D&D 5E We Would Hate A BG3 Campaign

[EzekielRaiden]

I'll need to stress again that I don't curate my D&D list of acceptable races save for not allowing creatures that fly naturally. For me, this just isn't an issue that comes up when I run D&D games and is more likely to happen in other games. I've long been of the opinion that what race you pick in D&D doesn't make much of a difference one way or the other. That said, working with the player doesn't necessarily mean they get what they want. If dwarves are extinct in the setting, I'm not going to allow anyone to play a dwarf character. I'll ask them what it is about the dwarf they like so much and see if we can incorporate those traits into a character, but no dwarf.

Which sounds wonderful! That's literally what I have done with my own players. Digging down to what they value, and finding a way to deliver that without a loss or reduction of what makes the setting great. That effort is, in my humble opinion, always worth it. Not just because it is the respectful thing to do when working with other people, but because doing so is precisely how you demonstrate that you value that player's participation, that you want them to feel welcome and appreciated, and (perhaps most importantly) that their genuine enthusiasm matters to you.

I'm not much of a fan of dwarves myself, but to work with that example--perhaps something like, "Well, I appreciate both their literal marrow-deep resilience, to the point of stubbornness, and their culture of deep family and clan connections, and how that can be both a blessing and a curse." That is, something that is both cultural (and thus not necessarily tied exclusively to physiology) and something physiological (and thus not necessarily tied to any particular culture.)

For myself, I love both the general cultural outlines associated with dragonborn, and...well, their dragon-y nature. Dragons are just cool! I love dragons. I love the reptilian physiology, the elemental breath, the fearsome mien, etc. I can compromise on quite a bit of that, but there's gonna need to be at least a certain minimum tracery of it. I gave many examples of other ways such stuff could be achieved above (picking one random example, effectively "magical lab accident"), but maybe there's a tribe of lizardfolk that revere dragons, and I could play a lizard-person who is (or believes himself to be) actually "touched" by dragons--or who is hoping to become so, or the like. Or maybe shapechanged dragons interbred with humans a long, long time ago, and some rare throwbacks appear. That's a surprisingly common trope both East and West (though generally more Eastern, outside of D&D-derived media.) Or, especially for a more lighthearted-humorous game, maybe we could take a page from Cthulhu Saves the World and have a former nation-destroying dragon, cursed into a puny mortal form and forced to walk the earth as a hero before he can regain his natural form. Or...

There's a zillion possibilities, I'm just spitballing; I would absolutely expect you (or any DM) to provide their own proposals, and we'd collaborate to find something that makes both of us happy.

 

[bedir than]

And that is a "new game" and not, y'know, a continuation of an old game?

Because the players aren't the same. The stories aren't necessarily connected. They aren't traversing the same lands.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Because the players aren't the same. The stories aren't necessarily connected. They aren't traversing the same lands.

I genuinely don't see a difference. You're continuing the previous game. It just happens to involve new players.

The thread at large has pretty clearly been talking about brand-new games. Pitching concepts, proposing something new, etc. Not "hey, I've been running a single identical world for 20 years and want to continue running that." Which, sure, some people do that. They are by far the minority, especially nowadays with something like three quarters of all D&D players being folks who had never played anything before 5e.

 

[mamba]

I genuinely don't see a difference. You're continuing the previous game. It just happens to involve new players.

that is a failure of understanding on your part then… are Storm Kings Thunder, Tomb of Annihilation, Descent into Avernus, and Rime of the Frostmaiden all part of the same story?

 

[Micah Sweet]

And that last part is literally all I asked for. For which I was vilified and explicitly treated as trying to "blow up" everyone else's fun, as being an active saboteur to the DM's efforts.

I have, explicitly and repeatedly, said that what I want is a discussion. This has been repeatedly and consistently transformed into "Oh, so you get to ride roughshod over the DM every single time? Wow, you're such an naughty word."

Because the discussion always ends with you getting what you want, and you see no problem with that. If you want something in the game, and the DM doesn't want that thing in the game, how is you getting what you want a compromise?

 

[bedir than]

I genuinely don't see a difference. You're continuing the previous game. It just happens to involve new players.

New players with new plots on new territories are considered the same game?

