D&D 5E Group Rule Deal-Breakers

[Sunseeker]

I'm a reactive player, but in the sense that I just want the hook. Do I have to be at the tavern to witness tge introductory scene? Do I get mugged by crooks working the big scheme? Should I look at the job board?

Just tell me where the adventure/scenario starts so we can get the most value out of the DM's prep.

(And yes, go right ahead and mug my character if it's meant to drive the story.)

I'm the sort of player that every fisher wants. I bite everything. "OH! Plot hook! NOM!" Every time, all the time. Because I know that's what makes the game move forward.

I find I really dislike obtuse or convoluted intros to games, I like being thrown right into the action. I love the big picture too, but I just don't like all the pomp and circumstance. Joe Smith needs us to kill wolves for 5gp? DEAL! Because I generally believe (and have generally been proven right) that a DM won't provide quests that lead nowhere. I don't think I've ever been in a game where the quest to go kill some wolves didn't lead to something which then leads to something else which eventually gets us rolling down the Important Campaign road.

 

[Greg K]

That's a pretty comprehensive list.

My question: if player knowledge is to roughly equal character knowledge, how much of all that is the average character realistically going to know? And, how much of that knowledge will be accurate ("The Elven realm of Aurelauren to the east has existed for just over 940 years and is currently ruled by good king Cemebras the Wise") as opposed to hearsay or guesswork ("There's been Elves in those woods forever - their king eats babies for breakfast and kittens for lunch!")?

Not everything needs to be accurate. Common knowledge is not always right. I take into account where characters are from and backgrounds. I also use culture skills. Characters start off with knowledge of their culture including myths, stories, rumors. Certain things they just don't need to roll for and I wlll feed them to them. If common belief is the the elves eat babies and the players are from within that region, they will know the rumors as I will have a note about it and it in current history, rumors, etc. The same section will be different for someone from a different culture or region. Characters in the party will know different thing, correct or wrongly assumed. However, if I give the individual players some of the knowledge ahead of time, it gives them possible hooks or ideas for background elements (e.g., my character's sister disappeared near the forest, the elves must have taken her) or simply reason to distrust elves.


[wuoyr]
Rural-based characters might not know much of what goes on beyond their own village and those close by it. City-bred characters might know some stuff about a few guilds and various laws but might not know where the borders of the realm are. Dwarves might not know squat about what goes on on the surface.[/quote]
Exactly. The rural characters might have other information about their area that the urban character and the dwearf won't have. The dwarf might know about other creatures inhabiting the mountains and if the party travels in the mountains or underground, he is going to have knowledge they need about the culture and customs. Outside the mountains, he is going to be a fish out of water which is an interesting from a roleplaying perspective. He might have misconceptions about what the surface races are like or find his cultural norms at odds with others.

So, there's a strong argument to be made for erring on the side of too little information - it's way easier to reveal more later than it is to unreveal that which has already been told.

Correct. I am saying think about each area from which various PC's can start and come up with some common things for a player to know for his or her character growing up in the area. They can serve as ideas for background elements, goals, hooks or just pieces of information unique to that character. It might also give the character an idea for slight tweaks to run by you prior to the campaign starting. In one of my games, there was mention of an attack by wizards on the jarl and the druids of one of the northern areas. Based upon the information and culture, one player asked if the jarl could have a daughter that was abducted so he can rescue her. I told him yes. The other player whom wanted a character from the same culture wantedto be a young druidic prodigy and asked if most of the order could have been killed in the attack. It was more severe of a result than I had intended, but it sounded cool and didn't change much so I agreed.

Yeah, the answer there is to try and start with all characters being from the same realm or culture (i.e. the DM puts her foot down and says you're all starting with a Greek Human) and assume there will be some character turnover as the game goes on. Then, as they expand their horizons via exploration and bring in characters from elsewhere, information about 'elsewhere' can come in with them.

Depends on the group. I know some players that are going to be upset to find that the character whom they wanted to play at the start was off limits, but is later legal.

