I gave a little, and now they want...

[Orius]

1) As you say, the more reading material there is, the more likely that it's going to be thought of as work. I know I certainly would be pushed to read 100 pages of material, and furthermore, I'm likely to resent a DM who expects me to do it. Now to some extent, as a DM you have a right to expect players to show some commitment to your campaign, and there are some clueless players out there who just couldn't give a damn. But even for reasonable players there's a limit, and usually that limit is reached when they start thinking of the prep stuff as a chore.

And along this line of thought, the DM needs to let the players know enough about a campaign so they can make the characters fit, but not give them too much information.

It also depends on how long the DM and players have been playing the same game. If it's a completely original homebrew that's been fermenting for about 10 years, then 100+ pages isn't going to be needed by anyone, except maybe the occasional new guy. They already know this stuff. But in the example that sparked this thread, we got a DM who's using a pre-prepared campaign that not all the players know everything about. He's got a lot of material, and I'm sure he wants to use it, but he can't dump too much on the players at once either if they're not familiar with it.

2) The more details you fill in about your campaign world, without any participation by the players, the greater risk you run of reifying the world -- of treating it as important _in its own right_, rather than as a setting and stage for the game. Again, to some extent, you have a right to do this: it's your world, it's your baby. However, rare is the player who's going to feel such a degree of attachment to something they didn't have any part in creating. What's more, by filling in all the details in isolation, you run the risk of blindsiding yourself to things that the players might actually do. This risk just becomes more likely as the power level of the campaign increases, and the players find themselves being more able to act as autonomous agents.

And too add to this, as an inherently lazy DM, I don't mind if the players help to fill in some of the blanks either. There's only so much I can come up with on my own, and if they come up with something good, I may just find a way of adding to it.

 

[Telperion]

Tel, would it be wrong to surmise that you're DMing for a group of relative strangers rather than for a group of friends? I'm all for allowing player input in my games, but I actually know my players.


It's okay to let the die rolls emulate inhumanly high wisdom and intelligence scores. But the instant you allow that with charisma, it's "rollplaying," not "roleplaying." Blech.

Correct. Not all of the players are new to me, but most of them are. I went trought something like 10 - 12 players to put this group together, so it took some effort on my part. E-mailing, interviewing, playtesting and finally we got the campaign running with a group that seemed good. Except that I missed this one little detail, and isn't that always how it goes ...

Anyway, as I mentioned in an earlier post the rest of the players aren't very keen on the idea of playing a social character, and having someone with Charisma around is a good idea, since the party pretty much has to interact with NPC's of some significance. Of course they could always hire a diplomat or a negotiator to handle these sorts of things, but using a middlehand is risky in a lot of ways. Especially if the party can't control him properly. Also the players feel less in control of the negotiations, which are after all very important.

 

[Telperion]

One reason the player is trying to bring in outside prestige classes might be because he doesn't have the ones you're offering. If he has all WotC prestige classes, he's not going to be familiar enough with the scarred lands ones. Also, since he chose to buy WotC books, not SL books, in the first place, he may believe WotC ones to be higher quality or whatever. If "Order of the Plot Breakers" is the only prestige class he knows that's close to what he wants, then what do you think he's going to ask for?

One thing first: the discussion is about 3rd party publishers. WotC is not a 3rd party publisher in this instance since they did the Core Books.

Okay, you do have a valid question there, and the answer is simple:
he wants a character that has social skills without actually having to portray them with roleplaying. The PrC that was discussed earlier was a bad example of 3rd party publishers trying to bring in a "new & improved" way of handling social encounters by removing roleplaying and inserting "kewl powers". It's why I banned the PrC, and told the player to stick to Core and SL products. And I have to admit that probably most players around aren't familiar with Scarred Lands, because it's brand new compared to, say, Forgotten Realms. Still, that's what I have givent them and it's what they should use.

The bottom line is that since most of the players are fairly new to D&D (I only have one AD&D veteran) there's a whole new world and gamesystem to explore. Except for one player they haven't played in an "evil campaign" before and they are not familiar with all the rules, spells, feats, skills or magical items. That leaves a whole lot to tinker around with. It's just this one player, who has played D&D in it's previous incarnations, who isn't happy with sticking to material that I have provided. The rest of them are happily looking trough material that is all new to them, and searching for ideas that even I (a veteran of many campaigns, lots of DMing and about 16 years of RPG) haven't thougth of.

This is why I enjoy introducing new players to D&D. Of course once the first campaign is over the best of them usually stick around and have plenty of fun years with me, while the rest move on to other things. Which is to say that age and experience varies quite a lot in my group. Not that I mind, although it does bring the occasional problem since I don't have a "consistent" group for no more than a couple of years at a time.

 

[Telperion]

Hong's got a point there. IME, there are a lot of players who won't bother to take the time to read 100 pages of DM-prepared campaign material. YMMV, of course, it really depends on how much the players and the DM want to play the same thing.

It wasn't a requirement. Actually the gazetteer had a wonderful 1 page introduction, which basically told the same as the 99 pages after it. It just left out all the details and interesting bits, so if someone wasn't interested in reading the thing it's okay with me. And I didn't even ask afterwards, I simply loaned the material for 2 weeks and told them to return it then. That's all the "obligation" I gave.

