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

[DinoInDisguise]

I wonder. Are the DMs and players morally different?

If you humor me, and we assume the answer is no, a DM refusing a non-standard race and a player refusing a standard race are structurally identical positions. Neither is more reasonable than the other, neither is more unreasonable. But this discussion seems to be trying to make a distinction.

When we say “the DM should compromise” or we say “the player should compromise,” aren’t we really just saying “the role I sympathize with less should compromise?” Or "The role who's agency I value less should compromise?"

But that's weird to me. It's weird because compromise cannot be the goal. For bad compromise is no better than no compromise. So the goal has to be something else, perhaps compatibility. But compatibility isn't beholden to one role acquiescing to the demands of another. Not at all. It requires both sides have the same goal, the same end state. It's a higher bar than compromise.

Yet, in this discussion we are pretending that there is a moral difference between the roles, and that one role owes the other a compromise. That the onus of creating compatibility lays at the feet of one role, and not the other. A truly strange way to say, "I prefer this role."

So I'm curious. Is there a moral difference between the roles? Or are we confessing which role we prefer under the guise of compromise?

 

[Moving Pictures]

YouTubers doing crap doesn't prove that 5e caters to anything. And, man would you have hated 3e and 2e's Skills & Powers.

So I am asked to prove my assertion that 5e has become overpowered and videogamey, and I provide eight-odd links featuring nothing but people focussing on overpowered builds.
And that's now "anecdotes," not data?
I suppose finding 20+ more links to various other bits of evidence isn't going to convince you. Not sure what else I can do.

 

[tetrasodium]

@AlViking wrt your 1127 reply, I should have taken the time to find & link to the post so I could have been more clear, I'm literally the person who brought it up back in 777 while talking about an actual gm<>player interaction of mine from years ago. The question was more why those sort of suggestions seem to come exclusively from posters saying players should be expected to actively work with the gm and adapt their character to fit the campaign/setting while the other side of the discussion only brings up new trivially resolved scenarios that only require the player to work with the gm to adapt the character to the campaign/setting.

When I said DMs should figure out why someone likes a banned race, class, feat, or other element in your setting and find the equivalent in your setting because good settings usually have it in then, I was accused of hating DMs.

You've endlessly advocated for players and shifted responsibility to the gm without limit throughout this thread... I'm not aware of it. Is there some inverted version of stormwind that I should be following as a GM where literally anything at all must be assumed to be roleplaying deserving of endlessly being cut some slack instead of Stormwind's idea that roleplaying and optimization are mutually exclusive?

?Going beyond the one AlViking brought up in 1103, I'd like to introduce a new question for you or any of the folks outraged that a gm might be expected to walk or actively take steps to fit their character to the setting/campaign to answer.

Why is the gm expected to automatically assume that a question like "Could I play a Dragonborn, Goliath, or Tortle?" Is carrying some deep unexpressed roleplaying chops beneath a statement or question that couldn't bother to even hint at it and then endlessly grill the player for a seed like being smitten by a character from kung fu panda; but the gm can not expect the player to be proactive in voicing anything beyond pure mechanical "Could I play a Dragonborn, Goliath, or Tortle?"

 

[tetrasodium]

I wonder. Are the DMs and players morally different?

If you humor me, and we assume the answer is no, a DM refusing a non-standard race and a player refusing a standard race are structurally identical positions. Neither is more reasonable than the other, neither is more unreasonable. But this discussion seems to be trying to make a distinction.

When we say “the DM should compromise” or we say “the player should compromise,” aren’t we really just saying “the role I sympathize with less should compromise?” Or "The role who's agency I value less should compromise?"

But that's weird to me. It's weird because compromise cannot be the goal. For bad compromise is no better than no compromise. So the goal has to be something else, perhaps compatibility. But compatibility isn't beholden to one role acquiescing to the demands of another. Not at all. It requires both sides have the same goal, the same end state. It's a higher bar than compromise.

Yet, in this discussion we are pretending that there is a moral difference between the roles, and that one role owes the other a compromise. That the onus of creating compatibility lays at the feet of one role, and not the other. A truly strange way to say, "I prefer this role."

So I'm curious. Is there a moral difference between the roles? Or are we confessing which role we prefer under the guise of compromise?

It has nothing to do with morality and I mentioned this in at least one post. The reason why the player should be expected to compromise and adapt their PC to the campaign/setting rather than the gm adapting the campaign/setting to the character is simply because the average table has one gm & 3-5 players and the gm needs to make it work for all 3-5 outside edge cases like "c'mon guys my cousin/nephew/kid is five, just roll with it for me while he/she is in town" the likelihood of an incoherent mess goes up exponentially if the gm is constantly revising the campaign/setting because they are trying to fit literally anything players want to declare about it during character creation. Even games like fate bitd and the like where players are expected to introduce story details that can revise the world and retcon things into existence have a higher bar that gives their respective gm analog more authority than that.

 

[Mort]

My

So I am asked to prove my assertion that 5e has become overpowered and videogamey, and I provide eight-odd links featuring nothing but people focussing on overpowered builds.
And that's now "anecdotes," not data?
I suppose finding 20+ more links to various other bits of evidence isn't going to convince you. Not sure what else I can do.

5e has options, lots and lots of options, the more options present the more potential for power issues.

5e also has A LOT of people combing through all of those options and presenting builds etc. that exploit and magnify the power issues.

