D&D General The Importance of Page 33

[Ath'kethin]

Kingdom of Magic was a strange supplement for Mystara. It was written by Monte Cook who added tons of magic but took out a lot of the politics that made the nation legendary. Kol was just one change that wasn't even mentioned in other supplements, and it added the quasi-genasi with their strange and random rules. It also added new characters rather than restructure the already complex rules for nobility. Not TSR's best effort

I wonder how the Kingdom of Magic word count compared to Gaz3. Cause it overall seemed a poor cousin to me, though another friend of mine who first encountered the setting through 2e still swears by and uses it.

Different strokes, I guess.

 

[Mercurius]

I'd just say this: There is no obligation to include any particular race, but if a player in you game wants to play a particular race, it is a service to the player to be able to accommodate them. Players often have odd concepts for PCs, and if DMs are too restrictive in their setting, the PCs never get a chance to hit the table.

I agree, with some limitations. If I'm trying to run a game with a certain atmosphere, and a player wants to play a sentient duck named Daffy, I'll say no.

A more realistic example was from a few years ago, when I ran a Next campaign without certain races in it: dragonborn, goliaths, shardminds, etc. A player wanted to play a dragonborn or goliath (can't remember), so I acquiesced by making them very, very rare and from a far-off land.

I'm also intrigued by the idea of more collaborative world-building, where the world is generated at least partially from the characters they create. But it depends upon the premise of the campaign.

 

[Weiley31]

If your playing Mystara and a player wants to be a Drow, Reskin it as a Shadow Elf. If your campaign has no Warlocks and somebody wants to play one, retitle the Warlock as a Dragonfire Adept and change the Fiend Patron into a Dragon Patron. It's not a Dragonborn, it's a Draconian or Half Dragon. The Dusk Blade is a retitled Eldritch Knight. If somebody wants to be a Half Human, Half Golem, reflavor the Warforged.

Sometimes, you can still use a banned option if you retitle/reflavor or what not.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'd just say this: There is no obligation to include any particular race, but if a player in you game wants to play a particular race, it is a service to the player to be able to accommodate them. Players often have odd concepts for PCs, and if DMs are too restrictive in their setting, the PCs never get a chance to hit the table.

Very well said, and I agree. I think this is also a major mechanism for the expansion of what races exist in a lot of settings, particularly older, ex-homebrew settings, too.

"The Dragonborn and the rest of the races in this chapter are uncommon. They don't exist in every world of D&D, and even where they are found, they are less widespread than dwarves, elves, halflings, and humans."

What you leave out of a setting is just as important as what you leave in. Dragonlance famously ditched halflings for Kender and was drow and orc free (with a few continuity errors). Birthright also ditched orcs. Dark Sun committed genocide on a scale none of the other settings can even dream of matching. Ravenloft retconned out its drow (for licensing reasons). These omissions didn't lower the quality of any of the settings.

Are you not seeing the huge problem that means p33 is not in fact "important" but "kinda dumb"? All the settings you're impressed with eliminated races 5E considers "common" and that thus, according to 5E, exist in all settings.

If what p33 said was "you can omit any races from your campaign, including humans!", you might have a point. As it is, you have kind of the inverse of the point you're making. P33 tries to force you to use Humans, Elves, Dwarves, etc. whether you like it or not. It gives you no excuse and no out for not using them.

Now obviously, in reality, you don't have to. We have at least one setting which officially doesn't have any of those but humans - Theros. But p33 is rather dimwitted and doesn't say what you're saying it does. It's just "If you really hate these weirder races, leave them out, but don't you dare leave out PRECIOUS ELFS!!!!!". Because like we haven't all seen 1000x as many obnoxious elves in D&D over the years as Dragonborn and Tieflings put together (which is impressive given Tieflings have been a fixture since 1994, in a lot of games).

 

[Oofta]

End of the day, the game has to make sense to the DM. Someone who doesn't really believe in their world who just kind of throws down stuff and does the minimal amount of work is not going to be a very good DM for me*. I'd much rather have a DM who has a carefully crafted world with a lot of background and history that may or may not surface as long as the PCs are still in control of their story.

I'm sure some DMs can thread those extremes. But implying that people that don't allow any race anybody wants to play is somehow a bad thing? Nope. Don't have time for that, sorry.

