"Oddities" in fantasy settings - the case against "consistency"

[Umbran]

That's the 4e synthesis. The premise of universal stats in 3.x was precisely the opposite;

I'm not talking about a game's premise. I'm speaking practically - nobody (not literally, I'm using as a figure of speech to indicate my incredulity that the number of them is notable) in any D&D era, went or goes through the process of making PC-detailed stats for the, say 1000+ NPCs in a city. It is simply impractical, and a ton of work for little return, because for overwhelming majority of them, the PCs won't meaningfully interact with them. Nobody cares about the stats of things that don't need to roll dice.

 

[Faolyn]

Forgive me if this has been asked before - and maybe point me in the direction of some discussion surrounding it; I don't normally participate in playstyle threads, although I might dip a toe occasionally.

If we consider:

• The referee proposes a Dragonlance game. One of the players wants to be a cleric.
• The referee proposes a Hobbit-centric game using The One Ring rules. One of the players wants to be a Noldo.
• The referee proposes a Foundation-esque Traveller game, set in a human-only far future. One of the players wants to be a Vargr
• The referee proposes a Call of Cthulhu game involving the gradual revelation of themes which are Best Left Unknown (TM). One of the players would like to start well-versed in the Cthulhu mythos.

You get the general idea. Is there any difference between these propositions (beside authorship, and the possibility that players are already familiar with the source material), and a conformity to a world/theme devised by the referee, or are these all accommodations which can/should be met?

First off, find out why they want to play these things. Because they may have a very good reason other than "because it's cool," and you can either use that idea to change your game for the better, or you can use that idea to help them find a concept that's more in line with the game. There's no vargrs in the Foundation-verse, but can there be genetic engineering or uplifted animals?

Or, you can ask them other questions about it. What will they be a cleric of, when all the gods are gone? How and why is there a Noldo in a hobbit village? What part of the Cthulhu mythos are they experts in, and why?

 

[Faolyn]

Yes, I've been assuming that; as if restoring magic is not the goal it's simply a no-magic campaign and that's that.

Or, it's a campaign that's about things other than magic, because, except in this one case, the magic went away.

Fair enough. Here I'd say that if anyone's to become the "first mage" it should probably be an NPC, specifically in order to prevent one PC from being or becoming more important than the others (again, the exception here would be solo play).

But why assume that the only type of adventure in the setting is going to be about the last mage? A good GM will be able to make every single character important, even if one of them is "the only one of," "the last of," or even "the chosen one."

I actually played a chosen one, once. She was a cleric who literally had two different gods fighting over her, and she was a character who had the longest backstory I have ever written for a character. Out of a campaign that lasted for several years' worth of weekly sessions (with the occasional hiatus for other games or days we couldn't play), I maybe had four sessions truly dedicated to this status. We spent longer than that on sessions that were nothing but political negotiations that my character had nothing to do with but let certain other PCs take center state. The rest of the time, when my character had the spotlight, it was because of her perfectly normal, non-chosen one-related activities, such as clever use of spellcasting.

So don't assume that a last mage is going to always hog the spotlight unless either the player or the GM are bad at their jobs.

Good point. I have been assuming that, yes. But if magic isn't benevolent and-or desired and people are welcoming its demise then the player of the last mage is again not going to have much fun, as the rest of the party might well be justified in killing it as soon as they find out what it is.

Then they miss out on learning that the reason magic isn't seen as benevolent or desired is potentially pure propaganda. Or they miss having a moral dilemma as to whether to use magic that might be evil. Both of these things make for very good roleplaying.

If your intent is to keep something safe it's just a bit counterproductive to take it out and expose it to risk, hm? And unless the party want to spend their adventuring careers doing nothing but guard the last mage in her glass bubble, they're likely going to go off elsewhere and leave said guarding duties to stay-at-home guards.

The PC is their own character; it's up to them to decide if they want to be kept safe.

Or, you and that player work out a deal where your character is their bodyguard and tries to keep them safe, while they look for and often succeed at ways to sneak around you--this is a common media trope, after all.

It's one thing if a player is choosing to do things that have been agreed upon to not be in the game, such as if the table said "no sexual assault" or "no real-world racism or sexism" and the player insists on bringing those things in. But telling them they can't play their character only because you decided so? That is bad. They're just trying to play a character and you're poo-pooing the idea for reasons that don't work because they're a PC, not an NPC. I have to say, if I were playing in a game as the last mage, and you tried to literally force me to not adventure even though I wanted to, I would either leave the game or ask the GM to kick you from the game. Because that idea of yours would cross the line into harming another player's ability to play the game.

Put another way, the player who wants to play the last mage probably hasn't thought the ramifications all the way through.

Or, they thought of the ramifications for the game world but not for ones related to an overstepping fellow player.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

First off, find out why they want to play these things. Because they may have a very good reason other than "because it's cool," and you can either use that idea to change your game for the better, or you can use that idea to help them find a concept that's more in line with the game. There's no vargrs in the Foundation-verse, but can there be genetic engineering or uplifted animals?

