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

[AlViking]

Id add an exception for explaining common cultural/national knowledge because it comes up fairly often in my eberron games where I'll point out a common bit of (potentially incorrect propaganda sourced) bit of knowledge or attitude towards someone/something/somewhere among those who hail from the same region as one or more of the PCs

I wasn't thinking of things like history or the cultural structures they grew up with. In their culture eating chicken could be forbidden for some reason but I'm not going to tell the person their character won't eat chicken. Just that they were raised to not eat them.

 

[Mecheon]

So when someone else says they want to play a species that never existed in my world, what do I say? Do I need to include Harengons, plasmoids, firbolgs, loxodons and every other species that was ever introduced as a playable character? Do I have to include shardminds, yuan-ti? What about species from some old third party product?

I don't want to run a kitchen sink campaign. Even if the kitchen sink is the size of the adventuring group. If you want that, feel free to run your own game.

I mean, if you're playing a Dungeons and Dragons universe those things probably exist somewhere as NPCs and could theoretically be around. Harengon are from another dimension so that's an easy in or out depending on the Feywild/Plane of Faerie being around, Plasmoids are from space, Firbolgs are regular creatures who also have that feywild link. Have you just, never had any of stuff like firbolgs show up? Shardminds are another 'they're from space' so that's another reason to be rare but yuan-ti are such stock D&D creatures that they even appear in Dark Sun. Do you just, not have secretive snake cults, the most swords and sorcery thing ever? Not as playable races (as, frankly, you don't want my options on your playable options as the only interesting thing there is gnomes and you seem to have put down 4 seperate instances of Human but X), but not even as NPCs around the world?

If your setting doesn't have firbolgs, long time legacy giant-kin, or yuan-ti, long time threats with entire D&D video games based around them, both of who've been around since Monster Manual 2 and have stats in every edition as monsters, I gotta once again bring up that 'why are you using Dungeons and Dragons in particular' because like. These aren't exactly rare creatures. Monster Manual 2 gave us Driders, Duergar, some of the more regular re-occuring devils and demons, and, once again, Krakens. Does your setting not have those either? What's the cut off for when you stop using the monster manuals?

If you don't want to play a kitchen sink then maybe playing Dungeons and Dragons, the kitchen sink fantasy setting, isn't for you

That's a whole lot of words to say "The player decides what options are allowed." I see no room for player compromise.

I mean, yes, the players do decide what options are allowed through what they chose. If you have some fancy home-brewed option that has massive importance to your lore and you've offered as an option, it means exactly squat if no one picks that option and decides "you know what its gnome time".

I never heard of Tortles until they popped as a short supplement for purchase on DDB and I have been running D&D since 1993.

Calling them a legacy playable race is a stretch no matter when they were first referenced.

You'd have missed Mystara and X9, the stuff when they appeared

 

[Moving Pictures]

Clerics exist because someone in Dave Arneson's game wanted to play one (as inspired by Hammer Horror films). Dave Arneson didn't say 'No, only my ideas are valid'.

Bingo. Collaboration. I didn't want subclasses, but my players did/do, and so I've created something that isn't quite a subclass but more a pathway for rangers and rogues. The suggestion my player gave didn't fit into the system (or so I thought) but I worked with the concepts and together we created pathways that meet the players needs while still giving me the sense it fits into the system I've built.
Compromise.
Win-win.
It's very Canadian, I guess.

I have had a couple of cases where I've ended up having to step in, or been involved in as a player, around player choices impacting other players. Real examples include:


Someone having a character impacted by lyncanthropy, having fun working through implications of that, until another players character dies and they decide their next character must be a lyncanthrope hunting character, and ended up with one character hunting the other until one left the party. Second player had lots of fun, but first was upset.

That's nothing more than an example of bad DM management, and screams for a solid session 0 discussion. In fact, crap like that is why people invented session zero....

If I allow a turtle I have no reason to deny any other species. But this is just more of the same. Compromise means giving players what theywant and to hell with the DM's preferences, opinions, thematic tone or world building.

That's not even remotely what compromise means. If I had a player come to me with that tortle concept, I'd be interested in figuring something out. Why? Because it's character driven. I might not get to where the player wants, but dangity, it's worth a discussion.

 

[Dire Bare]

There is often a disconnect and disagreement between groups of long standing friends who have similar interests and a lot of trust in the DM and newer groups where the DM doesn't have as much leeway nor authority due to the shorter time of knowing each other as well as well as not having all the same underpinning for fantasy.

This is often why core phb elements are so important in the second group.

D&D NEEDS a shared understanding of fantasy between all on thr table to function.

I'm not sure if we are in agreement or not on this, so I'm not arguing against you but trying to further this conversation . . .

D&D does have a shared understanding, it's the options in the PHB. This, of course, has evolved over the 50 years of the game, and there are a lot more player options in the core rules now than back in 1974. The various additional player options found in other official D&D sources are . . . kind of in a limbo between being a part of that shared understanding and being optional building blocks for player groups to use, or not, as they see fit. Some groups feel like anything outside the PHB needs either DM approval, a group discussion, or both before being included. Other groups feel that anything in the official books (other than perhaps campaign specific sources) should be OK without issue.

Officially, clearly stated in the core rules . . . everything is optional. DMs can use or restrict any player option from the PHB or from other sources in their world-building. Now, DMs who do this should be prepared for irritated players who come into the game expecting to play something from the core rules (dragonborn), or from an official supplement (tortles). This is where a clear pitch and a good Session Zero discussion can smooth over potential upset. But ultimately, if your DMing style (controlling and restrictive) doesn't mesh with the type of game I'm interested in as a player (open and collaborative), then someone has to give in or decide not to play. Which, either way, is okay.

