PHB2 Races = Mos Eisley Cantina

[Celebrim]

Good grief. Read what I wrote again. Read it a third time. Did I at any point say, "Whatever a player wants, the GM must bow down to"? Where did I write that. Point to the place please.

What I said was, "If there is only the DM's preference in the way, the DM should back down". In your example, an elf in Cthulu would NOT BE ONLY DM PREFERENCE.

Yes, it would.

The problem is that there is really no nice bright line over what is DM preference and what isn't. I trapped you into saying, "That's not DM preference.", by making some particularly unusual examples, but really, they are just DM preferences. Nothing prevents me from running a High Lovecraftian Fantasy (and if you've ever been chased by a Mewlips across a timber filled mill pond, you might claim I run High Lovecraftian Fantasy). I can run call of Cthulu with elves if I want. Nothing prevents me from saying, "Yes, you can be an elf." except my preference not to have the game be that way.

Likewise, nothing prevents me from running Spycraft with an undercurrent of magic to it. There is even precedence in source material - like the Tarot card Oracle in 'Live and Let Die'. I think a Pulp Spycraft adventure setting would be very cool, and nothing prevents me from saying, "Yes, you can play a magician." except my preference in that case not to do that.

How many times do I have to say the EXACT THING?

As many times as it takes for you to realize you aren't saying anything meaningful.

]Now pause for a second. Why is the "half-warforged, half-dragon, red Wizard of Thay" off the table? Is it genre breaking? Does it not fit with the established conventions of the game at the time? Is it a balance issue? Does it break the theme of the game? If the answer to any of these questions is "yes" then I have no problem.

But those are all just preferences. It's genre breaking, only because the genre is my preference. The 'established conventions of the game' are again my preference. If I was playing Cthulu, nothing would prevent me from throwing some 'fairy' creatures at the players (or at least the Cthulu mythos creatures that inspired fairy legends). If I was running a Spycraft game, nothing would prevent me from throwing a diabolic enchanter into the mix to stir things up. It might be a little awkward to do so after telling a player, "No magic.", but presumably at another table it might seem really cool. As far as balance issues go, virtually anything can be made to be balanced. A player might (and very probably would given the sort of player that does this sort of thing) balk if I took away the anticipated mechanical joys that made them pick the exotic character type in the first place, but if its just flavor that is at stake I could certainly come up with something. It's just my preference not to. And again, 'theme' is nothing more than genre conventions again - which, are basically up to the game master's preferences. I've started games before without telling the players what the theme would be, and suddenly they find military sims transforming into sci-fi which transforms into horror. Again, my preferences.

Again, for the umpteenth time. My only issue is when the only reason the DM has for saying no is his own personal preferences. He just doesn't like X, not for any reasons related to campaign, or theme, or story, or game mechanics, he just doesn't like X.

I don't like halflings. I certainly don't feel obligated to let you play a halfling just because you want to. They aren't in my campaign because I don't like them. It's my personal preference.

My single, solitary, lone, only, seul, hitotsu, beef here is that if a DM's only issue with a character concept is his own personal preferences, nothing more, then the DM should accede to his player's wishes. IF the DM has any other issues, such as genre, game balance, theme, the preferences of the majority at the table, whatever, then he is more than fine in saying no.

I can't make this any clearer.

There isn't a bright clear line between a DM's campaign, the theme of that campaign, the genre conventions of that campaign, and the DM's personal preferences. The two are so intertwined that to talk about one as if it was some distinct thing from the other is to speak total nonsense. It's not like the DM is just forced to go along with whoever writes the books, forced to play some staid copy of some other DM's campaign. If I wanted to have Mister Mxyzptlk send DC superheroes to show up in the Forgotten Realms, then they do. And if I don't want Mister Myxzptlk to open up a diminsional portal to the forgotten realms just so some player can play Chuck 'The Bouncing Boy' Tain, then it doesn't happen. My preference. Neither choice is 'wrong', but in one situation I'll probably prefer one over the other.

