D&D General The Tyranny of Rarity

[Crimson Longinus]

Ultimately I reject the notion that just because I choose to use D&D as a game system for a campaign set in my world I am somehow obliged to include everything that has appeared in any WoTC book or may do so in the future. Do people apply this same logic to games ran using GURPS too?

 

[Mind of tempest]

Could you rephrase this sentence? I don't think I understand the question.



I'm honestly not enough of a D&D or even (Pathfinder guy) to want to chase down that question much; I just chose the low-hanging fruit.

to main a race like those people who must always play an elf or is this a one-off desperate to play a thing?

 

[Stormonu]

Do y'all (on both sides) view choice of character class the same as race? Sub-classes? Alignment? Deities?

I know I do.

I've overtly banned evil PCs from my games due to past inter-party issues. At the same time, took one player aside and let them play a Lawful Evil character with the understanding that the character would only be allowed as long as they worked co-operately with the group. The character lasted to 6th level, before dying in battle saving the party. The group only found out he was evil as he uttered his dying breath, "You idiots, we could have made a fortune..."

I've also, as DM, restricted classes and subclasses - but usually for mechanical reasons. Back in 3/3.5E, there was a dragon mage class in one of the official books I made off-limits, because in my homebrew the background for the class didn't fit (it got its power from a sort of dragon worship/bond, which was something that Amberos dragons wouldn't stoop to allow); I relented when a player came up with a really interesting story/background, and that character ended up being a really interesting addition to the game, and well-liked by the other players to boot.

When it comes to deities, I like to stick to what's available for the campaign world - no worshipper of Pelor in FR, for example. However, my homebrew has not only particular gods of its own (Dhorian, Ziga, etc.), but even older religions such as Egyptian, Norse, etc. for the gods that "came before". Because of plane-hopping, it's had one or two priests from non-native deities (such as a Pelor priest), who could still get access to their spells, and even tried to set up a church in the realm (which the New Gods took a dim view of).

So, I've been on both sides of that fence in those cases, and I try to lean towards being open to at least give it a chance and see if it will fly in the game. Sometimes, it works out - other times it doesn't. Them's the breaks.

 

[Minigiant]

As noted, that becomes more and more problematic the wider and more extensive a set of books for a given version of D&D or its kin become. Where's the edge on that? Core book? Books by the main company, even if they're deliberately specialized? Third party books?

It has nothing to do with books.

I've found that players are willing too and have fun playing many types of characters.

If you as a DM is constantly running into players not being able to find a fun concept within your worlds, it is hard to not even ponder that something is up with your worlds.

 

[Oofta]

Do y'all (on both sides) view choice of character class the same as race? Sub-classes? Alignment? Deities?

I limit what patrons a warlock can have because I don't want to deal with "the devil made me do it". Warlock patrons have an agenda or there's significant risk. I don't want a patron with evil agendas and I've never come up with a significant risk that sat right.

I don't allow evil PCs. Not really an alignment thing, I just explain that I want to run campaigns for heroes, not thugs.

I have a list of deities. Well, except for halflings. Halflings can just make up deities as they go along.

 

[Lanefan]

Note: this comes from the perspective that the GM is not ultimately "superior" to other players. "The GM does all the work, so the players should generally bow to the GM's desires," is an old, and I think largely outdated, model. If, in order to run a game, you need the players to give up a lot of stuff, that's not their fault, so they don't owe you the solution.

Given that one constant from then to now is that the GM still does all the work, what new model do you propose?

 

[Stormonu]

Given that one constant from then to now is that the GM still does all the work, what new model do you propose?

I've run across several modern RPGs (Tales from the Loop, Fate, Fiasco) where the world-building is a lot more player interactive. It can be a session 0 setup where the players contribute world-building attributes (Player 1: "There's a pirate nation to the north", Player 2: "Yeah, it extorts protection fees from shipping lanes so import goods are really expensive"). Or in other cases, it can come up in play (DM: "Okay Dave, you got a 20 on getting past the guard, how do you do it?" Dave: "We used to be schoolmates and in the swordsman's club. He knows I'm on the up-and-up.").

Rather than be full-on stage director, it can change the DM to being an organizer - they take on facts, scenes and information presented by the players, keep it organized for reference and handles the dice rolling for interactions. This can vary from taking off a small workload, to round-robin DMing in a session to near-DMless play; just whatever level the group feels is right for their game.

 

[Lanefan]

As noted upthread - I generally build the game around the player choices, not restrict the player choices to fit into my world - if the player wants to play a tortle paladin, it will be a world with tortles and paladins in it - I'll talk/negotiate with the player about how tortles and paladins fit into the world.

Given what you say below, this makes sense in that you're banging out the game world in what must be a very short time.

I am not a "one game, one game world" kind of person, and I haven't been since 1986, and the release of the old FASERIP Marvel Superheroes game. D&D is great, I love it. But there's a lot of other game experiences to be had. So, broadly, it is safe to say that, each RPG campaign I run is not just a new game world, but is a different ruleset - one in Deadlands, the next Ashen Stars, then D&D, then Spirit of the Century.

And that's just it - some of us are one-system one-world DMs. Building a campaign setting (and I've now done three major ones over the years) takes me between about 6 and 18 months, and much of it is the sort of rather dull work I really only ever want to have to do once. And so, once I've done it I'm damn well going to get my money's worth out of it!

Ditto with game systems - I only want to learn one system, once, and then adapt that system for my needs as I go along.

 

[Minigiant]

Given that one constant from then to now is that the GM still does all the work, what new model do you propose?

The GM doing all the work part.

Some GMs aren't good enough to do all the work and the old model ends up preventing their growth and possible constructive criticism.

 

[Arilyn]

I limit what patrons a warlock can have because I don't want to deal with "the devil made me do it". Warlock patrons have an agenda or there's significant risk. I don't want a patron with evil agendas and I've never come up with a significant risk that sat right.

I don't allow evil PCs. Not really an alignment thing, I just explain that I want to run campaigns for heroes, not thugs.

I have a list of deities. Well, except for halflings. Halflings can just make up deities as they go along.

With warlocks, patrons should be important. I don't like having them in the background as an excuse for powers and nothing else. If a player really wanted to be a warlock and not deal with their patron, I guess, but I think they'd be missing out on some great roleplaying opportunities. And yeah, if you have an evil patron, it's hard to fit into a heroic group.

Halflings can make up their deities as they go along? My goblin is now wondering if shifting to a halfling is an option?