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

[Maxperson]

Er, well...no. Intent absolutely matters, that's why we care about mens rea ("guilty mind") and actus reus ("guilty act"). If intent mattered more than anything else, then evil or unlawful intent would be more important than someone actually, y'know, committing the crime; you could be arrested simply for wanting to commit a crime, since that's intent.

First, that's called conspiracy. It takes more than one person, but they can be imprisoned for just wanting to do the crime. Second, mens rea is there BECAUSE intent is the most important thing. Without the intent, there's no crime for that act.

Intent without action is irrelevant, and action without intent is not culpable (though there are specific crimes with lower standards of intent--e.g. the difference between manslaughter and murder.) Only intent and action, together, count. Hence, it can't be true that intent matters more than anything else. It's co-equal with actually doing the deed.

If the action can happen with or without intent, but is only a crime if the intent is there, intent is the more important of those two components. It and it alone decides whether it's a crime or not. I also never claimed intent was the only part. Only that it was the most important.

Plenty of people do! Tons of homicides--situations where humans kill other humans, regardless of other details--are never punished, because there isn't enough evidence to secure a conviction. Because the police and AG being so certain that X person committed a crime is not actually good reason to say that X did do it, and a bunch of people have been wrongly convicted because illegally overzealous prosecutors/investigators manufactured evidence to convict someone.

Even beyond that, trials are long, expensive, and not guaranteed to win. A lot of crimes, especially "neutral" ones like what you speak of here (I don't agree with your characterization, but my disagreement would require nuance and thus be too long to address here), get wiped away with plea deals, settlements, or other arrangements without anyone ever going to trial. Hell, a bunch of outright EVIL acts never get punished for the same reason. There's a prominent case frequently discussed in the news right now, where a certain infamous individual got a plea deal in the early 2000s despite not stopping the grotesquely evil deeds, which resulted in this individual being functionally not even slightly punished despite their obvious, provable guilt.

You aren't understanding the context of that comment. It was about whether the act was evil and therefore deserving of punishment, not whether they are prosecuted or get away with it.

 

[AlViking]

And, as always, you characterize the player as having insane, ridiculous, utterly unacceptable desires.

This, this right here, is precisely what I've been talking about this whole time. It's this simmering hostility underneath every example, every engagement. The player is ALWAYS a jerk demanding something stupid, ALWAYS an entitled little prince actively flouting any sense of propriety or respect. It is always pushed to these extremes, every single time, from the word go.

Do you think, maybe, possibly, you could consider giving examples where the player's desires, even if they aren't something you personally planned for, might actually be reasonable and sensible and worthy of respect, rather than painting everyone with the brush of "well I'M the PRINCE of all halflings and you're a HORRIBLE WICKED GM if you don't allow that!!!!!!!!!"

What hostility? You guys are really starting to crack me up. Mike was new to the game and I don't lore dump so he didn't realize being halfling nobility didn't make a lot sense. So we worked something out that worked for both of us. He was fine with it, it worked for me.

I really don't understand why you are so determined to turn an simple, normal everyday example into a DM abuse story.

I gave an example of when and why a player's background didn't fit and how I handled it. Why would I need to give examples of the 95% of the time I just have to verify a few details? Because I've already explained that's what happens most of the time.

Edit - Mike was not demanding anything. He wanted to play a halfling with a noble background which didn't make sense so we figured out how to make it work.

 

[Remathilis]

If we have a session zero, I heard the pitch from the DM, and the DM said, "All elves are dead. They've been dead for a thousand years. But everything else is on the table." And I say, "I want to play a wood elf?" I would certainly expect the DM to question why. Same thing if they banned the sorcerer, and I wanted to play a sorcerer. I would expect the DM to ask why.

