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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lyxen" data-source="post: 8396892" data-attributes="member: 7032025">Why do you need to draw a strict line between a Mind Flayer and an NPC. Just look at Critical Role and Clarota. I'm not doing any such distinction in my game, currently the PCs in my Avernus campaign have build an unlikely coalition of local warlords with a Night Hag, a Chain Devil, a human mage, a Barbed Devil, an Arcanaloth, etc. All of these are NPCs and some of them are straight out of the MM, although of course with my interpretation of their personality.I agree, that's not good. However, it has happened to me, and a bit of talk with the DM usually smoothed that over. We even had that one DM in Runequest who had to ensure that nothing bad happened to his girlfriend, otherwise the campaign would come to an end. He discussed that openly with us, and it was really not a problem, we gamed happily for many years and we actually played around the concept of fate and luck (Important Runes in Runequest). And of course, the girlfriend was in on the "secret" and played along nicely. Lots of extremely good memories, actually.The power trip is a bit more delicate, but if it's a long campaign, just talk to the DM. Happened to me once, had discussions amongst the players, then with the DM, problem solved, no need for a horror story.And honestly, even if you lose one evening to someone running a really poor game, what of it ? Just don't do it again.And then again, how much was his responsibility and how much the players' for behaving that way with him ? If it caused a problem for them, why did they behave that way ? Actually, in this case, the victim was the DM, not the players. Because I've seen too many cases of people pressured into being the DM because the alphas of the group just wanted to play their own power trip. So where is the horror story there, exactly ?Extremely easily, I have the picture of my world in mind, and I play by the 5e motto, which is that I use the rules only as tools, and make rulings to make sure that what happens technically reflects my vision of the world.We agree about the concept, but I don't think that we agree about the intent. 4e had balance as a goal, and look at the character development railroad fest that it was.So just as the 5e designers, I don't want imbalance (because of the power gap problem), but balance is not the goal of the design. As long as it's at a level that can be controlled by the DM (which it could not in 3e because of the awful player entitlement of the edition through complex massive rules), I don't have a problem.In a sense, it's a bit like constructing fighter aircraft, unstable is more agile.I see less potential for inconsistency between setting and story than between rules and story/setting, honestly.I'll stop you right here. Again, why ? What if some elves worship a different power ? Or made a pact with a different power ? Or found a different magic item ? Or simply have different skills and abilities and interests, in a magical world where power abound.Exactly like on earth, some humans become karate champions and other couch potatoes. Should we all have karate power as part of our species?See above. Different opportunities, it's a varied and magical world.And sure, all engineers have exactly the same skill set, abilities, personality, and succeed in exactly the same way. I started as an engineer, a lot of my friends did as well, and we have completely different career path and skill sets, and it's not even a magical world with magical opportunities...And therefore all characters of all playable species need to have a profession that matches one of the PH ? That seems so reductive in terms of possibilities.It seems to me that this is because you are taking it top down trying to define all the potential paths. Don't, just create a different path to power and different abilities for an NPC when you need one. You have a huge catalog of abilities in the MM and the PH, just use the ones that feel nice and will look cool on the NPC.We have very different concepts about design here, one of my (engineering) principles is that over-design is bad, costs too much time and effort and is usually unnecessary. Just design what you need when you need it, it will also avoid burnout.</blockquote>

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