D&D General The Tyranny of Rarity

[Neonchameleon]

Yeah. And if you want genuine wonder of exploration and discovery, it is beneficial for the players to start with limited knowledge.

Which is almost entirely independent from letting players start by playing what they want in terms of race. In fact if you are saying "Only Tolkien standard races" that's knowledge you are handing out in a way that "you can play anything and we will work it in if so" isn't.

 

[Minigiant]

We aren't? If we didn't want in on the campaign the DM pitched, why are we showing up?

The issue is some DMs think they don't have to pitch or that they should not have to put effort into pitching.

 

[Maxperson]

The person I was replying to said they had a world where winged tieflings didn't exist because they do not like to GM flying characters.

My point was....if flying is an issue then just make a blanket "no flying " rule and apply it to all characters equally. You don't have to limit races in your world just because mechanically they were designed with flight for PCs.

It might not be flying, though. I personally have never played an Aaracockra(sp), Avariel or other winged PC, but I do like PCs with fly spells and rings of flying. Wings just put me off for some reason.

 

[Oofta]

The issue is some DMs think they don't have to pitch or that they should not have to put effort into pitching.

If a DM has problems attracting players in my experience it has little to do with any restrictions on player options. Conversely allowing anything and everything doesn't inherently make their games more enjoyable.

But we keep seeing this conflation of issues. A DM that doesn't allow all races isn't pitching their campaign or they're a control freak that is only interested in telling their story. Why? What do they have to do with each other?

Related: why is one true way so acceptable if that one true way it to allow people to play any race they want without consideration of the world the DM has built? If you collaboratively create a brand new world with every campaign, cool! If you have an established campaign world that has precedence, awesome! Why do people think either style is inherently better?

 

[Neonchameleon]

And here it is again - it's like clockwork around here. Why isn't the basic fairness the players agreeing to the DM's restrictions on some choices? The DM is giving quite a bit of work and effort to the players by running the game. They ought to get something back. Basic fairness, there.

And here it is again - it's like clockwork around here. The basic D&D fairness agreement is that the DM writes most of the world, all the NPCs, and a whole lot more. Meanwhile the only thing the players have control over is who they are going to play - which is vastly less than the DM has. So yes, the DM already gets a vast amount back even when they aren't dictating major parts of the player's characters (which, let's not forget, are the only things the players get to control) to them.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Neither is a game worth playing. If all the people are not interested playing the same game, then it is better for them to not play together.

And this at a philosophical level is why I like class based RPGs. As the DM I am not playing the same game as my players. And when I play a blaster sorcerer with metamagic, adjusting my abilities on the fly, I'm not playing at all the same game as someone playing a "Throg Smash!" barbarian.

What we're playing is related games in the same setting and part of the point of a class based system is so we can all do this productively together. A core strength of D&D is enabling this in a way that other games which are in many ways better don't because it is a class based system; in skill based ones there's much more overlap between all the PCs.

And given that race is one of the very few functional choices a player has in creating their own character it to me is very symptomatic of an entitled GM who does not play well with others that they seek to control one of the few major choices the players get.

 

[Umbran]

Without a campaign world there is no game.

Eh. There's a whole lot of assumption in that statement as to what constitutes a game world. I don't think diving into this would be constructive, beyond stating that I, and others, have and can run games in which the game world is, essentially, "there's a village out there where you can buy food, arrows, torches and stuff," but little or no other explicit detail. Facts of the game world will be revealed as play goes on, "We have an elf and dwarf in the party, so there are elves and dwarves in the world," and "Oh, hey, here are lizardfolk on a pirate ship - so that's a thing," Improvisational D&D is a thing you can do.

And, as I have noted above - that a game world exists does not specify how it is generated. "The GM makes up everything" is by no means the only way to go about things.

The players have a huge impact on my world's reality through their actions and decisions. Things that happen in a campaign become part of the world's lore. You have no idea what my campaign is like but equating a handful of limitations with a dictatorial railroading DM is pretty insulting.

So, I have already noted that the answers to your question clearly don't apply to you. I am not talking about what you are doing. I am talking about what other people, who are decidedly not you, do, or may find useful, and why.

Please internalize that, or this will continue to be you finding conflict in things that aren't about you. This will not be constructive, and will quickly become tiresome.

 

[Stormonu]

The DM builds the world, ...

This is actually something I've been trying to move away from. I've been trying to incorporate some player choices, ideas and actions into the campaign worlds I run.

Examples:
Playing Ghosts of Saltmarsh, a recent character chose to play a human Gladiator battlemaster. That led to the creation of a gladiatorial circuit in the Kingdom of Keoland, that may extend beyond its borders. I may have this link be a stepping stone to a multidimensional supernatural "fight club" from a campaign from years ago - which itself was a spur-of-the-moment creation based on player desire for some power-leveling.

In the same campaign, due to a random trinket rolled on the PHB (A book with iron pages) for the Kenku player (who is a wizard), it turned out the book previously belonged to Keraptis (of White Plume Mountain infamy), and it was an apprenticing spellbook from when he was tutoring under Xenopus. This turned into a convulted story/quest involving the Dungeon of Xenopus, The Haunted House of Saltmarsh, The Tower of Iverness and White Plume Mountain - now all located in the Kingdom of Keoland and interlinked.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And this at a philosophical level is why I like class based RPGs. As the DM I am not playing the same game as my players. And when I play a blaster sorcerer with metamagic, adjusting my abilities on the fly, I'm not playing at all the same game as someone playing a "Throg Smash!" barbarian.

What we're playing is related games in the same setting and part of the point of a class based system is so we can all do this productively together. A core strength of D&D is enabling this in a way that other games which are in many ways better don't because it is a class based system; in skill based ones there's much more overlap between all the PCs.

This is really not at all what 'playing the same game' means. That the characters have differing capabilities doesn't make it a different game.

And given that race is one of the very few functional choices a player has in creating their own character it to me is very symptomatic of an entitled GM who does not play well with others that they seek to control one of the few major choices the players get.

And I could say that 'anything goes' attitude in GM is an indication that they don't take their setting seriously or care about it, so why should the players either? That, however, would be an uncharitable generalisation.

 

[Minigiant]

But we keep seeing this conflation of issues. A DM that doesn't allow all races isn't pitching their campaign or they're a control freak that is only interested in telling their story. Why? What do they have to do with each other?

It's not a conflation.

The situation is Why is it such a Big Deal for a DM to inquire why a player wants to play a particular race or class that is banned and suggest one that isn't banned that fits the setting and the players desires?

If the player wants to be an elf to be a haughty snootbag, why can't the DM suggest being a human from Simeon where the nobles are snooty?