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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JiffyPopTart" data-source="post: 7955431" data-attributes="member: 4881">Let me expand on what I am trying to say....Let's assume for this example that you are a player at my table and I am the GM.  We have never played before.  You are a friend of a friend so I know little to nothing about you other than its your first game with me.ME:  OK, Droop, we are playing a homebrew game.  We use all the official WotC books as source material for your character.  I don't usually allow 3rd party or homebrew material, but if you REALLY need to try something out I will take a look at it.YOU:  I want to play a fighter that uses polearms.  I want to use the rules for High Elves, but I want to storywise be a Wild Elf (i'm odd in my tribe).  I want to start with a magical polearm that has been in my family for generations, and was once a powerful artifact that was used to kill the Dragon Queen eons ago which ushered in the era of magic in the world.  I took the liberty of statting it up...SuperAwesome Dragon Queen Slaying Polearm+2 to hit/damage+3d6 damage vs. dragonsResistance to dragon sourced elemental damageCan never be taken against my will************Your creativity in this example is deliberately written to go from "least disruptive" to "most disruptive".You pick a fighter who uses polearms:  Great choice 100% by the book, no issues at all.You want to reskin a High Elf to be a Wild Elf:  You have only changed story.  My campaign certainly can accommodate this with ZERO effort.  Go for it!  (Note that reskinning is my favorite way of sticking to the rules but flexing my creativity as a player).You want to start with a magical polearm:  This the request that puts you on the edge of creativity bouncing up against my game.  Magical items are designed to be used sparingly in 5e, and even then not usually at low levels.  I COULD figure out a way to give you a starting magical polearm however I would balance it by assigning it some trade offs to keep it fair for the players who DON'T start with a magic weapon.  If, however, I didn't want to let you have one FOR WHATEVER REASON then the correct response on your end is to say "OK, I guess Sabathius42 likes to stick to those item level suggestions pretty closely".You want your starting magical item to have been super powerful in the past:  Once again, I could make this happen with some thought, but that is going to mean that its going to take the item the entire course of the campaign to "level up" alongside of you.  You can't just start with a powerful artifact, no matter how many negatives are assigned to it.You describe there existing a Dragon Queen (easy to add to most campaigns history) which is fine and reasonable but then you add the super background changing idea that her death allowed the other races to use magic.  No, you can't design something this big as a player.  You can suggest it.  Maybe I can make it work, maybe I can't.  Its odd to suggest something that "BIG" when it has no impact on the character you created.  This is the level of creativity that players shouldn't be expecting the GM to incorporate.You custom designed actual stats for a item your character shouldn't have anyway:  Absolute hard no.  If you are asking the GM to grant you a magical weapon for a starting low level character you are already asking a lot of them.  Take what they give you and be happy with it.  Furthermore, in the example I provided you are asking for a weapon that would be considered Legendary, which a low level character shouldn't own for rules balance purposes.**************************Continuing my example, if you showed up at my table and asked for all those things I'd generate a low powered magical polearm for you and tell you that it can "power up" over time.  I would then, behind the scenes, work out a system for that "powering up" and roll it out when the design was finished.  That really should be the end of the conversation on the mechanics of the polearm for the campaign.If the next week you showed up for session 2 and told me that your family also has a magical suit of armor that goes along with the polearm, and that you would like to get that also, I would be annoyed and tell you no, you already have one item ahead of time, you aren't going to get two.  If you complained that your story demands you have magical armor, I would be super annoyed.If you showed up on week 3 and had a bad combat because your magic polearm negative kicked in and complained aloud about how it doesn't make sense that a super powerful magic polearm should be really awesome, not hindering you I would be tempted to take it away, be annoyed again, and begin to reconsider wanting you at my table if you are going to be like this every week.If you showed up on week 4, had a great combat, defeated the big bad guy, and complained when the magical armor you wanted didn't show up in the treasure pile I would have a personal conversation with you that you need to reel it in or maybe my game isn't for you.If you showed up on week 5 and during a session of interacting with the town your character begins proselytizing about how all magic users are evil because their power flows from the blood of the Dragon Queen flowing into the ocean even though I have no interest in incorporating this fiction into my campaign world I am going to ask you to not play in my game anymore.***********************I realize that this fictional example is "putting words in your mouth" but I am trying to illustrate to you that there is a line that exists between the players and the GM and creativity on the players part should never infringe on the other side of that line.  You can suggest a reasonable number of things, but the GM has the ultimate right to say "No, that isn't how it is going to work in my game." and that should be the end of the conversation.  You should limit your number of suggestions and those suggestions should all have a tie in with your character's story.If you are only a player, not a GM, stick to creativity involving only the story.  Do not get creative with rules or mechanics.  This goes quadruple if the GM has literally asked you to stop doing so and just play the game as it is written.</blockquote>

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