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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8397092" data-attributes="member: 29398">The line is between species that are PC-playable and species that are not.  If a species is PC-playable then it naturally follows that any member of that species has the potential to become a PC; and because any member of that species has that potential they all need to be "designed" the same in the setting, without regard to whether that potential is ever followed through on or not.One night is no problem.  But we do multi-year campaigns, and this was to be one (and became one, though half of us left not long in).That girlfriend example you gave - I'd walk out on that game right quick (or, far more likely, get voted out; as it'd be a her-or-me choice).  Even if done well, as it seems to have been here, it's still non-negotiably unacceptable in my eyes.I'm not denying the DM was the victim.  What I'm saying is that players are always going to push the envelope even just that little bit and if the DM can't or won't push back then DMing probably isn't their thing.[skipping the balance discussion as that could very easily be its own thread - again... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> ]Nothing wrong with any of that provided the PC Elves have the potential to do it too.  The thing is, if those potentials exist then for game-based reasons they need to be written into the racial write-up for Elves so players know what their options are.Same with real-world people - we don't all end up with karate power but we pretty much all have the potential for it.There's a few problems with the design-on-the-fly method in a game context:--- if something character-based is designed two years into the campaign to suit a player's concept, other players would have a fully valid complaint that this same option wasn't available sooner, when they rolled up their characters.  Having all the options in place before the campaign begins takes care of this.--- when designing on the fly, rather than all at once ahead of time, it's far more difficult to avoid conflicts - every new thing has to be vetted to ensure it meshes with what's already in place.--- changing things on the fly risks invalidating play from before the change was made, or making something that was once possible in the setting impossible.  I personally detest this sort of thing; if a DM wants to make big changes like this she should start a new campaign in a new setting where things work differently.  (I'm in this boat right now: I've some rather sweeping rule changes I'd like to make - or try out - in my game but to do so I'd need to start a new campaign/setting; yet my current campaign has years of potential left in it which I don't want to waste)</blockquote>

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