I find your response to be a bit extreme.
Try to imagine my surprise.
Mind you, JD made 2 statements, I'm tackling the first one, maybe you meant the second one.
I meant the whole of [MENTION=89822]Jon_Dahl[/MENTION] 's post.
If the PC makes a certain kind of character, implying interest in certain adventures, what is wrong with making more material that has that?
There's nothing "wrong" with it; there's also nothing "right" with it, either.
It's a playstyle preference, one that has both upside and downside.
If I make a socialite bard, I'm more interested in intrigue and sword-play than dungeon crawling. Assuming I'm a solo PC (or a party of like mind), you darn well better have that kind of content and not force a dungeon crawl on us because you made the game content before we made the PCs.
I "darn well better have that kind of content"? Seriously, [MENTION=8835]Janx[/MENTION]?
Let's say, purely for the sake of argument, that I'm what I'm prepared to run is a dungeon crawl heavy on combat and looting and light on witty repartee and social occasions. If I don't cater to your demands . . . then what?
You could change your character and your expectations. You could not play. I could change the game I'm planning on running. I could say, Find another group. We could play a different game. Or we could find a consensus on some middle ground between your social character expectations and my dungeon crawling preparations.
Assuming I'm interested in playing the referee's game, I make my character to fit what's being offered. I don't expect the referee to change the game to suit me. When I'm behind the screen, I expect the same from the players.
Furthermore, it's justifiable in a sandbox. I built a social PC. I'm going to stay in town and schmooze people so I can go to dinner parties so I can do my deal.
In any sandbox I run, there will be opportunities for both dungeon crawling and social intrigue; it's up to the players to work out how they're going to deal with conflicting goals among their characters.
Now its perfectly fair for the GM to declare the kind of game he's running, and expect the players to make the right kind of team. So if you say "this is a dungeon crawling campaign", then I don't really have the right to expect you to cater to my non-dungeon-crawling PC.
Yeah, that's my take on it, too.
But if I make a PC in good faith that has extra slots of Turn Undead stuff before the game begins, because I think it'll be useful, you're kind of gimping me if you don't put any undead in. Especially if I'm actually seeking out Undead because i'm good at dealing with them.
It would be stupid of me to let you make a character that doesn't fit the setting, so it if wasn't clear in the pitch that there are few or no undead in the setting, then I would tell you, Hey, there aren't a lot of undead in this setting, and leave it to you to decide if that's the character you want to run or not.
So, if you made a PC in my game, and I had an encounter come up that one of your skills would be useful, would you quit my game because I'm catering to the PCs?
What I want is a world that is indifferent to my character and leaves it up to me to decide how to make use of my skills.
Taken to the absurd . . .
Fixed that for you.
Seriously, I don't find that a particularly useful analogy for a whole host of reasons, most obviously because encounters which are likely to involve combat cater to way more than just fighters.
While I can concede a bad GM could utilize JD's first point to a bad end, in general its not bad advice and not worth quitting over.
To thee, but not to me.
