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

[EzekielRaiden]

It's wrong to have absolute power because the situation might end up fairly treating everyone's fun as equal?

That's a hard sell man.

Uh, no. Remember when folks got red-texted for blatantly inaccurately summarizing others' opinions?

I said what I said. GMs are claiming a mantle of leadership. Hell, you and others have specifically said that that means they somehow deserve respect, obedience, trust, etc., etc., simply because they lay claim to it.

Someone who claims a leadership position has to, y'know, lead. And one of the most important aspects of leadership is that you understand that you may not get to do a bunch of the things someone with less power could easily do no problem. That you have (significantly) higher expectations placed on you--and that one of those expectations is that you would never ask of another what you would be unwilling to do yourself, first.

So instead of inventing a strawman that literally has nothing whatsoever to do with what I said, perhaps you could...actually respond to that point?

Leaders--especially those claiming "absolute" power over ANYTHING--need to be willing to take one for the team, sometimes. Certainly not all the time, but sometimes. Anyone who isn't willing to do that simply, flatly, does not merit the power, trust, or deference that you and others so stridently demand.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Well, no it's not. Realism =/= real world. Fantasy Realism is a thing, and it establishes fantasy elements as real for the setting via lore. As a major example magic is set up via both setting lore and supporting mechanics, so magic is not unrealistic in D&D.

Except that that is, in fact, literally what "realism" means.

Look it up. Or, if you don't feel like it: link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4.

In every case, when "realism" is used to refer to literary or artistic things, it is always referring to depictions attempting, as much as possible, to display things like they actually are in real life. That's very literally the whole point of the word.

And "fantasy realism" is not a thing. The closest you'll get is either (1) the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, where the "realism" there refers to....depicting scenes as closely as possible to what they would be in real life, if they did in fact exist in real life, they just coincidentally don't happen to. Or (2) "magical realism", a primarily literary space where realistic environments are presented...but they also happen to contain supernatural or unphysical events, which are not treated as unusual or even all that worthy of comment by the author/artist.

In literally every case, however, "realism" as a particular branch of expressive endeavor, is about making things as similar as possible to what is actually real. Hence, I said what I said. The depiction of religion--not deities, religion, the practice and complexity and day-to-day living within that practice--in Eberron is worlds more realistic than that of nearly all other official D&D settings. The pseudo-Christian henotheism of nearly all D&D worlds is an extremely unrealistic portrayal of religion, even when taking into account that gods are demonstrably very real and quite powerful in these settings. The religions do not function as social entities; they function as gameplay components, to a degree that even I find troublesome. Not so with Eberron. Its religions actually have the shape and behavior that one would expect--and include problems, complications, contradictions, and foibles, so, so many foibles.

 

[Zardnaar]

But isn't that a direct denial of what folks have been saying?

Now you don't care if the player is trying to meet you in the middle. They have to give you everything you want, or you don't want them around. That's precisely the opposite of what folks keep saying.

Does anyone wonder why people hear the insistence that meeting in the middle is supposedly a thing, and then hear this, and see the previous insistence as seriously disingenuous?

I had spent $300 on 3pp and wanted to use it.

That's what I offered dont have to take it.

Still have 3 of those players these days it was 7 years ago.

300 good reasons it was a great campaign. No one had any issue with it.

Players were doing things like playing Midgard races eg Minotaurs, nearby Dragonkin/born empire as baddies, they were tapping leylines and engaging with the settings mechanics.

When you add an entire phb of options no one cares to much what's not on offer. Another 40 odd archetypes, new feats, spells, races etc.

Midgard Map

 

[MichaelSomething]

I'm big into accommodating players' race choices. You can play whatever race you want in my all Commoner class (based off of the 3E NPC class) campaign!

 

[Remathilis]

The tortle itself in Eberron isnt a problem. More if everyone isnt picking Eberron stuff.

I would just run not Eberron. If players aren't interested in engaging with a settings offerings I dont see the point of running it.
Real life it wouldn't get to that point. I would sort out if people were actually interested in the pitch and point out it's pointless running it if its just FR 2.0 in a funny hat.

