D&D General Should D&D Rethink The "3-Core" Model?

[Corinnguard]

It's fear (or perhaps better put, concern) that new species will usurp the place and-or role of traditional species.

This is what the designers at WoTC during the 3e era were worried about. They made some of their more playable monsters too appealing for some to resist.

 

[CreamCloud0]

The best definition of evil I’ve ever come across is:

“Evil, I think, is the Absence of Empathy.” —Capt. Gustave Gilbert

Captain Gilbert is famous for being the psychologist who studied the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials.

Accepting this as the definition of evil means accepting evil makes someone a psychopath by definition.

i don't believe 'evil' as an alignment uses the common definition, much like how 'chaotic' doesn't just mean you character is 'LOL random WaCkY-InSaNe!'

IMO
-being good is being willing to put yourself out for others, prioritizing their needs, desires and wellbeing before your own (typically without intention of recompense when performing the acts).
-being lawful is believing that putting a structure of rules or principles before your own personal desires is the way to make things work.
-being chaotic is believing that the liberty of personal action and desires over rules or principles is the way to make things work.
-being evil is valuing and prioritizing your own (and usually also the people you personally care about) needs, desires and wellbeing over others to the extent that you would take or exploit others needs and wellbeing to content yourself.

by my definition being 'evil' by itself is not the only motivation needed to go around inflict random torture upon unsuspecting NPCs.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

It's your wife, so fair enough: you pretty much have to go along with it. From a neutral perspective, however, that's even worse than a DM restriction: it's a player taking away the agency of other players over how they are allowed to play.

Except he explicitly said he doesn't enjoy running games with evil PCs. So it's a restriction that both the DM and at least one of the players want. That seems more like a case where the two who's hard limits coincide would play a game they both want and find other players who fit it. I've found that in practice, it's not exactly hard to find players in the zone between 'have a no evil PCs' preference to 'don't care if there are evil PCs or not' to 'would like evil PCs, but not the sort of evil PCs played by people who'd argue to change the rule against the DM and at least one other player's preference', so I wouldn't expect a lot of difficulty.

Round here that would be an instant argument - and one, I have to admit, that I've seen happen once or twice - most likely ending with the demanding player either retracting the demand or hitting the road.

So if a player and a DM both agree that they don't enjoy a game with evil PCs, you'd expect the other players in the game to instantly start an argument, and you'd expect it to end with the player retracting the demand or leaving the game, even though it's also the DM's preference?

 

[Marandahir]

MM should be in the DM's Guide, and any player-facing equipment (such as magic items other than artifacts, as well as beasts that serve as templates for wild shape, animal companion, and find familiar) should be in the Player's Handbook. There are two roles in this game, it doesn't make sense to split them into 3 books.

 

[Lanefan]

Except he explicitly said he doesn't enjoy running games with evil PCs. So it's a restriction that both the DM and at least one of the players want. That seems more like a case where the two who's hard limits coincide would play a game they both want and find other players who fit it. I've found that in practice, it's not exactly hard to find players in the zone between 'have a no evil PCs' preference to 'don't care if there are evil PCs or not' to 'would like evil PCs, but not the sort of evil PCs played by people who'd argue to change the rule against the DM and at least one other player's preference', so I wouldn't expect a lot of difficulty.

Not knowing the influences that led to how things got to where they are in the specific example, I can't really comment further.

In general, if the DM has preferences then in theory s/he'll recruit players who in general go along with those preferences. That said, I believe it's the DM's role to design-curate-determine the setting and what it in it, and then to neutrally stand back, leave it to the players to play their characters in that setting however they so desire, and have the setting react in somewhat-reasonable ways to (i.e. introduce consequences for) what the characters do.

So if a player and a DM both agree that they don't enjoy a game with evil PCs, you'd expect the other players in the game to instantly start an argument, and you'd expect it to end with the player retracting the demand or leaving the game, even though it's also the DM's preference?

That was referring to when just a single player tries to dictate the terms of play, either overtly through out-of-character demands or covertly by playing a PC who will only accept certain others as adventuring companions and reject, run off, or even attack the rest.

 

[Lanefan]

MM should be in the DM's Guide, and any player-facing equipment (such as magic items other than artifacts, as well as beasts that serve as templates for wild shape, animal companion, and find familiar) should be in the Player's Handbook. There are two roles in this game, it doesn't make sense to split them into 3 books.

The debate there is whether or not magic items count as player-facing equipment. I say they do not.

Putting the beasts etc. in the PH is just duplicating page count, as the DM also needs that info in order to run those creatures as opponents if-when desired and probably doesn't want to have to access two books when one will do.

 

[Remathilis]

Ah yes, the evil maniacal DM lording their power over hapless players chained to the table, forced to enjoy their game.

You gotta wonder where all those Nightmare DM stories I read in Dragon Mag came from...

 

[mamba]

You gotta wonder where all those Nightmare DM stories I read in Dragon Mag came from...

From nightmare players that distorted things? Also, how long ago was that? If you have nothing from the past 10 years then it sounds like it is time to let it go

 

[Dessert Nomad]

Not knowing the influences that led to how things got to where they are in the specific example, I can't really comment further.

In general, if the DM has preferences then in theory s/he'll recruit players who in general go along with those preferences. That said, I believe it's the DM's role to design-curate-determine the setting and what it in it, and then to neutrally stand back, leave it to the players to play their characters in that setting however they so desire, and have the setting react in somewhat-reasonable ways to (i.e. introduce consequences for) what the characters do.

Yeah, hard disagree. My primary goal in running a game is to have fun, so I absolutely will only run games that are fun for me to run, and there's a lot of stuff I absolutely will not stand neutrally back and let players do. While I don't generally use alignment and don't say 'no evil PCs' if I do, I'm not interested in running a game where PCs run around terrorizing the countryside by slaughtering and robbing innocent people who can't really fight back and killing or running off from whoever shows up to stop them. I'm not going to 'introduce consequences' by narrating villagers being killed and rendered destitute, then having local nobles send guards or other adventurer's after them, I'm just going to say 'this ain't the game I want to run' and bail. (More likely I'd talk about this in the ad or session 0, but I wouldn't feel any obligation to hang around if it wasn't discussed for whatever reason).

And there are a lot of possible player actions that I've seen come up in games before that I'm not willing to run or play in a game with. It's not my role to neutrally stand back if it's not something I want to experience in fiction.

That was referring to when just a single player tries to dictate the terms of play, either overtly through out-of-character demands or covertly by playing a PC who will only accept certain others as adventuring companions and reject, run off, or even attack the rest.

Wait, I thought you leave it to the players to play their characters and that the DM's role is just to determine in-game consequences? From this, it sounds like if a player decides to play their character you call it covertly dictating the terms of play and are fine with an out of game argument. I don't see how you square the two philosophies, a player having their PC take their actions should not involve any sort of out of game argument according to the 'neutrally stand back' idea.

 

[AlViking]

It's your wife, so fair enough: you pretty much have to go along with it. From a neutral perspective, however, that's even worse than a DM restriction: it's a player taking away the agency of other players over how they are allowed to play.

Round here that would be an instant argument - and one, I have to admit, that I've seen happen once or twice - most likely ending with the demanding player either retracting the demand or hitting the road.

I will never claim to be the right DM for everyone. I've never been a big fan of anti-heroes. So no Sopranos or Breaking Bad for me.

I want to run campaigns for the good guys. It also doesn't really have anything to do with alignment - I don't care what alignment the PCs are. But get off on murdering innocents, torture, other evil acts? Time to make a new character or find a different DM.

I let people know when I invite them to the game, it's never really been an issue.