Arilyn
Hero
As someone who has been on a soapbbox about the importance of player choice....I find myself on the other side, when it comes to kender. Ban them, ban them all!
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D&D 5E What Races (classes) do you allow or disallow in your campaign?
- Thread starter The_Gunslinger658
- Start date
As someone who has been on a soapbbox about the importance of player choice....I find myself on the other side, when it comes to kender. Ban them, ban them all!
GreenTengu
Adventurer
I only think it makes sense to disallow the things based on the particular setting of the particular game at the time.
You are only going to have a handful of players at any given time, so when any of them proposes an idea you didn't expect you just have to go through the check list...
1) Is there anything about the size, shape or movement of this race that would screw up the general concept for the adventure? (i.e. giants, flyers or mermaids may well be disqualified)
2) If this is something I hadn't really planned to be a part of my world, is there really no possible way I can find a way to justify the inclusion of at least one existing without derailing the whole world image?
3) Is there something fundamental about the way this particular race is meant to be portrayed that cannot be negotiated with or worked around that will necessarily cause disruption?
4) Is this race a primary antagonist truly in such a way that, presuming humans are the primary race of the world and humans will integrate and breed with just about anything vaguely human if given the chance, there could not possibly be even a small handful of exceptions who would be willing to fight their own, whether because of injustice done to them or a desire to see a more equitable outcome than the leaders of their people are aiming for?
Unless one of those four things is an absolute breaking issue, it is simply close-minded and selfish to cut players off. Even if because of these four things it appears that the player's choice would not work, one should at least find a way in which the player can play something that at least includes some of the core element of what it is that appealed to them about the race to begin with.
You are only going to have a handful of players at any given time, so when any of them proposes an idea you didn't expect you just have to go through the check list...
1) Is there anything about the size, shape or movement of this race that would screw up the general concept for the adventure? (i.e. giants, flyers or mermaids may well be disqualified)
2) If this is something I hadn't really planned to be a part of my world, is there really no possible way I can find a way to justify the inclusion of at least one existing without derailing the whole world image?
3) Is there something fundamental about the way this particular race is meant to be portrayed that cannot be negotiated with or worked around that will necessarily cause disruption?
4) Is this race a primary antagonist truly in such a way that, presuming humans are the primary race of the world and humans will integrate and breed with just about anything vaguely human if given the chance, there could not possibly be even a small handful of exceptions who would be willing to fight their own, whether because of injustice done to them or a desire to see a more equitable outcome than the leaders of their people are aiming for?
Unless one of those four things is an absolute breaking issue, it is simply close-minded and selfish to cut players off. Even if because of these four things it appears that the player's choice would not work, one should at least find a way in which the player can play something that at least includes some of the core element of what it is that appealed to them about the race to begin with.
Ninja-radish
First Post
Threads like this remind me why there are so many "bad DM" threads out there. It's the DM's job to create an atmosphere of fun, with help from the players. It is NOT the DM's job to beat the players over the head with asinine restrictions based on what he or she prefers to play. There are too many DMs out there who think it's acceptable to force their players to play the races/classes that the DM personally likes.
These DMs are particularly bad when it comes to race, and use fantasy racism to aggressively punish players who wanna play something besides the Tolkien retread races. Look, real life racism is bad enough and shouldn't exist. As a DM I personally have ZERO TOLERANCE for racism in a game environment, which is supposed to be fun and inclusive.
These DMs are particularly bad when it comes to race, and use fantasy racism to aggressively punish players who wanna play something besides the Tolkien retread races. Look, real life racism is bad enough and shouldn't exist. As a DM I personally have ZERO TOLERANCE for racism in a game environment, which is supposed to be fun and inclusive.
The_Gunslinger658
First Post
So I guess your one of those DM's that allow any alignments, any race and basically anything goes huh? Well, to us "bad" DM's that is just plain disruptive to the flow of the game. Players say they want a long running campaign, yet they want to play races and alignments that are disruptive to the harmony and to other players enjoyment of the campaign and my enjoyment to boot.
about 4 months ago, I ran 5 individuals through my Pathfinder campaign, all of them were playing either half orcs or that cat race whet ever it is called. All of them were chaotic stupid (neutral) and really disrupted the flow of the campaign with their murder hobo alignments and crazy ass character builds. For me as a DM it was not fun (especially when one of them likes killing kids), so I told them either you are good aligned and stick with core races or I am outta here. They decided not to play in my campaign. Funny thing is, like WoW, find players for a game is easy, finding DM's is not.
So stick that in your hat and call it macaroni lol
Scott
about 4 months ago, I ran 5 individuals through my Pathfinder campaign, all of them were playing either half orcs or that cat race whet ever it is called. All of them were chaotic stupid (neutral) and really disrupted the flow of the campaign with their murder hobo alignments and crazy ass character builds. For me as a DM it was not fun (especially when one of them likes killing kids), so I told them either you are good aligned and stick with core races or I am outta here. They decided not to play in my campaign. Funny thing is, like WoW, find players for a game is easy, finding DM's is not.
So stick that in your hat and call it macaroni lol
Scott
TheCosmicKid
Hero
Can we maybe have a difference of opinion on what makes a fantasy roleplaying game fun without calling each other racists?
Arilyn
Hero
This sounds like you got stuck with immature players, which has nothing to do with arbitrary restrictions. Don't you think that this particular group of murder hobos would have disrupted your campaign, even if you had restricted them to core class/race combos and good alignments?
The_Gunslinger658
First Post
On my better part of judgment I decided to give these wacky classes and races with non core rules special abilities a chance, usually I do not allow such stuff, but I figured maybe people were grown up plus I was just getting back into D&D. I was wrong, people who want to play, chaotic stupid, wacky races, crazy character builds are just joining the campaign to disrupt it. To weed out these undesirables, I say core book only, and they are out the door in a New York minute to go and find some other DM to harass. Remember, players are a dime a dozen.
Is your campaign enjoyable to you as the DM with the added wackiness?
Is your campaign enjoyable to you as the DM with the added wackiness?
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Well, you're playing Pathfinder. That system (not the setting, but the system) kind of encourages crazy character builds. There are so many fiddly bits and customization options that you can pretty easily created broken builds.
Between the traits, feats, classes, the ability to customize the classes with archetypes (or multiple archetypes), and various spells - the character race is almost irrelevant when comes to making a broken character (although with options to customize your racial abilities as well, it certainly doesn't hurt).
From what you said, the races they chose really weren't the issue - it was the players desire the game the system and play extreme builds. Since you didn't want to deal with that level of craziness, it was probably better you parted ways. Your preferred playstyle is perfectly valid, but so is theirs. The two just didn't mesh well.
Without wackiness, I'm not sure it's D&D.
Our campaigns have featured trans barbarians, incestuous sorcerers (2 of them, he got replaced by his double from a parallel universe), Dragonborn slam-poet paladins, Marxist paladins powered by dialectical materialism, suicidal immortal devas, partially-dead bureaucrat/detectives, Githzerai Popes, Tiefling con men running gangs of involuntarily cyborg-ed orphans, militant motivational speakers who look just like Dr. Phil, etc.
These are mainly from our 4e campaign. But it's not like our 3e, AD&D, and then 5e games were much different.
If the links in my .sig still work, you can verify I'm really not making this up. One's the 3e Story Hour, the other's the ideas thread for our 4e/AD&D/5e setting.
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