D&D General The Tyranny of Rarity

[Filthy Lucre]

The “player who demands to play a weird race and will not compromise” is such a specific case that always comes up in these threads but to me seems a bit of a straw man. Has anyone actually encountered one in the wild? Most of the posts here seem hypothetical.

Yes, absolutely.

 

[Oofta]

@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?

I allow dwarves, high and forest elves, gnomes, halflings, half-orcs and of course humans. I think I mentioned above that I'd allow a goliath as a human that came from a barbarian mountain tribe. Use the same stats as a goliath but for all practical purposes you just come from a family that is unusually large. Maybe there's a family legend that one of your ancestors was a giant.

Basically anything that can pass as one of the currently allowed races would potentially be okay although I'd think twice about allowing a changeling because of their shapeshifting capabilities and implications for the broader campaign.

For monsters it just depends. In my current campaign there's an invasion from "beyond" and I'm using unique aberrations for that. In a lot of cases though I'll reskin monsters to be an upgraded version of a current one. I recently used a Loup Garou from Van Richten's as a specially blessed werewolf. Other times I'll just do a straight swap, this particular orc is just far tougher than your typical orc. Depending on region there's generally only 1 monstrous humanoid running around. Except for goblins. Goblins are everywhere.

Most of the enemies are human or one of my standard races. Occasionally something will invade from a different realm, even the underdark is a different world in my campaign, or the PCs will travel to a different realm. Currently the group is in Jotunheim, but Jotunheim has gateways to Avernus and the Abyss so there's some crossover there.

 

[Cadence]

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

I always have different feelings about that in different worlds/games. There are some where our 5th level PCs were setting off to save the realm, and others where they'd be hesitant to start a bar fight because who knows what level the other folks drinking there were. (My favorite world building is e6 style where the 5th level characters are definitely powerful).

 

[jmartkdr2]

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

Which begs the question: why are "people not from around here" an inappropriate concept for such a game. If we want to play a game about exploring the wilds of Canada, what are we only allowed to lay people who grew up in the wilds of Canada but somehow no nothing about it. Why is a Frenchman not a valid concept here? After all, they have a solid built-in reason to not know the setting they are exploring.

Because that's what was proposed at the top of the chain - no outworlders in a setting where pc don't knw the world.

 

[Neonchameleon]

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.

If people are trying to play Toons in D&D they may be rejecting the premise of the game. At which point we need to step back and ask why. Have I not sold things properly or do they not want to play in the game? And where did they get the rules for toons in D&D? For that matter what level are toons? If they (a) managed to follow the published rules of D&D and (b) managed to work with the setting I'd be good with one. But if they can't fit the published rules they're probably SOL.

I'd be fine with a lone Jedi in a Star Trek game and a lone Vulcan (or even a small planet of Vulcans) in Star Wars. Both are, when you get down to it, kitchen sink settings full of literal planets of weirdness, which is part of the point of both settings.

As for a lone Samurai in the American Civil War, if well researched and they were handling things in line with the tone of the game and with sufficient research we would have a fascinating PC. Matthew Perry forced Japan open in 1853, and the Meji Restoration was in 1868; the American Civil War was between these two events. A member of a former and falling military caste who sees the writing on the wall and is going to investigate the warriors of the people that forced change into his culture to me looks like an awesome character concept that would make for a good and memorable part of the campaign.

And this is a big part of why my default is inclusive. Of the four character concepts you gave in an attempt to be ridiculous there one is in my opinion absolutely awesome. I'll put up with the Star Wars Vulcans to get the Civil War Samurai.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Also, a quick question in regard to Toons: are we talking 2D or 3D, because it seems like 2D would definitely have some unfair advantages ("I turn sideways and disappear," for example).

Of course, 2D might have fewer HP... they are pretty thin after all.

 

[Stormonu]

@Oofta, you mentioned you'd allow a Goliath as a reskinned human from a northern tribe. Has me thinking. If a player approached you and said, "I'd like to play a bird-man of sorts - can we reskin an aarakocra as a human whose made some alchemical/magical wings or an elf with a fey blessing that gives them flight" - would this be something you would consider to allow in play if the player was sincere? If not, would it be of mechanics such as innate flight, or that it doesn't mesh with something in the campaign world in some way?

