Should the DM accommodate characters, or characters accommodate DMs?

[Beginning of the End]

"They" cannot choose anything. Because there is no "they". There is one guy with a mount and four other players who don't have this restriction. Sure, the mounted guy would LOVE to avoid any situation that would prevent him from using the mount, but, since he's in the very minority position in the group, his voice doesn't carry all that much weight.

Which brings us back to the "don't play with spoiled 5 year olds" maxim. Particularly illogical 5 year olds who can't figure out that they, personally, will benefit from choosing options which benefit EVERYBODY at the table (because they will have greater resources and power to bring to bear on the problem).

If you do nothing but dungeon crawls, then, hey no problem. Mounted knights aren't a problem for you. Me, my worlds tend to be a bit broader than that. To each his own.

You can't claim that mounted knights don't work in your campaigns because the majority of your adventures take place in a dungeon AND simultaneously claim that the majority of your adventures don't take place in a dungeon.

You can continue to ignore the rest of the group all you like, but, unless you do nothing but lone wolfing, or the group creates an entire party of mounted character concepts, you'll run into the situation where the mounted guy is not really "mounted guy" but, "Vanilla Fighter who happens to get to ride a horse once in a blue moon".

Uh huh. Okay, I'll bite: Name me a single novel-length work of fantasy in which one of the characters is ALWAYS mounted. Never, ever do they leave their horse. Not once. Not ever. They never do anything unless their ass is firmly planted on an equine back.

At this point you've gone from rather silly to outrageous. You're clearly very wedded to the idea that "characters with mounts don't worK", and you're willing to say the most ludicrous things in an effort to make that true.

Your claim that the only way a mounted character works is if they get to shine MORE than their fair share of the time is simply insane. It's like claiming that fighters aren't playable because sometimes the thief will be picking a lock.

 

[Hussar]

Wow, and the straw is flying fast and thick.

Uh huh. Okay, I'll bite: Name me a single novel-length work of fantasy in which one of the characters is ALWAYS mounted. Never, ever do they leave their horse. Not once. Not ever. They never do anything unless their ass is firmly planted on an equine back.

At this point you've gone from rather silly to outrageous. You're clearly very wedded to the idea that "characters with mounts don't worK", and you're willing to say the most ludicrous things in an effort to make that true.

Your claim that the only way a mounted character works is if they get to shine MORE than their fair share of the time is simply insane. It's like claiming that fighters aren't playable because sometimes the thief will be picking a lock.

Show me ONE TIME I said the player had to be mounted ALL the time. Once. One single time. What I did actually say, is that if the concept is that the character is a mounted knight, he should be mounted a majority of the time.

How is that silly or outrageous? That a mounted character should be on his horse 50+1% of the time? I'd even settle for 60% as a nice amount. Instead, I'm told that it's totally unreasonable to assume that a character concept will enter into play more than a minority of time.

Alright, I've had enough. Yes, it is ing unreasonable for any particular character concept to come up a majority of the time for any character who's in a party of more than one PC. That's what happens when you share the stage with other people. You expect to hog it no more than is equitable. Happy now? With what hyperbolic scenario will you respond this time?

Sorry, again, if you actually take the time to respond to what I'm saying and not what you think I'm saying, we could avoid this.

I am NOT SAYING the player should hog the spotlight. Not in the slightest. I guess, this being the Internet, I have to specifically define each and every point since understanding from context apparently eludes some people.

What I AM SAYING is that when a specific character takes some sort of action, (obviously not hogging the spotlight which is a totally different issue) that that action should reflect the character's concept a majority of the time.

Thus, if I'm playing an archer, I should be shooting arrows more than half the time in combat. If I'm playing a sneaky thief, I should be doing some scouting when scouting is called for. If I'm playing a wizard, I should be casting spells more than　50% of the time when it's called for.

Rel's solution does work rather nicely to be honest, but, only if the players are groovy with it. I think it can work, particularly for the scouting rogue concept - most people just want to do their schtick, the specifics of how they accomplish it aren't all that important. So, most reasonable players will be fine with not rolling a Hide or Move Silently or Stealth (or whatever you do in your system) every thirty feet and dragging the game down like that.

But, the rogue still gets to do his schtick, when it's called for, 100% of the time. Every time there is a situation where being a scout is called for, he's the go to guy and does his thing.

Our mounted knight, OTOH, only gets to fight on the back of his horse once in a while (apparently) in many campaigns, and he should just suck it up and not complain.

Other than Rel's solution, which I'm not sure it works so well if the player actually wants to fight from horseback, I've yet to see any solutions that don't boil down to "tough noogies - you picked a concept that is limited, live with it."