Or, you can ask them other questions about it. What will they be a cleric of, when all the gods are gone? How and why is there a Noldo in a hobbit village? What part of the Cthulhu mythos are they experts in, and why?

This isn't so much about establishing a dialogue regarding a mutually agreed premise, and finding creative ways to accommodate the wishes of players - I'm all about that. Several posters have answered in those terms already. And I'm not really concerned about player motivation - several posters have implied that I'm pre-judging that (negatively), and I'm not.

It's more about my question as to whether there is a difference between a GM enforcing genre-appropriate restrictions when the setting is their own, as opposed to some already extant universe. As I've also pointed out in a subsequent post, I'm not persuaded by @pemerton's assertion that the divide between setting and genre can be unequivocally stated: at what point is genre fidelity compromised in order to accommodate a player's vision; or at what point is player autonomy quashed in order to maintain genre fidelity? I don't have an answer to these questions btw, but would suggest that such a point will always exist.

A Pendragon game might accommodate a female knight (a minor deviation from genre expectations regarding gender roles). Or it might accommodate a samurai (incongruous, but certainly doable), or it might accommodate a 10,000-year old Atlantean mage. Or a dragon. But can it accommodate all of these? - there will be a point where the game ceases to accurately represent the genre it is attempting to portray.

 

[Lanefan]

Or, it's a campaign that's about things other than magic, because, except in this one case, the magic went away.

I somehow don't see that happening. If you've got the last mage in the world in your party, magic (in some form or other) is going to be front and centre whether anyone really wants it to be or not.

But why assume that the only type of adventure in the setting is going to be about the last mage?

How can it not be? Until the question of dying/rebirthing magic gets settled it becomes the elephant in the campaign's room no matter what else is going on.

A good GM will be able to make every single character important, even if one of them is "the only one of," "the last of," or even "the chosen one."

I actually played a chosen one, once. She was a cleric who literally had two different gods fighting over her, and she was a character who had the longest backstory I have ever written for a character. Out of a campaign that lasted for several years' worth of weekly sessions (with the occasional hiatus for other games or days we couldn't play), I maybe had four sessions truly dedicated to this status. We spent longer than that on sessions that were nothing but political negotiations that my character had nothing to do with but let certain other PCs take center state. The rest of the time, when my character had the spotlight, it was because of her perfectly normal, non-chosen one-related activities, such as clever use of spellcasting.

The one time I played a chosen one (or similar) it wasn't by any choice of mine. In fact, I was trying to retire the character at the time because giving up adventuring was what the character would have done in his then-current situation, for various reasons. It took a Charm Person from another PC to get him to go back into the field again, so off he went to his chosen-one destiny.

The PC is their own character; it's up to them to decide if they want to be kept safe.

Is it, though? I'd say the odds are very high that choice is going to be made for him, if not by my character then by someone else in the setting who - depending on that person's (or group's) view of magic - either wants to keep him safe or kill him.

Or, you and that player work out a deal where your character is their bodyguard and tries to keep them safe, while they look for and often succeed at ways to sneak around you--this is a common media trope, after all.

Which only works if I'm willing to relegate my character to a forever-support role; and that would depend entirely on whether I'm running a character who would, in-character, be willing to take on that role. Some would. Others wouldn't.

It's one thing if a player is choosing to do things that have been agreed upon to not be in the game, such as if the table said "no sexual assault" or "no real-world racism or sexism" and the player insists on bringing those things in. But telling them they can't play their character only because you decided so? That is bad. They're just trying to play a character and you're poo-pooing the idea for reasons that don't work because they're a PC, not an NPC.

If the last mage was a party NPC I'd do the same thing.

I have to say, if I were playing in a game as the last mage, and you tried to literally force me to not adventure even though I wanted to, I would either leave the game or ask the GM to kick you from the game. Because that idea of yours would cross the line into harming another player's ability to play the game.

Tough. It'd be the same as if you'd decided to play a character with a big fat price on its head and I (or I and the rest of the party) decided to turn you in for the reward. Just because someone in the setting has a player attached is no reason to treat it any differently than if it didn't, and IMO players have to realize this.

And if I-as-player made a character choice that left me similarly vulnerable to the actions of my fellow party members, I have no cause to complain if-when they just do what their characters would do and turn me in. C'est la vie - out come the roll-up dice and away I go.

Or, they thought of the ramifications for the game world but not for ones related to an overstepping fellow player.

An NPC could do the same thing, which puts us right back to the last-mage player not having through it through all the way.

 

[Maxperson]

Which modules? I have pretty much all the classic early 80s modules, and I don't know of a single one which provides anything close to a character sheet for an NPC. Here and there some 'boss' NPCs have abbreviated stats, usually just a note as to class levels they can be considered to operate as, though many critical features are left undefined and it seems to be assumed that features not explicitly mentioned don't exist, or in some cases similar abilities are provided.

