Rant: Why must thing always be obvious in D&D?

[Celebrim]

Hi all, and thanks for posting. First of all, SORRY to have caused some troubled discussion here...

Actually, it's the most interesting thread in weeks.

...but similar precedents came to my mind about how players assume that certain things "just have to be" and complain if your setting doesn't follow the staples of the majority

I had a player get upset to the point of shouting because a demihuman tribe had been constructed in a way that clearly wasn't according to number appearing in the 1st edition MM and worse yet many of the demihumans had ability scores and class levels and monsters weren't supposed to have ability scores and class levels. I wasn't doing it 'the way it was supposed to be done'. Believe me, I've encountered your problem before, and that sort of thing is the tip of the iceberg.

That's an assumption too, but I feel that there is a fundamental difference between a player's assumption and a DM's assumption.

Indeed.

So I thought he didn't need a full explanation of every single issue beforehand, and in fact I think he's ultimately fine with discovering things gradually.

With most experienced players playing in a homebrew, they are going to be perfectly fine with not learning about details of history, cosmology, or culture until it comes up in game - even if thier character would have known about these details along. They'll recognize you can't create everything ahead of time, and even if you could the purpose of meeting is to play - not listen to you lecture on the history of your homebrew for hours at a time. You exposition has to be paced so as to not drag the game down.

That isn't to say you shouldn't have these details, but they should enhance RP not detract from it.

So I guess the problem is this... Yes, I may be a lame DM because I make things up on the spot like that.

On the whole, I think you did fine. You had a new player who wasn't adjusted to your play style and evidently needs to feel a little more 'in control' than your other players. You couldn't have known that at character creation time (dealing with a player's 'special needs' is an art). You probably could have avoided this with about five minutes of discussion on how a worshipper of Shar behaved at character creation time, but like I said, you need to get into play as quickly as possible. If I had to criticize, its that you didn't go with your (IMO correct) gut assumption about Sharite temples be rare and secret, and quickly explain to the player how Sharite worshippers find each other (for example, perhaps they place ashes on thier hands and then have secret phrases that they use to introduce themselves to other followers, who then could direct the character to meet in a sacred grove at midnight of the new moon to be introduced to the local cult...). That would have quickly ended the argument because the player would then realize you weren't just saying 'no', or trying to (in his mind unfairly) take things away from his character.

But the player was assuming things that really isn't his responsibility to design...

Yes, exactly. However, it is your responcibility to design them so if you say, "Ok, there is this major religion that is a secretive cult.", you then have to create a secretive cult. Not that that is hard to do, unless you are under pressure from a emotional and unreasonable player.

So here I am, trying to suggest nice not-obvious (to me at least...) ideas about how to be a non-evil follower of Shar that goes along well in a good-neutral party

In my own homebrew, truly good people are fairly rare (maybe 10-20% of the population), and most people are neutral. Most of the time, nuetral people will act alot like good people in that they don't actively seek to do evil. The only real difference is how they behave under stress. Under stress, nuetral people will commit evil acts if they percieve that there is a low cost to doing so. Also most people worship many gods (they are polythiests) and so most people will worship or propriate an evil god at least occassionally (again when they percieve a low cost for doing so). A nuetral character with a primary patron of an evil diety would be no more rare or wierd than a nuetral character with a primary patron of a good diety. And why should it be? Nuetral doesn't mean 'slightly less good than good'. It means something in the middle of good and evil.

In your playe's case, I suggest you explore reasons why Shar's portfolio would be particularly attractive to the character. Perhaps the character has a secret that he doesn't want uncovered - even if its only something like Shar being the patron of illegitimate children. Perhaps the character has lost something he believes belongs to him and desparately wants to recover some information that is hidden - even if its only the name of the six fingered man who slaughtered his father. There are plenty of reasons why a mostly decent person might be attracted to a diety with a portfolio of secrets without being attracted to the dieties larger theology. Remember, these are polythiests. They don't necessarily think they need to emulate a particular diety - often they are just bargaining with the diety.

Intra-party conflict isn't necessarily a bad thing if it can be kept in character and doesn't split the party. An interesting point of conflict for this character could be that what the character wants from the cult of Shar may be available for prices he's reluctant to pay, especially in the light of his friendship with the rest of the party.

and then having to struggle to make players accept that things don't have to be always the same in every single campaign...

Players just want to feel a certain level of control. Having everything safe and familiar is one of the ways that they think they can gain that control. Once they start having fun, and once they are sure you aren't going to play thier character for them or squash them solely for your own amusement, you shouldn't have problems.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That being said, I would have a problem if Shar was a commonly worshiped goddess and temples (shrines, worship sites) were so secretive that the worshipers can't find them when traveling.

I like the suggestion given earlier that Shar would have anonymous shrines -- probably in spots off the common path, but in the kinds of places places that worshippers would know to look -- that have no priests or anything, simply her symbol.

So a lay person could go there, pray, and move on. It wouldn't necessarily lead them to a temple -- although I imagine both the enemies of the faith and the actual clerics would keep one eye on it -- but it's entirely possible that one would run into another member of the faith and be able to get help from them. (Or, alternately, an undercover enemy of the faith, but that's what passwords and being able to quote scripture back and forth are for.)

 

[Mallus]

Pot, kettle.