*Played one session with a guy years ago who bragged about BobTown. BobTown where everybody is named Bob! Height of creativity and hilarity! Ugh.

 

[pogre]

I'm fortunate I have players who trust I will work hard to bring a fun game to the table. They have bought into whatever I pitch, and no one has ever argued with me about a limitation(s). They trust the limitation(s) is based on a campaign background decision I have made. I typically embrace the Mos Eisley Cantina vibe when running D&D. Even so, a player who comes to the table before the pitch with a given race/class combination they have to play is likely to be a bad fit for my table.

Don't misunderstand, it is vital for a fun campaign to have involved players. A part of that is having good chemistry and like-minded folks about the kind of game everyone wants to play. There are great D&D players who might not fit in with my group. It is a mistake to bend over backwards to accommodate a certain player's vision of the game. I have not had to do it much over the years, but I have never regretted once having the hard conversation with a player that they are a bad fit for our group.

 

[humble minion]

If a player gets their heart absolutely set on a particular character concept/race/whatever, and refuses to or can't think up anything else they'd like to play after reading the setting notes (I'm thinking of something restrictive and distinctive like Dark Sun here), then to be honest that would raise a red flag to me and I'd start asking myself some questions. Like 'are my restrictions so tight that I'm trying to tell a story rather than run a game?' and 'is this particular player trying to run this particular character because it leads to an optimised power build they saw online somewhere?' and 'is this player the sort of person who plays the same character every game (regardless of system, setting, or genre...) and overidentifies with them?'

Exception might be for when the player is a first-time D&Der who fell in love with a concept or a piece of art of a piece of fiction and that is the reason they're in D&D, and naturally they want to play 'their' character first time round. I have some sympathy for that, cos many years ago, i was that guy. But it presents a pretty decent reason for introducing new players to the game via a relatively vanilla kitchen-sink type default D&D setting like the Forgotten Realms where pretty much anything from the standard rules can fit.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

As Luke Crane once stated, as soon as you start a campaign where magic is gone, you'll have a player who wants to play the last wizard of the land. I used to believe that allowing a player to be the last wizard, the last elf or maybe the first half-elf was somehow demeaning to my campaign setting, but I've changed my opinion on that matter: settings are unique and supposed to be special in their idiosyncrasies, but this is also true of your player characters.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

If a Dragonlance player wants to have a half-orc character from the PHB you say, "Sure, but in-game he will be called a goblin." Reskinning is the way to go, rather than banning options for players.

(Mystara tieflings = diaboli is a good one I never heard before, alongside Rakasta = Tabaxi)

PS Ravenloft didn't ban drow for "licensing reasons". They disappeared in the 2nd edition TSR publications post "Servants of Darkness" and were replaced with the shadow fey, but the reason was they didn't thematically fit the setting. 3rd edition Arthaus material slightly retconned this by saying there were some "outlander" drow who were mixed up in the public consciousness with the shadow fey. (The licensed material referred to the drow quite easily).

 

[humble minion]

As Luke Crane once stated, as soon as you start a campaign where magic is gone, you'll have a player who wants to play the last wizard of the land. I used to believe that allowing a player to be the last wizard, the last elf or maybe the first half-elf was somehow demeaning to my campaign setting, but I've changed my opinion on that matter: settings are unique and supposed to be special in their idiosyncrasies, but this is also true of your player characters.

True, but on the flipside, it can be a distorting weight on the campaign and can cause player friction or resentment. If one PC is the last wizard in the world (for instance), then naturally NPCs would behave differently around them, they'd be sought or hunted or flattered, even at first level they'd be a celebrity as soon as word got around ... it can very easily turn the campaign into a campaign that's all about one particular PC, rather than a campaign about the group. And it also means that the PC is special for what they are, rather than what they do in-game. And what about the player who honestly would have preferred to play a wizard as well, but read the campaign guidelines and came up with a second-choice character without complaining about it, and now watches the player who DID kick up a fuss get to have their way and be the centre of attention? Not to say it can't be made to work by better DMs than me, but there's more than enough minefields there that I'd be reluctant to walk into them.

(But then again, if there's two players who want to play wizards and the DM is heart-set on running a game in a no-wizard campaign world, then the DM probably should have a look in the mirror too, and ask if he/she is doing the right thing by their players. These things go both ways, there needs to be communication, and players should have a say in the campaign groundrules too...)