 

[Oofta]

Easy. That player (in character, I assume) wants to go to the tavern and see what happens...and is then expecting or assuming that the DM will have something of interest happen there to which he can react. In other words this is a reactive, not proactive, player (or character) who is looking for the DM to supply - well, not so much the story as he's not interested in that, but the day-to-day events and opponents and challenges for him to react to.

As DM, this would in theory be easy to handle - let him go to the tavern, have something happen there that ties into your story somehow (and brings him back to the party if they didn't just go with him in the first place) and go from there. The rest of the players can worry about the overarching story while this one player stays focussed on the in-the-moment view; and maybe over time some facet(s) of the larger picture might grab his attention and interest.

And I can kind of see that player's point. Sometimes it's fun to just deal with the day-to-day stuff and let whatever story that grows out of that just...happen, rather than trying to force something.

Before puck drop I'll tell people the basics of the game world, its history, the local cultures, etc. but other than the first adventure (for which I'll usually have something concrete in mind*) I can only guide the players/characters toward any storyline I might have in mind. It's a big world with lots of possible stories and overarching plots they can delve into; I can drop hooks all over the place but I can't (or shouldn't) force them into biting on any particular one.

For the current campaign I pretty much told them "We'll start with Keep on the Borderlands and see where it goes from there", and during 'Keep' I lobbed in a few hooks for other things. All the hooks were ignored in favour of going back to town and looking for adventures that needed doing, once the Keep was done; and so it took a bit longer to get any real story going.

Lanefan

Except I tried that. For example the guy was playing a dwarf so on their travels, I dangled several plot hooks including such as helping his own clan recover a lost keep. After a while I just kept throwing plot hooks at him knowing I would never have to follow through. Everything from the "have I got a treasure map for you" to interesting rumors to old friends in need of help.

He never, ever took the bait because he "didn't want to be railroaded". He took great joy in destroying my (not so) carefully laid plans; he was just being contrary to be contrary. He assumed that since I can improvise seamlessly that whatever they did was something I had planned out ahead of time when 80% stuff was made up as I went along since I plan factions, motivations, regions and so on but not what will happen when you talk to Bob the Bartender. Heck Bob the Bartender probably just came from a list of names (and yes, the name would probably be something other than Bob).

But that's OK. I've had people that I gamed with for years, others that come and go. Not every DM is for every player.

 

[cbwjm]

I'm the sort of player that every fisher wants. I bite everything. "OH! Plot hook! NOM!" Every time, all the time. Because I know that's what makes the game move forward.

I find I really dislike obtuse or convoluted intros to games, I like being thrown right into the action. I love the big picture too, but I just don't like all the pomp and circumstance. Joe Smith needs us to kill wolves for 5gp? DEAL! Because I generally believe (and have generally been proven right) that a DM won't provide quests that lead nowhere. I don't think I've ever been in a game where the quest to go kill some wolves didn't lead to something which then leads to something else which eventually gets us rolling down the Important Campaign road.

In general I've noted that most players will bite the hook due to player buy in. An open world is all well and good but creating something on the fly can be quite difficult for a DM if the players do something that moves them away from the planned adventure. A good method I find is what the DM for a game I'm in right now does which is ask us at the end of a session what we plan on doing next so that he can prepare.

 

[Oofta]

In general I've noted that most players will bite the hook due to player buy in. An open world is all well and good but creating something on the fly can be quite difficult for a DM if the players do something that moves them away from the planned adventure. A good method I find is what the DM for a game I'm in right now does which is ask us at the end of a session what we plan on doing next so that he can prepare.

I do the same thing now. At the end of the session I ask the question: What do you want to pursue? We can do A, B or C. Or is there something else you were interested in?

Of course things don't always go as planned when the thieves guild they pissed of last session decides to hire a coven of hags to transform them into mouse-sized adventurers while they sleep, but I digress.

 

[Sunseeker]

In general I've noted that most players will bite the hook due to player buy in. An open world is all well and good but creating something on the fly can be quite difficult for a DM if the players do something that moves them away from the planned adventure. A good method I find is what the DM for a game I'm in right now does which is ask us at the end of a session what we plan on doing next so that he can prepare.