 

[kenmarable]

As many times as it takes for you to realize you aren't saying anything meaningful.

*sigh*

As much as I hate to get into this, I agree with Hussar. (And even if I didn't, I do realize there is a difference between "not saying anything meaningful" and "I disagree with you".)

My take on it is simply - in this game, it's everyone's job to make sure everyone is having fun. If one person is trumping other people's fun just because of their personal taste, then they are doing something wrong, no matter if they are DM or player.

It's a democracy not a dictatorship, metaphorically. In my opinion, everyone's personal preference matters, not just the DM's (and not just the lone player wanting to go against genre when everyone else wants to stick to it).

 

[Doctor Proctor]

@Celebrim: Here's why you're not getting Hussar's point... I'm not totally familiar with the other systems you mentioned, but I'm guessing Elves aren't an "official" race in Call of Cthulu and that Wizards aren't an "offical" class in Spycraft. Am I right? If so, then all you're saying "no" to there is a player essentially asking for a houserule.

A D&D Homebrew campaign is just that, a homebrew campaign, not a set of official rules. Also, a "half-warforged, half-dragon, red Wizard of Thay" is not something you can currently create within the "official" set of rules. It's a bit of a spurious example here and completely unlike what Hussar was explaining.

What we're talking about is when a DM is running a game of 4e and a player says "I want to play a Dragonborn Fighter", and the DM says "No, you can't be a Dragonborn. I don't like them. This is the list of approved races that you can select from because I think having too many races waters the game down." A DM who does that, is not a good DM. He's not giving a real reason for his decision, and he's not really working with the player at all.

A good DM might say "Well, my campaign takes places solely in the Feywild, so we're only using Fey races. I'll tell you what though, I'll let you create a special Fey creature that uses similar stats to a Dragonborn so that you can play the sort of Fighter you want, we'll just reskin it as a Fey creature."

See the difference? The good DM is creating a gameworld within certain parameters besides "I don't like it", and he's willing to work with his players to allow them to do what they want. Maybe he wanted to play Dragonborn because otherwise being a Fighter means you're essentially at a -1 compared to other class choices when you're limited to races like Elves, Eladrin and Gnomes. So giving him the +2 to STR and all the CON bonuses a Dragonborn gets, as well as maybe some of the feats, allows him to be the kind of character he wants within the narrative you're creating. That's why he's a good DM.

 

[Celebrim]

@Celebrim: Here's why you're not getting Hussar's point... I'm not totally familiar with the other systems you mentioned, but I'm guessing Elves aren't an "official" race in Call of Cthulu and that Wizards aren't an "offical" class in Spycraft. Am I right? If so, then all you're saying "no" to there is a player essentially asking for a houserule.

So? Players can ask for houserules. I've no problem with that.

A D&D Homebrew campaign is just that, a homebrew campaign, not a set of official rules.

So? The 'official rules' are just something one group of DM's wrote down. The only thing that makes them any different from house rules in that they got paid to write them. No DM is any more required to follow 'the official rules' than they are required to follow my house rules. The preface of the 1st edition Dungeon Master's Guide begins, "What follows herein is strictly for the eyes of you, the campaign referee. As the creator and ultimate authority in your respective game, this work is written as one Dungeon Master equal to another. Pronouncements there may be, but they are not from 'on high as respects to your game."

The official rules are just Gygax's house rules. Later they were some other Dm's house rules. It's the same thing.

Also, a "half-warforged, half-dragon, red Wizard of Thay" is not something you can currently create within the "official" set of rules.

So? Are you saying that I can't play a 'half-warforged, half-dragon, red Wizard of Thay', or are you just saying that I can't play that at your table or his table or some such? Why not? Solely because, for one reason or the other - your commitment to the 'official rules', your feeling that the character type is silly, whatever - it is your preference that I not.

