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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 3652559" data-attributes="member: 1465">Hi all, and thanks for posting. First of all, SORRY to have caused some troubled discussion here... I want you to know that this was not really a big issue in our game! We had like 10 minutes of argument, but then the player accepted the situation without bad feelings. But after the session I recalled the "accident", and in a whiplash of mild irritation I posted this rant  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> I didn't actually want to rant about this specific case, 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 (NOT to start a much bigger flame war, but availability of magic equipment and easiness to sell it too is a much worse example of a staple that whenever I try to change I find strong resistance).There is undoubtedly some responsibility of my own for this kind of accidents... The problem is indeed 50% player and 50% DM, and 0% game's fault. Of course I make assumptions too when running the game. In this case I remembered several things (but certainly not with strong confidence) about Shar, and decided on the spot that temples would be rare and secretive. That's an assumption too, but I feel that there is a fundamental difference between a player's assumption and a DM's assumption. Anyway, since you want to know more about the specific case:- The setting is not Forgotten Realms. I just use the pantheon because it's my favourite. I've made it clear to anyone that we're not FR! Exactly because I have a few books only (which I certainly haven't learned by memory), and I'm not able to run a perfect replica of the setting. I don't want to run a specific setting knowing that a fan of the setting easily knows 50 times more than me (it would probably spoil his own fun to play in a butchered setting). Plus, there's adventures and other books non-FR which I use all the time... So officially we just play a custom setting that uses published stuff from many settings. I do try to use the FR pantheon the closest I can to the original, just to take advantage of F&P and spare myself from more work, but I can't always follow the letter.- The player in question joined the game quite recently. He knows the setting is custom, and we all told him many things about what's going on. Anyway, the other players have "learned" the setting by playing in it... and me too!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> 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.- He is not a cleric, just a generic follower. We don't even require PCs to have one and only patron deity (like in FR). Some of them (player's choice) have one deity written on their char sheet, some have none, and some have more than one, just because their PCs happen to worship more in different occasions. Doesn't mean they have an in-game advantage from that. To be honest I didn't explain this to him, I think it just didn't come up during character creation.- I indeed noticed that he wrote Shar on the character sheet when making the character. The PC is neutral and we briefly talked that the choice was fine as long as PC conflict doesn't disrupt the game. Actually I remember I even made a couple of suggestions about how to make it work: he could be a delusional-type hero, pessimist or nihilist that revers Shar only becaused disillusioned by the strength of good ("evil will win in the end  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /> "), without necessarily be evil or hurting others; or he could be just a juvenile mind with fascination for dark stuff (someone who likes "pretending to be evil", as long as it is really only about the image - think Alice Cooper  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> ). So far he hasn't actually roleplayed anything really about his worship choice (as other PCs also, their choice remained a sentence written in their char sheet but didn't have in-game repercussions).- The player just spoke out the idea that while doing preparations for a long trip he wanted to visit the nearest temple of Shar, in hope for some interesting items or discounted potions. My own idea is he was just trying to think something useful to do during downtime, was browsing his char sheets, read "Shar" and thought "hey I have'nt used this character feature yet"  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> . Perhaps I was too fast to react, and I made up on the spot that the cult of Shar doesn't really have temples in the most common sense of the word (an organized group of clerics & other people running a building with worship facilities etc.). At that moment I pictured a religion made of individuals, and I said such thing, like I was a denizen of our setting answering someone's question "where can I find a temple of Shar?". Of course I didn't mean to completely rule out the existance of such temples, but I was rather establishing a starting point for the campaign.So I guess the problem is this... Yes, I may be a lame DM because I make things up on the spot like that. But the player was assuming things that really isn't his responsibility to design... It would have been different if for instance he had mentioned in his background that he took part in Shar-ite gatherings, or that he has lived in a Shar temple or anything like that: in that case, I would have either (a) assume myself that such things are possible in our setting, practically adapting the setting to him or (b) told him that I had different plans for the setting and ask him to adapt to it. But because nothing was agreed beforehand, during game I am not so keen in letting the players decide...In the short argument we had a table, the slightly irritating thing was that his reaction was to cover his assumption with another: "oh come on, it's a major deity, it must have hundreds of followers and temples everywhere...". He didn't say it but perhaps he was also assuming that it must have high-level clerics somewhere, otherwise it's not "major"  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/paranoid.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":uhoh:" title="Paranoid    :uhoh:" data-shortname=":uhoh:" /> And it must have (anti)paladins, every religion has paladins! And they must make magic items and potions, every cleric can so every cleric does!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> 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, and then having to struggle to make players accept that things don't have to be always the same in every single campaign...  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/paranoid.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":uhoh:" title="Paranoid    :uhoh:" data-shortname=":uhoh:" /></blockquote>

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