D&D General I finally like non-Tolkien species for PCs

[EzekielRaiden]

How are you going to measure this happiness percentage and how high it needs to be to be acceptable you? Like is 95% happy good enough?

I have no desire to do so, so...I won't?

The point was that your argument assumes there are only two possible results: perfect enthusiasm and agreement with absolutely everything, or total rejection of everything, ne'er the twain shall meet. It's entirely possible that a player might actually dislike the campaign premise, perhaps even quite a lot, but they LOVE spending time with their friends, and have a particular character build they've been dying to play, so they hold their nose for the things they dislike in order to get the things they like.

That level of inherently mixed appreciation is completely ignored by the argument that, if a player participates, they have to have been sold on the premise. The one and only thing you know is that they elected to play. You don't know why--and there are several potential reasons why that have absolutely nothing to do with a player's feelings about the campaign premise.

It the players chose to play, then the campaign was successfully "sold" to them.

No. They chose to play, rather than to not play. That does not in any way mean it was "successfully 'sold' to them". It means that they believed at least one of: the cost of not doing it was too high, the benefit of playing exceeded their concerns/problems, or they like the premise. The first two have many reasons it could happen. I myself have specifically played games more than once where I wasn't sold on the premise, but I wanted to keep playing with the group and knew if I sat one out, that might be it--the cost of not playing was too high.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

A "mutually-pleasing agreement" is a far cry away from 100% happiness. We all routinely settle for things that are only moderately enjoyable for the sake of group consensus.

And I'm saying that that "I'll just eat this and not ask for anything" is almost completely avoidable.

You can fix that so it's "I'm happy to do this even if it isn't my cuppa because I know I'm getting something else."

 

[Micah Sweet]

I do not believe this follows.

People accept things for a variety of reasons. It is foolish in the extreme to pretend that because someone accepts something, they are therefore 100% happy with it.

It is foolish IMO to assume acceptance doesn't mean acceptance.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I disagree.

I think it is quite possible for everyone to come to a mutually-pleasing agreement. There are many different ways to do that. Now, in rare cases it's not going to be possible, and it's important to figure out if that sort of thing might happen (rare as it might be) as soon as possible. But essentially all of the time, you drill down to what people truly care about, and build a way for everyone to get those things.

This is a big point of contention. You seem to believe that mutually happy compromise is possible 99% of the time, and look to accuse one or both actors of bad faith (usually the GM) whenever someone claims it isn't.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I have no desire to do so, so...I won't?

The point was that your argument assumes there are only two possible results: perfect enthusiasm and agreement with absolutely everything, or total rejection of everything, ne'er the twain shall meet. It's entirely possible that a player might actually dislike the campaign premise, perhaps even quite a lot, but they LOVE spending time with their friends, and have a particular character build they've been dying to play, so they hold their nose for the things they dislike in order to get the things they like.

That level of inherently mixed appreciation is completely ignored by the argument that, if a player participates, they have to have been sold on the premise. The one and only thing you know is that they elected to play. You don't know why--and there are several potential reasons why that have absolutely nothing to do with a player's feelings about the campaign premise.


No. They chose to play, rather than to not play. That does not in any way mean it was "successfully 'sold' to them". It means that they believed at least one of: the cost of not doing it was too high, the benefit of playing exceeded their concerns/problems, or they like the premise. The first two have many reasons it could happen. I myself have specifically played games more than once where I wasn't sold on the premise, but I wanted to keep playing with the group and knew if I sat one out, that might be it--the cost of not playing was too high.

Ok. And this is a problem because...?

 

[TwoSix]

No. They chose to play, rather than to not play. That does not in any way mean it was "successfully 'sold' to them". It means that they believed at least one of: the cost of not doing it was too high, the benefit of playing exceeded their concerns/problems, or they like the premise. The first two have many reasons it could happen. I myself have specifically played games more than once where I wasn't sold on the premise, but I wanted to keep playing with the group and knew if I sat one out, that might be it--the cost of not playing was too high.

I'm not sure I'm following the argument.

As long as there's no deception as to the premise, the players are agreeing to the terms. The relative degree of enthusiasm is immaterial.

There's no normative force to the idea that the GM must lower their "agreement" to the premise from 100% to 90% just so some players can go from 70% enthusiasm to 85% or 90%.

 

[Mind of tempest]

There's other human shaped dragony things in D&D and the dragonborn, or at least the 3.5e version that I'm most familiar with, are by far the lamest. Draconians are better. So are kobolds.


Actually 3.5 had gnomes as a core race too, not just the tolkien standards.

I don't get the visceral dislike for tieflings, but the dislike for dragonborn as a core race definintely makes sense to me. Dragonborn were not a major or well established part of D&D when 4e dropped. They were created at the very end of 3.5's run as part of one of the weaker entries in one of the weaker splatbook series. There are so many other races that would have made more sense as an addition to core - such as goblins, kobolds, githzerai, genasi, bariurs, or aasimir

Dargonborn as a core race at least makes more sense than halflings or gnomes, who do not build massive buildings to fill with treasure.
Tieflings are just human mutants, thus easy to fit anywhere you have an evil empire making packs with hell

I really like created heritages, and I like the story of the warforged, though it's a bit too specific to Eberron for my tastes. I could get over that, but frankly I don't care for their aesthetic, and I've never thought they were a good fit mechanically for a generic "robot" species. There are several others from various other 5e producers I use instead, most notably the Constructed heritage in Level Up.

may I ask why?

 

[Mind of tempest]

I am pretty sick of tieflings being everywhere... they were way over-represented in the Tasha's art. "Here, let's take the people who look demonic and put them on everything" is not an approach I'm a fan of. Meanwhile Aasimars get...mentioned in the DMG?

aasimars have no iconic look they are boring like that.

 

[NN]

DMs feelings about their setting are 5x more important than players feelings about exactly what their character is.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Dargonborn as a core race at least makes more sense than halflings or gnomes, who do not build massive buildings to fill with treasure.
Tieflings are just human mutants, thus easy to fit anywhere you have an evil empire making packs with hell

may I ask why?

Why what? I made several statements.