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

[TwoSix]

However, if the pitch was, "Hey, I'm going to be running a political game set in Greyhawk, do you want to play?" and you agree, nothing was said about the races involved so you wouldn't at all be a jerk for showing up with a tortle to play. When you get to Session 0 with that idea, let's say the DM tells you that government involved is a bit xenophobic of races that don't look human and if you play a tortle who looks like a bipedal turtle, it will be very rough going for you and you won't get nearly the enjoyment out of the game that the other players do. Perhaps a compromise where you look human, but have tortle abilities is the best way to go. You don't look like a walking turtle, but you do get the rest, and you won't set off the xenophobic bells of the NPCs and limit your enjoyment of the campaign.

I actually agree with the bulk of your post, but I wanted to point this out as a classic example of "Hey, as a GM, maybe I should come up with ideas that don't make it actively harder for the players to make characters."

The "xenophobic culture" is a super-common trope, but really is kind of problematic for D&D.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Agreed, although I'm moved away over time from prioritizing "novel concept" to "novel system". There are a bunch of new systems I want to play, but I run them as they're presented out of the book, with very little modification.

It can go either way with me. Sometimes I just get an idea and want to run with it.

That's true. My groups are fairly fixed, so I try to match up games to the specific players involved as best I can. But, my priority is always "what game works for my group" over "what game/concept do I want to run"?

Not how everybody rolls, however (I land somewhere in the middle; I'll try and sell a game if I really want to do it, but there are always some I know are pretty much DOA if I want to keep my extent group intact).

Oh, absolutely. I just wanted to point out that a lot of GMs think their worldbuilding is a lot better than it actually is, which ties into why I prefer to run games pretty close to the way they come out of the box.

Okay. I just mentioned it because I often consider subpar world building (which as you say is pretty common; I'll admit I don't always bat a thousand there myself) mostly a lesser sin.

 

[Maxperson]

But they did commit an act. They planned it out and bought the axe. That's a concrete act as part of the planning.

No criminal act was done. If you plan it out, that's not enough for conspiracy. You can plan out dozens of crimes with people, but if you never go past that you're fine, because that's not a crime. You can buy axes all day long and it's not a criminal act. If you do those two non-criminal acts, but never actually try to kill the person, you can be imprisoned for doing two things that are not criminal. Why? Because they show enhanced INTENT. They show that you are pretty serious with the INTENT to commit the crime of murder.

You are being jailed for that intent, not for any real crime that you did.

Let's say I desire to kill someone. What crime was committed, or was there even a crime committed? Tell me without knowing the actions I performed.

None, but there was also no intent there. Wanting to kill someone and intending to kill someone are two different things. You performed no actions at all, because all you do is want to kill someone.

Having read the context, I don't see how it's not exactly what was meant. Negligence is still punishable, even if you never intended anything evil. Recklessness is still punishable, even if your recklessness was born from irrational exuberance, to use the pithy phrase.

The context did not involve negligence. It was about whether an act was in fact evil. Negligence can be a crime, but that doesn't equate to evil.

Which brings me back to the example. If I kill someone and the act of killing is what determines evil, then killing in self-defense or defense of another's life is just as evil as 1st degree murder. It's the intent that determines whether the act is good or evil, which has nothing to do with laws or getting away with it. What is good or evil in D&D is good or evil no matter what the laws say or whether you are punished or get away with it.

 

[Maxperson]

I actually agree with the bulk of your post, but I wanted to point this out as a classic example of "Hey, as a GM, maybe I should come up with ideas that don't make it actively harder for the players to make characters."

The "xenophobic culture" is a super-common trope, but really is kind of problematic for D&D.

That's why I said "a bit xenophobic of races that don't look human." That still leaves elves, half-elves, halflings, Aasimar, dwarves, perhaps tritons, and I'm sure there are some others out there, but I'm done thinking this early in the morning.

 

[TwoSix]

That's why I said "a bit xenophobic of races that don't look human." That still leaves elves, half-elves, halflings, Aasimar, dwarves, perhaps tritons, and I'm sure there are some others out there, but I'm done thinking this early in the morning.

The idea I like is "xenophobic against races that the players didn't pick with their characters."

 

[Maxperson]

One: Surely there is more fun to GMing than just worldbuilding. Otherwise, most GMs would simply stop bothering with all the rules stuff, and go write books, y'know? Or at least settings.

