How Accommodating to Player Preferences Should the GM Be?

[Lanefan]

It's not a weird take at all. I've also run D&D games and lots of other games for 40 years. When you actually listen to your players and provide them with what they come to the table looking for, games get better. Treating your friends and game mates as equals with respect isn't exactly a hot take. Or it shouldn't be, anyway. Why wouldn't you listen to your players, if they're offering ideas?

Oh, I listen to my players' ideas alright, particularly when it comes to things their PCs could (but don't want to) face; and then quietly stow those ideas away in the back of my mind.

Then, months or even years later when the players have forgotten their own idea, I'll spring it on them...

If they just want to go with the flow and play whatever you cook up, cool. Everyone signed up for the same thing. Have a blast. That's not what we're talking about here though. The premise here is a player coming up with something that doesn't quite fit. If they offer strange or unusual ideas that could work but seem a little odd, talk it over and see about working them in.

You're skipping over a step here. Before that talk-it-over phase, I want to know why the player is proposing this idea, as in what's the actual motivation behind it.

IME it's almost always that the player is - whether consciously or not - looking for a game-mechanical advantage of some sort.

As someone noted upthread as being their own procedure, rare and oddball PC species can and do exist in my otherwise-quite-conservative game but they're heavily gated behind die rolls so as to keep them as rare as they're IMO supposed to be.

Come to me and straight-up ask to play a Leprechaun, my answer will be no. Luck into one on the "Other" species chart, however, and you're good to rock (and there's no way for a player to fudge such a roll as the chart isn't viewable to them).

I'm not as concerned about spotlight hogs as some here, though, in that I'd rather everyone be a bit of a spotlight hog to begin with.

 

[Lanefan]

They have a tool for this very thing! Session Zero. Everyone talks about what they want. Everyone agrees to certain things, makes compromises gets to add cool things to a game. It's amazing how you can avoid all these problems by...talking to your players!

Problem there is that the DM can't do much if any worldbuilding until after this discussion has happened; meaning that by the time play in fact begins (which in my case would probably be a year later) people's ideas and thoughts may have changed and-or the people themselves may have changed as some got tired of waiting and others joined in.

No.

Here's the world, here's the game - are you in or out? That gets settled on an individual basis before session 0 even happens, allowing session 0 to be what it should be: roll-up night over a few beers.

 

[Umbran]

Problem there is that the DM can't do much if any worldbuilding until after this discussion has happened;

That's flatly incorrect.

The GM can do a whole lot of worldbuilding. But it ought to be open to some revision until after that discussion has happened.

Folks entering into a collaborative effort should not go into it thinking their part of it can be done completely alone.

 

[Theory of Games]

Let's say the Gm decides they want to run a relatively standard medieval fantasy campaign focused on exploring a frontier region that was once part of an ancient, long collapsed arcane empire (so lots of the usual exploration, dungeon crawling, and finding of magical loot). Everyone is in and positive about the premise.

However, one player really wants to play a very non-standard character. In this example, we'll use a person from our world portal-fantasied into the campaign, but it could be anything (a weird species, a more steampunk or sci-fi character concept, or whatever). This was not something the GM had considered and isn't something the setting is "built" to accommodate, but it also isn't something that inherently "breaks" the setting or rules either.

In your opinion, how accomodating should the GM be to the player with the unusual request? Does it depend on the player? What if the other players, seeing the possibility, also have unsual character ideas? Have you allowed this? How did it go.

NOTE: The presumption in this discussion is that the player with the unusual request is making the request in good faith, and is still "in" for the declared premise of the campaign (exploring land and ruins, looking for loot while dealing with monsters etc).

This question AGAIN.
1. The GM can be as accommodating as they want.
2. It may or may not depend on the player.
3. See #1.
4. Once I establish the setting and all characters options, no, I don't allow snowflake options.
5. Things usually go very good when everyone's on the same page.

 

[Li Shenron]

In your opinion, how accomodating should the GM be to the player with the unusual request?

As accomodating as the DM is comfortable to be.

If I were to start a long campaign (a real one made of MANY adventures, not ONE adventure stretched over 10-20 levels as typical 5e WotC adventures) I would be very accommodating.

But I run only single 1-3 sessions adventures since many years, so I am near-zero accommodating, in fact I usually just provide pregens and if you want to play with us you pick a ready-made character.

 

[Guest 6801718]

Oh, I listen to my players' ideas alright, particularly when it comes to things their PCs could (but don't want to) face; and then quietly stow those ideas away in the back of my mind.

Then, months or even years later when the players have forgotten their own idea, I'll spring it on them...

You're skipping over a step here. Before that talk-it-over phase, I want to know why the player is proposing this idea, as in what's the actual motivation behind it.

IME it's almost always that the player is - whether consciously or not - looking for a game-mechanical advantage of some sort.

As someone noted upthread as being their own procedure, rare and oddball PC species can and do exist in my otherwise-quite-conservative game but they're heavily gated behind die rolls so as to keep them as rare as they're IMO supposed to be.

Come to me and straight-up ask to play a Leprechaun, my answer will be no. Luck into one on the "Other" species chart, however, and you're good to rock (and there's no way for a player to fudge such a roll as the chart isn't viewable to them).

I'm not as concerned about spotlight hogs as some here, though, in that I'd rather everyone be a bit of a spotlight hog to begin with.

Oh yeah, springing something the PCs forgot about on them is all kinds of fun! Gotta love that.

I kind of figured that the "why" someone wants to play something would be part of this discussion/talk it over phase. That would probably be either my first or one of my first questions. I probably should have been clearer on that one. Yeah, if it's for power gaming then pass. If it's for a unique idea to explore to add something to the world, absolutely yes.
The random charts idea is an interesting one. My luck is usually that I'd roll whatever appealed to me the least. Sometimes the dice can be mean...

 

[MGibster]

Alternatively, you could have examined your reasoning for that and delved into the player's reasonings for that and seen something potentially very interesting.

I thought I had examined by own reasoning though I didn't delve into the player's reasoning. It didn't matter much because the answer was going to be no regardless of their reasoning. Sometimes an accommodation cannot or will not be made and that's perfectly okay.

 

[Lanefan]

That's flatly incorrect.

The GM can do a whole lot of worldbuilding. But it ought to be open to some revision until after that discussion has happened.

I'm not spending tens of hours on a map or on world history or on NPC write-ups if there's a risk that I'll have to chuck it and do it all again after that discussion.

Folks entering into a collaborative effort should not go into it thinking their part of it can be done completely alone.

First non-negotiable premise: worldbuilding is NOT collaborative. The world is there for the players (as their PCs) to explore and discover as play unfolds, which becomes pointless if they already know about it through having helped build it.

 

[Lanefan]

The random charts idea is an interesting one. My luck is usually that I'd roll whatever appealed to me the least. Sometimes the dice can be mean...

The way I do it, you can choose from the basics (Human, Dwarf, Elf, Hobbit, Part-Elf, Part-Orc, sometimes Gnome depending where in the setting you'll be coming in) or roll if you want to try for something oddball; but if you decide to roll the roll is binding whatever you get (though you roll until you get two options to choose from in any case).

So, if you roll hoping to get a Centaur (good luck with that, the odds are about 1/1000) you might end up rolling Gnome and Hobbit; which would become your only options for that character.

 

[Reynard]

This question AGAIN.

No one demanded you participate.

4. Once I establish the setting and all characters options, no, I don't allow snowflake options.

So it is just YOUR game?

5. Things usually go very good when everyone's on the same page.

Except the "snowflakes" apparently...