D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[TwoSix]

Do you think you should be allowed as a player to make significant changes to previously established world lore (established by the GM's worldbuilding efforts) so that your personal character concept can exist exactly as you envision it? Can you explain further what you mean by, "a character that's my idea, not the GM's idea"?

1) Noticeable changes, maybe not to the extent of significant changes. Modifying a dwarf clan in the way I mentioned in earlier posts is something I would expect to be greenlighted, working under the assumption that the clan is not front-and-center at the start of the game.

Maybe I make up an idea that my wizard chartacter apprenticed under a wizard that's part of the ruling council of the 3rd largest city in a neighboring nation. Maybe before the city was ruled by a duke, but instead it's now run by an oligarchial council of merchants. Minor setting trivia that isn't planned to be explored in the game.

2) What I mean is I don't like settings where every character and character concept has a place. All the rangers are part of an order of rangers that protect the northern borders. All the wizards are members of the wizard order of the High Tower. All the elves live in a forest enclave to the south. Etc.

I like settings like Eberron, where I can make a cleric that's a classic healer-priest of the Sovereign Host, or an ex-soldier who gets power from the belief of his fellow villagers, or is a warforged with a Siberys dragonshard embedded in his chest. The settings gives the players pieces, and it's up to them to make a concept around those pieces.

 

[Emerikol]

I like settings like Eberron, where I can make a cleric that's a classic healer-priest of the Sovereign Host, or an ex-soldier who gets power from the belief of his fellow villagers, or is a warforged with a Siberys dragonshard embedded in his chest. The settings gives the players pieces, and it's up to them to make a concept around those pieces.

I do like a lot of variety myself but variety doesn't always mean everything. It would have to be very thematic to my game to go away from that idea.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

2) What I mean is I don't like settings where every character and character concept has a place. All the rangers are part of an order of rangers that protect the northern borders. All the wizards are members of the wizard order of the High Tower. All the elves live in a forest enclave to the south. Etc.

Exact opposite for me. Now there of course can be many enclaves of elves and couple of different wizard orders etc, but I ultimately want everything to have place in the setting. I don't want species and classes to be just mechanical splats that do not diegetically mean anything. I want the mechanics to be tied to the fiction, and I want the character build choices to inform us about the character's place in the world. There was a lot of talk about the "Issekai effect" earlier, and doing it this way helps to prevent that. And ultimately I feel that the most important purpose of mechanics is to represent the fiction. If they're not doing that I have no use for them.

 

[clearstream]

In this context it would be external to the player. So DM or System produced. For some meanings of diegetic that might count. I don't think diegetic is doing a great job of communicating this concept since film uses it to talk about things that would be the equivalent of outside the fiction elements of the experience. Approaching from that perspective clouds what we might otherwise mean by diegetic. So I want to avoid that term.

I've been thinking in terms of "separate" from player-character. That can include GM and system, but also other players, references, separated cognitive processes...

 

[bloodtide]

The specific fact that we CAN reimagine things into whatever form we like, unbound by the restrictions laid down by those who came before us, is an essential part of TTRPGing. Obviously, we do not have to. But the fact that we can is of central importance. It can't just be brushed off as an uninteresting trusim. It's key.

Except for the part that it does get pointless. Sure you can call anything and everything an "elf". But what go does that do?

Whether or not others accept it is a different story, of course. But if it really is the case that "the GM is reality", then whatever the GM says, is true. "Elf" does not have to be a fairly specific thing. It's whatever the GM says it is.

True. Most DM stick with the tropes. They don't make two headed reptile people and say "they are elves".

Notice how you ignored the extremely important argument based on the thing that an actual real-life author did. He actually did do the thing you're claiming we can't do--and, in specific, the thing that MADE "elf" mean what you now say it must ALWAYS mean.

Well, I would say that just like that author go write your own book and you can make anything anything. That does not work in a shared social RPG though....

That is the nature of fiction--and is essential to the nature of tabletop roleplaying. We make still by the law in which we're made.

It is great to make all sorts of variations of elves. Re-imagine them in to all sorts of elven related things. But when you get past a point, they are not "elvels" any more. Then you should just make a new race.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Exact opposite for me. Now there of course can be many enclaves of elves and couple of different wizard orders etc, but I ultimately want everything to have place in the setting. I don't want species and classes to be just mechanical splats that do not diegetically mean anything. I want the mechanics to be tied to the fiction, and I want the character build choices to inform us about the character's place in the world. There was a lot of talk about the "Issekai effect" earlier, and doing it this way helps to prevent that. And ultimately I feel that the most important purpose of mechanics is to represent the fiction. If they're not doing that I have no use for them.

In my view, the setting existed before the PC did, just like the world exists before we do, and both ourselves and the PC are "born" into it. Thus, I more-or-less want the player to make a PC that has a place in that world. If they want to play someone who wants to make a place for themselves in the world, great! Do that in play please, not before.

 

[FrogReaver]

I've been thinking in terms of "separate" from player-character. That can include GM and system, but also other players, references, separated cognitive processes...

The player is separate from the player character though and the player is one thing I intend to be included.

I’m open to other players. I’m not sure what references and separated cognitive processes are?

 

[clearstream]

The player is separate from the player character though and the player is one thing I intend to be included.

That may be answered by clarifying that I mean "player-character" and not simply "character". That is, the player in the mode of inhabiting and acting within the world.

I do not think player alone should be excluded, because folk have testified to being able to sustain a separation between or avoid dwelling upon authorship.

I’m open to other players. I’m not sure what references and separated cognitive processes are?

Say I open one of the books of Earthsea and based on what I read there, establish what happens. Is there a fountain in the courtyard in the school on Roke? I answer that by looking at the first book of Earthsea and seeing that there is.

There's a separation some folk are able to achieve, between authoring and audiencing, which I assume to be at the level of cognitive processes. I'd recommend playing Ironsworn to get a sense of this.

 

[TwoSix]

Exact opposite for me. Now there of course can be many enclaves of elves and couple of different wizard orders etc, but I ultimately want everything to have place in the setting. I don't want species and classes to be just mechanical splats that do not diegetically mean anything. I want the mechanics to be tied to the fiction, and I want the character build choices to inform us about the character's place in the world. There was a lot of talk about the "Issekai effect" earlier, and doing it this way helps to prevent that. And ultimately I feel that the most important purpose of mechanics is to represent the fiction. If they're not doing that I have no use for them.

Obviously, you should play however you want, and I'm glad you and your group have fun with your game. I would just have trouble playing in a setting with classes that function like that; it's too much of a violation of my sense of verisimilitude.

But if that doesn't bother you guys, that's great.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Obviously, you should play however you want, and I'm glad you and your group have fun with your game. I would just have trouble playing in a setting with classes that function like that; it's too much of a violation of my sense of verisimilitude.

But if that doesn't bother you guys, that's great.

To me it is far more verisimilitudious that way. D&D classes are weirdly specific packages of capabilities. To me that makes more sense if there is some metaphysical or cultural reason for this. Like why do all wizards cast spells in the same way? Because they're part of the same arcane tradition based on same metaphysics. Why do all Four Elements monks fight in the same way? Because they're practitioners of the same martial arts school. Etc etc. You don't need to be super specific wit this, and with non-magical classes it certainly is a bit looser, but the general principle applies.