 

[Telperion]

I think there are two main factors to consider:

1) As you say, the more reading material there is, the more likely that it's going to be thought of as work. I know I certainly would be pushed to read 100 pages of material, and furthermore, I'm likely to resent a DM who expects me to do it. Now to some extent, as a DM you have a right to expect players to show some commitment to your campaign, and there are some clueless players out there who just couldn't give a damn. But even for reasonable players there's a limit, and usually that limit is reached when they start thinking of the prep stuff as a chore.

2) The more details you fill in about your campaign world, without any participation by the players, the greater risk you run of reifying the world -- of treating it as important _in its own right_, rather than as a setting and stage for the game. Again, to some extent, you have a right to do this: it's your world, it's your baby. However, rare is the player who's going to feel such a degree of attachment to something they didn't have any part in creating. What's more, by filling in all the details in isolation, you run the risk of blindsiding yourself to things that the players might actually do. This risk just becomes more likely as the power level of the campaign increases, and the players find themselves being more able to act as autonomous agents.

This is a good point, except for a few things:
First of all I playtested a whole lot of players at the local RPG club, and found some excellent players for the campaign. Then I talked to them about it, and we played some more. During these sessions, what I call the "mercenary adventures", I dropped plenty of game world details and teasers about what was to come into the game. So, when the players were all ready to start making characters I dropped the material on them.

The second important thing was that I never demanded that anyone read the material that I loaned out for 2 weeks at a time. The gazetteer has a wonderful 1 page introduction, which pretty much sums up the rest of the 99 pages in the booklet, but leaves out the detail and interesteing crunchy bits that follow. Fact is that some people are born ignorant and remain so trough-out their lives, and to reflect that reality I didn't demand that everyone read the material that I provided. Instead we had some of well-read players, and then some of the sword & fist variety. Not a problem.

Of course when I dropped the material on the players some of them quit. They didn't want to bother with reading, and truly felt it was a chore. A chore they didn't want. That was fine with me as well, since in the end I found 6 players who share my interest for detail and useful crunchy bits of information. Also, they got a good general description in the bargain, and I didn't have to explain every little thing to them when we started. Yes, it was less work for me, but then again no one of in my current gaming group has complained either.

As far as I'm concerned gazetteers are an excellent tool for introducing new players to a campaign world. They are light to read, not too thick and to the point. Also, the gazetteer doesn't contain any big secrets the PC's aren't supposed to know. Sure, it's biased material, but that easily corrected with a little talk between players and DM.

 

[Pagan priest]

As the DM, it's your campaign. As the player, it's my character. The player has every right to expect to be able to play a character that will be fun for them to play. That doesn't mean that you need to let a Jedi into a Greyhawk game. I am not familiar with the Scarred Lands, and you haven't actually said what PrC the player wants, so I can't really tell if it is a good match or a really bad one. What is it about this particular PrC that you think is out of balance? Does it give too much power to the character. Can it automatically negate the powers of the BBEG you have planned for the epic final confrontation? Or is it just that it is from a different book and you are being whinny about new things?

It sounded a little like the PrC in question might be the Discrete Companion. A fine PrC for a game with heavy social interation, but one that needs to spend a good amount of time getting into position, as it were. Lots of people whisper things to a bed partner that they would never dream of uttering aloud. And when it really comes down to it, most games do not want to role play out the Discrete Companion actually getting the information...

My campaign world has no drow. An earlier post mentioned a world without halflings or gnomes. These kinds of changes give a world flavor. My world has no orient, so no Oriental Adventures. On the other hand, if the campaign was at higher levels and included world hopping or plane hopping, I might be willing to allow a samurai or a ninja into the game... as long as the player knew they would be forever a stranger in a strange land, and could play that role.

As far as world creation goes, I have been tinkering with mine for over 2 decades now. I have a clear vision of what this world is like, where the conflicts are, and where the characters fit into the grand scheme of things. And yet, if a player comes up to me with something new, I will try to accomidate them if I can. Doing anything less is a disservice to the players.

The DM is not an author writing a book, all by himself. The DM is part of a group coming together for a string of enjoyable evenings.

 

[Pagan priest]

Having a one hundred page gazeteer sounds interesting, I could not imagine actually getting any of the players in my current campaign to read more than 2 pages.

 

[Nightfall]

Tel,

If you're still having problems I'll design your player something both YOU and him can live with. That or you could just make him an Unhallowed False Lover.

 

[Telperion]

Having a one hundred page gazeteer sounds interesting, I could not imagine actually getting any of the players in my current campaign to read more than 2 pages.

Actually I remembered wrong. The thing only had about half that many pages. It's been a while since I even took a look at it, so please excuse the mistake. But I did e-mail something like 10 pages of material to my players, so the real number is somewhere around 50 - 60 pages. Anyway, none of the players considered it a long read, and nor did I.

 

[Telperion]

Tel,

If you're still having problems I'll design your player something both YOU and him can live with. That or you could just make him an Unhallowed False Lover.

We had a lenghty chat on sunday, which continued a good while after the session ended. I'll give him an easier character and start wondering how I'm going to handle the future diplomacy between players and nobility. So, basically the old character jumps into my NPC folder and he makes a new one. * shrugs* Well, it happens. The party will probably want to hire the NPC and have him move from one place to another while the group goes of adventuring.

Hm..I don't suppose it would be too much to allow their party Wizard to create a new spell called: Summon Lackey (Conjuration [calling]) Sor/Wiz 5.