DM Entitlement...

[Hussar]

A player that is as much of an egoist that he has to play his chosen race (like kender, vampire, demongod, dragonborn) no matter if it annoys other players or the DM just because "my fun is more important than yours" doesn't really deserve a DM or a gaming group.

I'd most certainly kick the guy, or leave myself, because odds are such an egoist will try to control the whole game for his own ego, and try to render everyone else including the DM into his "helpers" so he can play his true fanfic.

Yup, 100% agree.

Anyone who refuses to bend, who's "artistic views" trump everyone else's, needs to be pelted with dice. Be he DM or player. In my view, "My imagination is better than yours" is one of the worst forms of players there is, regardless of which side of the screen he or she sits on.

I have walked away, because the GM had no strong coherent setting in mind. It was simply build whatever you want and I'll build the setting around the party (if even that) or he'd retcon the setting to fit whatever you built.

Do I understand this rightly? You had a DM who was willing to tailor his campaign to your character, build his entire campaign around the group, and you walked because he had no "strong coherent setting in mind"?

There's all sorts of DM's out there who simply say, "Hey guys, what kind of game do you want to play" let the group kick the ideas around and then build a campaign from that. Sounds like a pretty damn good DM to me.

 

[Greg K]

Yup, 100% agree.

Do I understand this rightly? You had a DM who was willing to tailor his campaign to your character, build his entire campaign around the group, and you walked because he had no "strong coherent setting in mind"? .

Yep. I am not a casual gamer (my rating is less than 10%) . Your vision of the setting is what is going to sell me (or not sell me) on your campaign and I base my character decisions on the setting. So, come to me with your envisioned setting including an overview of the setting, the deities (including their domains), nations, the races and cultures, the allowed classes (and how race/culture affects the choice of classes or class variants). I also want to see some major organizations and NPCs that the PCs would know about based upon race, culture, and/or class -especially if they might serve as mentors, trainers, or an elite group to gain membership. You don't have to have every NPC statted out, but you need notes about them.


And, having a strong setting in mind doesn't mean railroading. Therefore, you need to be able to tailor the types of adventures to the character backgrounds, motivations and the direction they take the campaign via their actions which may mean improvising and running by the seat of your pants.

 

[Mallus]

Cosmopolitan, is fine and fits in my campaign....Mos Eisley Spaceport is too much for my taste or my setting.

Heh... I wasn't suggesting Mos Eisley or Sigil belonged in every campaign; just that cosmopolitan, over-stuffed, even genre-blending settings can be done well (and distinctively!).

Demon-folk....that's the problem. They are the offspring of humans mating with creatures of absolute and irredeemable corruption and evil.

Which makes them useful as metaphors.

I don't do a medieval campaign with post-modern sensibilities.

My sensibilities are more literary (for certain odd values of 'literature').

Why do I need to add a race a month if I have a working setting with a lot of options for the players?

Surely you don't (but you were making it sound as if you never made use of or had need for material you didn't cook up yourself, which runs contrary to everything I know about thieving together a good campaign setting).

 

[Mallus]

Not everything is good enough to steal...

We're talking about D&D here.

...and not everything is fun for everyone.

Of course. But I still think compromise and gaming outside one's comfort zone/preferences are good ideas.

I think you should try to understand that not everyone thinks like you, and enjoys the same campaigns.

Which is why I'm trying to share my experiences and perspective!

 

[billd91]

Do I understand this rightly? You had a DM who was willing to tailor his campaign to your character, build his entire campaign around the group, and you walked because he had no "strong coherent setting in mind"?

There's all sorts of DM's out there who simply say, "Hey guys, what kind of game do you want to play" let the group kick the ideas around and then build a campaign from that. Sounds like a pretty damn good DM to me.

I don't find that confusing at all. Might be a good DM, might be a wishy-washy muddle of a campaign too. I like the DM to have some coherent setting in mind.

 

[Steely Dan]

Your vision of the setting is what is going to sell me (or not sell me) on your campaign and I base my character decisions on the setting. So, come to me with your envisioned setting including an overview of the setting, the deities (including their domains), nations, the races and cultures, the allowed classes (and how race/culture affects the choice of classes or class variants).

