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

[EzekielRaiden]

The most vocal of the people on the thread that views D&D as being hostile to DMs. You might have them on ignore or vice versa?

Ah, thought this was the name of some person IRL.

As for the overall claim, as stated, I wasn't alive when D&D first got started, so I cannot know from personal experience. I'm limited to what I can find, see, or read, so I used them. I have given the textual citations where the books themselves tell GMs to be passive-aggressive, and I didn't even touch on all the other areas, things like giving out treasure, which include all the really crappy and even mean cursed items, nor going into the monster design, where Gygax went out of his way to create monsters that would screw over his players in ways they almost certainly could not ever have predicted.

Can anyone even dispute the fact that Gygax created, supported, and advocated for these kind of things? And if they were present and advocated for in the books themselves, including both as GM advice and as rules constructions (e.g. the aforementioned cursed items and "screw you" monsters), is there any way to argue that this would not have been a fairly common thing? I'm not saying it was the majority (I have been very clear I don't think it could have been), but I am saying it was common enough that most people who played in multiple campaigns would have run into more than one GM of this kind.

Because if every GM runs, say, three groups with a total of fifteen distinct players, and every player plays in three games every year, then if even 10% of GMs are like that, on your first round 10% of players get got, and then 10% of the remainder get got, etc. By the end of year 4, more than a third (34.4%) of players have had a bad GM. By the end of year seven, it's over half. This is, of course, a ridiculous and unreal turnover rate and such, but it illustrates how even a small proportion of bad actors can have an outsized impact if they can, for lack of a better term, propagate outward.

Which means we don't have two questions, we have four:

Were GMs like this a known phenomenon?
Were GMs like this a majority of GMs?
Did a majority of players see this behavior?
Did players see this behavior a majority of the time?

And I think the straightforward answer to the first and third questions is "hell yes", and the second and fourth is "absolutely not". But between those two points, we have the question of whether it was considered representative or not. And that is much harder to gauge, because it is a further layer abstracted. It's not whether such games were actually a majority, it's not whether players actually experienced it very often, it's whether it was social knowledge that such games happened often.

 

[Minigiant]

"Hey I'm running a $setting game" is all the GM needs to do in order to establish the limits of character and story options. If the player is not familiar with that setting and agrees to join, the responsibility is on that player to adapt to the limitations the gm helps them work out rather than complaining how the gm didn't say no tortles or that elves are different in $setting while continuing to push for and outright play the original rejected concept.

Agreed.

But what I am saying is on the other end.

If a GM says "Hey I'm running a $setting game", asks 6 people, and 5 of them say No, then the GM needs to find 3 more people or run a game those 6 people would enjoy.

Who are these people? Why are you not quoting them instead of shifting the goalposts around like this and inserting and endless chain of scenarios nobody is suggesting in order to keep talking about how the gm is responsible for doing this and that?

I'm not saying anyone is responsible for anything.

The entire thread is about someone whose preferences are as popular anymore. So its harder to find games and fans of their preferences. The games and tables are moving out their window.

Those kind of people will have to either

1) Work harder to find games and fans of those preferences
OR
2) Broaden their preferences in a tolerable ways to attract fans and say in the publishing bubble of publishers

That's it.

IF you are a Gnome fan but Gnome user is only 1% of the community, finding Gnomey tables and books will be harder.

 

[Alzrius]

Oh, but some did!

No, they didn't. Your entire post moves the goalposts over the horizon, since it ignores that the point under discussion was the assertion that the number of races present in the PHB not hitting some arbitrary value (i.e. nine instead of ten) meant that you might as well not bother playing D&D at all. Which races those were had nothing to do with it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So let’s say you are running Eberron what classes and Wizards released species would you say me as a metaphorical player would not be allowed to play? Could I play Dragonborn, Goliath or Tortle?

If I were running it? You could play any of those things. Dragonborn are officially included in Eberron as of 4e (they are native to the then-largely-unexplored dragon-ruled continent of Argonessen.) Goliath have at least two different origin stories I can think of if they aren't official. I have nothing against tortles, so go ahead; I'm sure we can find a place Tortles might come from. For anything much further afield, there's some options.

I don't think Eberron has any reason why classes would be limited, but certain backgrounds might. Eberron is kind of in its own exclusionary cosmology, as in other universes either aren't accessible to Eberron, or genuinely don't exist. So you probably couldn't be a Dragonborn from Arkhosia, as much as I might wish you could. That doesn't mean "dragonborn from a fallen empire" isn't possible though, so we can very likely find something that reasonably matches, just with some gentle modification.