I, too, will give up on discussing this with you.

I was referring to you stance toward your hypothetical players, not toward me. I admit, I've been a little too snarky in this thread. But I think I made a few good points..

I am really curious to hear how you answer my question about incentivizing what you yourself describe as 'bland' choices.

 

[Nifft]

Sidebar: I really like Eberron's take on "worship" of evil gods. People don't openly venerate them, but they do pay homage to ward off evil influences. This seems much more plausible, and it even shows how a PC or NPC could "specialize" in an evil god without tipping his hand too much.

"Certainly, good citizens! I'm an expert in the ways of Shar -- I'll be happy to remove Her curse from your town. The ritual is costly, though, and I'll need some ingredients to start... and it may be wise to repeat the ritual every year, to ward off future curses."

Because Divinity is basically a protection racket, right?

Cheers, -- N

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As readers of my Story Hour know, the Midwood campaign effectively -- and now explicitly -- has two major camps of characters. One group is heroic and noble and the other ... isn't. (We've argued about whether one of them in particular is actually evil.)

But for all of them, I laid out the campaign setting to them, via our wiki, and some of them picked gods or backgrounds that sort of surprised me. At that point -- and I know this is easier with the gentle pace of pbp -- I stepped back and tried to flesh out each of their choices for the game world, putting the new info into the wiki, so that we could all be on the same page. Some of this necessitated discussions back and forth in private messages. ("Could Estanna be one of the saints of Lothian's church?" "I'd rather not, actually, my character doesn't much like the Church of Lothian." "How about her being an old Prustan god that is sometimes said to be the inspiration for a made-up saint?" "That works.")

I think Shar, while a problematic choice, could be made to work even in a mainstream good-guy-centric FR game (which I see now this is not), but I'd probably want to have more extended discussion with the player about the choice, why they picked it and what they envision its effects to be.

Maybe it's just my players, but they LOVE subterfuge and secrecy, and having a religion they could participate in right under the other player characters' noses would appeal to pretty much all of them. And I'm such a dork, I'd probably have fun coming up with ciphers and codewords to use in the game. If the player realizes an NPC is testing to see if he's a member of the faith, great, if not, that'll be fun, too.

I do like to validate player choices, but I also don't want to let a player intentionally take something inherently rare or difficult and strip it of those qualities. In those cases, I'd steer them to another faith instead.

 

[Mallus]

f I had to criticize, its that you didn't go with your (IMO correct) gut assumption about Sharite temples be rare and secret, and quickly explain to the player how Sharite worshippers find each other (for example, perhaps they place ashes on thier hands and then have secret phrases that they use to introduce themselves to other followers, who then could direct the character to meet in a sacred grove at midnight of the new moon to be introduced to the local cult...). That would have quickly ended the argument because the player would then realize you weren't just saying 'no', or trying to (in his mind unfairly) take things away from his character.

That's great advice. It maintains setting verisimilitude, acknowledges the PC's premise, and then presents them with choices/hooks.

 

[Shadeydm]

I would never want my players to feign surprise everytime they encounter a kobold or orc or zombie for the first time.

I feel quite the opposite here as I would not want my players to all pull out a blunt weapon the first time they encounter Skeletons unless one of them at least make the appropriate knowledge check and informed the others on his or her turn to do the same.

IMHO. YMMV. YDMB. Yadda yadda yadda.

 

[Glyfair]

I feel quite the opposite here as I would not want my players to all pull out a blunt weapon the first time they encounter Skeletons unless one of them at least make the appropriate knowledge check and informed the others on his or her turn to do the same.

I think that's a bad example. It's pretty obvious on the face of it that a blunt weapon is better against skeletons than a slashing weapon, and clearly piercing weapons aren't the way to go. That attempt to clamp down on metagaming is taking commonsense out of the equation as well.

Now, pulling out exactly the right spells to kill a demi-lich, that's more the sort of megagaming I want to avoid.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I feel quite the opposite here as I would not want my players to all pull out a blunt weapon the first time they encounter Skeletons unless one of them at least make the appropriate knowledge check and informed the others on his or her turn to do the same.

IMHO. YMMV. YDMB. Yadda yadda yadda.

Not really the opposite as Numion was talking about players (who hopefully won't be pulling weapons of any variety on you just for using a boring monster ), and additionally talking about surprise (ie "What is this strange being?") not tactical level knowledge.

I have chastised players for demonstrating tactical level knowledge of a monster in character without investing in appropriate skills. (and allowed them to retcon skills if that was a role they wanted to have.) However, if I wanted them to roleplay shock or confusion at the mere existance of a monster, I would be running Call of Cthulhu, not D&D.

 

[Shadeydm]

Not really the opposite as Numion was talking about players (who hopefully won't be pulling weapons of any variety on you just for using a boring monster ), and additionally talking about surprise (ie "What is this strange being?") not tactical level knowledge.

I have chastised players for demonstrating tactical level knowledge of a monster in character without investing in appropriate skills. (and allowed them to retcon skills if that was a role they wanted to have.) However, if I wanted them to roleplay shock or confusion at the mere existance of a monster, I would be running Call of Cthulhu, not D&D.

I agree if this is all we are talking about is monsters which are inheriently common to the specific DMs game and limited only to their appearance.