You would get to play your tortle. I would just switch to FR assuming other players picked "tortles".

We are currently in session zero season for my next Eberron game set in the Western Frontier (Quickstone) and with a Wild West theme. So far, my group is (not final)

Human artificer "wandslinger" with Making dragonmark
Human fighter/gunfighter (IK) scholar with a prosthetic limb
Tabaxi rogue archeologist ala Lara Croft
Kalashtar monk Guide
A half-elf bard with stage fright
A human world tree barbarian

One Marked character, one exclusive species (two if you count khoravar/half elf) one 3pp class. Yet most of those characters still fit the themes of Eberron just fine. That's the beauty of Eberron, it's not the what you play but the themes you embrace with it.

 

[AlViking]

No more important, and yet still important.

Taking a vote and forcing one player (the DM) to agree or be deemed unreasonable is one approach.
Another approach is to just to agree collectively not to include things that other folks don’t like. I equally wouldn’t like it if the DM was forcing an encounter or villain on a player that they didn’t like simply because the player was in the minority.

The veto is common approach to reaching decision and can work on both sides. D&D is a big game and there is plenty of stuff in there for people to choose from even if a few get the veto.

Obviously the whole situation presumes the players haven’t all agreed this in advance. Lines and Veils are great, but at the same time it’s an evolving process not a one and done. Not everyone knows what they don’t like until they experience it.

I think I mentioned a while back not pursuing a Gothic horror arc because one player said they didn't care for it. Not hatred, not a trigger or anything, they just didn't like it. So I cut it short, threw out my outline and prepped something else for the next session.

People seem to expect subservience from the DM and anything else is an autocratic dictatorship.

 

[AlViking]

You don’t need to “get it right”. Every table’s version of a setting is unique to that table. The point is to avoid the sense of exclusive ownership, and wasting time creating stuff that the players aren’t interested in.

Like there isn't a lot of uninteresting stuff in FR or any other published setting? I pay attention to my players whether it's homebrew or I'm running an AL game as to what level of detail and description they want. It's just easier with homebrew material because I don't want someone piping up and telling me that the bartender of The Petite Troll is Eight Fingers Malone, not a female half-orc.

As far as "wasting time", it's my time so why do you care?

 

[AlViking]

Uh, no. Remember when folks got red-texted for blatantly inaccurately summarizing others' opinions?

I said what I said. GMs are claiming a mantle of leadership. Hell, you and others have specifically said that that means they somehow deserve respect, obedience, trust, etc., etc., simply because they lay claim to it.

Someone who claims a leadership position has to, y'know, lead. And one of the most important aspects of leadership is that you understand that you may not get to do a bunch of the things someone with less power could easily do no problem. That you have (significantly) higher expectations placed on you--and that one of those expectations is that you would never ask of another what you would be unwilling to do yourself, first.

So instead of inventing a strawman that literally has nothing whatsoever to do with what I said, perhaps you could...actually respond to that point?

Leaders--especially those claiming "absolute" power over ANYTHING--need to be willing to take one for the team, sometimes. Certainly not all the time, but sometimes. Anyone who isn't willing to do that simply, flatly, does not merit the power, trust, or deference that you and others so stridently demand.

So if no player in any group I've ever DMed a home group for adamantly insists on playing a tortle, I'm okay? What if they want to play a werewolf or vampire with all the benefits but none of the penalties?

 

[Belen]

But you can pick one off the peg, thus avoiding the proprietorial sense of DM ownership of the world.

Even better if it’s something the players are familiar with from other media.

No.

I detest published settings like FR. There are so many powerful NPCs around, why would a D&D party ever feel special?

I cannot run in a setting with Elminster or Drizzt.

 

[Bae'zel]

So if no player in any group I've ever DMed a home group for adamantly insists on playing a tortle, I'm okay? What if they want to play a werewolf or vampire with all the benefits but none of the penalties?

To be honest, I wonder if some of these folks exhibiting deep distrust for DMs have had really negative experiences and/or have tasted the forbidden fruit of RPGs that don't have DMs at all.

It would explain this to me a little.