It's a bit of a spurious example here and completely unlike what Hussar was explaining.

No, it's exactly alike what Hussar was explaining.

What we're talking about is when a DM is running a game of 4e and a player says "I want to play a Dragonborn Fighter", and the DM says "No, you can't be a Dragonborn. I don't like them. This is the list of approved races that you can select from because I think having too many races waters the game down." A DM who does that, is not a good DM.

In your opinion. It sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I think too many races waters the game down too. I kicked Orcs completely off my homebrew 20 years ago, because I didn't see the need for them if I also had Goblin-kind. Too many races feels utterly silly to me (in Tolkien they are just different words for the same race), and I thought goblins were more interesting and so I took my preference and booted the unpreferred race. No half-orcs. Sorry, isn't going to happen.

Does this mean that I look down on a DM that has Orcs? No. Does this mean I'm unsympathetic to a character that thinks Orcs are the coolest race ever? No. But I'm not going to change my mind just because of one player's affections. I'll happily play in his Orc centered campaign, should he want to run one.

He's not giving a real reason for his decision, and he's not really working with the player at all.

Wrong on both counts. He gave a reason. You just don't happen to like or respect that reason. And he is working with the player. He's given the player probably more options that were available in OD&D. Is OD&D suddenly badwrongfun? Are more options necessarily better by definition. Obviously, this DM doesn't think so, and I can certainly see his reasoning.

A good DM might say "Well, my campaign takes places solely in the Feywild, so we're only using Fey races. I'll tell you what though, I'll let you create a special Fey creature that uses similar stats to a Dragonborn so that you can play the sort of Fighter you want, we'll just reskin it as a Fey creature."

There is no real distinction between the two DMs. You've basically constructed a tautology. A bad DM is a DM who has bad reasons for his preferences. A good DM is a DM who has good reasons for his preferences. But you're not going to be able to come up with a non-subjective way to distinguish 'bad preferences' from 'good preferences'.

I'd like to point out something that I find very troubling about your example of 'good DMing' as well. It's mechanics oriented. You just said, "You can have your mechanics, but you can't have your flavor." As a player, I don't give much of a rip about mechanics. I don't choose a concept because of mechanics.

I also don't choose a concept outside the bounds of some other DM's campaign, nor do I try to backhanded force him to alter his game to suit my individual tastes. It's disrespectful.

See the difference?

Nope. Not at all. I see someone trying to impose his own internal judgement over what is a 'good' and 'bad' campaign setting on some other DM. I don't see anything remotely objective in your criticism. The good DM is creating a gameworld within certain parameters besides "I don't like it", and he's willing to work with his players to allow them to do what they want.

Maybe he wanted to play Dragonborn because otherwise being a Fighter means you're essentially at a -1 compared to other class choices when you're limited to races like Elves, Eladrin and Gnomes. So giving him the +2 to STR and all the CON bonuses a Dragonborn gets, as well as maybe some of the feats, allows him to be the kind of character he wants within the narrative you're creating. That's why he's a good DM.

Sounds like both a bad DM and a bad player to me then. Personally, I'd wonder why I was gaming with some kid that tried to tell me he should be allowed access to some race because he wanted a mechanical benefit. I've got no sympathy for that at all. Maybe I can see it if he's got some fantastic backstory that depends almost entirely on some aspect of the biology of the Dragonborn race, how he might be crushed if I banned it from my table, but worrying about being -1 behind on his stat choices sounds immature to me and would only harden my position.

 

[Hussar]

Wrong on both counts. He gave a reason. You just don't happen to like or respect that reason. And he is working with the player. He's given the player probably more options that were available in OD&D. Is OD&D suddenly badwrongfun? Are more options necessarily better by definition. Obviously, this DM doesn't think so, and I can certainly see his reasoning

Nope, because, if I'm going to play OD&D, I've already bought into that game with the understanding of the limitations of that game.