I guess Marvel only released one movie over the past two decades.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Over the years I have noticed a phrase "player entitlement" thrown around.

My tastes last few years gave been themed games. Stuff that doesn't fit is excluded. According to the forums that's bad wrong fun.

BG3 has been a big hit. But consider.

Curated list of phb options.
PHB races plus Githyanki only. DM changed them as well.
Capped at level 12
Only floating ability scores from Tashas.
No feats at level 1 allowed.
Curated list of Xanathars options.

Game like that would get you crucified here on the forums since I'm a tyrannical LN type DM.

Next game will be magitech themed (warforged and gear forged prominent) or Norse (add bearfolk and troll kin as prominent races).

Damn Lawful types DM's. That BG one is brutal.

I want to exclude most of Tashas.

One of the big differences between me and Larian is that I am not a full time team of game developers.

I'm just a dork on the internet with some Opinions.

It makes sense to me that people would be more reluctant to step into that second option. It's not hard to be an opinionated dork on the internet. There's no trust that is built there. Larian's established that trust. Even if you don't know who Larian is, you know that a lot of other people played and liked BG3. Can't say the same thing about my personal D&D campaign.

Also, it's worth noting that the medium is different and so the needs and expectations of the games are different. If I want to make a creative fantasy story with my friends, I don't play BG3. It's a video game. It's impressively creative and responsive, but it's still a curated experience that isn't asking for my input. But a TTRPG is a more collaborative place, with lower stakes, a more niche audience, and players who can adapt to the narrative faster than anyone can code a computer to respond.

My third point is only that I am pretty down to clown when it comes to campaigns, and am willing to assent to whatever garbage the DM wants to arbitrarily throw out. But I get that a DM throwing out or changing a lot of things is a bit of a red flag, and I get why it isn't a red flag for BG3.

 

[Maxperson]

Except you've also stated that there is never a good reason to not give you what you personally want. Give one reason, one example of why there should be a curated list of races. Just one.

It can make the game much more interesting(not has to or always does, but can). Dark Sun isn't as interesting as it is because of its post apocalyptic approach to the game, but also because of the race and class curation that went along with it.

I'll ask a related question for the umpteenth time. You want to play an evil PC. The DM says no. What happens? What's the result of your magical conversation other than the DM telling you they don't want to run a game with evil PCs?

For me, I'd make a non-evil PC. I don't play as often as I'd like, because I DM a lot, so I have a lot of character ideas that I want to play. Only a few of them are evil(and not the disruptive kind of evil), so there are plenty non-evil choices for me if a DM doesn't want an evil PC in the game.

 

[Oofta]

I genuinely don't see a difference. You're continuing the previous game. It just happens to involve new players.

The thread at large has pretty clearly been talking about brand-new games. Pitching concepts, proposing something new, etc. Not "hey, I've been running a single identical world for 20 years and want to continue running that." Which, sure, some people do that. They are by far the minority, especially nowadays with something like three quarters of all D&D players being folks who had never played anything before 5e.

I just started a new game, it happens to be with the same people that wrapped up the last campaign and some of them are playing children of a PC from that old campaign so we're calling it our Next Gen campaign. But the campaign from before I moved? Set in a different region, different players other than my wife. Campaign before that? Set in the same region as my current campaigns. I also DM another group (again, totally different people other than my wife) that's occurring at roughly the same time as the Next Gen campaign. We haven't done much yet, but one of the NPCs from the Next Gen predecessor has made an appearance because of a thread left dangling from that campaign.

They are not the same game any more than every game set in the Forgotten Realms is the same game. As far as newbies, I was a newbie once as well. We quickly made decisions back then about what was allowed or not allowed (we tried evil PCs, it lasted 1 session IIRC), but since then I've use the same basic campaign world.

Whether or not it is common to start brand new campaign worlds is also irrelevant. If a DM has put thought and care into building their world, I'm perfectly fine with what they came up with. If the DM says dwarves are extinct, I won't ask to play a dwarf.

 

[Oofta]

New players with new plots on new territories are considered the same game?

I guess Marvel only released one movie over the past two decades.

Well to be fair, they have all kind of started to blur together for me.