D&D General The Tyranny of Rarity

[DND_Reborn]

I always wonder about this; OD&D was not low magic in any meaningful way, and if you stayed with it long enough, not low power.

Experiences differ of course.

(bold added)

And IME this was rarely reached because it took so long to level that even playing the same PCs for years would rarely get you above name level. There are always notable exceptions, however, and even my own experience had a couple of those, albeit not many.

 

[Neonchameleon]

More of "my way is the right way" and "yours is bad wrong fun" then???

Some people talk about entitled players. I've run into more entitled DMs than I have entitled players in my roleplaying (three DMs, two players total) - and I DM open tables at meetups and DM far more than I play. Also entitled players do far far less to ruin an experience than entitled DMs because the DM has so much more power and control.

It is possible to run a game well as "I'm DM. I'm God. And what I say goes and the players may not contribute to the world." But in my experience this is the single biggest red flag of the terrible DMs I've had (with the second biggest being the DMs who insist on one-upping the players, again because they are precious about their authority). It's not necessarily bad and wrong - but it is a huge red flag.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Question: Let's say you go buy a new monster book and it has some new creature, let's say a Brimgoat (it's like a hellhound but a goat). Are you able to look at your world, figure out where a brimgoat might exist (I'd say a volcano) and plop them down in a way that makes sense?

Or do you only use a specific list of monsters all having pre-curated home locations in a setting manual that you have typed up?

Can go either way, honestly. But the games where I can do so casually are often ones that a lot of people would consider more kitchen-sinky in the first place.

 

[Neonchameleon]

And IME this was rarely reached because it took so long to level that even playing the same PCs for years would rarely get you above name level. There are always notable exceptions, however, and even my own experience had a couple of those, albeit not many.

I cut my RPG teeth on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. There's a zero to hero arc there, and one where you actually start as a zero. But if you are capable even of casting Fireball reliably once per day then you are pretty powerful. And Gandalf of course was statted famously as a fifth level magic user.

The idea that fifth level D&D PCs who can cast spells aren't powerful is IMO untenable.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Some people talk about entitled players. I've run into more entitled DMs than I have entitled players in my roleplaying (three DMs, two players total) - and I DM open tables at meetups and DM far more than I play. Also entitled players do far far less to ruin an experience than entitled DMs because the DM has so much more power and control.

It is possible to run a game well as "I'm DM. I'm God. And what I say goes and the players may not contribute to the world." But in my experience this is the single biggest red flag of the terrible DMs I've had (with the second biggest being the DMs who insist on one-upping the players, again because they are precious about their authority). It's not necessarily bad and wrong - but it is a huge red flag.

Sure, I've run into extreme DMs and players, as well. But the only red flag is the part I bolded. In such a case, the DM is not letting the players "play" the game IMO.

Otherwise, when I DM, it is not "I'm God", it is "I am more powerful than any god in my world, because even their existence is at my whim."

You might not like it or agree with it, but that doesn't make it wrong or a bad style for a DM to take, especially since I respect when others DM, they have that power over the game.

The idea that fifth level D&D PCs who can cast spells aren't powerful is IMO untenable.

Yeah, we've killed this particular horse, revivified it, and killed it again. Not raising it again, thanks.

 

[Oofta]

I think that's a reasonable complaint, about the title. I do think that Stormanu's actual OP was perfectly inoffensive, and that his clarification post once you raised the issue was quite clear that he didn't intend any attack. And it looked like you had accepted his explanation. Am I misremembering?

No one here is arguing that you need to bow down to the unreasonable demands of the anecdotal jerk players you've had over the years. Folks are advocating that we as DMs have a responsibility for the fun of our groups (as do the other players), and that it's worth considering whether we ever over-use our authority to create restrictions. You've evidently had success with a restricted list of races. If you recall, my first post in the thread was advocating for similar. Stormanu and Umbran and others use less restrictions. These all seem to work.