IF, however, you said "NO ELVES" in the OD&D game, when the only reason is you happen to have a rabid hatred of all things Tolkien, then I would say that that is not a good enough reason.

Similarly, "I don't like halflings" is not a good enough reason. No other player at the table gets to say that. The only, single solitary reason you get to say this is because you're sitting in the big chair. If you were another player, you certainly could not tell me not to play a halfling. Why does wearing the big hat allow you to ram your preferences down my throat?

In your opinion. It sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I think too many races waters the game down too. I kicked Orcs completely off my homebrew 20 years ago, because I didn't see the need for them if I also had Goblin-kind. Too many races feels utterly silly to me (in Tolkien they are just different words for the same race), and I thought goblins were more interesting and so I took my preference and booted the unpreferred race. No half-orcs. Sorry, isn't going to happen.

Does this mean that I look down on a DM that has Orcs? No. Does this mean I'm unsympathetic to a character that thinks Orcs are the coolest race ever? No. But I'm not going to change my mind just because of one player's affections. I'll happily play in his Orc centered campaign, should he want to run one.

And that's a different thing as well. You removed orcs, not because you particularly didn't like orcs, but because for the feel of your game, you didn't want to water down things. I can live with that. If I understand you correctly, you wrapped orcs up into goblinoids. Heck, I did the same thing. Heck, Dragonlance did the same thing. Got no particular beef with that. You have a justification for doing what you did that goes beyond, "I don't like X".

99.9% of the time, we're going to agree Celebrim. That's the point you seem to be missing. I'm saying, that when all other considerations are off the table, the DM should allow player choices when his single problem is a personal hang up.

Your orc example is certainly close to what I'm saying. I'll grant you that. However, the common wisdom is that a DM's power is absolute here. That no matter what the reason is, no matter how petty the reason might be, the DM has the absolute right to veto any and all player choices during character creation.

I disagree with that. Please stop trying to expand things, or "trap me" or anything like that. You know as well as I do that parachuting D&D elves into Cthulu would be genre breaking. I note that you changed your tune when you expanded your answer. Suddenly it wasn't just elves, but it was Cthulu based fairies that fit within the genre.

Likewise, are you seriously telling me that if we signed up for a Spycraft game, and out of the blue, without any prior hint, vampires showed up, you'd have no problem? You'd roll with it and be perfectly cool with it? That if the DM suddenly allowed Bob at the table to play a Vampire you'd have no issues?

Or take it another way, what if the DM suddenly decides that you cannot be British in the Spycraft game because he hates the British? Or black? Where does it stop?

 

[Doctor Proctor]

So? Players can ask for houserules. I've no problem with that.

Asking for a houserule is not the same as saying "Hey, can I use something from the official source book?" One is asking for something extra, the other is asking for something that's assumed to be there...until a DM takes it away.

So? The 'official rules' are just something one group of DM's wrote down. The only thing that makes them any different from house rules in that they got paid to write them. No DM is any more required to follow 'the official rules' than they are required to follow my house rules. The preface of the 1st edition Dungeon Master's Guide begins, "What follows herein is strictly for the eyes of you, the campaign referee. As the creator and ultimate authority in your respective game, this work is written as one Dungeon Master equal to another. Pronouncements there may be, but they are not from 'on high as respects to your game."

The official rules are just Gygax's house rules. Later they were some other Dm's house rules. It's the same thing.

What's your point? Honestly, who cares what he said. Gygax is dead, and that book came out over 30 years ago. I'm sorry if I sound harsh about that, but it's the truth. If you want to play the game where the DM had all the power and no one could see all his little rules or his little "gotcha" powers or the clear favoritism for anything "magic" and disdain for the other "boring" options like Fighter, then play 1e. There's a reason the game changed, and that's because those games were often not as fun for the player as they were for the DM.

