How Accommodating to Player Preferences Should the GM Be?

[aramis erak]

Everyone is in and positive about the premise.

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 isn't true if the first quoted part is actually true. They're acting in bad faith if they agreed to the setting then want something alien to it.

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.

In a case where they agreed to the setting tropes and then break that assent? CURB TIME. as in, kick them to the...

I'm too sore and cranky to put up with that kind of «bleep».

Now, if it's just unusual but well inside the setting as assented to? Provided it won't break my nor anyone else's fun, nor increase my workload, put it up to the group.

EG:
Everyone agrees to a demi-human only D&D game...
one guy wants to play a human: Nope. Dude lied about assent to concept. Bye.
One guy wants to play a duergar? Ask the group.
One guy wants to play a human reincardnated into a dwarf? Ask the group, but also know I'm going to note that you know zip-all about the Dwarf social customs...
Human raised as an elf? No. Again, that's not unusual, and it's worse than playing a normal human, being very munchkin becuase it takes away the social stigma of not kowing the social functions. If they get whiney about it,

 

[MGibster]

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.

One of the reasons it's difficult to have these discussions here is because there are so many variables at play here. Broadly speaking, what is acceptable depends on the game, the parameters of the campaign, and the group itself. When it comes to some of the games I run there is no collaboration between the players and I when it comes to building the setting. But there are other games where player/GM collaboration is part and parcel of character generation. Vampire and Dresden Files come to mind immediately.

When I ran my Vampire game I had decided what was going to be happening. But I had to be flexible because I didn't know if the players would choose Camarilla or Anarch of what the purpose of the coterie might be. Were they formed to protect some ancient artifact? Enforce the will of the prince? Or are they just human traffickers procuring snacks for other vampires like some really evil Door Dash? But I don't approach every campaign that way.

When I pitch a game, I typically give the players some idea what what we'll be doing. I want to run a game of X, set in Y, where you're all Z, and you're doing AA. Sometime specific enough for them to grab but with some leeway to make a variety of different characters.

 

[Reynard]

This isn't true if the first quoted part is actually true. They're acting in bad faith if they agreed to the setting then want something alien to it.


In a case where they agreed to the setting tropes and then break that assent? CURB TIME. as in, kick them to the...

I'm too sore and cranky to put up with that kind of «bleep».

Now, if it's just unusual but well inside the setting as assented to? Provided it won't break my nor anyone else's fun, nor increase my workload, put it up to the group.

EG:
Everyone agrees to a demi-human only D&D game...
one guy wants to play a human: Nope. Dude lied about assent to concept. Bye.
One guy wants to play a duergar? Ask the group.
One guy wants to play a human reincardnated into a dwarf? Ask the group, but also know I'm going to note that you know zip-all about the Dwarf social customs...
Human raised as an elf? No. Again, that's not unusual, and it's worse than playing a normal human, being very munchkin becuase it takes away the social stigma of not kowing the social functions. If they get whiney about it,

What nonsense.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Well I'm sure any DM would have no problem with my Monk/Bard!

Michael Jackson on Boxing #fypã· #michaeljackson #shorts #short #fyp

www.youtube.com

 

[Greg K]

In general, my answer to that player would be no. I might ask the player why they want to play that concept and see if there is something in the setting that can otherwise accommodate what they are seeking. However, I am not going to do allow someone from another world or some entirely weird species.

 

[Blue]

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.

Welp, I'm probably an outlier. Let me give you an example.

Session Zero for my last finished campaign, which ended up running 3 years to a successful completion. I laid out some stuff, and then opened the floor to them.

First request, from a player I've DM'd and GM'd for many times and knows me: "Hey, I'm playing a druid and I want something less nebulous than "nature". Can the palnet actually be the body of a murdered god, and the moon her decapitated head?

Me: ponder ponder Yeah, that doesn't interfere with anything and I see cool ways to tie it on. Okay, that's canon. Let's move forward.

By the end of Session Zero, we had that Dwarves had been genocided, Drow and Halflings were both created races (and I later added variant Human to the list), and we had enough portals to fiendish realms that there was a knightly order to protect the lands against them. All of them from player request.

Which I gleefully worked into what I had already planned and made each of those important campaign points.

 

[Jack Daniel]

▯

 

[Reynard]

Welp, I'm probably an outlier. Let me give you an example.

Session Zero for my last finished campaign, which ended up running 3 years to a successful completion. I laid out some stuff, and then opened the floor to them.

First request, from a player I've DM'd and GM'd for many times and knows me: "Hey, I'm playing a druid and I want something less nebulous than "nature". Can the palnet actually be the body of a murdered god, and the moon her decapitated head?

Me: ponder ponder Yeah, that doesn't interfere with anything and I see cool ways to tie it on. Okay, that's canon. Let's move forward.

By the end of Session Zero, we had that Dwarves had been genocided, Drow and Halflings were both created races (and I later added variant Human to the list), and we had enough portals to fiendish realms that there was a knightly order to protect the lands against them. All of them from player request.

Which I gleefully worked into what I had already planned and made each of those important campaign points.

Thatswhatimtalkinabout

 

[Blue]

If it's a new player the answer is "No. Never accommodate anything of the sort."

The reason is that 90% of those players making the special request are actually signaling that they are dysfunctional players in one form or the other.

I cannot disagree with you in stronger terms.

Back in 3.5 days, I was creating a character and my young daughter wanted to make one as well. What they wanted wasn't channeled into the narrow constrictions of what D&D offers. They weren't trained to think along the lines of how classes grouped things together, they weren't trained to think abotu how ability scores collate with classes, so putting your lowest ability score into Wisdom to be impulsive wasn't the best for a druid. We've been playing D&D, we think along the lines it gives us. Someone new to the hobby does not yet.

Full. Stop.

They are more likely to want to try something fantastical that they've seen or read than a long time player. That those who don't know the restrictions of class or race or how they are enshrined as sacred cows are most likely to ask. Judging 9 out of 10 of them as dysfunctional when you admit you'd let a long time player do it is nothing short of judgemental gatekeeping.

 

[Reynard]

Here's the problematizing symmetry-breaker: the topic at hand isn't just who knows what makes games good and fun better than the other guy; it's about players wanting things and GMs either accommodating or denying those wants. The GM is the one in the position to judge whether accommodation will improve the game, have no measurable impact either way, or detract from it — and GMs are in fact always in that position, not just when delineating character creation options, but also whenever they worldbuild or make a table-ruling or really whenever they effect any sort of outcome in the game. It's a basic element of the job description.

Players, as a rule, play to seek some sort of gratification — be it ludic, competitive, strategic/tactical, narrative, dramatic, psychological, whatever — through playing a character. But for there to be a game at all, the GM is in the position of managing gratification, dolling it out in measured doses at irregular times, and delaying ultimate gratification until such time as the characters are to be retired or the campaign is to end. Ultimate gratification means the end of the game, and instant gratification means a game that was never satisfying enough to be worth playing.

It's not magic at all; it's just an entirely different set of incentives.



Except, you know, when they aren't a collaborative effort. In those cases, the kind of collaboration this thread is about can be a waste of time or even an active detriment.

All that sounds like a lot more GM control that I have generally experienced at the table, as a GM or player. For example, the GM doesn't "doll out gratification." If anything does that, it's the dice. And GMs that are so protective of their worlds and stories they feel the need to -- well, maybe they should give writing novels a go.