I don't mean to pick on @Stormonu here, even if I do think that the title should have been phrased differently. Sorry, stormonu if it sounded like I was. On the other hand there many responses here that it's just the DM not being creative or that limiting races is outdated. That if a DM doesn't allow everything under the sun they're a narrow minded control freak. I don't see it as an over-use of my authority to make a campaign world that will work not only for me but for any number of players over the years.

It's one thing if people explain why they do something and what value they see it adding to their campaign. I like hearing the ideas of how others build their worlds even if I don't do it. I like hearing other perspectives. What I don't like is people saying that a DM that doesn't allow any race under the sun is totalitarian or that their campaign setting is sterile (again, stormonu didn't say that, it was a different poster). So I disagree; there are some people that state that if you don't play their way that you are playing god. Some people correlate this one narrow issue to a whole host of bad DM practices.

I was thinking of the fun of the group has a whole when I decided to limit races. I like having a persistent world. My players think it's cool that if I'm still DMing in 10 years* that their actions will be part of the world's history. Other than my wife, the only one I'm certain will be with the campaign a year from now is me. So yes, for me and my wife's preferences take precedence over the preferences of the players. If I started a new campaign world every year I would handle it differently.

*I suspect the alien AI nanotech zombie apocalypse could happen before then, so who knows.

 

[Mind of tempest]

The latter is a perfectly legitimate question, but I will note a lot of GMs are not doing their campaigns from the ground up with every campaign. They're using exterior material, or a campaign setting they've used before, and the decision about what's common is probably long since baked in, and may not be easily removed without a lot of ripple effects.

true but why for example keep the mainstream races if you may not care nor do the players I have seen a dm do this which seemed of even to me?

 

[Cadence]

And as a DM I have a corollary. Every single time I lean on that authority and say "My way or no way" I have failed as a DM. I've failed to build consensus, share my vision, and reach agreement. If I need to routinely reach for the hard authority rather than soft authority of the role it's because I'm doing my job badly. And the same goes for other DMs.

They sound about as narrow minded to me as the DM who must have their world exactly so because it is their world and they are precious about it. And I'd rather have a narrow minded trouble maker as a player than one as a DM.

The player, beyond a shadow of a doubt. One on one collaborative storytelling predates D&D - so do boardgames, wargames, and the sort of free kriegspiel D&D grew out of (with referees not DMs).

Once more you say "coherent", I say "sterile". The way the world we ourselves live in doesn't when you get down to it make a hell of a lot of sense although you can make some sense out of it. And part of the reason it doesn't have top down coherence to the lowest levels is that it has been built over time by billions of people. A single person's vision will, at the very best, turn out to be as expansive as Tolkien's. Which is far too ordered however amazing it is.

This doesn't mean that the GM should curate it by swatting the players with a rolled up newspaper or even the DMG when they try to contribute. No one is suggesting that Menzobarranzan needs to be in every setting - or even needs to be in every setting where someone wants to play a drow. No one is suggesting that half the species in the Monster Manual need to exist. Merely that there should be space in the setting for if a player wants to play something the GM hasn't planned unless the GM can sell the entire group on it without resorting to Respect Mah Authoritah

You're talking about literal half-human communities already existing. And D&D worlds are high magic worlds, like it or not. If you go back to medieval times and ask them what they thought people on the other side of the world looked like then lizardmen would have been exotic but plausible.

So, you're good with people playing Toons in D&D and Jedi in Star Trek and Vulcans in Star Wars, and Samurai in an American Civil War game, and etc...?

Cool.

 

[Stormonu]

@Oofta , you have me curious. What races do you allow, and have you ever expanded it (it sounds like you had for the Deva player, at least once), and if so, what would you consider the chances of it expanding again?

Also, on the DM's side of the screen, how do you handle new monster books and the like? Do you tend to stick to a list of monsters you've used in past editions/games only?

 

[Stormonu]

So, you're good with people playing Toons in D&D and Jedi in Star Trek and Vulcans in Star Wars, and Samurai in an American Civil war Game, and etc...?

Cool.

Hey, there's Deadlands for the Samurai one, y'know.