D&D 5E Deal Breakers - Or woah, that is just too much

[steenan]

I have few deal breakers - it's rather that we don't have enough time to play they good games we want to try, so there is no point in playing poor games or boring settings.

But there are a few things that will make me walk away - probably after asking to make sure that it's really what the other person meant. All of them are metagame; people behaviors and not rules.
- Ignoring or hiding the rules. I'm fine with RAW, I'm fine with house rules that are known upfront, I'm fine with the GM sometimes misremembering something and even with rules changing during the campaign (with whole group's consensus). But if rules are intentionally ignored, hidden or one-sidedly changed by the GM during play, it's not a game for me.
- Introducing disturbing content without prior permission from other players or ignoring players that protest at something that makes them uncomfortable. I'm all for exploring troublesome emotionally charged topics, but it can't be forced on unwilling people.
- Ignoring players' character concepts or changing them against players' will. If a concept doesn't fit the setting, the group or the intended adventure style, it can be discussed and corrected out of game. But when we play, the play is about the specific characters the players created.

 

[ccs]

Explanation. Why I don't like playing clerics.

One of the things I really liked that 4e did, was make divine powers inherent. It opened up all sorts of opportunities for villains and heroes both; the rebel who turns against his orders and now uses the divine power of the gods against them.

Does a couple things...takes away the veto hammer from the DM (or rather, makes the veto hammer no larger on the cleric than on the fighter), and lets a player come up with his own motivations.

Plus, I just love the "backsliding priest" and "Chosen against their will" storytelling tropes, so it's fun for that.

When I dm games, I let the players make up their deity themselves. In ancient times, often each village, hamlet, city, and so forth, would have their own tutelary deity. No reason why we can't have the same sort of thing in D&D. So choosing a Deity becomes no more important to the campaign world than choosing the name of the village where one was raised.

I'm rather directly oppisite of you here.
Divine power does not come from within you, it comes from a divine being/force. So if you pick a class that's powered by the divine? Then choosing your patron IS important. (Doesnt matter what god you pick) As is following its tenants. And if you stray from the path too far/too often? Then you'll lose those powers.
It's a simple equation: Do _______, receive dayly allotment of power. DON'T do ________, don't receive power.
If you can't handle this? Then you shouldn't play a divinely powered character. Or at least not expect to have any powers.....

 

[Salamandyr]

I'm rather directly oppisite of you here.
Divine power does not come from within you, it comes from a divine being/force. So if you pick a class that's powered by the divine? Then choosing your patron IS important. (Doesnt matter what god you pick) As is following its tenants. And if you stray from the path too far/too often? Then you'll lose those powers.
It's a simple equation: Do _______, receive dayly allotment of power. DON'T do ________, don't receive power.
If you can't handle this? Then you shouldn't play a divinely powered character. Or at least not expect to have any powers.....

Which is why I said, if forced to play a cleric, I walk. Time was, if you came into an already extant campaign, you had to play the cleric, and a lot of DM's agree with you (as, I should note, did Gygax), and rather than push against the narrative, I'll politely decline, if that's the only option I'm given.

But this philosophy, as I pointed out, has some drawbacks. You can never have renegade priests. You can't have Spawn. And it creates a set of unkillable super-NPC's who at least some of the characters must subsume their play choices to the whims of. Since D&D for me is juvenile power fantasy, I prefer character types that allow me to wallow in fantasies of personal empowerment.

Funny story. One of my wife's favorite characters is a lawful good "cleric" (it's been a cleric, paladin, and fighter in various campaigns) of Hextor/Bane (depending on campaign). Story was, he was a prophesied "Chosen One" of a cult of Hextor/Bane worshippers and raised to be the avatar of their god. Unfortunately, he was brain damaged as a child, so he misunderstood all the liturgies he was meant to embody. He took "Overlord of All" to mean caring for others. He'd go around building orphanages and funding charities for the greater glory of Bane. It was hilarious, and got really funny when, in one adventure, he met some "brethren" from the main cult of Bane.

Her current one is a paladin who was a former thief who is only a paladin because the Greek Gods decided they needed a champion and Hermes won the toss. He'd like nothing more than to go back to a life of thievery, but then, he kind of digs all these god granted superpowers, so he usually does what they ask, grumbling all the while.