Also, you mentioned "goblins are everywhere" - would you allow a player to play a goblin (I see you do allow half-orcs, maybe half-goblin?), or are they restricted like the drow as a sort of "bogeyman" you wouldn't want watered down by PC access?

This isn't meant as a trap of any sort, but sort of a question/curiousity of how far you would let reskinning and repurposing creatures in your campaign you would allow.

 

[Oofta]

Sure, but I think @Stormonu clarified that already.

Which is why I clarified that I didn't mean to sound like I was talking about them.

I think the choice of words for the title of the thread was more about their stance based on how their view has evolved....that in the past, such decisions were more about GM preference than anything else, and they've come to realize that.

Personally, I think when a GM bars certain choices based solely on personal preference (such as "I don't like Dragonborn" or "No good Drow round here") I do think it's a case of GM tyranny. Of course, tyranny is far too strong a word for it, but it's simply a case of the GM placing their preferences above those of the other participants.

Drow ... drow are complicated. I rarely use them and finally settled on lore that makes sense to me. They live in a separate realm Svartleheim, one of the nine worlds. There are some drow that have rejected Lollth and the darkness she brings with her, but they become gray elves (lose the pigmentation, reject emotion and embrace logic to become effectively elvish Vulcans) but that can take years. Until then they suffer all the penalties of drow such as sunlight sensitivity.

In addition to that, drow are the bogeyman. They appear from nowhere in the middle of the night, wiping out entire villages. Occasionally they leave a single victim tied to a post in the midst of all the destruction just because they enjoy watching people suffer and they want people to fear them. A drow walking down the road would likely be attacked on sight.

I don't know. It's hard to say that there's always one right approach. But honestly, in the above examples.....why is gray skin such a problem? What is it about the setting that requires there be no goliaths? Is it simply because in your head there have never been goliaths in the world? I can't imagine that the lore of your setting rests so heavily on the absence of goliaths.

What's wrong with them just being human? It makes the world look more consistent, I don't have to explain why they've never been seen or mentioned before.

Sure, that's fine. Seems like a reasonable decision to make.

It'd be an equally reasonable decision to say "you know what? You want to play a drow? Go right ahead. The world will not come crashing down."

Is one more reasonable than the other? It's difficult to say. Although, if we view it more as a group activity, then I think the one where the player gets to play what they want is probably more reasonable, generally speaking.

I think it depends on the DM and the group. If I allowed any race under the sun I would want some kind of explanation for it. A world with portals to many realms, a port planet in a SpellJammer cosmology, something. Then again I'd love to run a weird west campaign, a science fantasy campaign using Esper Genesis, a stone age campaign, a campaign where you're all cats (I wrote up a 1-shot for that but never got around to playing it) and on and on.

 

[Cadence]

Which begs the question: why are "people not from around here" an inappropriate concept for such a game. If we want to play a game about exploring the wilds of Canada, what are we only allowed to lay people who grew up in the wilds of Canada but somehow no nothing about it. Why is a Frenchman not a valid concept here? After all, they have a solid built-in reason to not know the setting they are exploring.

Because that's what was proposed at the top of the chain - no outworlders in a setting where pc don't knw the world.

I think the small village start was brought up by me in response to someone wondering why PCs would ever have limited knowledge. And I then clarified it was only an example.

In one recent game the DM wanted us to all be in a small village to start, but two of the players were from further away and newly arrived in the area (essentially in exile and the adventure wasn't going back to their homes for quite a while).

In spirit of this thread though, a Vulcan, a Jedi, a Samurai, and a Bugs Bunny clone could all easily be visiting the Klondike and be unclear on the details and social mores in a gold rush themed game.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The PCs are going to wreck your perfect world's 'verisimilitude' the second they make contact with it. Being a random gnome where there are no other gnomes is going to be peanuts compared to when they saw the tower of high sorcery in half with water pressure, then accidentally kill the king via cattle stampede.

And that's before they get around to taking revenge for blocking their character concept for reasons they think are BS.