Is campaign flavour sacrosanct in your game?

[frankthedm]

Well, Whizbang and Aus seem to have covered the topic rather nicely. No need for me to elaborate further.

Same here.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Well, Whizbang and Aus seem to have covered the topic rather nicely. No need for me to elaborate further.

Ditto.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Well, Whizbang and Aus seem to have covered the topic rather nicely. No need for me to elaborate further.

Pretty much. There are a lot of things that are not in my settings - planar travel, psionics, many classes, many, many feats. If I am running a game set in the Reformation era I am not going to have samurai running around Magdeburg.

The Auld Grump

 

[pogre]

In your campaign, do you have rules about what kind of characters are allowed? Are certain magic item types or technologies (smokepowder for instance) banned? Do you place other limits on PCs and NPCs due to them being culturally inappropriate for the setting?

I've been wondering about this somewhat. With the overall freedom of options available in the D&D game, it can occasionally be overwhelming for DMs to review and include everything. All those interesting bits and pieces you can get from the various supplements do pile up. For example, there'll be no Warforged Ninjas in my Selan campaign. Heck, Plate mail hasn't been invented yet in the game.

Is it a bad thing to restrict player choice to enforce a campaign's flavour? Or is it best to allow things in, and see how the campaign adjusts? Is there really a sense of entitlement in players?

I do restrict quite a bit for the sake of flavor. No monks - I prefer my pseudo European medieval nonsense without Asian influences. Monasteries in my campaign are well, great places for easy barbarian raids.

I try to introduce PrCs through the campaign as options arising from the campaign's background. I have even done this with a couple of base classes outside of the PHB as well.

My campaigns start fairly vanilla and add complexity in terms of choices as we progress. It's what I enjoy and my players don't cry too much about it - at least to my face

 

[Nyaricus]

Hey Sound of Azure

Well, here's my take on it (funny enough I was thinking about something along the same lines of this today at work ). I always have a specific theme in mind for my games. Recently (well, a couple months ago) I started up my Forgotten Realms game, set in Hlondeth in the Vilhon Reach. I made it clear from the get-go what sort of characters were allowed, what the house rules were, and then we spent an entire session going through and making 3rd level characters. I made sure that I was there right alongside them while they were making them, guiding them, and in the end, we have a diverse and interesting group of PCs.

• Wild Elf Druid from Chondalwoods (using PHBII druid varient)
• Lightfoot Halfling Beguiler from Sembia
• Gold Dwarf Knight from the Smoking Mountains
• Air Genasi (a LA+0 varient) Ranger from Chessenta
• Human Cleric of Kelemvor from the Dragon Coast
• Human Pugilist from Chessenta (using Dr. Awkwards Bruiser class from the boards here)

The Pugilists' character, for example, loves monks (he's a big Dragonball Z fan FYI). But, I don't care for them in a non-oriental campaign, so I offered him that as an alternative, and thus far he loves it since he can go into combat with a d10 for HD and a 1:1 BAB and really get in there more than a monk could. For the elven druid, I offered her solution of the PHBIIs alternate druid, since she's new to the game, because it's easier to keep track of her bonuses in Wildshape

So, I do restrict players options, but I have a great knowledge of the game, and a know a lot about Faerun, so there's a good comprimise in that I can still help them make awesome characters regardless. I think that's if you're a competent DM, the players have a great starting point for their gaming experience

cheers,
--N

 

[Mercule]

I really should restrict character choices more than I do. I tend to cut things at the "in this setting" rather than "for this starting arc" or similar trains of thought. That usually gets me in trouble.

Also, I have a couple of explicitly stated things about my homebrew like "the laws of physics work just enough differently that gunpowder and IC engines are physically impossible".

In general, I think campaign restrictions help to push the game from "beer and pretzels dungeon crawl" to "cohesive and consistant story". Note, the latter doesn't have to be particularly serious, but it does require some thought.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Verisimilitude Über Alles!

In your campaign, do you have rules about what kind of characters are allowed? Are certain magic item types or technologies (smokepowder for instance) banned? Do you place other limits on PCs and NPCs due to them being culturally inappropriate for the setting?

I have more "suggestions" than rules, but yes ... I do use cultural restrictions (esp. for my Thayan campaign).

Is it a bad thing to restrict player choice to enforce a campaign's flavour?

No, as long as you make a genuine effort to provide options within your established framework.

-Samir Asad

 

[Michael Morris]

It is my opinion that a campaign that tries to cover everything well covers nothing well - with the possible exception of the Forgotten Realms but then only due to the enormous published volume of materials written for it over the last 20+ years. Even a Realms campaign though can lose focus if you aren't careful.

 

[Sound of Azure]

Thanks for all the comments. My unease has been...uh, eased.

With lots of options, working with the players, and plenty of advance notice about alternate rules, Selan should go down a treat.

When I'm done.

(Hey Nyaricus! *waves*)

 

[Cadfan]

You've phrased the question in a difficult way.

I regularly restrict choices in terms of character creation in the service of campaign flavor.

However, I try to keep those restrictions light, and to prevent them from being onerous. If a player has an idea that he really wants to use, I give serious consideration to coming up for a way to fit it into the campaign, rather than just rejecting it out of hand.

Generally, I run short campaigns with a very specific flavor. This means I can get away with more restrictions because they don't last as long. For example, I recently ran a military campaign (Heroes of Battle as guide) involving a war between a human kingdom and a hobgoblin kingdom. So, all the pcs had to be human, and to fit into a war setting. That turned out to be a bit restrictive, but it didn't matter much because the campaign only lasted about 10 sessions.

So, I suppose my answer is, yes, restrict, but don't restrict very much. And bear in mind that if you restrict based on "flavor," you owe it to your players to actually USE that flavor. If the only flavor in your campaign world is the restriction you put on your pcs, they have every right to get mad at you.