This is just how I do it. With the caveat that I DM online so players are literally infinite.
Oh, and this is assuming you will only play a Tortle as is, and you don't just want some part of it. Because swapping racial features and stuff is super easy.
First I write and submit a pitch. It's normally a campaign and world idea in roughly 400 words. That pitch is what I want to run. If I wanted to run something else, I'd pitch something else. At the end of the pitch is basic information about length, levels, combat difficulty, things players want to know, like restrictions.
At this point the players I pitched it to, normally online groups, decide which if any are interested and those players approach me. When they approach me, most respond with "Yeah I'd like to play." That is them accepting the pitch, so they are then bound to that pitch. Because why would someone join if they didnt want the campaign I laid out?
So after that, you express wanting to play a tortle. If it fits the pitch, great conversation ends there. If it doesn't, we talk. The onus, at that point, is on you to convince me that it fits the pitch I laid out. The one you read, and wanted to join. If you do, great. If you dont, oh well, you play somewhere else. It's not rejection—it's geography.
I was explicit in my pitch because I wanted something specific. And you aren't paying me so I owe you nothing. Weird and selfish, I know. But maybe next time, I love players who don't give up.
We are both human, so sometimes we want different things. Thats okay, it happens.
Possibly, but I play 2 sessions a week and have a lot of fun. So I guess I'll survive.
I believe it was AlViking who bad-mouthed any player who comes to Session Zero with a character concept they're already intending to play. So...yeah, Session Zero is already too late. A player having personal tastes and interests of their own is irrelevant and Session Zero cannot help because Session Zero has the GM already bringing all the concepts of a world, but the player is forbidden to bring even the tiniest concept of a character.
you can show up with a character concept, you just cannot insist on it and might have to tweak or abandon it.
The GM did not bring ‘concepts of a world’, they have a world they have been running for years and the player is joining it, so yeah, their idea for a character kinda has to fit into it
And that, I think, most cleanly and neatly summarizes the problem I have with the "GM wins" argument. It pretends that it's perfectly fine for the GM to bring the world's most stringent requirements solely and exclusively because they wanted them, but the player cannot even begin to think about their own interests until they've already accepted 100% of the GM's interests first--no matter what. No discussion. No reconciliation. No attempt at consensus-building. Accept or get OUT.
All this back and forth and all that really matters is if you are able to have a game with players who are happy with that game. If that’s what you’ve got, there’s really no problem.
I just question it when people bring up their stories of players who wanted to play something else, and I think digging in your heels about the game world just doesn’t come across as great as you think.
In my game where tortles don't exist? None. Which the player knew before we ever got together as a group to figure out what each player was going to be running. If they really wanted to run a tortle they should have joined a different game.
Well, as an example, I believe it was AlViking who bad-mouthed any player who comes to Session Zero with a character concept they're already intending to play. So...yeah, Session Zero is already too late. A player having personal tastes and interests of their own is irrelevant and Session Zero cannot help because Session Zero has the GM already bringing all the concepts of a world, but the player is forbidden to bring even the tiniest concept of a character.
And that, I think, most cleanly and neatly summarizes the problem I have with the "GM wins" argument. It pretends that it's perfectly fine for the GM to bring the world's most stringent requirements solely and exclusively because they wanted them, but the player cannot even begin to think about their own interests until they've already accepted 100% of the GM's interests first--no matter what. No discussion. No reconciliation. No attempt at consensus-building. Accept or get OUT.
Except that the moment Session Zero begins, the player is expected to already be on board with 100% of everything simply because they accepted the pitch. That's a massive disconnect--and it really, really is the GM not getting the player buy-in. But the players are embarked; they already agreed, so now the GM has "absolute power" over them within the game, right?
And in informing them, he's told them that it's already too late. That's precisely what I mean. The players get no opportunity to ever advocate on their own behalf. As soon as Session Zero has started, you are chained by the GM's interests. Period. Don't like it? F#$k off, you're just a replaceable player.
People know my list of allowed species and how I handle compromise (you can ask but they must pass as an allowed species and there's no guarantee) before an official get-together or session 0. They also know that I don't allow evil characters and that we use point buy. Am I supposed to let someone bring in a PC they rolled for at home because they don't like point buy? Because I don't see that as much different.
edit - thanks for telling me that I'm "bad-mouthing" people who don't agree to my handful of restrictions so that I can play the most effective game I know how. Do you use a thesaurus to find different ways to use unnecessarily abrasive language?
Do you, or do you not, see a difference in the description? Because if you don't we're going to have a much more difficult time discussing...anything, really.
Will you allow me to give an example of why what you said was a problem, but it turned out that the underlying example was not?
Because folks in this thread have been quite prickly when they feel anyone has characterized any GM as being unfair, draconian, or capricious. How would you feel if I recharacterized your very own example as, "The GM ignored the player's interests and dismissed his requests, and just said that halflings don't have empires when asked why."? That is inherently antagonistic to the GM--portraying them as dismissive and even flippant, giving a paper-thin excuse.
How you choose to talk something matters just as much as what you choose to talk about.
Based on your own words, what you actually did was discuss the matter. You listened, sincerely, to the player's request. You then explained, "Well...uh...that's kind of a problem because no such empire exists. Halflings just aren't super ambitious overall so they never had such an empire. That said, the 'Noble' background doesn't really require you to be literally a noble, right? So we can say you are the closest thing halflings have to 'nobility', even if they don't really do that sort of thing, strictly speaking. Your family is important, respected, possibly even wealthy, etc. You just won't have a castle, nor a title of nobility, even though that's what the flavor text says." Or something more or less along those lines.
And notice, here, that you gave the player....well, functionally everything they wanted, yes? They got the Noble background mechanics, and they got the actual backstory of "my family is well-known and influential". The only thing they didn't get was something that was genuinely irrelevant to them, namely, the actual castle and title of nobility. So...where's the riding roughshod? Where's the total breakdown of setting consistency? Where's the loudest-jerk-in-the-room-always-wins? You'd said that if you just let players have what they want you'd be destroying the campaign. Why didn't that happen here?
In response to a question about "asking or insisting" I said D&D General - The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24
"In my game we can always discuss this kind of stuff and I'm pretty open. But if you want to be a prince of the halfling empire I'll have to explain that there is no halfling empire, or halfling kings for that matter. In my world halflings are generally more democratic in nature, live amongst other peoples or are a small family group of traders by default. That's going to be the nature of my pushback and where I draw limits."
I freely admit that if someone has an idea of a background I'll discuss with the player how that fits into my world. It's not much different talking about where someone is from, if we have an established city or if we need to add a small village and where would that village be.
Somehow you turn that into this screed about how I'm a bad DM? We're not supposed to have a discussion? You're making up issues out of thin air.
I tell you the general feel of game and a handful of minor limitations and ask "Does this sound like something you would like?" You then show up with something that doesn't fit those limitations and aren't willing to compromise in a manner I spelled out when I told you about my game? I agree that someone is being a jerk. Hint - it's not the GM.
So you accuse somebody of ‘badmouthing’, and when they call you on it you report them for ‘making it personal’. This has backfired, I’m afraid. I have some news for you: you made it personal, and this note is for you, not the person you reported. I suggest you disengage.
And in future, before you report somebody for making it personal, check to make sure its not you.