So? Are you saying that I can't play a 'half-warforged, half-dragon, red Wizard of Thay', or are you just saying that I can't play that at your table or his table or some such? Why not? Solely because, for one reason or the other - your commitment to the 'official rules', your feeling that the character type is silly, whatever - it is your preference that I not.

I'm saying just what I said. Find me the rule that explains how to make a half-warforged, half-dragon. If it's not in the official set of rules, then you're asking for something that's outside of the normal bounds of the system. It's not the same asking for the thing detailed on page 11.

Wrong on both counts. He gave a reason. You just don't happen to like or respect that reason. And he is working with the player. He's given the player probably more options that were available in OD&D. Is OD&D suddenly badwrongfun? Are more options necessarily better by definition. Obviously, this DM doesn't think so, and I can certainly see his reasoning.

"I don't like it" is not a valid reason, it's a statement of a preference. It's saying "This is what I want, and I don't care what you want", not "This is what I'm trying create and here's why".

There is no real distinction between the two DMs. You've basically constructed a tautology. A bad DM is a DM who has bad reasons for his preferences. A good DM is a DM who has good reasons for his preferences. But you're not going to be able to come up with a non-subjective way to distinguish 'bad preferences' from 'good preferences'.

I'd like to point out something that I find very troubling about your example of 'good DMing' as well. It's mechanics oriented. You just said, "You can have your mechanics, but you can't have your flavor." As a player, I don't give much of a rip about mechanics. I don't choose a concept because of mechanics.

I also don't choose a concept outside the bounds of some other DM's campaign, nor do I try to backhanded force him to alter his game to suit my individual tastes. It's disrespectful.

Nope. Not at all. I see someone trying to impose his own internal judgement over what is a 'good' and 'bad' campaign setting on some other DM. I don't see anything remotely objective in your criticism. The good DM is creating a gameworld within certain parameters besides "I don't like it", and he's willing to work with his players to allow them to do what they want.

Sounds like both a bad DM and a bad player to me then. Personally, I'd wonder why I was gaming with some kid that tried to tell me he should be allowed access to some race because he wanted a mechanical benefit. I've got no sympathy for that at all. Maybe I can see it if he's got some fantastic backstory that depends almost entirely on some aspect of the biology of the Dragonborn race, how he might be crushed if I banned it from my table, but worrying about being -1 behind on his stat choices sounds immature to me and would only harden my position.

Here's the difference, and you illustrate the point exactly. For the first DM, and for you, it's all about them. You don't like mechanical benefits, so if a player wants to play a race because of a mechanical benefit, that's bad and you call them immature and say it would harden your position.

I mean, are you listening to yourself? Apparently if someone mentions the mechanics at your table they should be prepared to be insulted and belittled because that's not what you like. Did it ever occur to you that the person plays because he loves the math of the game? Or that his character concept might be based around being the strongest person at the table, which is hard to do if you're a Halfing?

Heck, in a Paragon one shot we did I made an Eladrin Spear Fighter with an 18 starting STR and another guy made a Minotaur melee Ranger/Fighter. I actually made fun of him (in character) because the puny little Eladrin was stronger than the big, bad Minotaur. It was something that was funny at the table, and it came out of *gasp* a mechanical score. I suppose if I would've mentioned that you would've called me immature? How is that any way to run a collaborative game like D&D?

 

[Celebrim]

Nope, because, if I'm going to play OD&D, I've already bought into that game with the understanding of the limitations of that game.

I don't see your point. You set down at a table and agree to let me be dungeon master, then you are buying into the game with whatever limitations I set. Likewise, if I set down at your table, I'm extending you the same courtesy. I'm not going to be going, "OMG. You don't like elves!!?? You are the worst dungeon master ever. Why don't you want elves in your campaign world!" I'm not going to even ask you to explain yourself. You don't have to explain yourself.

IF, however, you said "NO ELVES" in the OD&D game, when the only reason is you happen to have a rabid hatred of all things Tolkien, then I would say that that is not a good enough reason.

