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

[silentspace]

I'd allow the PC to take the prestige class. The way I see it, the 'core' classes are prestige classes, in a way. The PCs are above-average to begin with. Otherwise, they would all be commoners.

Often, the base classes don't really fit the concept a player might have. If you don't like some ability the PrC has, swap it out for something else. Or, if instead of a PrC, make a new feat tree. Or something. Yes, think about balance, but don't let thinking about it paralyze you into doing nothing. Heck, worrying about balance never stopped WotC!

 

[ForceUser]

It's important for a DM's campaign world to maintain internal consistency, but I will always listen to a player's request and consider it. If I decide against it I will explain why. Generally, though, I am an accomodating DM and I try to fit what a player wants into the setting, within reason. This is an outgrowth of my world-building style, however - I tend not to generate a finalized campaign world at the outset, instead keeping my options open. I usually have one well-defined local region and expand outward from there as needed. I do this because it's a lot less work than building an entire world. As such, I tend to be flexible regarding my players' character ideas.

There is a bonus to this style of world-building - if a player has a concept that doesn't fit into the areas of the world I've fleshed out, he can create his own region and I can plop it wholly into the setting. This has two advantages: one, less work for me, and two, it gives the player a region with which he is wholly familiar, increasing his attachment to and involvment in the game world.

That said, the DM always deserves the final word on his setting and players should respect that.

 

[Pielorinho]

I started off pretty sympathetic to the player, until I found out he wanted to join the Prestige Class "Order of the Plot Breakers." That's just silly! In fact, a prestige class like the one you described would ruin roleplay opportunities in many campaigns (mine included); instead of having to roleplay in order to learn the secrets of a city, you just use a class power. No fun at all.

There's another method you could consider, one that might eliminate conflict:

-Tell people, "If you want to join a prestige class, talk to me about it, and tell me what you want to do, and I'll try to accommodate you."
-When he tells you what he wants to do, tell him you'll try to incorporate it into the setting, but that the PrC to which he'll eventually gain access may have significantly different powers from the ones he described.
-When you can, introduce a class with interesting and fun powers that don't break the setting. Consider giving a social-oriented character powers like:

* Creating a sanctuary-like effect on demand.
* Casting Calm Emotions 1/day (language dependant, mind affecting)
* Cast Emotion 1/day (see above)
* By spending 10 minutes talking with someone, make a bluff check opposed by their sense motive, in order to get them to let a specific secret slip. Succeed by 10 or more, and they don't even realize what they let slip; succeed by 20 or more, and they'll steadfastly deny that they ever let it slip, even when confronted with evidence to the contrary. Serious modifiers may apply to the role: getting someone to let slip the name of her childhood crush might entail a +5 bonus on the bluff check, whereas getting a trained assassin to let slip the name of his employer might entail a -10 or greater penalty on the roll.
* Any staff/henchmen/followers are fanatically devoted to the character, as long as the character pays them some attention (either by treating them well or by playing them off against one another).

In other words, I'd give the player some unique and fun abilities to use, some stuff that'll make him feel more effective in social situations than his companions. But I wouldn't give him things that would break the plot down entirely.

Daniel

 

[Anabstercorian]

That's the significant difference between a rogue with lots of social skills and a social prestige class. The rogue will be able to handle any social situation that comes up. The character with the social prestige class will be able to make violent situations in to social situations.

 

[Epametheus]

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.

If the player himself is rather bad at social skills but is counting on his character's skills to make up for it, you should tell him to just play another class.

A poor speaker trying to play an uber-diplomat simply doesn't work. I should know; I've tried to do it before. The 13 Cha cleric with 5 ranks of diplomacy (they were required for a prestige class; otherwise, the cleric would've had 0) that was being played by a radio DJ wound up being a far more effective as a diplomat than my 30 Cha Bard. If he can't rely on his die rolls to get through it, he's going to choke and screw up every damn time he's required to be diplomatic, instead.

I can fully understand why he wants "kewl powerz" for his super-diplomat; his character is not going to pull its weight in combat, and he's hoping to find someway to compensate, and to some extent he's going to be competing with the party wizard. There's disturbingly little that a +50 to diplomacy can do that a simple Charm Person can't.

Charisma is the dump stat because it doesn't matter, neither mechanically nor in terms in roleplaying. Individual PCs aren't going to be more or less appealing as characters than their players actually are, and a generic human with five ranks in the diplomacy skill is just as good at influencing people as the 20 Cha sorcerer with no ranks in the skill. It's very easy to compensate for low charisma when rolling matters, and there's often no reward for having high charisma when rolling doesn't matter.

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.

 

[BSF]

In my game the most social character is played by a person who has a serious case of foot-in-mouth disease.

[snip for brevity]

The player has to know *who* to be social with but doesn't have to be the social one. He's still in charge and he's gotten very good at learning who to seek out so he's still a social player. Sure, the dice have a big impact but that's a game.

See, I have no problem with this. You are allowing the player to play a character he can't portray himself. He has to think about it and he has to put forth effort and he gets to play the "face man". So long as everyone is having fun, no big deal. He is probably also working toward better confidence at a little more method acting for the PC.

 

[Victim]

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?

 

[hong]

Ah yes, hong... I forgot that you like to waste bandwidth by arguing semantics.

Bendy Nougat does this better than you.

It appears you don't realize that some people might use "roleplaying" in place of "player interaction".

I am quite aware that some people use "roleplaying" in place of "player interaction". These people also generally have nothing insightful to contribute. "In my game, we do roleplaying stuff, and like, this is roleplaying, because, you know, it's not rollplaying, you know?"

I'm sorry about that. I understand how it might be a bit confusing for you.

_I_ do this better than you.

So, I shall reiterate my statement using the words you do not find confusing: "my game is oriented towards a higher degree of player interaction".

See? It IS possible to be precise.

Well, hong, in regards to my game, I don't give a

I don't give a what you don't give a about. But if you're not going to give a about something, could you at least do it quietly?

if it "does a disservice to a large percentage of the gaming community".

Good. So shut up.

Of course, some people in such a "large percentage" may not get as confused as you when certain terms are used.

Oh, noone is confused. At least not the people you think are confused.

Agreed. And I never said otherwise. However, as seen by many posts on ENWorld, there is a horde of "poor roleplayers" out there...

Some players are dickheads. Just as some DMs are dickheads.

and that does present a problem when social skills (PC or NPC) are involved. Just saying "that's just poor roleplaying no matter how you define it" doesn't solve any of the related problems.

The solution is not to play with dickheads.

 

[Orius]

You know, it's not really true that if 10 pages of world building is good, then 100 pages of world building is 10 times as good.

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.

 

[hong]

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.

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.