As a general rule, I go out of my way to embrace player character development and input. My most important resource as a GM is genuine player enthusiasm. Player enthusiasm is hard to earn. It should only be spent sparingly, and only for truly worthy ends.

 

[tetrasodium]

Agreed.

But what I am saying is on the other end.

If a GM says "Hey I'm running a $setting game", asks 6 people, and 5 of them say No, then the GM needs to find 3 more people or run a game those 6 people would enjoy.

Enough with the distractions NOBODY is making the points of distraction they you keep littering the discussion with

Despite a few claims throughout this thread, there was a certain level of fairness and bar of survivability that needed to be met or players would find a differentb GM. Both sides of the collaboration knew that and it is still true, 5e just removed the ability for the gm to participate.

In case that's not obvious, the bolded bit is pretty obviously talking about players saying "I don't want to play under those limits".

WHO are you attributing these endless defensive distractions in order to shield the idea that players should be able to agree to play then feel justified in refusing to make any effort to fit their character to the setting/campaign lore themes and tropes?

If you aren't willing to point out who is making the argument that a player can't walk, maybe focus on things actually being said that you are shielding. In just the last few hours there is literally a poster who said they would join a game they have no intention of making their character fit and when told word for word "Perhaps you should take responsibility for your own preference and tell the gm of that hypothetical Arctic based campaign you yourself introduced that you aren't willing to play an Arctic based campaign rather than agree to play and proceed to show no willingness in making your character fit the setting?" They responded how they would play but had no interest in fitting their character to it like they are Vin Diesel playing for Gabe or something.

If a person does not agree to join a game, they are not a player in that game. Once they agree, they are a player in it and being a player in a game comes with responsibilities as long as they remain a player.

I can't even respond to most of your points because so many of them are rooted in attributing points to people in this thread when nobody is making them.

 

[Scott Christian]

Overall I have to say that his points all hit home for me, and I'm curious what y'all think... and, as per the questions he poses later on in the post, what direction you think he should take?

His points all hit home because he uses excellent analogies like Living Color, Messi, and Hafþór.

No, in all seriousness, his points are very valid. I actually really like the point of fitting the mechanic into the narrative, as opposed to having a narrative and then coming up with a mechanic. I think that is one of the quintessential "feel" questions for the 2024 ruleset. It's one people feel as they read and play the rules, but can't find a place to put their finger on why it feels slightly off.

As for internal consistency... ugh. I have not read the 75 pages of posts yet, but I have a feeling...

 

[Minigiant]

In case that's not obvious, the bolded bit is pretty obviously talking about players saying "I don't want to play under those limits".

WHO are you attributing these endless defensive distractions in order to shield the idea that players should be able to agree to play then feel justified in refusing to make any effort to fit their character to the setting/campaign lore themes and tropes?

I've said over and over and over that players can walk but players cannot force a DM to insert options into their game.

A player should make an attempt to make a character in the DM's setting. But if that setting is very narrow and they cannot, the player should walk.

If you aren't willing to point out who is making the argument that a player can't walk, maybe focus on things actually being said that you are shielding. In just the last few hours there is literally a poster who said they would join a game they have no intention of making their character fit and when told word for word "Perhaps you should take responsibility for your own preference and tell the gm of that hypothetical Arctic based campaign you yourself introduced that you aren't willing to play an Arctic based campaign rather than agree to play and proceed to show no willingness in making your character fit the setting?" They responded how they would play but had no interest in fitting their character to it like they are Vin Diesel playing for Gabe or something.

A player who doesn't want to modify their character or preferences to fit an Artic campaign should inform the DM and walk.
The same as a GM would wants to run an Artic campaign and doesn't want to accept additional options that don't match. They should inform the player and tell them to leave.

But my point is that an Artic campaign is very wide. Someone between the DM or Player is being ridiculous.

What and Why a player wants to play a specific PC matters.

That's why I keep switching to talking about an human only or noncaster campaign. But are narrow enough that lack of compromise and making a character fit would be common and logical.

 

[Remathilis]

The most vocal of the people on the thread that views D&D as being hostile to DMs. You might have them on ignore or vice versa?

Those two sentences are causational.

 

[tetrasodium]

I've said over and over and over that players can walk but players cannot force a DM to insert options into their game.

