D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

[AlViking]

The only possible conclusion, from your hard-binary presentation, is either that giving the player anything at all that the GM wasn't already bringing to the table means the player has "won", or that the GM has "won" and the player doesn't get the thing. So if the player doesn't "win"...they aren't getting anything at all that they want, unless it was something the GM was already offering. Which means there is no compromise at all--the "compromise" is "You get to choose any race you want, as long as it's one of the four I permitted you to choose." How is that not the GM being always right, and the player being always wrong unless and until they agree with the GM?

I tried to have a conversation about actual compromise and all I get is if I don't allow a tortle I'm a terrible DM.

I cannot be the right DM for everyone. Meanwhile my players are quite happy with the game and I run. Restrictions and all.

 

[Dire Bare]

No, but the way a lot--and I mean a LOT--of GMs talk about this isn't like that. It's not "well there just...aren't orcs in this world".

This is what I refer to as world building by subtraction. How is your world different? Well, no orcs. Why? Because my world is different!

A good example of this from official D&D is the classic Dragonlance campaign. The world of Krynn, canonically, has no orcs. Why? To differentiate it from the standard campaigns. But we'll use a nearly similar species, hobgoblins/goblins to fill that niche, so, how different is Dragonlance really?

I'm not trying to slag on Dragonlance, I have a lot of love for that classic setting. But some of the world-building shows that this was TSR's first major world-building project. What makes Dragonlance different for me is the way they integrated dragons into the setting and story and created a fully realized, detailed world . . . and gave us a banger set of novels to get us started! But, no orcs? No drow? Those are the weak points of the world building for the setting.

Can I play a tortle in your Dragonlance game? No, tortles do not exist on Krynn. Why not? Have you seen some of the crazy stuff that DID make it into the various Dragonlance novels and game books?!?! I guess I'll just have to play a walrus-person instead . . . .

 

[mamba]

Hardly. I'm using the barely expanded rules of the game. At worst I'm adding a bit of garnish to the meal. I'm adding some sauce to the sausages. I like barbeque sauce, but other people can grab mustard, tomato, whatever, whereas the original idea is banning all sauces eternally.

Not wanting one sauce hardly is banning all sauces, and you are forcing the others to eat your weird sauce too, so no, you are misrepresenting your analogy

Tortles were considered completely fine for most tables, this thread is basically the biggest opposition against them in the entirity of the internet. You look anywhere on the internet outside of this thread on tortles and the resounding opinion on them is "Yeah I don't know anyone who bans them, they're pretty ordinary, prepare for ninja turtle/master oggway puns"

this isn’t about tortles, they were a random example. As to everyone being fine with them, chances are they are being used so rarely that there is not much opposition to speak of, but I doubt they actually show up at a lot of tables (relatively speaking)

 

[Scribe]

In a cosmopolitan world, you just need to create the culture/history of the kingdom/empires as normal.

Nowhere starts as cosmopolitan, other than Sigil I guess, and not every setting is a cosmopolitan mash up.

 

[Sorinth]

Exactly.

There should not be monoracial cultures (a culture where 100% of members of that culture belong to just one race). There also should not be monocultural races (a race where 100% of all its representatives belong to just one culture).

I would even say there's nothing wrong with no goblins because the game is going to be about looting goblin filled dungeons and the DM just wants a straight forward murder hobo dungeon looting game and not some morally complex story. Just be honest and don't pretend like there's some deep complex worldbuilding lore concerns that just won't allow it.

If a restriction isn't a major selling point for the story then it's probably unnecessary.

 

[mamba]

A good example of this from official D&D is the classic Dragonlance campaign. The world of Krynn, canonically, has no orcs. Why? To differentiate it from the standard campaigns. But we'll use a nearly similar species, hobgoblins/goblins to fill that niche, so, how different is Dragonlance really?

goblins and hobgoblins exist elsewhere as well, draconians filled the orc niche. That also isn’t the only difference

 

[Sorinth]

Nowhere starts as cosmopolitan, other than Sigil I guess, and not every setting is a cosmopolitan mash up.

Says who? There's no standard for how all the species even came into being, was it a god, was it evolution, was it a magic experiment, etc...

And then on top of that, the world creation myths that have been "cannon" in the past can't all be true since they are contradictory, so it's already a case of there's no truth just stories that different cultures tell themselves, which works perfectly fine for cosmopolitan as it does monolithic.

 

[Scribe]

Says who? There's no standard for how all the species even came into being, was it a god, was it evolution, was it a magic experiment, etc...

And then on top of that, the world creation myths that have been "cannon" in the past can't all be true since they are contradictory, so it's already a case of there's no truth just stories that different cultures tell themselves, which works perfectly fine for cosmopolitan as it does monolithic.

Hah, "says who" good point!

Me, the DM, I guess.

 

[Dire Bare]

goblins and hobgoblins exist elsewhere as well, draconians filled the orc niche. That also isn’t the only difference

If you quoted my entire post . . . yes, I stated what I found different about Dragonlance. There's more, but I didn't feel like writing an essay.

Dragonlance IS different from the Realms, Greyhawk, and other D&D campaigns. But it's not THAT different. Draconians do fill the niche orcs do in other campaigns. So do hobgoblins. Making the absence of orcs in Dragonlance an important part of what makes it different . . . is weak-sauce world-building. I'll die on that hill! Dragonlance could have left in the orcs and it would be pretty much the same as it ended up being.

Making dragons IMPORTANT to the setting (and something you could ride at some point!) did make Dragonlance different! Less so nowadays, but in the 80s, it was surprisingly innovative for a D&D setting to put such a focus on dragons.

 

[Mecheon]

If you're at my table I told you what species I allow, a handful of other restrictions and house rules. If those don't work for you then you are free to find a different game.

Why is it that your explanation of why you want to play a tortle is "because I want to" is all you need and my answers with detailed explanation is worthless?

I'm building the world, creating the adventures, hosting, scheduling, keeping things going. So if I feel like not allowing tortles then I'm not going to. It's not just turtles. If I allow them I have to allow any and every species. That shouldn't be hard to understand.

And I might take other people with me to find a different game. Folks talk. If I'm not playing, other people who considered your game might walk as well because they wanted to play with me specifically. Or because I find another game they'd be interested in playing. To say nothing if some players are married or in a relationship, you annoy one of them you can basically count both of them out.

"Because I want to play the turtle guy" is really all the explanation you need. They're not overpowered, they're not breaking the game, the D&D community by and large considers them completely fine. So, yeah, your answers with detailed explanations that come down to "I don't want to fit them into my sandbox" is pretty worthless as it implies certain things about said sandbox and world

The world and adventures exist to serve the players and be played in. If they can't serve the player's purpose, then it doesn't matter how much time you spent building the world. An unplayed world is pointless. Like it or not, its a two way compromise. No matter how often you tell your players you really want to host that humans only dark fantasy setting set in the real world, if they do not care about it, you're not running that campaign without players.

Not wanting one sauce hardly is banning all sauces, and you are forcing the others to eat your weird sauce too, so no, you are misrepresenting your analogy

Look, if tortle are on the chopping block, it doesn't exactly speak good things for other ones. And this is hardly a weird sauce at all. Barbecue sauce is a classic. Tortles have been around and in the game since X9

this isn’t about tortles, they were a random example. As to everyone being fine with them, chances are they are being used so rarely that there is not much opposition to speak of, but I doubt they actually show up at a lot of tables (relatively speaking)

They're the perfect example for this because they're inoffensive and uncommon enough