Why do you assume the DM is not hosting a session zero? Why do you assume there is no communication? The reason the DM is asking why is because they have already made it clear the tortle is not an option. Of course they will ask why. This is a campaign we're talking about, right? Not a one shot. A campaign where the DM pitched the idea. The players were interested enough to show up to session zero. The DM outlined the dos and don'ts. And then the play immediately (step 1 of character creation in 2014 - Choose a race) went to the don't side.

Don't you feel that would warrant a question from the DM?

That's not question you asked. You asked for a reason why I would want to play a Tortle beyond "TMNT", which was accusatory in that you believe the only reason a player would ask to play one (even if it's not on The List) was Lol Michelangelo. I posit the reason why the player wants to play one is inconsequential to the question of IF he should; "because I want to" is as valid as the DM saying "because I don't." You are trying to use the settings design to justify the DMs choice, but that is not a reason because the DM created the lore..(there are no Tortles in the world because the DM doesn't want tortles). So the issue still just comes down to clashing desires.

So it's a bogus question. The question is what, if anything can accommodate both sets of desires.

 

[AlViking]

Viking. He said he's sticking to the old 3.5e ones no matter what

Which, yeah, frankly I disagree with if other races are around

OK. So you disagree. You don't need to join my game. Your loss, not mine.

 

[mamba]

Point out to me ONE example where someone did that, actually seriously presented an example of a perfectly general thing that they got EXPLICIT player buy-in for, and I'll retract this claim.

Well, we started at ‘a player wants to be a tortle even though it does not exist in the setting’, there was basically no time spent on how we got here.

I am pretty sure something along the lines of ‘this is the setting and theme, do you want to join’ happens in most cases before the player then shows up with the tortle despite this

 

[DinoInDisguise]

That's not question you asked. You asked for a reason why I would want to play a Tortle beyond "TMNT", which was accusatory in that you believe the only reason a player would ask to play one (even if it's not on The List) was Lol Michelangelo. I posit the reason why the player wants to play one is inconsequential to the question of IF he should; "because I want to" is as valid as the DM saying "because I don't." You are trying to use the settings design to justify the DMs choice, but that is not a reason because the DM created the lore..(there are no Tortles in the world because the DM doesn't want tortles). So the issue still just comes down to clashing desires.

So it's a bogus question. The question is what, if anything can accommodate both sets of desires.

Uh that's not what he was discussing, if I read his response correctly.

He said,

• DM sets boundaries in session zero (e.g., “no elves, no tortles”).
• A player asks to play something explicitly excluded.
• The DM asks why—because it conflicts with the agreed framework.
• This happens is a campaign context, where boundaries are communicated, not a random pick-from-a-hat scenario.

And you just... ignored the framing. And pivot from “why the DM would question it” to “why the player wants it”, and then argue that the player’s motivation doesn’t matter. Huh?

And than you seem to recast his argument as “justifying the DM’s lore” rather than acknowledging the practical issue: the DM has rules that were given out pre-character creation, the player is violating them, so the DM questions it.

And finally, you reduce the discussion to abstract “clashing desires,” sidestepping the point about session zero communication and DM-player interaction. But the entire post was about those very things.

His point is solid. If the DM says “no tortles,” and a player asks for one anyway, the DM asking “why” is completely rational and expected. It'd be weird not to.

I don't understand your argument. What am I missing?

 

[Thomas Shey]

See how you say "it's not massively preplanned."

See how the other side is saying: It took a lot of work and tons of preplanning.

Which one should have to compromise?

Both. Amount of work is not an excuse to ignore the interests of a player. That's the road that leads down to GM supremecy. I do plenty of work for my campaigns, but that doesn't let me off the hook; it limits how far I'll go, but that's not the same thing as not doing any lifting at all to try and reach the player's interests.

As for your question, I would expect an answer.

I gave an answer. Its a look-and-feel thing. That's probably been the reason for the majority or racial choices most people have ever made that were not based on mechanical elements. If you want more than that, you're asking for things answers that don't exist.