A player should make an attempt to make a character in the DM's setting. But if that setting is very narrow and they cannot, the player should walk.


A player who doesn't want to modify their character or preferences to fit an Artic campaign should inform the DM and walk.
The same as a GM would wants to run an Artic campaign and doesn't want to accept additional options that don't match. They should inform the player and tell them to leave.

But my point is that an Artic campaign is very wide. Someone between the DM or Player is being ridiculous.

What and Why a player wants to play a specific PC matters.

That's why I keep switching to talking about an human only or noncaster campaign. But are narrow enough that lack of compromise and making a character fit would be common and logical.

This is a. Example of Ignoratio Elenchi.

Ignoratio Elenchi (Irrelevant Conclusion); Straw Man; Red Herring; Non Sequitur

Ignoratio Elenchi is the fallacy of reaching an irrelevant conclusion by attempting to prove a conclusion not evidentially pertinent and different from that which was intended or required

philosophy.lander.edu

What you miss is that agreeing to join and refusing to adapt your character to an "Arctic campaign" was said by the same poster who introduced the Arctic campaign while admitting they had no willingness to fit their character to it. On top of missing that critical detail you are shielding players who behave in such a way by insisting on littering your comment with a string of butbutbut finger wagging of warning at people trying to say that level of disrespectful behavior towards a gm running it and players who actually did build characters for it is totally unreasonable.

Wotc was so concerned about today's perceived problems "some DMs" "(your attribution of "some" scale) used several editions ago in jerk ways that they designed an edition to shield that type of player. After doing that their marketing used language encouraging the community to extend that shield exactly as you have been doing

 

[Remathilis]

If I knew ahead of such a game? Yes, I would politely decline. It's a mildly interesting question--when everyone is the same except for X, what does that do?--but it's not interesting enough to play something other than what interests me.

And to be clear, I would do exactly the same thing if it had instead been:

• Every character in this game must play a Primal class, no other classes exist; I want to see what a world where Nature is THE source of power looks like.
• Every character must have a Thief background and come from the same city; I want to see how characters of the same background evolve over time.
• Pre-gens, because I find it extremely difficult to roleplay pre-gen characters in most cases, outside of one-shots.
• (inspired by GobHag above) Every character must come from the same environment, because this is a world stuck in eternal winter and I want to see how that affects things.

It can be the most thought-out, prepared, adaptive, well-structured campaign. There's still a good chance that I'm not going to enjoy it nearly as much as I would if I got to play things I actually like, so I'm not going to do it.

As of your four examples (plus the original one).

1. I would probably walk from an all human D&D game, but of a game was not billed as D&D (aka a dedicated Conan RPG) I am less inclined. Put another way: I'm not going to bounce from Cyberpunk Red game due to the lack of aliens and fantasy races, but I would bounce from a Shadowrun game that banned everything but humans.
2. Depending on how it was done. In 3e, i flirted with a psionics only game, a spontaneous casters only game and once ran a one-shot "no PHB" game where every class was from a supplement. But in each of those cases, I had at least 10 or more class options available and tried to find functional equivalent classes for most archetypes (want to be a cleric like? You had ardent (psionic), mystic (spontaneous) and multiple like Favored Soul (no PHB)). But each one would be agreed on before even creating, which is why two never got off played and one was only a one shot.
3. I've always found the All X campaigns kinda boring. I've done games where everyone was part of the crew of a pirate ship or is a paranormal investigator, but I didn't force them to all take the pirate background or the inquisitive background. Likewise, if you want to run an all-dwarves campaign, you better believe I'm angling to play the halfling thief they hired!
4. Pre gens are fine for one shots and tournament play. But if you are going so far as to create my character for me, do me the favor and play him for me too.
5. Now this is the one where I can see the other side far more clearly. If the world is an Arctic wasteland, I'm not sure I would appreciate a character wanting to be a tropical Tarzan like barbarian or desert rider genies paladin. But that's mostly because I tend to run games with a strong theme line for cohesion and if you aren't interested in the theme line, you aren't probably going to like the campaign. My pirate campaign has a lot of nautical characters. My Ravenloft game had character who were somewhat monsters themselves. My upcoming Eberron campaign is set in Quickstone and everyone is going to the gunslinger/Wild West aesthetic. In theory you could play a landlubber, a rational skeptic, or a city-slicker, but you probably aren't going to have as much fun as if you bought into the trope.