NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9710745" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Consider: You have a world where there have never been any dragonborn (or tieflings, or firbolgs, or whatever "non-Tolkien but widely-played race" option you'd prefer I used), though there are dragons and things like dragon-blooded sorcerers. You--for the sake of this argument--don't have any strong feelings one way or the other about dragonborn, but you know that they have never previously been mentioned within the world you run. You have just had a vacancy open up at your table, because a long-time player is moving away (as I know you basically only play in-person). A prospective new player has been recommended to you by a friend. They're generally a good fit (their overall system preferences are similar to yours, your friend has never had an issue with them, they're willing to work with their GMs to come to mutually-satisfying results, etc.)--but they'd really, really like to play a dragonborn, or at least something reasonably approximating one.If you run a homebrew world where it is simply, flatly not possible to ever include any mechanical nor aesthetic novelties--where it is simply not possible for new interests to get integreated into that world--then you have cut off a meaningful part of player agency. It is not player-as-character agency, but it is still player agency nonetheless.If, instead, you run a homebrew world where there is always the external terra incognita, then you can collaborate with this new player to find a result which doesn't do anything you have a problem with, but does achieve the few minimum things they're seeking. Perhaps you don't think it makes sense for there to be a true "species" of dragon-like humanoids in this world, but you're okay with a one-off. Or, if there are dragonborn, since they've never been heard of, you want them to be from somewhere far away--so perhaps the character's parents crash-landed in a ship from across the sea, dying only just after begging the character's adoptive parents to look after their child. Or maybe you're fine with the mechanical features, it's the aesthetic ones, so something that doesn't physically look dragon-like would be fine. Or...etc., etc., etc.Point being, by having the freedom to dip into the "beyond the horizon" unknowns, you can support the player's agency in playing what most excites their sincere, genuine enthusiasm.As always, "genuine enthusiasm", as I use the phrase, excludes grubby-hands power-gaming nonsense, among other sorts of things. Someone who just wants to powergame no matter what consequences it might have isn't being a reasonable participant. I'm talking about the things that fire a player's imagination and make them excited to learn what happens next.I don't understand why. This is one of the most powerful, and most useful, applications of this concept. Why is it so offensive to you to take time to consider what a player feels excited to play? To investigate how their enthusiasm can be supported, rather than rejected?</blockquote>

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