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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6290052" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think you are speaking about more of a sterotypical 'Beer and Pretzels' (or even Mt. Dew and Pizza) sort of game than D&D generally.  The tropes you are questioning are real and common, or they wouldn't be well known tropes, but they aren't necessarily universal to all tables.I've had groups refuse to let new PC's into the party unless IC justification was provided.  At times this has led to two parallel parties that play alternated between.  One session I ran for some new players took this to such extreme, that by the end of the session the good aligned PCs and the evil aligned PCs were in rival organizations!  (I wish I could have continued that play, they were making great story.)  One group I knew of had a party that had an IC falling out, and split and the DM ran the characters as separate parties on separate nights because the two groups of PC's were trying to kill each other - and everyone was loving it.  I had another game for new players memorably end with the equivalent of the party attacking the total stranger in the bar (another PC) and a near TPK that everyone was laughing about.   I've had new PC's go several sessions before they gained enough acceptance from the other PCs to get 'into the party'.   I've seen PC's introduced as hirelings, and players go several sessions before being promoted up to getting a full share of party treasure.  Heck, I've actually been that PC, being interviewed by the party in a line of henchmen explaining to the party what useful skills I could bring and hired along with the NPCs.  There are plenty of ways to do this in a way that makes sense to the narrative, especially if you are willing to let the DM work you into the story.  Think about for example Star Wars the movie (A New Hope) from the perspective of being an actual RPG with C3P0 and R2D2 being the original party and how new PC's were added, and sometimes removed, from the campaign and how they were worked into the original story line of the droid's mission.Likewise, I've been in the group that 'retired' and 'settled down' upon becoming fabulously rich.  And if you are still designing dungeons with monsters that just set around 40 years after the publication of the 1st dungeon, you are doing it wrong.  There might have been some justification for static dungeons with no believable economy or ecology and rooms containing red dragons with no exits big enough to let the red dragon out back in 1975 or something, but really, the only justification for that now is that you are 10 or something.</blockquote>

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