D&D 5E We Would Hate A BG3 Campaign

[jasper]

One of the major reasons I am an Adventure League DM is so I WON'T have these discussions. But I still have players wanting exceptions. I announced a Planescape adventure last week. 3 Days ago had a player asking for an exception. We haven't had our session 0.
I do not like it. 5 words. But the discussion player will want 5 minutes of discussion. Then 500 words of discussion. Then 5 pages of discussion. Then 5 hours of discussion.
The DM sets the stage and theme. You can join them and have fun, or go to a movie those game days.

 

[ezo]

There will never be discussion--ever. No reason, no explanation, not even an attempt to meet halfway. Take it or leave it.

Why does that bother you so much???

@Oofta invites you to a game, explaining precisely what his game is like: the world, the history, and details every limitiation he is imposing on his game. If you don't like his views or game, you are free to not play and politely decline. I doubt he would take offense to it.

The same thing happens when a group of people agree to see a movie or eat at a restaurant. They run into someone else they know, and invite them to join. If that person doesn't like that restaurant or isn't keen on that movie, they can suggest an alternative. But if the person who is paying (such as @Oofta) doesn't like that alternative, the extra person can simply decline.

Now, perhaps someone else in the group offers to pay instead (i.e. says they will DM so @Oofta can play) and now the new person can join and @Oofta has to decide if they want to settle on the alternative, or break away. Two groups might then form and they go to different restaurants, meet at the theatre later, and all see the same movie, or see different movies, meet up later, and discuss what happened in the movies.

Things like this happen IRL all the time, and that includes playing D&D. For example, I only play D&D. No other RPGs interest me really at all. So, when one of the groups decide to take a break from D&D and play something else for a while, I might do something, join them and just hang out, play D&D with someone else, etc.

That's exactly the kind of thing I oppose. If you have players who put up with that sort of attitude, more power to you.

Basically you seem to imply it is okay for the player to insist on something, and the DM has to compromise, but it isn't ok for the DM to insist on it, and the player has to compromise.

Don't you think the DM should ever "get their way"?

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I think the person who does 99% of the work should get 99% of the say in what is included. And they have 100% of the privilege to “play alone” if people are not into it. It just does not happen among friends. One of them says “ok fine” and everyone has fun regardless.

But there have to be some limits? We have a sword and sorcery backdrop and Waldo “must” play a gunslinger with black powder and steampunk goggles? Come on man, think of the group!

I am to the point of saying yes to almost anything in terms of race and class when DM. I don’t however say yes to everything related to world building. Want to play a dragonborn? Cool. You are a far wanderer, generally scare people until they can see your nobility. I am not making a bunch of Dragonborn towns. But you can play your concept.

I can personally play anything and take any restrictions. Just tell me ahead of time. The worst is developing a character (I mean don’t we all do that for fun?) only to find no duergar allowed…

I guess pitch me parameters and I will find something cool to play in them.

Most of this combat over restrictions is really about playing nice with others. Can’t we all just get along?

Last night I DM’d my child’s first character…a sentient orange person from a tribe of fruit people…she cannot wait to play again! I am so stoked! But would not probably have that in my serious wargamer group…

Isn’t there some virtue to flexibility? Some games all things go, some are more curated?

 

[Oofta]

Because, in essentially every case, it boils down to:

"I didn't think of it, so I won't allow it, there will be no discussion"
"I don't like it, so I won't allow it, there will be no discussion"
or
Claiming the thing is overpowered when it demonstrably isn't.

In nearly every case, discussion is shut down long before it could even potentially begin. That is the problem I keep having. Consider:

There will never be discussion--ever. No reason, no explanation, not even an attempt to meet halfway. Take it or leave it.

I gave my reasons for not allowing races above. Short version is that I have a persistent campaign world, game history, I want races to have a niche and cultural significance in my world. It is ultimately a preference on my part of how the campaign world I've built over decades works. I don't think a multitude of races like you see in Mos Eisley's Cantina makes much sense unless you have species originating from multiple worlds. Heck, if I hadn't already established their existence long ago I'd probably make gnomes and halflings a single race while making half-orcs a subrace of humans just like I did with goliaths.

It has nothing to do with "I didn't think of it, I don't like it, or it's overpowered". I've enjoyed playing dragonborn and tabaxi in an FR campaign, but they don't exist in my world. But I assume it's not good enough for you. Or you haven't ever read any of the many, many posts where I've explained my reasoning.

That's exactly the kind of thing I oppose. If you have players who put up with that sort of attitude, more power to you.

When you build your own campaign world, feel free to set it up how you see fit. I work with my players, but I have editorial control and final say on anything related to character origin. I want characters to have an origin that makes sense.

Could I make an exception once? Sure. But then I have no reason to not continue making exceptions.

When you elide out the discussion, it looks rather a lot like no discussion ever occurred.

