.

 

[Lanefan]

That and I'm not a big fan of mixing themes.

Some themes are weird and yeah you will have trouble finding players.

I don't think you'll have trouble with any of the following.

Ancient Egypt
Ancient Greece
Vikings
Drow

Between the MCU and the TV show Vikings would be popular I imagine.

I love mixing themes! Any setting I ever design or run is going to have somewhere within reasonable reach of the adventurers (i.e. across a travelled sea or on the same part of the continent) the following:

Ancient Greece (the Xena version)
Ancient Rome (the Gladiator version)
Norse and Vikings
Celts
'English' (a mish-mash of about 1600-ish era on land, cannonless age of sail on sea)
Normans or French (Norse invaders who settled somewhere further south)
Dwarves (often more than one distinct culture)
Elves (probably at least three distinct cultures; to match the wood, high, and arctic racial variants)
Hobbits

It'll also have a variant on Japanese and-or Chinese somewhere more remote (to account for the existence of Monks), and other cultural variants that fit in with the setting e.g. my current setting has variants on Egyptian, Persian/Arab, and Aztec cultures that parties have encountered, and variants on Indian/Pakistani (not yet met) and others. There's also some made-up cultures, in part because I needed a couple of eeeeee-vil realms and didn't want to tie any specific historical culture to those.

 

[hawkeyefan]

No it's not- in fact I specifically say playing D&D is not the issue- but when it becomes your version of therapy (solely) , you need to reach out.

That kid shooting hoops needs to reach out IN ADDITION TO shooting hoops.

And I'm done with the convo- feel free to argue on and tell me I'm not saying what I'm saying,

It’s the “solely” bit that you guys seem to have added in. No one ever said that. No one is advocating for RPGing in lieu of actual therapy.

This is the equivalent of a player asking if they can be a mage when we all agreed we were playing Vampire. I used to call that Snowflake Syndrome until snowflake became an insult during the last decade. I see it as a good indication that the player and I are not on the same page so far as our expectations of what the campaign is going to be like. Yeah, fish-out-of-water and stranger in a strange land stories can be kind of cool. But if I'm running a Samurai campaign and someone wanted to play an Ancient Egyptian I'd be annoyed.

Maybe....it depends on the game and the group and when all this comes up. Not everyone creates a setting prior to involving players, and then presents them with some kind of campaign guide.

Sometimes a player may have an idea for a character before play begins. Then the DM says “oh sorry, no you can’t have that”. That may suck. It also may not....maybe that player can easily join another game and the DM can find another player.

And as I’ve said in other recent posts on this topic (not sure if it was in this thread; there seem to be a few threads with some level of overlap) I would expect there to be a discussion and for this to be worked out like adults.

I think the issue is the same, really, whichever way you look at it. Is the player’s character concept the only way they can have fun? Probably not. Is the DM’s setting so original and specific that it can’t handle something a bit out of the ordinary? Probably not.

 

[Lanefan]

The travel plans were not Egypt and the immediate environs. They're roughly in not Libya now.

Yeah, those don't come across as places Elves or Hobbits would be likely to enjoy living.

Gnomes exist but they're up near not Poland area.

Hmmm...I've always seen Gnomes as being more warm-climate creatures (no idea why!), and thus - if I knew nothing else about your setting - of all the non-Human races Gnomes would be the ones I'd most expect to meet in the not Middle East. Dwarves would be the other one - there's mountains in that area somewhere, aren't there?

There's a big Dragon empire nearby so I'm building up towards that so prefer people to be local.

Fair enough.

One thing I've found with all-Human parties is that not having night sight (in a setting where so many things do have it) sometimes presents a surprisingly serious challenge. At low levels light sources become a highly valued resource...and a hazard at the same time, as putting a light on tells everyone where you are.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah, those don't come across as places Elves or Hobbits would be likely to enjoy living.

Hmmm...I've always seen Gnomes as being more warm-climate creatures (no idea why!), and thus - if I knew nothing else about your setting - of all the non-Human races Gnomes would be the ones I'd most expect to meet in the not Middle East. Dwarves would be the other one - there's mountains in that area somewhere, aren't there?

Fair enough.

One thing I've found with all-Human parties is that not having night sight (in a setting where so many things do have it) sometimes presents a surprisingly serious challenge. At low levels light sources become a highly valued resource...and a hazard at the same time, as putting a light on tells everyone where you are.

Dwarves are in central area. Kinda not Czech Republic.

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