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

[soviet]

....I really shouldn't have brought up tortles in my initial "stuff you might not include in a proposed setting" example. That was clearly more resonant than blood magic.

Tortles is serious bisness!

 

[TwoSix]

I will admit that I skipped most of the thread, coming into it around 50 or 60 pages in, but in the time I've been present here I haven't seen a single DM indicate his game was anything like what you describe here.

Would you like to know my deep secret?

I don't actually like dragonborn. I have never had a dragonborn PC, and I virtually never use them when I'm GMing.

Do you know impact that dislike has on my games when I GM, and a player wants to play a dragonborn? 0.0%.

If your game has enough room to allow for some customization, than it has enough room to allow for a customization that matters to a particular PC.

 

[Minigiant]

nah, lack of any compromise is a red flag in itself, that doesn’t mean that everything is fully negotiable. There probably is something you want to keep around from your initial idea though, and that is fine

Nah.

Lack of compromise is fine if you have valid reasons.

 

[TwoSix]

....I really shouldn't have brought up tortles in my initial "stuff you might not include in a proposed setting" example. That was clearly more resonant than blood magic.

Even blood magic rituals can't compare to the Secret of the Ooze.

 

[billd91]

Man, I wish I had the time to waste designing a setting that doesn't even have players yet.

For a lot of cases with a setting, it may be one that's been run with before - just with a new set of players for a new campaign. Background work... largely already done. One of the players in my group has run a series of campaigns over the last 20 years out of his own campaign setting. And yes, he keeps out most of the D&D species options, both as PCs and NPCs. There's no point to asking to play a tortle - they aren't an option.

In other cases, it's a specific idea they want to try out - see prior examples in this thread about a group of halflings leaving their village to adventure in the wider world. That was part of the reason my friend set up his campaign setting in the first place. He had an idea he wanted to pursue that didn't have the standard set of D&D options - it had just human PCs, no panoply of enemy humanoids (just two unique ones to his setting), prestige classes tied to just specific religious organizations (now reconstituted as subclasses in his 5e version). And he was really successful with it with his players - so it has kept going for the next couple of decades after he started.

So, waste of time when he first wrote it? No - the fact that players were interested in playing it when he pitched it proved it was a success. Waste of time to still have around and further develop it even when not currently being played? No - players will continue to be interested in it as is proven by him recruiting groups every time he wants to run it again.

Thinking developing a campaign setting based on an interesting idea you have is a waste of time sounds like a YOU problem, not a general issue that applies to everyone.

 

[Belen]

Which I was told several times in this thread.

Goose meet gander

Not from me. I have consistently argued for the big tent approach.

 

[dave2008]

@AlViking offered up one. He offered up a race that was visually human(I think), but had tortle stats and culture. That's moving the DM's stance off of "The DM will not allow tortles" and moving the player off of "The player will only play a tortle."

That's what a compromise is. Moving off of your stance towards the middle. In this case the DM is offering the player about 90% of what the player is asking for(all but the visual). Apparently, though, given the responses to ALViking in this thread, the DM offering the player a 90% compromise isn't good enough and the DM can only "compromise" through complete capitulation to the player.

I disagree, that is a capitulation by the player, not a compromise. The premise was I want to play a turtle person. Something that doesn't look like a turtle person doesn't qualify.

I want to be clear, I am not advocating these narrow perspectives. I was responding to a claim that simply wanting* to play a turtle person is a valid. Which I agree with. However, it is as equally valid as a DM not wanting to have turtle people in the setting. If the only reason for something is that you want it, then there is no real compromise between those opposing wants. Either someone gets what they want or they don't.

*The OP I responded to said the player was guided my their muse or something similar.

 

[Maxperson]

In a similar way, being told "well you can't play a dragonborn, but you can come from the Dragon Clan of barbarians and call yourself a 'dragonborn', but you'll be human" is not a compromise. And yes, that is a real example actually floated in a previous thread like this, from the pro-GM side. A "compromise" sincerely proposed, but clearly with the awareness that it would be rejected....something that was characterized as unreasonable, petulant demands from a player.

First, that's a misstatement of the compromise offered with the tortles. You left out that the Dragon Clan would have Dragonborn mechanics. So yes what was offered was a compromise. A compromise is moving off your position TOWARDS the other side, not complete capitulation to the other side. What was described with the tortles was in fact a compromise offer. It may or may not be an acceptable compromise, but that it is a compromise is fact.

What you and the others are doing is saying that the only "compromise" is complete capitulation. Anything short of giving the player everything isn't a compromise to you, and that's not how compromise works. There is a very good reason why the very famous saying that a good compromise leave everyone unhappy exists.

 

[TwoSix]

@AlViking offered up one. He offered up a race that was visually human(I think), but had tortle stats and culture. That's moving the DM's stance off of "The DM will not allow tortles" and moving the player off of "The player will only play a tortle."

That's what a compromise is. Moving off of your stance towards the middle. In this case the DM is offering the player about 90% of what the player is asking for(all but the visual). Apparently, though, given the responses to ALViking in this thread, the DM offering the player a 90% compromise isn't good enough and the DM can only "compromise" through complete capitulation to the player.

Compromise should generally be possible. A fantasy species for D&D has three distinct layers; the mechanical layer, the aesthetic layer, and the setting fiction layer. The player needs to communicate with of those layers is their highest priority, and the DM needs to indicate which layer causes the most problems for their setting conception.

Compromise might not be possible if the player and DM overlap on which layer is the most important to include/exclude, respectively.

 

[dave2008]

Obviously I was having a bit of fun with the Solar thing. That said, if a DM was really willing to let me play anything from the MM, I'd probably go with the Couatl. Since I started playing the game in 1983 they've been my favorite good creature.

I really wanted to make a Couatl PC! I hinted at it several times but no one took the bait. I think the idea of using weapons, magic items, etc. was so ingrained that they couldn't seem themselves playing a character without hands.