D&D General D&D Evolutions You Like and Dislike [+]

[TwoSix]

I do. At the end of a campaign we all pick 5 ideas for the next campaign. Then everyone looks at the ideas and can veto one of them, so the ones least liked are gone early. From the remaining 15 everyone assigns a number from 1-15 and the top 3 vote getters go to a final vote with the winner being what I work on for the next campaign.

If that’s the case, then of course you have much wider latitude when DMing to veto concepts. You’re not enforcing your personal desires, you’re enforcing the agreed upon gaming contract.

 

[Necropolitan]

An evolution from 3.5 to 5E I like is while there are way fewer options there's also been more effort to maintain balance.

I'd prefer if there were more ability to take flavor options, but at least I don't need a long list of stuff I need to ban for sanity's sake.

The people claiming it's unreasonable to ban stuff from the books are either unaware of how absurd optimization and power imbalances could get in 3.5 or are ignoring that fact.

Even in 5E I ban species with natural fly speeds at lower levels because otherwise I need to account for someone who most monsters at that level can't hit.

 

[Maxperson]

If that’s the case, then of course you have much wider latitude when DMing to veto concepts. You’re not enforcing your personal desires, you’re enforcing the agreed upon gaming contract.

I can't recall ever having to veto a concept. They roll numbers that night and then think about their character while I work on the game.

 

[TwoSix]

I can't recall ever having to veto a concept. They roll numbers that night and then think about their character while I work on the game.

Even better then, sounds like a good collection of enthusiastic players.

 

[DammitVictor]

Me: What's up with the demonic dreams and strange events you mentioned when you told your backstory to everybody?
Them: That's for you to figure out and work into the game.

I had a player pull that on me once-- his PC was amnesiac and being hunted by enemies from his past-- so I rolled with it, tied his enemies into the story the other PCs were pursuing and the game ended. Good DM, right?

Started a new campaign, he did it again. So I rolled with it again, only I made his PC a lieutenant of the BBEG who had been defeated by the other PC's allies, in charge of some of the BBEG's dirtiest work. The player played the PC as being shocked and horrified about what he'd done before he lost his memory, and died in a blaze of glory during the final confrontation to give his allies the chance to finish it.

He did it again. I twisted every knife I could think of.

His next character pitch was-- wait for it-- an amnesiac.

I broke down and finally asked him why he didn't want to make up his own backstories anymore. He said he enjoyed the game more when he was trying to figure out what I was doing to him, and especially when I was using hints and little clues to tease him (the player) about it and make the PC writhe in moral agony. So I let him play another amnesiac character, and really put the screws to him. His character had been a Paladin when he was alive, he had a flashback to bouncing his son on his knee when he decapitated the Chapter 1 boss, and a fellow PC was the one who'd murdered him. At one point, the party was attacked by his former adventuring party-- noble heroes all-- determined to return him to his peaceful rest. He loved it.

I became a better DM before that game even started; my Viking Hat grew three sizes that day.

Different players have different needs, so when I say "no backstories", I don't mean that the player characters are all bundles of mechanics wrapped up in a spherical cow. What I mean is that backstories should be flexible and brief, so that I can hook them-- the game the player wants to play-- into the game I'm running for everyone else. And written at the table, so that the players can stick their own hooks in. Every plot development should be logical, predictable, and completely blindside at least one player at the table. If that player is the one whose idea it was in the first place? Even better.

When I say "losing is fun", I don't mean TPK every session or the PCs spinning their wheels. I mean fail forward; for every 5-6 victories where the player characters get to carve their names into the Moon with a giant laser, the bad guys should get one that the PCs also have to look at for the rest of the game. Rolling up a new character doesn't hurt, starting over with a new campaign doesn't hurt, and your players need you to hurt them. Not because it makes the tough fights more tense and makes them appreciate their victories more-- though it does that, too-- but because the hurt, itself, is something they need for the experience to be complete.

But all of that requires playing the game at the table and letting the other players-- not just the umpire-- control part of what happened to your character before the gameplay proper started. And that means... beyond the traditional DM prerogatives of running the world, being willing and ready to play a character that is grounded in the same reality everyone else is playing in.

I don't do it every time, but I think every controlling DM and every defiant player should play at least one campaign where every "player" does worldbuilding by taking turns either whitelisting or blacklisting everything from ancestries and classes to cultures and organizations and even monsters, and then having to put the pieces back together in order.

It's fun way to learn a hard lesson about sharing the table with other people and working within constraints you didn't choose for yourself.

 

[Lanefan]

I legitimately wonder how many DMs actually take into account their players preferences when designing their campaign or world.

Bit difficult when during the setting-design process you've more or less no idea who the players will be.

I mean, I could design something that caters to what I happen to know player Z's interests are with a long-range view toward inviting that player in, but that doesn't mean player Z will be available to join the game by the time the setting is done.

Add to that, people's interests and tastes change. A player might be all over furries right now but in six months when the game starts could have tired of them and moved on to something else.

 

[Lanefan]

That's actually very, very far from true. Even the Realms, as detailed as it is, has less than 1% nailed down. There's swathes of open area where villages, towns and even cities can just be plunked down if the DM wants. The cities, even Waterdeep, has so many unnamed buildings that you can stick anything you want in there, and so many people you can create any organization you want to add to the world. And you can repeat that in ever city, town and village.

Even with that, FR is still a lot more nailed-down than my homebrew setting is.

 

[Maxperson]

Even with that, FR is still a lot more nailed-down than my homebrew setting is.

Yep. It's probably got the most lore of any setting out there, but it's still less than 1% of that setting.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You guys lost me. The hypothetical players and DMs that y'all are talking about are my real-life friends. We respect each other a lot more than what's being implied.

Maybe your situation is different but we don't treat each other like-- (gestures at the last dozen pages of comments) --this. We wouldn't be friends for very long if we did.

I wouldn't expect you to be friends very long if nobody ever tolerated discussion of anything that even one person might be the tiniest bit uncomfortable with.

The world has things that will discomfit us in it. It is flabbergasting to me that anyone would treat that as "oh, because the GM frowned slightly when I mentioned 'dragonborn', I should never ever even think about playing one ever again".

The refusal to communicate is one of the biggest red flags I could ever think of for any social group, let alone a D&D game group!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

if picking another one of the ten options you are interested in is bending over backwards, then absolutely f*ing yes

You constantly demand it of the DM but are throwing fits if you are being asked to give an inch…

Are you serious, right now?

I'm throwing fits?

When it was LITERALLY said that even asking a question about playing something the GM isn't into would be considered a breach of friendship???