 

[Satyrn]

I view Clerics and other divinely powered PC's the way Salamandyr does. Cleric has been my favourite class for a long time, but they would be horribly unfun for me if I couldn't play them that way.

 

[Whirlingdervish]

As a Dm i would never shoehorn anyone to play anything they don't want and occasionally i have even assigned an NPC cleric to the group fro a full share of the XP I just can't get behind the ideo of forcing someone to play something they don't want.

 

[Hussar]

I'd also point out that playing a divine character tied to a specific god hasn't been true since at least 3e. In 3e, in the PHB, you could play a divine character of a philosophy, no interfering NPC at all. Of course, there is still the issue that the DM gets to determine whether or not you are actually following that philosophy and can still sit in judgement of your character to a degree that no other class has to deal with.

I wonder how many DM's who force clerics and paladins to follow their mandates and enforce this, also do so for all alignment restricted classes. I've heard all sorts of anecdotes of fallen paladins and even clerics stripped of their powers, but, I cannot recall a single instance of a barbarian losing his rage powers for being too lawful. :/ I honestly think this is why divine classes get such a bad rap. Despite the fact that most classes had alignment restrictions at one point or another, it was only paladins and to a lesser extent clerics that ever had it actually enforced in play.

 

[Lanliss]

Except that in 5e that is no longer the case. While you may choose a god, there are now no longer any rules in place that cause a cleric to lose them if they stray from their faith. From memory, these rules were part of the cleric and paladin class in 2e and, presumably 3e. For 5e, divinely powered characters losing their spellcasting abilities would be a houserule.

Or, in the Paladins case, a variant rule. Still optional, but not a houserule.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I wonder how many DM's who force clerics and paladins to follow their mandates and enforce this, also do so for all alignment restricted classes. I've heard all sorts of anecdotes of fallen paladins and even clerics stripped of their powers, but, I cannot recall a single instance of a barbarian losing his rage powers for being too lawful. :/

A barbarian who becomes lawful would lose the ability to rage, and a monk who becomes non-lawful cannot gain further monk levels (in 3.5, at least).

That's just alignment, though. It's way easier to violate a religious code than it is to fall so far that your alignment changes. You can straight-up murder an innocent person, and it won't swing your alignment from good if you have a good reason and then feel bad about it afterward. By contrast, it's easy for a paladin to wind up in a no-win situation.

In 3.x, you could play a divine caster who didn't follow a particular deity, but it required buy-in from your DM. At the very least, the DM would need to include such a possibility when designing the world, and some settings explicitly didn't allow that workaround because divine magic was tied strictly to the church structure. The same was true of 2E, where the DM could include philosophies rather than deities in their campaign worlds, though it wasn't formally acknowledged and codified until some of the later books.

As much wiggle room as they try to put into the rules, it's always going to be an exception rather than the expectation, because of the way campaign settings traditionally have worked. That might change, someday, if someone creates a popular setting which uses that option.

 

[Lanliss]

Oh yeah, that oath from the DMG, I often forget about that one. I kinda wish it was in the PHB, but do somewhat understand why it is not. The Death domain I think should have been in the PHB though, no real reason to leave that for the DMG when other death gods exist which aren't villainous.

I agree with you, and actually copied the Death cleric onto some notebook paper to put it in the PHB. As for the Paladin, I feel like they built it to be forgotten. It is such a small blurb, in an easy to forget spot, that it feels like it may have been on purpose.

 

[dewderino]

I walked out of a game recently due to 1 person's desire to dictate everything. We as a group decided to rotate dm's every level to keep things interesting and capitalize on everyone's experience. We played at one gentleman's home every Saturday. When he was dm he was very strict (which is whatever to each their own) but when he wasn't dm he would try to control those who were by changing their adventures and player back story and insist upon everyone playing their characters the way he would. When this didn't happen he'd drag his feet in game play in order to put the group in rough spots. He'd kill his Character off and blame the group. When he continuously tried to make me play my character his way and only his way I left. This game is about expression and creativity. Yes there are guidelines to follow but it's not a dictatorship. Individuals should be allowed to experience the game with their characters as they see fit so long as it's not breaking those guidelines. He didn't see it that way and I refused to bow down to a control freak so I've moved on. Granted I live in a small area and likely won't be able to find a new group to play with I still quit.

Rule #1 Don't be a fun sucker
Rule #2 Don't be a control freak
Rule #3 Have fun and enjoy the game