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

[Zardnaar]

"Attraction to strict curation is a GMing weakness" is what I said, which is subtly different. And yes, if your impulse is to take a setting and chop out a bunch of races to make things simpler or cleaner, I think following that impulse hampers your game and your players.

They weren't chopping out a bunch of setting races. Those races didnt exist in the first place.

Specific curated setting can and should differ from what's available in the PHB.

PHB races are a reasonable expectation to have. If not communicate clearly and early they're not eg Darksun.

Everything allowed all of the time usnt actually normal. Very few tables allow that. Usually its the same things banned (Twilight clerics, non PHB stuff, flyers etc). Tables that do allow it tend to self destruct.

No one dares if you personally allow that stuff in your games. Don't tell me how to run mine is more the point.

Not helped thst WotC notches things every edition and everything allowed all of the time isn't particularly interesting either.

 

[mamba]

Or you could, you know, ask "What part of playing a tortle is it that interests you?" instead of just making assumptions.

yes, they could do that too, that does not make their (potentially unacceptable) proposal an insult however

 

[Thomas Shey]

Some players likely do care, but looking at r/LFG and my own experience, I don’t think players reliably self-select away from games with restrictions. That makes it hard for me to see this as a dominant concern for most players.

Well, honestly, there's always the simple case of players who's desires are relatively simply so a game with or without restrictions doesn't matter. If you run to playing (to use the D&D example) human fighters, you can just not care. Even if you vary the personality and background up, that likely won't get in your way, and that's not even counting the people who are (effectively) playing almost the same character in every game.

If anything, D&D Beyond data suggests most characters cluster around a small number of races, which suggests that broad racial availability may not be a priority for many. In practice, players also seem to react much more strongly to class restrictions than racial ones. In my own r/LFG posts, restricting classes produces a noticeable drop in responses, while restricting races doesn’t.

Some people are very, very heavily uninterested in playing the same-old races (either because they don't really want to play humans in the first place, or they're just done with it having done it plenty). Others don't care that much (I tend to land there). But the first group tends to have pretty strong feelings about it, and I don't think they're all that rare (though D&D may well select against them).

 

[AlViking]

That isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about various options that actually have no bearing on what they wanted to play a particular race for. You earlier assumed that it was about the culture or the mechanical benefits. That wasn't it.

(To back up a bit and be fair, it could have simply been an honest case of projecting your own expectations of what would be important rather than finding out what was. In which case it wasn't passive aggressive so much as jumping to conclusions).



Again, you're missing my point.



But it can be, if they originally came in with the physical properties, the cultural assumptions, and the mechanical benefits, but were ready to shed the latter two if necessary. It just may have been that the available compromises weren't useful at your end.

I'm still missing your point. Species have cultural background and outlook, mechanical benefits and appearance. My proposal did not include physical appearance because that's stated in my introduction to the campaign. If that's all you care about (which I will admit I find odd everything considered) then there is no compromise possible. I'd suggest a hat of disguise but I'm sure some people would find that even more insulting because of reasons.

 

[Thomas Shey]

yes, they could do that too, that does not make their (potentially unacceptable) proposal an insult however

I don't consider it an insult. I do think acting like their lack of desire to compromise is somehow worse than the GM doing that is, however, something people should get over.

 

[AlViking]

yes, they could do that too, that does not make their (potentially unacceptable) proposal an insult however

Compromise has to start with proposals, not all proposals are accepted. That's just how it works.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm still missing your point. Species have cultural background and outlook, mechanical benefits and appearance. My proposal did not include physical appearance because that's stated in my introduction to the campaign. If that's all you care about (which I will admit I find odd everything considered) then there is no compromise possible. I'd suggest a hat of disguise but I'm sure some people would find that even more insulting because of reasons.

That's my point though; there was no compromise possible because what you both thought important was the central point. That doesn't make what you did necessarily in the wrong, but when a player comes in with something like that, that doesn't mean they are necessarily in the wrong, either. They don't know that "physical turtleman" is an immoveable point in your premise you don't feel you can't or are unwilling to work around; they find it out when you tell them.

 

[tetrasodium]

"Attraction to strict curation is a GMing weakness" is what I said, which is subtly different. And yes, if your impulse is to take a setting and chop out a bunch of races to make things simpler or cleaner, I think following that impulse hampers your game and your players.

Other than the inclusion of a couple more words I'm not seeing a difference beyond two slightly different wording for the same basic concept. Can you elaborate on what the subtle difference is between the two in a way that sheds more detail/clarity on the duffi?

 

[AlViking]

That's my point though; there was no compromise possible because what you both thought important was the central point. That doesn't make what you did necessarily in the wrong, but when a player comes in with something like that, that doesn't mean they are necessarily in the wrong, either. They don't know that "physical turtleman" is an immoveable point in your premise you don't feel you can't or are unwilling to work around; they find it out when you tell them.

They do know that physical turtleman is an immovable point because I explicitly state that in the invite.

 

[Umbran]

Some players likely do care, but looking at r/LFG and my own experience, I don’t think players reliably self-select away from games with restrictions. That makes it hard for me to see this as a dominant concern for most players.

So, what?

It doesn't have to be a dominant concern for most players to be an issue at someone's table.

If all we cared about was the dominant concerns of most players, we'd all still be playing Monopoly. Catering to niche and diversity is the strength of RPGs!