Which, to me, makes you a problem player. It's the guy who sits down, agrees to let someone be the game master, but is all the time questioning, attacking, and trying to undermine the authority of the guy running the game. I hate DMing players like that. I hate playing alongside players like that, because they invariably end up wasting my time arguing with the DM, rules lawyering the DM, whining, metagaming, and generally acting like spoiled children because they aren't getting their way. Meanwhile I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs waiting for them to get over there childish need to antagonize and compete with the DM, so I can take my turn. It's a waste of everyone's time, and the only time I ever put up with it is when the person is my friend IRL. But its always a joy when that guy doesn't show up that week, even if we'd never tell him that.

Similarly, "I don't like halflings" is not a good enough reason.

Why? Who gets to decide what a good enough reason is? Does the DM have to validate and justify all of his decisions before he gets to make them?

No other player at the table gets to say that.

No, they don't. Because if everyone gets to make those decisions, bedlam and arguments erupt because no one can agree on anything.

The only, single solitary reason you get to say this is because you're sitting in the big chair.

Amen. It's certainly not because I'm better than anyone else at the table. You want a turn in the big chair, you're welcome to it.

If you were another player, you certainly could not tell me not to play a halfling.

No, I certainly couldn't.

Why does wearing the big hat allow you to ram your preferences down my throat?

Because someone has to decide, and its natural to give that authority to the same person whose duty and responcibility it is to make stuff up. Authority has to match responcibility, in games as in life. You can't give the responcibility to the DM and the authority to the players, or the authority to the DM and the responcibility to the players because it would suck.

And that's a different thing as well. You removed orcs, not because you particularly didn't like orcs, but because for the feel of your game, you didn't want to water down things...I can live with that.

That's just your preference. You agree. That's all you are saying. Sometimes you are saying, "I agree and therefore you are a good DM." and sometimes you are saying, "I disagree and therefore you are a bad DM.". But how you decide what a good enough reason is, is entirely arbitrary and subjective.

99.9% of the time, we're going to agree Celebrim. That's the point you seem to be missing. I'm saying, that when all other considerations are off the table, the DM should allow player choices when his single problem is a personal hang up.

In your speak, 'personal hang up' simply means 'preference I don't agree with'. And this is exactly why players don't get to decide, because as soon as they think that them being a player gives them the right to decide, you've got a player that thinks the have the right to quarrel with every decision of the DM - first they appeal to the 'official rules', then they appeal to 'common sense', then they want to put it up for a vote, then they want a coin flip, then they cry or throw a temper tantrum or start shouting at the DM. And that's what they call 'consensus'.

Your orc example is certainly close to what I'm saying. I'll grant you that.

Progress.

However, the common wisdom is that a DM's power is absolute here. That no matter what the reason is, no matter how petty the reason might be, the DM has the absolute right to veto any and all player choices during character creation.

Indeed. He has the right. He might not always be wise to excercise such a heavy hand, but he absolutely has the right. However, none of your examples even remotely come close to being heavy handed DMing. There is nothing tyranical about 'no elves'.

You know as well as I do that parachuting D&D elves into Cthulu would be genre breaking. I note that you changed your tune when you expanded your answer. Suddenly it wasn't just elves, but it was Cthulu based fairies that fit within the genre.

Elves. Clearly you have a very narrow conception of 'elf'. I advise you to read some Terry Pratchett if you think I'd be breaking the Lovecraftian genera by bringing elves into it.

Likewise, are you seriously telling me that if we signed up for a Spycraft game, and out of the blue, without any prior hint, vampires showed up, you'd have no problem?