What I really find irritating as a player, and will walk away from, is DMs who have (seemingly) arbitrary restrictions from that shared understanding and are inflexible about changing them . . . and their rational is "Because I'm the DM and tortles don't exist in my setting and that's that". And often the communication doesn't make that clear until that Session Zero (or Session One) where I excitedly share my dragon tortle aspect of Tiamat character concept and get it shot down without any attempt at expanding their world and find a way to collaborate. Maybe I came to the session with 4 different concepts, three of which would work just fine in that DMs campaign . . . but the controlling and inflexible style of DMing just leaves me cold, so I walk.

For DMs who decide to break that shared understanding . . . fine, but show me that your campaign story is worth that break. And be willing to adapt your campaign to accommodate player concepts, within reason. And communicate that clearly in your initial pitch, as much as you can anyways (you probably didn't predict I'd want to play a turtle person perhaps).

 

[Moving Pictures]

What I really find irritating as a player, and will walk away from, is DMs who have (seemingly) arbitrary restrictions from that shared understanding and are inflexible about changing them . . . and their rational is "Because I'm the DM and tortles don't exist in my setting and that's that". And often the communication doesn't make that clear until that Session Zero (or Session One) ....

I had one-on-one "interviews" with all my players, and gave them the background, races, cultures and the like. It's very old-school races - gnome, dwarf, two flavours of elf, half-elves, elf interbreeds, and four different human cultures. That's it. But folks are having fun after a year despite those 'restrictions.'

 

[AlViking]

I mean, if you're playing a Dungeons and Dragons universe those things probably exist somewhere as NPCs and could theoretically be around. Harengon are from another dimension so that's an easy in or out depending on the Feywild/Plane of Faerie being around, Plasmoids are from space, Firbolgs are regular creatures who also have that feywild link. Have you just, never had any of stuff like firbolgs show up? Shardminds are another 'they're from space' so that's another reason to be rare but yuan-ti are such stock D&D creatures that they even appear in Dark Sun. Do you just, not have secretive snake cults, the most swords and sorcery thing ever? Not as playable races (as, frankly, you don't want my options on your playable options as the only interesting thing there is gnomes and you seem to have put down 4 seperate instances of Human but X), but not even as NPCs around the world?

If your setting doesn't have firbolgs, long time legacy giant-kin, or yuan-ti, long time threats with entire D&D video games based around them, both of who've been around since Monster Manual 2 and have stats in every edition as monsters, I gotta once again bring up that 'why are you using Dungeons and Dragons in particular' because like. These aren't exactly rare creatures. Monster Manual 2 gave us Driders, Duergar, some of the more regular re-occuring devils and demons, and, once again, Krakens. Does your setting not have those either? What's the cut off for when you stop using the monster manuals?

If you don't want to play a kitchen sink then maybe playing Dungeons and Dragons, the kitchen sink fantasy setting, isn't for you


I mean, yes, the players do decide what options are allowed through what they chose. If you have some fancy home-brewed option that has massive importance to your lore and you've offered as an option, it means exactly squat if no one picks that option and decides "you know what its gnome time".


You'd have missed Mystara and X9, the stuff when they appeared

You're assuming the multiverse exists. As far as I'm concerned it doesn't. LOL ... I don't play the game exactly like you do, have never told you that you're playing wrong or that what other people do at their table matters to me one way or another. All I've ever said is that I have certain preferences and if that doesn't work for you I may not be the DM for you. But you turn that into I shouldn't be playing D&D because I don't allow every option that has ever been allowed in the history of the game? Really?

 

[Dire Bare]

Are there "more"? Heck if I know and unless you have some evidence to back it up that's just an unsubstantiated appeal to popularity.

More what? More of us who prefer a more collaborative approach? Yes, there most certainly are more of us than before.

Are we a majority of players? I have no idea, don't really care. But based on the way the core game has developed, I'm pretty comfortable saying there are more of us than ever before, and growing. The way D&D and other games are being written today seem to cater to a more collaborative approach, although not necessarily exclusively.

Should you change your DMing style because a more collaborative approach is "popular"? No. But I'd encourage an open mind and maybe give it a try. You might be surprised!

 

[AlViking]

...

That's not even remotely what compromise means. If I had a player come to me with that tortle concept, I'd be interested in figuring something out. Why? Because it's character driven. I might not get to where the player wants, but dangity, it's worth a discussion.

You don't seem to understand the meaning of compromise when it means "The player gets whatever they want and ignores the DM." I gave an example of someone that has all the characteristics of a tortle except for the physical form. It was rejected out of hand.

 

[Xenolith234]

Not welcome as mine

Oh genuinely no, I just won't care about the good qualities in regards to worldbuilding and verisimilitude. To help give an example--I think quantum ogres are fine as long as those Ogres are fun.

It is to me worth less yes.

Wow.

 

[AlViking]

More what? More of us who prefer a more collaborative approach? Yes, there most certainly are more of us than before.

Are we a majority of players? I have no idea, don't really care. But based on the way the core game has developed, I'm pretty comfortable saying there are more of us than ever before, and growing. The way D&D and other games are being written today seem to cater to a more collaborative approach, although not necessarily exclusively.

Should you change your DMing style because a more collaborative approach is "popular"? No. But I'd encourage an open mind and maybe give it a try. You might be surprised!

You're basing this assertion on what, exactly? People have always had different approaches to the game. I have no clue if there's any change or not, there certainly hasn't been any significant changes to the wording in the PHB or DMG.

I suggest you do what works for you and I'll do what works for me and my players.