There is another option as well. Create your campaign for the PC's. Instead of creating the campaign first, you create the PC's first and then build the campaign to that. Thus, you ensure that there is ample terrain for the mounted guy to get his groove on.

Or, maybe that's too railroady. I dunno.

 

[The Shaman]

Create your campaign for the PC's. Instead of creating the campaign first, you create the PC's first and then build the campaign to that.

Okay, you've built your campaign to your player characters.

And two of those characters are killed.

Now what?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Wow, and the straw is flying fast and thick.

I'll agree with you that something is.

 

[Hussar]

Okay, you've built your campaign to your player characters.

And two of those characters are killed.

Now what?

Start a new campaign? Create new characters that fit into the existing campaign (which means limitations on new characters - not a bad thing)? Don't play campaigns with frequent death? Use Action Points to allow players to prevent character death? Turn over DMing to the next guy so I get to play?

Why does a campaign have to keep going?

I have zero problems with disposable, short campaigns. Then again, I tend not to play high combat games, or, if I do, I use mechanics which limit character death, so, this isn't a problem for me.

Then again, I was just tossing out an alternative solution. I'm certainly not wedded to it.

 

[Papa-DRB]

Depends on the DM and the Adventure Path. But if you're telling me that running the Adventure Path requires the players to make specific choices and cannot function unless the players make those specific choices...

Well, that's the definition of a railroad.

And if the Adventure Path isn't forcing those specific choices, then there's nothing incompatible between an Adventure Path and a mounted PC.

Your first sentence is the crux of our (potential) disagreement. If I tell all the players that the campaign / adventure path will be a sea borne pirate campaign, and if a player wants to run a mounted knight in the campaign, I would remind the player of the campaign premise, and let him know that 90+% of the time his mount would not be viable. However if the player can still have fun under those circumstances, I won't deny him playing that character.

However if the player tells me he can't have fun and that I must make accommodations in the campaign so he can play his mounted knight, well then he is trying to railroad me into a campaign that I do not want to run. At that point, he either creates a new character or excepts that he won't be having as much fun as usual, or he tells me to ask him to play when the next campaign starts. No hard feelings on my part regardless of his choice.

Anyway, to me this is a theoretical issue since my players and I trust each other and when I give them the adventure path premise they make characters that they enjoy playing within that premise, and we all have loads of fun. (*)

-- david
Papa.DRB

* Especially if Bob plays a spell caster since, even thought the man is genius level, he is the very model of an "absent minded professor".

 

[The Shaman]

Start a new campaign? Create new characters that fit into the existing campaign (which means limitations on new characters - not a bad thing)? Don't play campaigns with frequent death? Use Action Points to allow players to prevent character death? Turn over DMing to the next guy so I get to play?

Why does a campaign have to keep going?

I have zero problems with disposable, short campaigns. Then again, I tend not to play high combat games, or, if I do, I use mechanics which limit character death, so, this isn't a problem for me.

Then again, I was just tossing out an alternative solution. I'm certainly not wedded to it.

(Emphasis added.)

So let me make sure I understand this: a referee should build a campaign around what a player wants to play, but it's also okay to limit the players' choices with respect to characters to fit the existing campaign.

You were saying something about tossing straw around, Hussar?

 

[Simm]

So let me make sure I understand this: a referee should build a campaign around what a player wants to play, but it's also okay to limit the players' choices with respect to characters to fit the existing campaign.

You were saying something about tossing straw around, Hussar?

For me, yes exactly, at the beginning of the campaign the players have far greater flexibility as to what they play and what the direction of the campaign is. A new player entering an existing campaign or an old player introducing a new character is much more limited by the direction of the campaign as it currently is. Their choice is to either build a character I can fit into the campaign now, or wait until there is an appropriate time to introduce their character.

 

[ST]

This is probably me just being old and set in my ways, but I don't even think about setting up a game any more unless the whole crew is on the same page in terms of what they want out of the game and what their expectations are. So for me the "accommodation" has to go both ways. The unspoken deal at our table is "You set out to accomplish your character's goals and I'll make sure life is complicated", that just flat out wouldn't work if they weren't engaged with their characters or if I was trying to force their motivations into a prewritten story.

Games where it doesn't, in my experience, tend to fall apart or not really spark in the first place, so it's not much of a loss for me.

 

[Beginning of the End]

Create your campaign for the PC's. Instead of creating the campaign first, you create the PC's first and then build the campaign to that. Thus, you ensure that there is ample terrain for the mounted guy to get his groove on.

Let's boil this down to the real issue you have:

Did your players kill your cat or something? Is there some reason you think they're incapable of behaving like mature adults? Or is it just reflexive on your part?

~See now, it is immature name calling like this that gets you banned from a thread - admin~