No, I wouldn't have a problem. I'd be perfectly cool with it. In and out of character I'd be probably going, "OMG, we're screwed!", but if it came as a surprise - and especially if it came as a suprise - it would be alot of fun. It would be like playing James Bond and then "OMG!" discovering the Illuminati is real and suddenly we are in 'Her Majesty's Majestic 12 Program'. Totally cool, precisely because it would imply a campaign with actual campaign secrets rather than one where I already knew everything that was going on because I've read the sourcebook. Campaign level secrets, the sort that are too cool to actually write down in any official material because the joy is discovering them in actual play, are the bomb in RPing. Module level secrets, when the story has a twist and you don't know it (because the DM is in charge and gets to decide), are great, but campaign level secrets (for the last 10 sessions your boss has been a werewolf, and you didn't even know you were playing in a world that had werewolves, and then you suddenly put two and two together which you would have done 6 sessions ago if you were in a typical fantasy world) are just about the most fun moments you can have at a gaming table.

You'd roll with it and be perfectly cool with it? That if the DM suddenly allowed Bob at the table to play a Vampire you'd have no issues?

I can't answer that question. I don't know Bob.

Or take it another way, what if the DM suddenly decides that you cannot be British in the Spycraft game because he hates the British? Or black?

Yep. No elves. Badwrongfun. Guy must be a nasty racist. He probably tortures small furry animals in his backyard too.

Again, you are reduced to saying, "But what if you don't like the DM's preferences. What if you think they are bad preferences? Don't you have the authority to overturn the DM's preferences if you don't think he has good enough reasons for them?"

No I don't. If the guy hates blacks and Brits, we might have an OOC away from the game problem, but that's an entirely different issue than the game master saying, "All spies must be American." or some such.

Where does it stop?

About where I get up from the table.

 

[Celebrim]

Asking for a houserule is not the same as saying "Hey, can I use something from the official source book?" One is asking for something extra, the other is asking for something that's assumed to be there...until a DM takes it away.

That's right. He's just taking your fun away. MUHAHAHA. There is nothing DM's like more than taking away your toys, which is why you have to fight so hard for them, right?

What's your point?

Only that official rules take no precedence over unoffical ones.

Honestly, who cares what he said. Gygax is dead, and that book came out over 30 years ago. I'm sorry if I sound harsh about that...

No you aren't, or you wouldn't have said it.

If you want to play the game where the DM had all the power and no one could see all his little rules or his little "gotcha" powers or the clear favoritism for anything "magic" and disdain for the other "boring" options like Fighter, then play 1e.

Far and away the most powerful character I ever saw in 1e was a fighter. Seriously, did you even play 1e? Paladins and Rangers were right up there with them.

There's a reason the game changed, and that's because those games were often not as fun for the player as they were for the DM.

They weren't? Man, I had tons of badwrongfun then.

I'm saying just what I said. Find me the rule that explains how to make a half-warforged, half-dragon. If it's not in the official set of rules,

There you go getting hung up on 'official then'. I believe that's called 'rules lawyering'. What you are really saying is, "Having official rules is a weapon I can use against the DM."

then you're asking for something that's outside of the normal bounds of the system. It's not the same asking for the thing detailed on page 11.

It's absolutely the same. And, as I said, I have no problem with a player approaching me for something outside the normal bounds of the system, just as long as they are understanding if I decide to say 'No', or 'How about we go in a different direction instead?', which is just a politer form of, 'No'.

"I don't like it" is not a valid reason, it's a statement of a preference. It's saying "This is what I want, and I don't care what you want", not "This is what I'm trying create and here's why".

"This is what I'm trying to create and here's why", is also a statement of preference. "This is what I prefer to create." Reasons like, "I don't like elves.", "Elves are overdone.", "I wanted to be different.", and "Geez, Tolkien is so lame, give me Moorcock.", are all fundamentally the same reasoning. Some are just more tactful or subtle handwaving of what is always and inescapablely a personal preference than others.

Here's the difference, and you illustrate the point exactly. For the first DM, and for you, it's all about them.

And for the player in all of your examples, its all about them? So what. It's the DM's world. You don't like it, make your own.