A conversation to happen between to people who want to game together. One has accepted the role as a player, the other the DM. I might hear something like this:

Player: "So I have this cool idea based on the Ninja Turtles. I want to use nunchucks, be super agile, and have a protective armor. The tortle fits the bill. I really like the thought of using this shell on my back to jump and slide around in. I also like the idea of being able to hold my breath for an hour. And I know you said the world only has four races in it and no dimensional or astral travel. Will it throw the whole thing off if I am a tortle?"

DM: "Unfortunately it will. Not to spoil the premise or anything, but the entire campaign is based around all the races dying. Most have been extinct for thousands of years. I have written a lot on the only piece of land left with life. You know, how the four kingdoms act towards one another. Their trade. Their secrets. To suddenly have an anomaly kind of goes against the religious and cultural flavors of the campaign."
Player: "I got ya. So can we still try to build something like that?"
DM: "Of course. There is a human species on an island. Their whole culture is maritime based. Coincidentally, they are also known for wearing masks during pirate raids. Why don't you start there, build away. Be creative. And let me know what you come up with. If you need the racial feat or anything like that, feel free to take it, just make sure to not take both the human's and tortle's. For example, take the hold breath feat they have, but just explain it away as part of your insane monk-style training or give yourself an item that allows you to do, a breath pebble or nose plugs that shoot oxygen into you or whatever else you can come up with."

And as noted, this is not really a compromise if look-and-feel of a turtleman is what the person was looking for.

There may be a few cases where there is no useful compromise possible, as seems the case in the extremely specific example at hand. But don't kid yourself its a compromise. Its not. Its offering an alternative that may well be entirely besides the point.

 

[Remathilis]

I don't understand your argument. What am I missing?

Let me reframe the question: what answer would you believe is acceptable to allow me to play a Tortle?

 

[DinoInDisguise]

Let me reframe the question: what answer would you believe is acceptable to allow me to play a Tortle?

This is just how I do it. With the caveat that I DM online so players are literally infinite.

Oh, and this is assuming you will only play a Tortle as is, and you don't just want some part of it. Because swapping racial features and stuff is super easy.

First I write and submit a pitch. It's normally a campaign and world idea in roughly 400 words. That pitch is what I want to run. If I wanted to run something else, I'd pitch something else. At the end of the pitch is basic information about length, levels, combat difficulty, things players want to know, like restrictions.

At this point the players I pitched it to, normally online groups, decide which if any are interested and those players approach me. When they approach me, most respond with "Yeah I'd like to play." That is them accepting the pitch, so they are then bound to that pitch. Because why would someone join if they didnt want the campaign I laid out?

So after that, you express wanting to play a tortle. If it fits the pitch, great conversation ends there. If it doesn't, we talk. The onus, at that point, is on you to convince me that it fits the pitch I laid out. The one you read, and wanted to join. If you do, great. If you dont, oh well, you play somewhere else. It's not rejection—it's geography.

Spoiler: Why is he so mean!?

I was explicit in my pitch because I wanted something specific. And you aren't paying me so I owe you nothing. Weird and selfish, I know. But maybe next time, I love players who don't give up.

Spoiler: But...

We are both human, so sometimes we want different things. Thats okay, it happens.

Spoiler: You're a tyrant!

Possibly, but I play 2 sessions a week and have a lot of fun. So I guess I'll survive.

Spoiler: Wrong Fun!

You got me. Right fun is just so boring.

 

[zakael19]

But no one wants to read your game notes to figure out why it’s super important there are no Dragonborn or Tabaxi or Tortles in this game.

People were surprisingly willing to read all the ancestry localization notes in my brief setting guide when I took the time to figure out where basically all the options fit into the world, and work with me to add interesting details and situate them even more fully. In fact when I left some species in I’m not super keen on and just wrote in “these folk are here, doing this, and pretty rare outside - let’s work together to give your character a coherent reason to be out and about” nobody picked those; heck the one person who was thinking about it went “actually I’ll just go with something more common and easier!”