D&D General The Tyranny of Rarity

[Micah Sweet]

why not just have the players curate the setting?

Again, viable choice. Not inherently better.

 

[Oofta]

Years ago, you didn't need one. You had 5-6 different races (sometimes those races were classes as well( and spent all your time in a dungeon.

Ah yes, the good old days when dwarves were fighters and halflings were thieves. That's right dagnabbit! No namby-pamby halfling for us, the heck with copyrights! And none of this pussy-footin' around calling 'em rogues, they were thieves! With hairy feet and nary a shoe amongst 'em! And poles, good solid 10 foot poles to find all those gosh darn traps!

Now get off my lawn!

 

[cbwjm]

I wasn't picturing quite as far back as my B/X - 1e years If we go 81 and before I bet there are lots of DM oddities for many things.

In later 2e on it wasn't rare where I played to have some particular guidance/description.

Yeah, later 2e had a plethora of races and classes/subclasses. So many different specialist wizards and priests, a forgotten realms game with the various splat books added in additional classes like the harper and shadowdancer (or something to that effect). A lot of the races that exist now were introduced in 2e, planescape adding in the various planetouched races, the complete book of humanoids if you wanted to play the other side for a while. Then you get all of the kits... there was a lot of content in 2e.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Also, when talking about character concepts, then certainly what actually matters is the general nature and tone of the character, not some specific race or class? Rebellious trickster, scoundrel with a heart of gold, emotionally stunted genius, hippy mystic etc. A dwarf paladin is not really a character concept.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, later 2e had a plethora of races and classes/subclasses. So many different specialist wizards and priests, a forgotten realms game with the various splat books added in additional classes like the harper and shadowdancer (or something to that effect). A lot of the races that exist now were introduced in 2e, planescape adding in the various planetouched races, the complete book of humanoids if you wanted to play the other side for a while. Then you get all of the kits... there was a lot of content in 2e.

Yeah, this is why 2nd ed is my favorite edition. So much creativity and interesting lore. Rules are very messy, but it's not hard to adopt a different rule set.

 

[Minigiant]

You would have saved time by actually listening what the game is about first, and then making an appropriate character instead of wasting time making a ton of inappropriate ones.

DM didn't mention the race/class combinations based on lore until after we got the full lore dump on Session 0. We didn't know the full in game restrictions until we agreed to sit. It was a quick "These are banned" before that.

The point is my friend had 8 not-crazy PC concepts he was willing to play however the DM's setting nixed 7 of them. The DM's campaign was fun. However it was very restrictive in lore and the DM was unwilling to adjust or readjust anything to allow any of the 7 PC ideas to fit.

It was the DM's prerogative. He could do what he wanted to do. But he lost a great player because his setting has dwarven rune-priest but you can't play one.

 

[Maxperson]

I understand the logic, I'm just saying that it doesn't seem to ever have any real impact. Or maybe just that it has far less impact than most people expect. For me, the initial concept of a PC is fairly amorphous until I've actually played it for a bit.

Maybe that's the difference. 9 times out of 10 I have a very specific concept in mind before I get to session 1, and I build the PC to match the concept as best I can.

Maybe it's just me. I have so many character concepts running around in my head that I'm always willing to switch things around.

Same here, which is why I don't have an issue with some curation. I've had this one concept that I've really wanted to play since 2004, because the 3e DMs I played with couldn't wrap their heads around a good Necromancer(it's more complicated than just Necromancer, but the alignment portion was the issue) and I can't make it in 5e at all, because the mechanics just aren't there for 5e. It sucks to have something you really want to play for so long and never get the chance, because of curation.

If everyone wants to play a wizard when we start our session 0, in most cases one or more people will switch out to something else.

Why not just let everyone be a wizard? There are enough subclasses and spells that everyone would be different.

 

[Micah Sweet]

DM didn't mention the race/class combinations based on lore until after we got the full lore dump on Session 0. We didn't know the full in game restrictions until we agreed to sit. It was a quick "These are banned" before that.

The point is my friend had 8 not-crazy PC concepts he was willing to play however the DM's setting nixed 7 of them. The DM's campaign was fun. However it was very restrictive in lore and the DM was unwilling to adjust or readjust anything to allow any of the 7 PC ideas to fit.

It was the DM's prerogative. He could do what he wanted to do. But he lost a great player because his setting has dwarven rune-priest but you can't play one.

Sounds like the player and the DM weren't a good fit. Neither one is obliged to change for the other.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

DM didn't mention the race/class combinations based on lore until after we got the full lore dump on Session 0. We didn't know the full in game restrictions until we agreed to sit. It was a quick "These are banned" before that.

The point is my friend had 8 not-crazy PC concepts he was willing to play however the DM's setting nixed 7 of them. The DM's campaign was fun. However it was very restrictive in lore and the DM was unwilling to adjust or readjust anything to allow any of the 7 PC ideas to fit.

It was the DM's prerogative. He could do what he wanted to do. But he lost a great player because his setting has dwarven rune-priest but you can't play one.

Sure. It would have been preferable had the GM communicated things earlier, then the potential players could have decided sooner whether they were interested instead of potentially wasting everyone's time.

 

[Lanefan]

The same reason you play a High Elf Wizard or Half Orc Fighter.
To have a more roguish rogue or more clericy cleric.

or the The same reason you play a High Elf Righter or Half Orc Wizard.
To have a more roguish cleric or more clericy rogue.

Interesting, in that the current design trends seem to be significantly moving away from one's choice of species suggesting one class over another (example: removal of race-based ASIs).

It's not my fault that typically when D&D designers design races and classes they themselves don't want to play, they design something faulty.

A Goblin Rogue is supposed to be an excellent choice as goblins are nutrally sneaky stabby thieves in the base fluff or lore.

There's a design mistake there, to be sure, but not the one you think: Goblins shouldn't be playable as PCs. They're monsters.

You could give all those Goblin-y benefits to Hobbits (Halflings) and boom - there's your Thief-y species.