Except I didn't say it was 100% of the fun, only that it would negatively impact his fun. Tons of GMs world build as a good chunk of their enjoyment of the game.

Two: Your questions, even if you mean them with no ill intent, again make it a hard binary. Either the GM has fun because their worldbuilding is absolutely sacrosanct, or the players have fun and utterly destroy that worldbuilding. Nothing else can come out. One side gets to have fun, the other side gets pooped on.

Or there is a compromise like I described, such as where you get the tortle mechanics and not the appearance. Now neither of you is entirely happy or entirely upset, which is the soul of what a compromise is.

It's not the binary you are making it out to be.

 

[Maxperson]

The idea I like is "xenophobic against races that the players didn't pick with their characters."

And that really depends on the DM. I tend to improvise quite a bit and only prep outlines or potential encounters, so it's pretty easy for me to do something like that. Other DMs prep a ton and for a political game with intrigue, NPC personalities, ties between them, etc. detailed out with that xenophobia in mind, it's not easy to do. It might take an entire reworking of the campaign from the ground up, and that's too much to ask a DM to do just because you want to play Gamera the Monk.

 

[Maxperson]

Because the GM should not be having fun saying "No, you can't do X."

Nobody ever said that was where The DM's fun comes from. I don't know where you are getting that.

"Fun" really has nothing to do with this topic. It's about the validity of maintaining a certain aesthetic for your setting, weighed against the cost of denying another player an option they feel would be relevant and enjoyable in play.

Fun has a lot to do with it. If I get a lot of enjoyment in world building and creating settings where the economics, special aspects(limitations, additions, changes, etc), social dynamics and more are all complex and detailed out, changing an aspect of that could ruin the whole thing. It's like pulling the wrong block out of a Jenga structure. It can have a profoundly negative impact on the DM's enjoyment.

It really depends on the DM and how much time and detail has gone into the creation of the setting.

It's not a binary; it's a scale where you need to consider the relative value of the costs involved.

Yeah. I'm not the one saying it's binary. And I'm saying compromise can often be had. I'm also saying that the player's fun is not more important than the DM's fun, and vice versa.

I've never met a person who can only enjoy playing tortles, so why, if fun is equally important to both sides, would a player insist on negatively impacting the DM's fun by playing a tortle when he could just make another character and still have fun. I've also never met a DM who can only have fun building one specific setting from the ground up.

Having to rebuild a good chunk of or maybe even the whole campaign setting over the inclusion of a tortle, though, is a hell of a lot more work and time than changing a race or even rebuilding an entire character. I'd never insist a DM do that when I can just pull out one of the many character concepts I've been wanting to play.

 

[Remathilis]

Vast majority of monsters are humanoid from my list. Others from the shadowfell, feywild and so on. About the only monsters that were created are constructs.

It seems like the desire for consistency would hamper your ability to add new monsters or even provide variants of them. For example, you declare the only types of dragons are the 10 chromatic/metallic, then you would never be able to use any other type (say, gem or moonstone) because that would be inconsistent with your world lore.

Of course there are some standard D&D monsters as well but it's not like they're popping up willy nilly.

I am getting the distinct feeling your world's list of "monsters" is smaller than the Monster Manual...

But even if they were, so what. Not interested in my game? Don't join.

Its purely academic at this point. I want to see where your boundaries actually lie.

 

[Maxperson]

Meaning, for the GM to have absolute power over the game, they must have absolute power over its constitutents....which includes the players.

What? No? That's not possible unless maybe the DM is Kim Jong Un and will execute the players if they don't do as he says. The DM has no power over the players at all via the game. They can just walk away and not play.

Any power the DM has over the players has to come from another source, like say the DM is the work boss of the players. He could make life worse for them at work if they don't do what he wants in the game, but that's a whole different can of worms.

If the GM cannot have absolute power over the players, they can't have absolute power over the game.

That's simply untrue as well. Let's say I'm a DM who has created a game where the players have to play Tortles named Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Can I force you to play in that game? No, because I have no power over you. You can tell me you don't want to play a tortle or have that name, so you're not playing. The same with all the other players.

However, the game is still there. I still have the campaign setting with the PC race and name requirements. I can take that game and fish around until I find 4 players who WANT to play tortles with those names.