D&D General The Tyranny of Rarity

[jmartkdr2]

See, Star Wars having that many species makes sense. Hundreds of worlds, hundreds of different species.

Easy enough to incorporate the idea into DnD if you want to.

Although why all of their tech is so advanced and primitive at the same time remains a mystery. Which I'm sure has an an explanation somewhere.

There are stupid canon explanations, of course. (It's ancients tech that can't be replicated at the core of a couple major technoologies)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Star Wars does, and is by far my favorite DnD setting.

(Hot take: it really is the best DnD setting)

But for the most part, it's definitely not the norm. Shannara has four or five races, and I guess technically Discworld, but most seem to have humans and maybe one or two others, even if you include explicitly "monstrous"/antagonist races (ie Wheel of Time has humans, ogier, and trollocs. And arguably up to two other speaking races.)

However, the overwhelming majority of prominent characters in Star Wars are humans. This is true in almost any fantasy/scifi story I can think of. There are some exceptions for settings where everyone is some sort of non-human (such as Dark Crystal or Zootopia.) And I think non-humans actually work best when most chracters are humans. Then their non-humanity actually can seem meaningful and contrasted to the humans. Like it is meaningful that Legolas is an elf, or Spock is a half-Vulcan. But if most characters are some sort of an aliens, it kinda gets lost.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Or perhaps you didn't clearly explain what you're trying to do. Resistance to restrictions is usually, in my experience, rooted in a lack of buy-in to whatever the dm is going for, which is due to the dm selling the idea poorly more often that any problem in execution of the idea.

Hypothetically? Sure, that's possible. In reality, I've never once run into a situation where the entire table wasn't up for the game I was DMing, so it'd be a bridge I'd have to cross if I ever encountered it. But again, if they aren't buying into it, then the solution is for someone else to try selling their idea instead. There's no reason I have to be the DM.

 

[Oofta]

Easy enough to incorporate the idea into DnD if you want to.

There are stupid canon explanations, of course. (It's ancients tech that can't be replicated at the core of a couple major technoologies)

Yeah, if I had a spell jammer campaign I wouldn't have a problem. I'm also considering an Esper Genesis for at least a mini campaign if I ever get done with my current one.

I can come up with reasons that would make sense to me, it's just not what I've been running.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't think anything being discussed in this thread is universal... few things in life are... but the framing of the example was clearly one where a group vote allowed the players to advocate for themselves by overriding the DM's decision using pure numbers... a situation that will, due to pure numbers, always be the case in this type of situation.

Yes, but its still only a problem if the players are actually the ones with the worse perspective for the overall health of the game. Assuming that walking in is pretty much classic begging the question.

 

[Imaro]

Yes, but its still only a problem if the players are actually the ones with the worse perspective for the overall health of the game. Assuming that walking in is pretty much classic begging the question.

Yes and allowing the DM to be the final arbiter or sole creator of the world or to curate the world in whatever manner he wants is only a problem if the DM is the one with the worse perspective for the overall health of the game... of course if you feel that's the case I'd ask... why are you playing in a game run by him or her?

EDIT: I mean if we don't assume this for either DM's or players what are we really discussing here? At that point it boils down to what I said earlier... do what's best for your group and let others do what's best for their group.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I completely agree that for some things, a person who makes a judgment call is needed. That's when people disagree about rules. And when I say "rules," I mean rules, rulings, houserules, vague recollections, ad-hoc band-aids, whatever it is that adjudicates.

Even there I'm going to argue its not necessary when there's time to go over it (i.e. when deciding house rules for example). On-the-fly decisions, yeah, simply for time consumption reasons but there's no reason you can't put up house rules for review (with your reasons for wanting them a particular way), and if the majority of a group dislikes it or wants something else, do that instead. Or even put in house rules because the group as a whole wants them.

That won't work with every group--like I said, I'm not going to claim players with tunnel vision is not a thing--but there's nothing impossible or unworkable about it in principal.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't mind banning something (be it race, class, whatever) if it doesn't fit with the concept/theme of the campaign I'm running/planning to run. Though I'm quite open to player preference, so there is always a discussion.

One thing I don't like? Soft banning something: as in houseruling something I don't want to basically ensure no one takes it. And I'd much rather simply be told no than have a DM soft ban something in that manor.

Yeah, that sort of thing strikes me as the worst of both worlds.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't get the knee jerk offense of the word "tyranny".

Semantic loading is a thing, even if a fair number of people in online discussions like to dismiss it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I doubt many people would know what I meant if I said open-ended. Or at least I wouldn't have a clue. To me it means that the campaign has no defined end or direction, doesn't say anything about races allowed.

Seems like any way I try to describe it is called dismissive at some point.

Look, semantic loading works both ways; "tyranny" has associations you didn't like in the title, "kitchen sink" has associations others don't like in your characterization. If you don't want bad reactions, some lifting to avoid it is required on both ends.