D&D General The Tyranny of Rarity

[Cadence]

Designing a home brew world? Simply ask the players "hey, what playable races do you want to see? What classes? How about the pantheon, if there is one?"

It feels like a lot of people make up campaign worlds as a hobby in the background, maybe while playing in other campaigns in many groups. So there might not be any people particularly to ask while it's being constructed. Or has been already running with a different group.

If it"s more spur of the moment, or for a particular group of players, then it does seem like getting their input would be a common thing.

 

[Oofta]

In so far as anything in this conversation could be labeled as such, sure. Arbitrary use of power or authority.



Make a new list? Or ignore the list?

Again, the list exists to appease your sense of verisimilitude, right? For the world to make sense. But if it’s placed ahead of player concerns, then yeah, I think that’s where it’s a problem.

As a player, I’m not really interested in playing through a GM’s uber-detailed homebrew setting. Or at least, not in exchange for my ability as a player to contribute to the game.

What should I care if my playing a drow renders some paragraphs you jotted in a spiral notebook 8 years ago moot?

Again, though, if your players aren’t concerned about this, then it’s not an issue.

I let people know what races are allowed when I put out the invites. If that's tyranny you have an incredibly low bar.

Want to play a race not on my list? Find a different DM, I have plenty of potential players.

 

[Micah Sweet]

56 pages and some people still can't seem to accept that there's more than one way to GM, and they are equally valid.

 

[Older Beholder]

And 56 pages in, the idea that a DM might try to be more open minded to their players interests is still being met with arguments that a) 'I can be close minded if I want to, you can't tell me what to do' and at the same time b) 'how dare someone accuse me of not being open minded.'

 

[Micah Sweet]

And 56 pages in, the idea that a DM might try to be more open minded to their players interests is still being met with arguments that a) 'I can be close minded if I want to, you can't tell me what to do' and at the same time b) 'how dare someone accuse me of not being open minded.'

The assumption that your way is SO much better is getting tiresome, to be honest. Can't people accept that are different ways to DM, and that's ok?

 

[Faolyn]

You are the DM. ACT LIKE IT. If you want to do restrictions that is great. But be prepared not to have higher player population base. And much whining. I am sick and tired of the idea of if the DM does not allow the Kitchen Sink, then they are an icky nasty DM.

Serious question here: how many DMs are in frequent search of new players? I've had limited race lists for most of my D&D settings and nobody has been unwilling to play my games because of that.

 

[Faolyn]

For those that curate, I‘d be interested to hear about your option choices, especially if you’ve based your list on a theme or original idea. If you have a curated list of monsters that exist in your world I’d be keen to hear about that too.

I do a human and human-adjacent-only for my Ravenloft. Humans, fey-touched (half-elves), caliban (homebrew), and now the dhampir, and hexblood. I could also see allowing changelings and shifters, with the assumption that they are cursed humans or are part-human rather than their own races.

There is an orc in the party, but she was Mist-taken, so that's OK.

 

[Vaalingrade]

There are just means of tailoring a list that don't default to "Because I wrote it down that way ten years ago".

The campaign world being ten years old isn't an excuse either. My setting will be drinking age (US) come March. It's been around for six campaigns, dozens of one-shots, four DMs who were not me, three editions, and two million words of novels. I still don't reject player concepts.

I say 'well for this campaign, let's come up with where you're from, how you got here. It might not show up in future games unless your next character has a hook to the same thing'.

There's no gnomes on Ere, but there were some during the Drunkards& Dinosaurs campaign because someone wanted to play a gnome.

Orcs dying out (aside from living on via minotaurs [long story] and mixed-species children in the form of hobs), but someone wanted to orcs, so it turned out that there are some scattered and isolated orc populations that most people think are myth and whose neighbors have helped hide them from the genocide that wiped them out. The depiction was so good, those guys are canon now.

There are both no elephants on Ere AND I never considered loxodons, but someone wanted to loxodon, so a shipwreck from the 'Here There Be Dragons' part of the map landed one on the coast and they joined the army because people are used to all sort of crazy crap and a weird nose and ears are the least of their problems as long as it's friendly. Wherever they came from is the land of not canon in the rest of the setting, but what's it matter. Dude had fun.

I don't like the dragonborn mechanics and brewed my own dragonsired, but someone (for some reason) wanted to play a dragonborn, so they're a rare 'more human' dragonsired birth where they're more humanand mode-locked into dragon mode.

None of it hurt me. None of it hurt the setting.

 

[Older Beholder]

I do a human and human-adjacent-only for my Ravenloft. Humans, fey-touched (half-elves), caliban (homebrew), and now the dhampir, and hexblood. I could also see allowing changelings and shifters, with the assumption that they are cursed humans or are part-human rather than their own races.

There is an orc in the party, but she was Mist-taken, so that's OK.

Makes sense for Ravenloft.
It sounds like there's some flexibility there as well.

Thanks for the response, I'm always jealous of people playing Ravenloft, every time I open Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft I have about 4 different ideas for campaigns.

 

[Greg K]

I say 'well for this campaign, let's come up with where you're from, how you got here. It might not show up in future games unless your next character has a hook to the same thing'.

There are both no elephants on Ere AND I never considered loxodons, but someone wanted to loxodon, so a shipwreck from the 'Here There Be Dragons' part of the map landed one on the coast and they joined the army because people are used to all sort of crazy crap and a weird nose and ears are the least of their problems as long as it's friendly. Wherever they came from is the land of not canon in the rest of the setting, but what's it matter. Dude had fun.

I don't like the dragonborn mechanics and brewed my own dragonsired, but someone (for some reason) wanted to play a dragonborn, so they're a rare 'more human' dragonsired birth where they're more humanand mode-locked into dragon mode.

None of it hurt me. None of it hurt the setting.

As a player, the above are things that would turn me off. Does it make you a bad DM in general? No. However, you would be a bad DM for me and that is ok.