But you know what? I've been running (and lately even playing!) 5e steadily since it came out. And I've had no issues with any of that. Why? Because no one in my group is interested in trying to "win" D&D - they just want to play fun characters encountering fun (and sometimes even deadly) situations. I've found 5e to be a pretty good vehicle for that.

 

[billd91]

So the compromise acceptable is player deciding what species are allowed? I gave one example of how I might compromise in a way that makes sense in-world without opening up the door to every race under the sun. Master Oogway is a personality caricature that can be played by any number of species.

That’s not what I said. Rather, I’m not going to get in a snit about someone wanting to play a tortle because they want to have a robust shell - or more to the point, because I think that’s the reason they want to play one. I’m gonna include or exclude the tortle for reasons of my own with respect to the setting, not because I don’t “approve” of the reason for them playing one.

 

[Minigiant]

You've endlessly advocated for players and shifted responsibility to the gm without limit throughout this thread... I'm not aware of it. Is there some inverted version of stormwind that I should be following as a GM where literally anything at all must be assumed to be roleplaying deserving of endlessly being cut some slack instead of Stormwind's idea that roleplaying that roleplaying and optimization are mutually exclusive?

I think you're to understand me better if I just say this statement.

I am primarily a DMs but I think most DMs are not great world builders. And I think that most dm's who create custom settings do not create custom settings that are good enough or deep enough to really put many hard lines. I'm not no well awarded writer. But DND is a game, so your world should facilitate the game and there is a line where if you're setting does not have enough "oomph" In it for the players you're no longer serving the game or the players.

Why is the gm expected to automatically assume that a question like "Could I play a Dragonborn, Goliath, or Tortle?" Is carrying some deep unexpressed roleplaying chops beneath a statement or question that couldn't bother to even hint at it and then endlessly grill the player for a seed like being smitten by a character from kung fu panda; but the gm can not expect the player to be proactive in voicing anything beyond pure mechanical "Could I play a Dragonborn, Goliath, or Tortle?"

Because the DM has to run the world and the player can't force the DM to play a world they don't like.

It's the dm's world, so the onus is on them to state what's in their world? A player cannot put things in their world without the DM giving them permission to.

 

[saviirkad]

And really... players pick specific races and classes outside of the DM's ban list for reasons.


A person might want to play an Eldritch Knight fighter because they think that the fighter class is very boring. So perhaps you might choose one of your custom. Fighter subclasses that has more interesting options.


A player might pick a red dragonborn because they want to be a wizard who throws fire out and does not want to take serious damage from fire spells dead. They are in the area of effect. So if you're setting allows tiflings, you might allow it to be an infernal

Or like the old days, a person might wanna play an orc because they want to play a strong fighter and want to boost their strength and they rolled a little bit too low. So you might let them reroll, or promise them that there is a strength boosting item end the campaign world.

Or somebody might want to play in half work. So they can play with the dynamic of being a discriminated character. So you might suggest that they can play as a discriminated species that you do allow.

For a person might want to play a warlock, so they can play as an in religious minority. And you might suggest that a cleric is available and suggest a minor diety that gets less respect that they can attempt to boost the standing of.

90% of the time, it's not that hard.

This typically only becomes a problem. When your setting is extremely narrow and for the most part d&ds rules does not really support narrow play. Nor does the community really like it..

This is why many of the third party RPG's is the first thing they do after they make their core books is make an option book that adds more stuff to it.

And a key addition to this is working with the player to identify what it is they're really looking for, and what alternatives they would be interested in, if any.

A lot of responses I'm seeing read like either a flat no, or the player must accept the DM's alternative or it'll be a flat no. And that reads to me to be no different than the problem player being complained about.

 

[saviirkad]

I wonder. Are the DMs and players morally different?

If you humor me, and we assume the answer is no, a DM refusing a non-standard race and a player refusing a standard race are structurally identical positions. Neither is more reasonable than the other, neither is more unreasonable. But this discussion seems to be trying to make a distinction.

When we say “the DM should compromise” or we say “the player should compromise,” aren’t we really just saying “the role I sympathize with less should compromise?” Or "The role who's agency I value less should compromise?"

But that's weird to me. It's weird because compromise cannot be the goal. For bad compromise is no better than no compromise. So the goal has to be something else, perhaps compatibility. But compatibility isn't beholden to one role acquiescing to the demands of another. Not at all. It requires both sides have the same goal, the same end state. It's a higher bar than compromise.

Yet, in this discussion we are pretending that there is a moral difference between the roles, and that one role owes the other a compromise. That the onus of creating compatibility lays at the feet of one role, and not the other. A truly strange way to say, "I prefer this role."

So I'm curious. Is there a moral difference between the roles? Or are we confessing which role we prefer under the guise of compromise?

It's always nice to see someone saying a thing so much better than you have been trying and failing to convey yourself.

 

[Minigiant]

And a key addition to this is working with the player to identify what it is they're really looking for, and what alternatives they would be interested in, if any.

A lot of responses I'm seeing read like either a flat no, or the player must accept the DM's alternative or it'll be a flat no. And that reads to me to be no different than the problem player being complained about.

Especially for races and species. Racing species typically is outclassed by class and magic Items very quickly in a character's levelspan.

For most of DND's history, many racist and species were suboptimal with many of the classes anyway.

So often you're talking about, either a minor mechanical benefit a slight edge in flexibility. A cosmetic look or a implied culture..

Any DM worth their salt can find something in a decently crafted setting.