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

[AlViking]

I assume the government also takes care of the powerful monsters and villains as well, making sure the community is safe and doesn't need adventurers. Or do they just sit around and monitor the player characters?

Sometimes crime happens and no one gets punished. Villages burn and no one is held responsible. But the controlling DM knows that such an attack on their world cannot stand unpunished and the guilty PC must be dealt with. Be it by powerful NPCs who spring up from the ground to battle the PC, a coincidental attack by a too powerful monster or the literal Gods showing up to provide divine justice.

Yeah, the red flags are glowing brighter.

The people in the world will respond in a fashion that I think makes sense given the culture, governmental structure and other factors. That may mean you burn down a village but find that you get shunned wherever you go. It may mean that the local warlord looks at it as a threat to their power and sends a small army. You may get away without consequences.

I'm going to make those decisions based on the world and lore I've built. If you want a playground where you can do whatever you want and always get away with it I don't want you in my game either.

 

[Scott Christian]

I DM as often as I play, probably a little more. The setting simply isn't that important.

Let me fix that for you - "The setting simply isn't that important for my games."

The fact you can't reciprocate and say, "Settings are very important for other people's games, players and DM's alike" speaks volumes.

 

[TwoSix]

See the bold. That is your answer, and it is a good one. There is no other reason to have lore other than that right there. That is the reason gamemasters create lore - to have an impact on the player. And if the player respects that - then they won't insist on going against the lore.

If that's the only reason to have lore, why are you banning races? The only impact on the player is to deprive them of a choice.

Your argument suggests that you don't have any trust in you DM. Sad. I have trusted all of mine, and it has turned out great.

I've played with 8 other DMs over the last decade or so. They've ranged from decent to very good. All of them have made choices I've disagreed with, or have philosophical beliefs about the nature of gaming I've disagreed with. And that's OK! Disagreement is part of the collobarative effort of RPing.

 

[Remathilis]

The people in the world will respond in a fashion that I think makes sense given the culture, governmental structure and other factors. That may mean you burn down a village but find that you get shunned wherever you go. It may mean that the local warlord looks at it as a threat to their power and sends a small army. You may get away without consequences.

I'm going to make those decisions based on the world and lore I've built. If you want a playground where you can do whatever you want and always get away with it I don't want you in my game either.

Aka you will what I want and how I want.

Thank you for proving my intuition correct. I wouldn't touch your game with a 11 foot pole. I've played in games like yours and I know how it ends.

 

[AlViking]

Aka you will what I want and how I want.

Thank you for proving my intuition correct. I wouldn't touch your game with a 11 foot pole. I've played in games like yours and I know how it ends.

So having appropriate responses to character actions is a bad thing? You want to be able to run around burning villages and people don't react? How is that a living world when character actions are meaningless?

 

[TwoSix]

Let me fix that for you - "The setting simply isn't that important for my games."

The fact you can't reciprocate and say, "Settings are very important for other people's games, players and DM's alike" speaks volumes.

I agree that many people make poor choices around what to make important, yes.

But I'm certainly not going to tell you that using the back-end of your screwdriver to hammer in a nail is a correct choice, and just as good as a hammer.

 

[AlViking]

I agree that many people make poor choices around what to make important, yes.

But I'm certainly not going to tell you that using the back-end of your screwdriver to hammer in a nail is a correct choice, and just as good as a hammer.

So someone that doesn't share your preferences is always doing it wrong?

 

[soviet]

I understood burning down the village to be a metaphor even if no-one else did.

 

[TiQuinn]

Players still don’t care about lore.

They might care about lore if the game is a licensed property they’re familiar with. Or if you present some lore that gives them a clear and demonstrable character-impacting choice within the game.

But no one wants to read your game notes to figure out why it’s super important there are no Dragonborn or Tabaxi or Tortles in this game.

Yeah, this was readily apparent to me this week running a game for a group of late teens/early 20 year olds. I think part of it is that once you’ve seen enough fantasy make believe names and lands ruled by good kings with evil wizards lurking in the background, there is a moment where you can see people mentally want to reach for a remote to hit fast forward. The lore itself is just not enough - you have to make the lore matter and realize it’s not a fantasy book-reading session.

 

[Scott Christian]

I mean, I tend not to have players who burn down villages but I also don't set up lynch mobs because they are an orc or tiefling or... Tabaxi...

Congrats, you play in the cantina and that is your jam. That is how I run my D&D games as well; multiverse, FR, Eberron, astral planes, Feywild and Shadowfell, everyone from everywhere, with nary an eyebrow raised. It is a fun way to run. Very free.

But sometimes there is story in constraint too. Having a tiefling actually be looked at as a demon, and therefore the cause of the town's draught-stricken crops or high percentage of deaths can get tiresome, especially when all the other players want to do is go slay a dragon. So if the DM literally says, there are no tieflings because they are devils and demons and not one person would ever trust one, let alone invite them into their kingdom, castle, inn, business, or house. You as a player, have a choice to make. Play a different character or don't play. To insist you still get to play it, and ruin other people's fun is selfish. To insist you play it, regardless of the lore dump given to you by the DM is again, selfish. You come off the selfish person in that scenario, not the DM who already has ten pages of lore around demons and devils, and a hundred pages of lore around the cultures and races and kingdoms that exist.