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<blockquote data-quote="Mouseferatu" data-source="post: 7656606" data-attributes="member: 1288">Edit: Clarification to the below.Having seen Hussar's latest post, defining questioning as not arguing, being a PITA, throwing a tantrum, etc... Okay, yes. If it's just an issue of, &quot;Hey, doesn't [monster X] live in the desert?&quot; then yes, I'm okay with that. As long as they're okay with an answer of &quot;Not in this campaign.&quot;But anything that goes beyond that triggers all of what I've said below.Yes. Yes, it is. Because there's no such thing. There's setting canon. But everything in the core game that isn't mechanical--the personality traits of dwarves, the culture/government options of society, where certain monsters live--are starting point suggestions.(And frankly, setting cannon and game core mechanics aren't binding, either, though in those cases, the DM should make it clear from the start that he's changing a lot of things.)One of the primary responsibilities, and primary joys, of DMing is world-building and setting design. I consider it, frankly, unreasonable and unrealistic for a player to expect a DM to abide by any of that unless the campaign was described, from the word go, as adhering strictly to written canon. If a player doesn't like it, he's welcome to politely leave the game. And obviously, if a whole group doesn't like it, the DM can either change or can lose the group.But yes, I do consider it unreasonable for a player to expect/demand that a DM go by exactly what's written in the flavor text. And I have to say, until this thread, it never even occurred to me that a rational player would strongly object to something like having a monster outside its favorite terrain. Obviously it happens, or this thread wouldn't exist, but I'm honestly taken aback. I've never, in 31 years of gaming, encountered it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mouseferatu, post: 7656606, member: 1288"] Edit: Clarification to the below. Having seen Hussar's latest post, defining questioning as [I]not[/I] arguing, being a PITA, throwing a tantrum, etc... Okay, yes. If it's just an issue of, "Hey, doesn't [monster X] live in the desert?" then yes, I'm okay with that. As long as they're okay with an answer of "Not in this campaign." But anything that goes beyond that triggers all of what I've said below. Yes. Yes, it is. Because there's no such thing. There's [I]setting[/I] canon. But everything in the core game that isn't mechanical--the personality traits of dwarves, the culture/government options of society, where certain monsters live--are starting point [I]suggestions[/I]. (And frankly, setting cannon and game core mechanics aren't binding, either, though in those cases, the DM should make it clear from the start that he's changing a lot of things.) One of the primary responsibilities, and primary joys, of DMing is world-building and setting design. I consider it, frankly, unreasonable and unrealistic for a player to expect a DM to abide by any of that unless the campaign was described, from the word go, as adhering strictly to written canon. If a player doesn't like it, he's welcome to politely leave the game. And obviously, if a whole group doesn't like it, the DM can either change or can lose the group. But yes, I [I]do[/I] consider it unreasonable for a player to expect/demand that a DM go by exactly what's written in the flavor text. And I have to say, until this thread, it never even [I]occurred[/I] to me that a rational player would strongly object to something like having a monster outside its favorite terrain. Obviously it happens, or this thread wouldn't exist, but I'm honestly taken aback. I've never, in 31 years of gaming, encountered it. [/QUOTE]

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