You don't like mechanical benefits, so if a player wants to play a race because of a mechanical benefit, that's bad and you call them immature and say it would harden your position.

Indeed. Because the player is subtly or not so subtly informing me of his antagonistic stance. If he wanted to play a race with a particular flavor out of a desire to bring to life some character, as a DM I'd be tempted because the player is offering to entertain me. As a DM, nothing is better than having players who are so good at RPing that sometimes you can just lean back and enjoy the show. But the player who is fighting over the definition of my campaign world in order to get a +1 bonus to damage is promising to be a headache, because it almost certainly won't be the last time that they struggle to take control of my side of the screen in order to gain some advantage.

I mean, are you listening to yourself?

Yes, absolutely. I'm being exactly the sort of player, or trying to be, that I like having at my table. Focused on bringing a character to life and making choices for that character, and not focused on how I can beat the DM or get the DM to make choices that I think that he should. That's cooperation.

Apparently if someone mentions the mechanics at your table they should be prepared to be insulted and belittled because that's not what you like.

If someone came to me and demanded that they be allowed to play Dragonborn because they could get a +1 advantage relative to some other choice, I'd take this roughly the same way that I'd take someone wanting to know if they could play a Vampire or a Werewolf. Clearly, there head is in the wrong place. It has nothing to do with mentioning mechanics in themselves.

Did it ever occur to you that the person plays because he loves the math of the game? Or that his character concept might be based around being the strongest person at the table, which is hard to do if you're a Halfing?

It occurs to me. It's just that I'm not sure that either person sounds particularly entertaining.

Heck, in a Paragon one shot we did I made an Eladrin Spear Fighter with an 18 starting STR and another guy made a Minotaur melee Ranger/Fighter.

How is that any way to run a collaborative game like D&D?

It's a cooperative game. It's not a collaborative game. It can be. I've seen co-DM's before, and I've been asked as a player to collaborate with the DM in creating rules or setting information. But normally, one person is responcible for the setting, and ultimately one person is always responcible for the setting. I could only collaborate with the DM with his blessing. I could say, "You have to put this stuff into your game."

 

[Doctor Proctor]

Elves. Clearly you have a very narrow conception of 'elf'. I advise you to read some Terry Pratchett if you think I'd be breaking the Lovecraftian genera by bringing elves into it.

Sorry, I just gotta comment on that one. I own pretty much everything Lovecraft has ever published. I even spent like $75 to get a limited edition (like 1 or 1,000, or 2,000, I foget) copy of Winter Wish. I've read both the Annoted Lovecraft books by ST Joshi, as well as his Annoted Supernatural Horror in literature.

In all of that stuff, which takes up a very large shelf in my house, I have yet to see something referencing an "elf". Yes, there may have some things that might sound a little like that in the Dream Cycle stories, but there was never a D&D/Tolkien Elf that I can recall anywhere in there. So yes, it would be genre breaking.

Oh, and as for reading Pratchett? WTF? The dude was born a decade after Lovecraft died. What does anything he has to say have to do with what's "Lovecraftian"?

Edit: I should say, I only recently got A Winter Wish. So, I apologize if there is a reference in one of those stories, since I haven't gotten around to reading them yet. However, that's also one of his lesser known works, and it's not the stuff that the Call of Cthulu game is based on.

 

[Greg K]

I mean, are you listening to yourself?

Are you listening to yourself? You act as if you have some inalienable right to any particular item , because it is in the book let alone "to participate in a given DM's game (and by theirs I mean in terms of the person running) or to have your individual playstyle catered to.

If you don't like the parameters whether campaign elements or playstyle (e.g, degree of emphassis on powergaming, butt kicking, exploration, etc. ), you have the door. I know that in my group there would be seven other players (eight including the DM) telling you to sit down and play the game within the set parameters. If you can't do this, they will gladly help you find the door and tell you not to let the door hit you on your way out so we can have our fun.