Thanks. Gotta say if I wanted to refer to Tolkien, I would just invoke Middle Earth or his name, such as "It's like Middle Earth," or "Picture Tolkien's world." Why core four came about when there is already a standard in place is beyond me.
Again, I can respect what
you would do.
But the points at issue aren't solely about you. They are about a fragment of the community. So, you would say "Middle Earth" if you wanted to reference Tolkien, but for some DMs (as we have seen from the comments of some posters) "Fantasy" refers to Tolkien. To the extent that they have a hard time imagining that there is anything beyond Tolkien, aspects of fantasy that commonly use these other races and tropes.
And "Core Four" is a symptom of that. It shows that people, maybe on purpose, maybe unconsciously, have developed the mind set that the Fellowship of the Ring, the alliance between Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits and Humans, is at the center of all Fantasy worlds, and that moving beyond that core is strange and weird.
I just reread my post and I definitely did not make myself clear. I meant that, in my experience, there are so few DMs that have done that work (like 10-20% maybe), that the other 80% of the tables are open. They are the buffet. That has been my experience. Most DMs allow almost anything. A few have put in a a lot of work and limit things. Sorry for not being clear.
Basically, from my vantage point it is easy for a player to just go find one of the 80%ers out there.
Might be, but it is a roulette, and again, it doesn't change the underlying issues I pointed out with your "solutions"
A player either gets lucky to find a game where a DM already implemented their idea (or something close enough) or they make the choice of whether what they want outweighs the other considerations, and leaves the game to try again.
That is not how it is meant to be taken. And I have probably stated fifty time (but I know, it is a long thread) that a player should ask. They should. And the DM should work with them. But view it with my 80% experience. Even if, somehow, this is the only table they can play on, and it is part of the 20% that do the work and limit races, then ask. And if the DM can't. Then ask for the inclusion of whatever race or class you want to be included in the next campaign. This way the DM has time to add them. And if they don't after having a six months to find a way to include them, then they are not the table for that player. They want a different playstyle. And that is okay.
You may not have wanted it taken that way, but when you present a massive list of all the things the DM does, couple that with how little the player does, and then ask "why would a player ask for more" then you have presented a scenario where asking is akin to be greedy or callous.
And, I'll again remind you, many posters here have expressed not only that they have long-running campaign worlds, but that they would not change them. Period. You are about the only poster who keeps discussing the aspect of how much work the DM has done, and from that limited set of data, it seems that if someone wasn't willing to work on it for the campaign you are joining, they won't want to do it for the next one either.
We are in a separate community. Geeks. And ask any Geek outside of the few on this forum, ask them what the Mos Eisley's Cantina is and they are likely to hum you the song and have a smile on their face. And I used drag queens to be funny, because I just watched the show with my wife and heard the phrase. I could have just as said, Will Farrell or my niece using the phrase and the context and connotation would have the exact same equivalency - bitch being used in a positive light.
You missed my point.
You and me Scott? And Oofta and Jack Daniel and Aceraktriplesix and all of us. We are a community. The Community of ENWorld.
Sure, people at large like the Mos Eisley Cantina, they might hum a few bars if you stopped them in the street. But just like a negative word can be positive, a positive word can be negative. And in this thread "Cantina Worlds" were equated with a variety of negative traits. From lack of focus, to poor quality, to uncaring DMs with no vision, ect. You used that term, in the same thread where it had been used negatively repeatedly, on a forum where it has been used negatively repeatedly, and yet you want to get insulted that someone took it negatively.
Of course they did. They even explained it to you at the time why they did, stating that "seeing as how that has been used as an insult in this thread" they weren't going to take your recommendation as being positive. Why you can't seem to accept that is beyond me. You clearly understand that context and community can change the meaning of something, you've tried to use that to prove that you in your community of one took a negative to use positively, but you seem to be forgetting that without other people agreeing to change the meaning, the meaning remains.