In which case, I find your hypothetical strained at best. In essentially all cases, something can be worked out. And in nearly all of the cases something can't be worked out, it's because there was some kind of failure along the way. Perhaps a failure of game design, or of communication. Truly, completely irreconcilable differences are extremely rare--and it is nearly always worthwhile to work out reconcilable ones.

I'll ask the same thing you ignored above. I have a strict no evil campaign. There's simply nothing to be "worked out here", I don't want to run a game with evil PCs. Is that a legitimate restriction?

It's like asking what the plan should be if you've been struck by lightning, and a meteorite, as part of CPR training. Like...yes, those are events that occur, and thus it is theoretically possible for them to occur simultaneously. But they aren't worth spending any time thinking about, because they are too rare to be worth investing any time into.

Particularly when--in both cases--the answer seems to be "DOA." First aid for meteorite strikes is pointless.

The DM makes all sorts of decisions all the time. How hard is it to climb a wall? Do I allow feats from a 3PP? In my game, what is considered an evil act that will mean your PC becomes an NPC if it's repeated or egregious enough? How does a specific spell or ability work?

I see no way to "compromise" on dragonborn if they don't exist in my campaign world. Either they exist or they don't, there's not a lot of in between on that one.

 

[Cruentus]

I see no way to "compromise" on dragonborn if they don't exist in my campaign world. Either they exist or they don't, there's not a lot of in between on that one.

I agree with everything @Oofta says above.

I'm planning on running a Dolmenwood Campaign soon, using a combination of OSE and Dolmenwood rules, and all of the characters have to be human UNTIL they encounter any of the other kindreds in the wood. Want to play an elf, who in the setting is rare as hen's teeth and seen as something from fairy tale books? Cool, you can when you encounter an elven enclave or visit Faerie and meet some. It simultaneously makes character creation and "party concept" easier, and encourages exploration of the deeper/hidden parts of the world.

Players so far love that concept. To each table their own.

 

[Jack Daniel]

In nearly every case, discussion is shut down long before it could even potentially begin.

Yeah. What of it?

While I'm open-ish about races, there are six — count 'em, six and only six, never a single one more than that — core character classes that exist in my D&D campaign. There is no discussion about this; players don't get a say in it. Strangers, acquaintances, longtime friends, loved ones. That topic is shut right the heck down, period, forever, and the conversation was over long before anyone else could possibly have had their say.

What do you care?

 

[MGibster]

The martial arts campaign you mentioned, I wasn't there for obviously, but I'm assuming people tried having a talk with 'gun guy' and possibly gave media suggestions for the feel they're going for? Just at first glance, I feel that might've been a misunderstanding where you say martial arts, thinking Enter the Dragon, but he hears martial arts as John Woo guns at dawn with doves flying behind you.

This would have been around 1991 when GURPS Martial Arts was first published. At the time, John Woo movies didn't have any wide release and he was pretty much unknown to the vast majority of Americans. If you didn't go to Sundance in 1990, you wouldn't have had a chance to see The Killers until it was released on video in 1992. Most Americans would remain unfamiliar with Woo until 1993 when he directed Hard Target starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and again in 1996 with Broken Arrow starring Vinnie Barbarino and J.D.

No, he just didn't like the concept. But instead of just telling us he decided to go about it in a passive aggressive manner. It's cool, we were just kids at the time, and he's developed better, healthier ways of telling people when he doens't want to do something.

 

[Oofta]

I was thinking about what it would take for me to add a race to my campaign world. There are some exceptions, races that can be just a subset of human such as Deva or Goliath like I mentioned.

The other exception was in 4E when suddenly we had Eladrin (with special teleportation abilities) and elves split into distinct races. I added a major plot point to that campaign, that there had been a civil war in the Feywild and Eladrin were Sidhe that had fled to Midgard and now lived there. It was a pretty major plot point, with some of the Eladrin going insane, etc.. It was not a minor event in my campaign, it was not a simple exception. When someone wanted to play a Deva I came up with a reason for it and linked it into Norse mythology.

As a DM who enjoys world building and setting up interesting scenarios for my players, building a world and making it all work is important to me. It's half of a story I hope to tell over the course of a campaign with the other half being driven by the players. That story needs to resonate with me, it needs to make sense. If the world doesn't live and breath for me, I have no idea how I can make it work for my players either.

There are a lot of ways of playing D&D and running campaigns. This is my way, and one that's been extremely successful over the years. Even if that means that a few people who feel entitled to play whatever race they want don't join.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If someone tells you they 'deserve' to have the lion's share of the decisions making about a communal activity, don't do that activity with them.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

If someone tells you they 'deserve' to have the lion's share of the decisions making about a communal activity, don't do that activity with them.

Exactly. If someone always has to go against consensus they should self select out, whether player or DM.

Everyone wants to play football but you. That should not follow that everyone else goes and gets their baseball gloves.

You don’t like it—-volunteer to dm. You don’t want the workload? Feel free to sit this one out.

You don’t “voluntell” someone else what to create.