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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 7508568" data-attributes="member: 5142">This illustrates the problem of media. These examples are not from cooperative tabletop games; these are stories driven by authors or writing teams. Tyrion is not a player character, as he does not have a player. George R. R. Martin authors the voice and agency of the character, and other characters that he chooses to include, while also facilitating the surrounding drama of the narrative. This is all well and good, but part of the debate has centered around players openly indicating that they do not want certain areas of their character to serve as sources of conflict for the DM. Dungeon Masters disrespecting that would likely qualify under failing their duties to "provide the entertainment" for the table. I disagree with this assumption. And I do believe that it is fundamentally backwards. It reminds me of debates in my early days of fantasy roleplaying when DMs would impose things on characters along the lines of "You're a dwarf, so you must hate elves," and they would justify it via some gorgon-excrement flavor text. Or as a barbarian, "you must hate civilization," should we follow the 5e class flavor text. Flavor text is meant to serve as a springboard for character ideas and hooks for players, but not prescribe them. Choosing not to latch onto the flavor text, or portions thereof, does not necessarily mean that the DM or player are actually altering anything about the class. Saying that "hey, a high priest can demand this from you" is just a truism of play on the level of saying, "hey, the king can demand this from you." As others have pointed out, this is not somehow exclusive to the cleric or their class. A high priest can make demands of most people in-game, and deities likely even more so. The flavor text is not a "how to play a cleric" manual. The larger point of the flavor text, IMO, is for the player to consider how their player character engages the world they inhabit when creating their character. It hardly seems like this discussion would be performed in good faith if you already established your terms of discussion as "my way or GTFO."</blockquote>

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