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

[TwoSix]

Sorry: it was implied by your preference for published works over "someone's written notes". That specific choice of words makes homebrewed work seem disjointed and disorganized. Of lower quality than published works. I've met people who've done a lot of great work, even just in online blogs, that were more innovative and interesting than published works.

Dolmenwood started off as blog posts and amateur booklets. Basically "someone's written notes".

So yeah, it comes across as appeal to the authority of publishers to me.

I will reiterate my point, as I made in post #2399.

A published work is shared among all the participants, someone's specific homebrew is explained to the other participants. It elevates the GM's vision into a primary position of table focus, in a way I find inimical to collaboration.

 

[AlViking]

Yes, but most also have no interest in having their options restricted. They might endure it, but very few will think it's making their experience better.

LOL. My players are quite happy "enduring" the terrible suffering of having to only worry about their character.

 

[Bae'zel]

I will reiterate my point, as I made in post #2399.

We'll have to agree to disagree. From my own experience, I've found pre-published "shared" settings more limited in terms of player collaboration than a homebrewed one.

"Space Marines can't be girls!"

Edit: what if your "shared" setting isn't familiar to all of your players? You'll have to explain it to them "In this shared, premade setting, there are no elves, sorry, that's the lore". That's just as much of a limitation, isn't it?

I don't quite get your point.

 

[TwoSix]

We're talking about specifics here. Where's the line drawn? Running Forgotten Realms with specific races omitted is weird, yeah, but is running a "Dwarf-only" campaign okay? Still wrong?

What about a 1920s Call of Cthulhu campaign as humans only? Or a Middle Earth Campaign pitch that's Hobbits only?

There are so many examples that could be construed as confusingly exclusionary. It's coming down to personal preference and boundaries.

I said this a day or two ago, but tight curation around a central animating principle is totally fine (by me.)

It's "my homebrew doesn't have a place for tieflings or dragonborn, so you can't play them" I find objectionable.

One is about a exploring a concept together, the other is about "This is my setting, and I declare parts of it inviolate."

 

[TwoSix]

LOL. My players are quite happy "enduring" the terrible suffering of having to only worry about their character.

When you curated the setting, you unfortunately made your worldbuilding impact their focus on "just" their character.

 

[Bae'zel]

I said this a day or two ago, but tight curation around a central animating principle is totally fine (by me.)

It's "my homebrew doesn't have a place for tieflings or dragonborn, so you can't play them" I find objectionable.

One is about a exploring a concept together, the other is about "This is my setting, and I declare parts of it inviolate."

What?

"In Middle Earth, there are no Tieflings. This is Tolkien's setting, and we all declare parts of it inviolate".

Anwyay, we're not getting anywhere.

 

[Bae'zel]

When you curated the setting, you unfortunately made your worldbuilding impact their focus on "just" their character.

How is this any different than setting a game in a pre-determined franchise setting that also has limitations? That one player wanting to be something that goes against the established world building is also feeling the impact.

Seems like a double standard.

 

[TwoSix]

We'll have to agree to disagree. From my own experience, I've found pre-published "shared" settings more limited in terms of player collaboration than a homebrewed one.

"Space Marines can't be girls!"

Edit: what if your "shared" setting isn't familiar to all of your players? You'll have to explain it to them "In this shared, premade setting, there are no elves, sorry, that's the lore". That's just as much of a limitation, isn't it?

I don't quite get your point.

That would put me in a position of dictating information to them, which I also try to avoid. I prefer settings where everyone has some familiarity, or the setting is loose enough to accommodate most ideas.

As an example, I'm starting a table to try out Shadow of the Weird Wizard in a few weeks. That game has about 30 or so races defined in the setting, and I sending that list to them ahead of time. That list is broad enough that I think all the players will pick something from it, but if they have an out-there idea, I'll add it to the game. The setting is broad enough to have room for much pretty much anything.

 

[TwoSix]

What?

"In Middle Earth, there are no Tieflings. This is Tolkien's setting, and we all declare parts of it inviolate".

Anwyay, we're not getting anywhere.

If a player wants to play a Tiefling in Middle-Earth, than they didn't actually want to play Middle-Earth in the first place. So we will just play something else.

 

[tetrasodium]

I said this a day or two ago, but tight curation around a central animating principle is totally fine (by me.)

It's "my homebrew doesn't have a place for tieflings or dragonborn, so you can't play them" I find objectionable.

One is about a exploring a concept together, the other is about "This is my setting, and I declare parts of it inviolate."

Asmodeous is a FR thing tied to a plane that is part of a planar structure totally unrelated to the planes and planar structure of eberron to the point where I don't think there is even the same number of planes. Not only that, friends are native rather than extra planar and [details].in fact they aren't really even considered friend related since most are caused by manifest zones and such

A player who wants to join my eberron game with a tiefling is going to be told a somewhat more detailed version of that and have the chance to ask questions to help them flesh things out. If said player starts talking about asmodeous or ties to devils I'll be annoyed because they agreed to abide by the lore they are ignoring to lore dump from fr in ways that cause a disruption I need to correct mid game.

If I'm running a darksun game tiefling is not even an option.