D&D 5E We Would Hate A BG3 Campaign

[ezo]

Players who don't like it should either learn to live with it or find another DM.

This one's from page 1, so not exactly starting off on a high note. But wait, there's more!

Yeah, but how about including this part???

Players can certainly offer suggestions, which the DM may or may not adapt...

Since without it you are implying that the players can't even offer input.

It is just about finding the people who want to play the same game to begin with.

Exactly this.

Read: DMs never need to compromise. Only players do.

Yes. Players can walk away, and DMs can ask players to leave.

If a DM cannot find other players, then either the DM does need to compromise or be happy with not running a game. Their choice.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

No they aren't. "I don't want to run a campaign with Dragonborn" is the same as "I don't want to play in a campaign with orcs as adversaries". In both cases it's reaching over the DM's screen to control what the other side does.

The player of course had a reasonable expectation. You are only saying they "won" because they went in without unreasonable demands.

If the player had gone in with the starting position that "I want to play a dragonborn who comes from a nearby dragonborn city and is very close to their family" then it would be a compromise to say "OK I will play an isolated dragonborn". All your focus on whether it's a "compromise" is doing is encouraging outrageous demands as starting positions for the negotiation so reasonable expectations suddenly become compromises. Meanwhile if the people are behaving like reasonable adults you don't do that and things are a lot less adversarial.

I find this attitude selfish personally. The DM has created a world for the group to play in. Effort has been made to give this world an ambience and tone. Part of establishing this tone is establishing a framework for the game world... which may or may not include certain restrictions or allowances.

Scenario: a player comes in and wants a character that goes against the tone of the game world. A good citizen player should first make an effort to create a character that actually fits into the rules of the game world that has been accepted by the group. If this player absolutely insists (man, these italics are something else...) on his character stepping outside the game world's framework:

• The DM has to put in extra effort to adjust the framework to accommodate this specific player's request.
• The rest of the group has already bought in to the way the game world works for this campaign. Now they have to buy in to the request made by one specific player.

This problem is exacerbated if multiple players now ask for specific requests.

My view is this: as a player, making a request like this in the first place is rude and disruptive. Would it really kill you to make a character that fits into the game world? Is it really worth disrupting the rest of the group's fun for your personal request? I mean, you are free to ask... maybe your request is a small tweak that doesn't disrupt the flow of the game for all of the actual human beings who have given up their free time to play this game together. If that's the case, all good. If the DM can make a non-disruptive accommodation, that's ideal. But if the DM says no... that should be the end of it. Your freedom ends at the point where it starts interfering with the freedom of others.

 

[Oofta]

People have repeatedly done that, in this very thread. I'm not speaking hyperbolically if I'm literally describing what people are doing, in this thread.


Well, let's see...

This one's from page 1, so not exactly starting off on a high note. But wait, there's more!

This, at least, tries to soft-sell it. But it's still, "You don't get to pick anything. Do what the DM tells you, or don't play."

Any objection whatsoever is, of course, instantly you being a problem, and can't possibly be a request for discussion! You obviously have to be a nasty, petulant, demanding jerk.

Read: DMs never need to compromise. Only players do.

"You can have what you want, it just can't actually look or behave any different from not getting any of what you want."

That's at least three people explicitly saying you don't get to have anything you want (well, one of them saying you can, as long as it has zero impact and isn't physically/mechanically distinguishable from not getting what you want in any way.) And at least two others strongly implying it.

I have a handful of restrictions when I invite people to play in my game. No evil, I ban a or tweak handful of spells, limit what patrons you can have for warlocks and limit deities to those that exist in my campaign world for clerics. I ask people to work with other players to see how the group fits together and please don't play a loner a-hole. Oh, I also ask people to play the races that I've established as existing in my world over the past several decades. I gave you reasons I have my limitations. But, as always, they aren't good enough.

If that's too much to ask then I'm not the right DM for you. There are two people I can guarantee will be part of my campaigns in the long run, myself and my wife. So yes, our preferences on world building take preference. If you can't handle those restrictions or accept that it's not your world you'll be playing in (although you can and hopefully will shape what the world looks like by your PC actions) then you're likely to be problematic anyway.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Limiting available races is not limiting what the player does

OK. So we agree that by your standards it is entirely reasonable for the players to say "I refuse to have orcs as adversaries". Because that doesn't limit what the DM does. They can just use humans. Everyone has a veto on every race! And bland compromise reigns supreme!

no, I am saying so because they play exactly what they wanted to play.

And unless the DM has an extremely good reason (which isn't just "I don't like it so my homebrew doesn't have it") it's an entirely reasonable starting point.

