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

[ccs]

And I do. Note I said my dealbreaker was having to play a cleric.

So what was the point of the rest of your statement?

 

[Arial Black]

Sorry, can you rephrase the question? I read that and think, "Who says they're not allowed? Not allowed by whom? Why is he asking me this question?"

Forgive me if I got the wrong person, but somebody (I thought it was you) started a conversation about 'paladorcs'. Most assumed that this was a portmanteau of 'paladin' and 'orc', but it was made clear that it was 'paladin' and 'sorcerer', with more P than S.

Then they said that this wasn't allowed.

If it wasn't you, I apologise.

So, to whom it may concern: why are paladin/sorcerers 'not allowed'?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Forgive me if I got the wrong person, but somebody (I thought it was you) started a conversation about 'paladorcs'. Most assumed that this was a portmanteau of 'paladin' and 'orc', but it was made clear that it was 'paladin' and 'sorcerer', with more P than S.

Then they said that this wasn't allowed.

If it wasn't you, I apologise.

So, to whom it may concern: why are paladin/sorcerers 'not allowed'?

I faintly remember that side conversation, but I think it was about orcish paladins. In 2nd edition, orcish paladins were not allowed, because only humans could be paladins.

 

[Seramus]

Too many deal breakers.

I like to get artistic and run many strange and varied games. I am happy to work with people who have a couple of big trigger issues they want me to avoid, but I'm not going to walk on eggshells for anyone.

Too many deal breakers throws up some major red flags.

 

[Space Jockey]

My biggest deal breaker is probably playing in a setting like the Realms or Dragonlance. Nothing makes me snore more than vanilla, Tolkein-esque fantasy. That being said, I do like interesting or cool stories, so I can overlook the standard heroic fantasy cliches if the campaign hook or premise is appealing enough. Some parts of Forgotten Realms are cool like Kara-Tur, Al-Qadim, Mulhorand, Netheril...basically anywhere that isn't cliche "Western European medieval society", so those are excluded.

The rest are not really deal breakers. I won't walk from games if they happen, but just things that make my appendix twist:

-DMs who try to go out of their way to make us feel bad for certain villains. There's a difference between making them complex, multi-faceted individuals, and dramatically revealing that the lich had a puppy orphanage all along and we just killed him. Also, sometimes I do want two-dimensional villains dag nabbit. Sometimes I want the mummy lord to be an evil bastard who I want to kill, not feel sorry for.

-Not only do I not mind firearms or technology that is more advanced than the European Middle Ages in my fantasy, I prefer them, even if they're merely an emerging force. That being said, you should probably say that those elements exist before the horde of hobgoblins all suddenly pull out blackpowder weapons. Or at least give a good in-game reason why our characters wouldn't know about them.

...Yes, that last one was suspiciously specific. I will never trust a hobgoblin again.

 

[Unwise]

I get the idea that by "evil party" you mean something other than "party that has evil PCs in it." E.g. you could have a party of heroes who goes around protecting their country and saving maidens from dragons, but also torturing those enemies for information or fun and taking unfair advantage of those maidens' gratitude (and their families') and making fun of retards and generally acting like Captain Hammer. And they'd be evil, but not what you seem to be describing as an "evil party."

Douchbaggery can be funny and diet-coke-evil can be dramatic. I have actually played a character based on Captain Hammer before, funny you mention that. He was a favored soul, so figured he was good by birth and above all of the none-name nothings of this world. Because he was good by birth, then everything he did was good, right? I've played cynical, ruthless bastards before too, but played up their evil sides for either comedy or drama at any one time. They were all on the side of good though, in the end.

There are groups out there though that will burn down towns, rape and pillage and make sacrifices to demon lords. These games come in two varieties, the beer and pretzels type where it plays a bit like a particularly sick game of "cards against humanity"where people just try and up the level of perversity and have a laugh about it. That's not my thing, but doesn't creep me out. The other variety seems to be made up of people acting out some dark fantasies, often all of the characters are diabolical rather than just insane murderhobos.

In my limited experience, games like most of the White Wolf catalog tend to attract the latter, at least around here. I don't want to make dispersions about fans of the systems, I'm just saying locally. I can see how Vampire could be an interesting inter-house political drama, so its a shame it ends up so grim-dark.

 

[Hussar]

Heh, funnily enough, the groups I've found that were the most cooperative were the evil PC groups. In a good group, you can be as much of a dick as you want, and you know that paladin isn't going to kill you in your sleep. Mouthing off to the fantasy RPG version of Tony Soprano, OTOH, is a very bad idea. So, everyone works together extremely well and everyone is very polite and treats each other with a great deal of respect because they know that if they don't, it will come around and bite them on the petoot.

Honestly, our evil groups were far, far more effective "heroes" than our good groups. I wonder if that says something about us.

Anyway, deal breakers.

I guess my only deal breaker now, other than the standard stuff like the DM being a douche, is pacing. My free time is extremely limited and I have to fight for my gaming time because of so many competing priorities. Which means that when it's time to game, it's game time. I have a fairly low tolerance of futzing about on non-gaming stuff (fortunately, my group generally doesn't really do that very often - game start time is pretty well respected) but, also, a somewhat lower than maybe is typical tolerance for spending gaming time on stuff in game that isn't really necessary.

For example, spending an hour of game time futzing about in the tavern, just talking to NPC's and generally not really doing anything. An example that always sticks in my mind was during one session, we had decided to hire half a dozen first level warrior (3e game) spear carriers. Nothing too serious, just a bit of extra firepower and someone to carry the torches. This took darn near TWO HOURS at the table as we had to interview each and every one of the twenty or so applicants in order to find the six that we wanted. A scene that could have taken all of ten minutes (at most) wound up eating up most of a session. And, additionally, after all that futzing about, the DM insisted that we equip our troopies and play out the scene in the outfitter buying all the equipment, one at a time.

I play online using VTT's. If I find that I'm multitasking during a session, I'll politely drop out of the game. Used to be one group (the same one above) that I actually timed myself a few sessions and realised I was spending about 2/3 of my time not participating in the game and the worst part was, I wasn't actually missing anything. I dropped out shortly after that.

 

[Arial Black]

Fumbles.

I hate them.

I have recently persuaded my AL DM to drop them.

Also, my Pathfinder DM loves to use a Crit Deck and a Fumble Deck. He thinks they are great fun! I suppose that a friends head falling off at an awkward moment could be seen as 'fun' by some, but not by me.

To his credit, after we talked about it he said that each of use could make our own decision: if we choose to use the Crit Deck then we must use (be victims of!) the Fumble Deck too, but if we don't use the Crit Deck we don't suffer the Crit Deck.

I will never use either.

 

[KahlessNestor]

Fumbles aren't allowed in AL anyway, so good thing he stopped

 

[Salamandyr]

So what was the point of the rest of your statement?

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.

 

[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