And, having a strong setting in mind doesn't mean railroading.

I'm with you, and so are my players, we are currently immersed in my ongoing Planescape campaign of 3 years, but I have told them I want to run my first homebrewed campaign (never done one in 21 years), and have already pitched them some of the specifics:


-No divine power source (no gods or clerics or paladins).

-Playable races: human, hobgoblin, azer, nagaborn, minotaur.

-No Fey or Undead or Dragons in this world, also no unicorns, trolls and a lot of that staple stuff.

-Heavy on genies, titans, devils, rakshasa, nagas, elementals, medusae, constructs, sphinxes.


I'm going for a semi-eastern, slightly hyperborean, classical type campaign setting, and so far they seem to dig it.

They think the omitting of certain things, and the focusing on other things, makes for a more interesting world in a way, even though we won't be starting for a long time, they are already getting excited about character ideas.

 

[Scribble]

To the OP: What you do in your own game is fine, Scribble. But never criticise other GMs for running their own games in their own way. Never forget: Without the GM, there's no game.

I'm not really "critisizing" anyone... I couldn't care less about how they play their games as long as they're happy and their group is happy. I'm just trying to understand what promotes the mindset because it's different from my own. I'm also offering an idea that I have that seems to work well, and has led to some great games.

That said, the same can be said from the opposite side as well: Without the players there is no game.

Truly without both "sides" there is no game.

(and according to 1st edition, and now 4th edition the game CAN be run without a DM! hehe)

Really it's not the idea that the DM can or cannot "ban" something. It's the question of why, if that ban is at odds with a player's enjoyment of the game, do some feel the ONLY answer is "they can leave." As opposed to talking with the player as to WHY they're at odds with it, and seeing if the DM should reconsider. (For the good of the game as a whole.)

 

[Cadfan]

Do you keep missing that in a good group, everyone has the right to veto stuff that makes the game unfun for him? Of course, if what annoys him is essential to someone else there will be problems, but in a good group who has been playing together for some time it's unlikely that two players' taste differs that much.

If one of my players hated elves and no one would like them I'd surely either ban them, or make them a non-factor in my campaign. It's simply smart and logical not to use something (aka ban it) if no one really wants it and someone hates it.

Right. I'll repeat myself.

Having a system like that relies upon everyone having reasonable boundaries for what sorts of things they feel they can proclaim to be beyond the pale for inclusion in the game. If everyone took the attitude of the DM who freely proclaims, "I hate X, so not only won't I make it an important part of my campaign, but even if my players want to use it themselves, I won't allow them, even when there are no coherent or objective reasons to deny them other than my own hatred of X," the system would break down.

 

[Mallus]

As someone who despises broad kitchen-sink play environments, cheap puns and absurd characters, neither of us would want to play in the same game.

Re-read what you quoted. My point was that I'm willing to set aside my preferences if they didn't fit with the campaign setting, if that setting/campaign seemed interesting.

Thankfully, initial discussions prior to playing would reveal that our styles are incompatible and we would never sit at the same game table.

It's more likely that initial discussions would reveal that while our preferences are, in fact, different, I'm amenable to quite a few different play styles, and more than capable of being enthusiastic for a game that offers something new.

Really, I think far too much is made of the 'need' for a group to share a similar play style (so long as people are willing to compromise). My experience is that people with fairly divergent likes and dislikes are perfectly capable to game at the same table, and to each others benefit, as they're exposed to things that they wouldn't be had they sought out entirely like-minded players. For example, I'm far better at 3.5 chargen having played with --and run for-- people who are more power-gamey than me... (not that that's a bad thing).

 

[Fenes]

Really? In a "good group" everyone has the right to veto. So, when the DM says, "You enter the castle of Baron Von Evilton", the players can veto the vampire because they hate the "angsty, Buffy crap" they'd been subjected to for years?

My players can (and did) say "I have enough of this X stuff, please bring something else". Usually not in the middle of the adventure.
Just as a DM can say "no, I do not want to run X", a player cna say "I do not want to encounter Y".