Sure, but I was more referring to games that don't require buy in, or maybe my idea of what sort of game requires buy-in from me is just more lax. I run a large "general fantasy" setting which is a composite of the numerous campaigns I've developed over the years. I don't ask for buy-in when running it as its a very flexible setting and can handle Pretty Much Anything*TM. I'll only ask for buy-in, and likewise only really feel like my buy-in is required for APs and niche settings (post apocalyptica, sci-fi/sy-fy, no magic, human only, etc...). If someone is dropping a general fantasy setting in front of me, I mean...they's why I'm here! My buy-in is the fact that I like TTRPGs.

I almost never ask for buy-in when I run games unless I am explicitly running something that players would not expect(or may have a higher MPAA rating).

But my statement is also more of a general design statement of how I build characters. My characters are at heart adventurers, they are actively looking for adventure, for that quest that might lead to Danger! Excitement! Fame and Fortune!

 

[Lanefan]

I'm the sort of player that every fisher wants. I bite everything. "OH! Plot hook! NOM!" Every time, all the time. Because I know that's what makes the game move forward.

True that.

I find I really dislike obtuse or convoluted intros to games, I like being thrown right into the action. I love the big picture too, but I just don't like all the pomp and circumstance. Joe Smith needs us to kill wolves for 5gp? DEAL!

Not that this is at all bad, but I think I'd prefer a couple of other hooks to different missions as well, so we could choose what to do.

Because I generally believe (and have generally been proven right) that a DM won't provide quests that lead nowhere. I don't think I've ever been in a game where the quest to go kill some wolves didn't lead to something which then leads to something else which eventually gets us rolling down the Important Campaign road.

Yep. Even when there's choices, a decent DM can still find a way to weave it all in to The Big Story.

 

[Lanefan]

Except I tried that. For example the guy was playing a dwarf so on their travels, I dangled several plot hooks including such as helping his own clan recover a lost keep. After a while I just kept throwing plot hooks at him knowing I would never have to follow through. Everything from the "have I got a treasure map for you" to interesting rumors to old friends in need of help.

He never, ever took the bait because he "didn't want to be railroaded". He took great joy in destroying my (not so) carefully laid plans; he was just being contrary to be contrary.

Ah. That's a bigger headache.

I thought you were just talking about the start of the campaign, when the PCs first met.

 

[Schmoe]

Sticking to the spirit of the OP, I have a few group rule deal breakers:

Weekly sessions - My schedule doesn't allow me to commit this much time to the game.

Heavy intoxication - I don't want to deal with drunken idiots, I was enough of one myself in college. Light drinking is fine by me. If it crosses into anything beyond alcohol, I'm definitely out.

Inflexible, "mandatory" scheduling - Again, I have to balance the game with the rest of my life. The game will take priority sometimes, the rest of life will take priority some other times.

PBP - Every single time I've tried to get involved with a PBP game, it has started out great. I create an interesting character and start to really enjoy getting into character and the interaction with the rest of the group. But then shortly after starting, the game suffers from what I call "vanishing DM" syndrome. The DM just fails to appear, for like a month or more. Sometimes you can see the DM has logged into the site but not posted, sometimes the DM hasn't logged in, but there is absolutely no update to the players. Eventually the DM will show up again with a "Sorry guys, but everything's going to be good in a few days and we can start again," and then another month or two goes by. Every. Single. Time. I've had 3 PBP campaigns die this way, and I won't touch it again. Ugh.

Evil PCs - There's enough evil in the real world. I want to eradicate it, not associate with it.

 

[Lanefan]

I have to say I'm rather pleasantly surprised to notice that one possible element of a campaign has yet to be brought up as a deal-breaker by anyone (unless I missed it):

High lethality and-or frequent character death or other bad things happening to characters.

Even more interesting is that the opposite - unkillable or plot-protected characters - has been noted as a deal-breaker by a few here.

Good.