I also do not see excluding a race as unreasonable at all.

And I see it as needing a very good specific reason. Especially if it's a race in the PHB.

 

[mamba]

This, at least, tries to soft-sell it. But it's still, "You don't get to pick anything. Do what the DM tells you, or don't play."

I am only replying because you took my quote. We had several posts going back and forth and I repeatedly said that the best way is to compromise.

If the DM does not budge, you playing a different cool concept is perfectly acceptable in my book however. That was the premise of that statement.

You now turning this into me saying ‘the DM is always right, get used to it’ is absolutely dishonest, I reject that notion completely. That is not what I meant, it is not what I said, and you should know better

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

People have repeatedly done that, in this very thread. I'm not speaking hyperbolically if I'm literally describing what people are doing, in this thread.


Well, let's see...

This one's from page 1, so not exactly starting off on a high note. But wait, there's more!

This, at least, tries to soft-sell it. But it's still, "You don't get to pick anything. Do what the DM tells you, or don't play."

Any objection whatsoever is, of course, instantly you being a problem, and can't possibly be a request for discussion! You obviously have to be a nasty, petulant, demanding jerk.

Read: DMs never need to compromise. Only players do.

"You can have what you want, it just can't actually look or behave any different from not getting any of what you want."

That's at least three people explicitly saying you don't get to have anything you want (well, one of them saying you can, as long as it has zero impact and isn't physically/mechanically distinguishable from not getting what you want in any way.) And at least two others strongly implying it.

I'm going to suggest again that you find another debating style. Cherry picking lines from quotes, multi-quoting like this... it's tiresome to read through and it leads to others ignoring any valid points you might have.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

OK. So we agree that by your standards it is entirely reasonable for the players to say "I refuse to have orcs as adversaries". Because that doesn't limit what the DM does. They can just use humans. Everyone has a veto on every race! And bland compromise reigns supreme!

No one is forcing you to play in a campaign where orcs appear as adversaries. Everyone has the same opportunity to decline to participate in things they're not interested in.

And I see it as needing a very good specific reason. Especially if it's a race in the PHB.

You'd love my current setting. Humans are literally the only PHB species in it.

I really see no relevance to what exact book the content is printed in. That seems creatively plainly stupid way to construct a fictional setting. The setting should have species that thematically make sense for it, regardless of where those rules are printed, or whether the GM homebrewed them.

 

[mamba]

You think the DM doesn't get more choice?

sure, that is the nature of being the DM. That does not mean the DM has to agree to everything a player wishes, to ‘even the odds’

 

[ezo]

OK. So we agree that by your standards it is entirely reasonable for the players to say "I refuse to have orcs as adversaries". Because that doesn't limit what the DM does. They can just use humans. Everyone has a veto on every race! And bland compromise reigns supreme!

This player can choose not to fight the orcs I have as adversaries, but the orcs will remain as adversaries.

If that offends their personal views, they should find another DM, or run their own game.

And unless the DM has an extremely good reason (which isn't just "I don't like it so my homebrew doesn't have it") it's an entirely reasonable starting point.

This is an extremely good reason.

And I see it as needing a very good specific reason. Especially if it's a race in the PHB.

We often don't allow dragonborn or tieflings in our games, despite being races in the PHB. If a new player doesn't like it, they should move on or agree to play something else. It is always the DM's perrogative, since they are running the game.

It is like the NFL making a new rule and a player saying "I don't like that rule, so you should change it." The NFL will quickly flag that player every time they break the rule, or the player can play in a different league, or even play a different game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There is also a matter of (a) different power levels and (b) different stakes. "I don't want me to do that" is a very different statement from "I don't want you to do that."

And a reasonable compromise here in a homebrew universe would involve the player getting to play the dragonborn - and the DM not having to play any dragonborn NPCs. It can go in either direction, but the DM had better have an exceptionally good reason to say no. For example if you are playing in Middle Earth playing a grung would be out of tone. But that's because it's an explicitly pre-established setting.

The ability to play the character they want to play. Something that is going to have far far more influence on them because it is all they are doing every single minute of play than anything the DM could potentially be giving up. Meanwhile all the DM is giving up is the ability to control and pre-predict every aspect of the universe they are all sharing.

The setting does not belong to the DM exclusively. If you want to control everything write a novel.

So we're clear then: the player's desires must always be accommodated for character creation? If there's a conflict, the DM should just suck it up? What's the point of the "discussion" then, if we know how it's going to go? Sounds like the player is just informing the DM of how it's going to be.