So, yes, the rules ALLOW FOR the GM to create NPCs this way, or even outright 'monsters' there are few, if any, examples found in actual material. In fact the very same DMG contains an entire subsystem intended for creating specific monstrous figures in the form of shamans and witch doctors. These are even shown to be applicable to humans! Presumably they can also be applied to other demi-humans. While I don't recall an explicit example of applying them to non-humanoid form creatures it's clear from the presentation that this is simply an example of how to build anything you like without regard to strict PC rules.

In other places similar logic is clearly in play, as there are many examples, even notes in the PHB, describing characters as having combinations of attributes impossible for any PC to have.

Arguments that the author of 1e thought that the rules for making a PC were somehow a description of all the possibilities of characters in the world is not supportable at all! NPC/monster abilities are entirely unconstrained by any of those rules!

The easy one is T1: The Lost Village of Hommlet. On the page 3 we have the elderly farmer who is a retired fighter(S15, I12, W16, D12, C16, CH11) 4th level, 16 HP wearing scale mail and a shield, and armed with a sword and crossbow. Also on that page is a ranger similarly spelled out. There are many, many, MANY NPCs with that are built like PCs.

 

[hawkeyefan]

An NPC could do the same thing, which puts us right back to the last-mage player not having through it through all the way.

This idea that other players would just try and shut down the game for the player of the last mage is bonkers. If I was in such a game, I’d point out how what the last mage character does is up to the player and not to actively sabotage his fun.

Additionally, I point to the OP for a much more dynamic way to incorporate the idea into play with other characters who won’t just blindingly try to tuck the character away while they go out adventuring.

I really can’t imagine play going that way.

 

[clearstream]

I'm not defending the utility of listing the CON - or any other ability - of the human rogue in the cell, Obmi, or all of the Drow. Merely pointing out the fact that Gygax did, in fact, list all of these. Dex and Con bonuses appear factored into AC and HP. Str bonuses are noted. Magical plusses are factored in.

I'm looking at 1978.

The Drow? Why are they heavily standardized? - I'm talking about those above the baseline, with additional Cleric and MU levels. What do they omit?

Well, they appear legal - if by legal, you mean they comport with the rules used for PCs. What makes you think they're not?

The entry for the Drow at the back of G3 is pretty exhaustive.

I wondered if it is relevant to this line of conversation to look at Deities and Demigods, which lists character class levels for the entities within, while also granting them miraculous features. They're not positioned as direct adversaries of player characters, yet it wasn't unheard of for high-level campaigns to feature them.

I suspect that the designers had not made a systematic assessment of and decision upon the matter. Hence the availability of conflicting texts.

 

[billd91]

This idea that other players would just try and shut down the game for the player of the last mage is bonkers. If I was in such a game, I’d point out how what the last mage character does is up to the player and not to actively sabotage his fun.

Additionally, I point to the OP for a much more dynamic way to incorporate the idea into play with other characters who won’t just blindingly try to tuck the character away while they go out adventuring.

I really can’t imagine play going that way.

That brings up the question: who is sabotaging whose fun? Most of these discussions revolve around GM vs Player. But what if the other players had been OK with the no magic campaign and the player who wants to be the last mage is sabotaging their fun? While that may not be quite as stark as Lanefan's example of the other players sticking the last mage in a protected cage (though, if they did something like that, it kind of says what the other players feel about the last mage's choice of characters), the mage wannabe may be the one disrupting the dynamic. In the OP example, did the other players start out wanting to create characters revolving around the last mage's power? Or did they have a different first choice?
I can certainly imagine there being some irritation about one player's choice having such an impact on the campaign direction.

 

[Manbearcat]

This idea that other players would just try and shut down the game for the player of the last mage is bonkers. If I was in such a game, I’d point out how what the last mage character does is up to the player and not to actively sabotage his fun.

Additionally, I point to the OP for a much more dynamic way to incorporate the idea into play with other characters who won’t just blindingly try to tuck the character away while they go out adventuring.

I really can’t imagine play going that way.

I think you've just got this whole Last Mage in a game where the premise leads with "No More Mages" all wrong. You even have some firsthand experience with just how damaging such a "premise break" is!

Remember our Stonetop game? Remember where you played the Prophet Judge?

PROPHET
The line of Judges was broken long ago, the Chronicle lost or fallen into ruin. Aratis has called you personally to her service though dreams, omens, and visions. Some in town resent the authority you’ve assumed.

When you spend a few days communing with Aratis about a threat facing Stonetop or civilization as a whole, roll +WIS: on a 7+, Aratis reveals the course of action she would have you take; on a 10+, you also hold 2 Sanction. While acting on her orders, spend 1 Sanction to add +1 to a roll you just made.

Remember how much this obnoxious premise-break destroyed our game. The line of Judges was broken long ago and you have the temerity to break with that premise and become the lone servant of Aratis in a new age, attempting to establish a new line of Judges.

I couldn't even believe you would do such a terrible thing. Game never got off the ground because of your terrible, Main-Character-Syndrome, premise-break. I hope you feel bad!