D&D 5E When lore and PC options collide…

[Xamnam]

I'm not experiencing it, I'm reading it here. Constantly. On this thread.

Because D&D's approach to the storyteller position is seriously and dangerously cracked.

Well, if any of the posts I'd read came across that way, I'd disagree with those posts. It feels like you might have come in with a pre-existing perspective that is coloring your interpretation of them.

 

[Minigiant]

Hey everyone raise your hands if you only gamed at tables were everyone were friends with everyone. BEFORE the game. I have game with tables with 4/5 were friends. I have gamed with tables which 50% friends and their +1 ones. I have game with one friend and I was the plus one. And I have game with randoms.

Presumably my friends know my triggers and will not bring them up. But some of us don't have or ever hand the option of playing with best friends for lives only.

Never have everyone have been a friend at Session 1. Sometimes the strangers and +1sdropped so only friends remain.

But never only friends at Session 1 unless it's just the group restarting with a new campaign.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Players’ Job: When the DM says, “Hey in this new campaign I want to try X” you say, “Sure.”

DM’s Job: When you notice that your players aren’t excited about your idea, even though they agreed to it, ask them why and consider changing it.

If you would do something different, I don’t want to game with you. Bunch of entitled junior high b.s.

 

[SakanaSensei]

This is a really weird thread. I voted lore, but through conversations with my wife out of thread and reading some of the conversation here, I've come to be flexible and landed in "Lore comes first, but if the player is willing to help with the creative load to make their vision fit the world as a collaborative effort, then we're solid."

Sucks that this has kind of devolved into mud slinging and name calling, though.

 

[jdrakeh]

Lore. In fact, the insistence of some players that every D&D setting make room for every D&D rules option (i.e. class, race, etc) is one of my biggest pet peeves as a DM. D&D is a tool-kit, in my eyes, and every DM I've ever played with has treated it as such.

 

[MGibster]

Why do so many people have their knickers in a twist about this? I prefer Coca-Cola to Pepsi, but I'm not upset to learn that someone else prefers Pepsi to Coca-Cola. There is no correct answer here just preferences. If you prefer to favor PC options over lore, well, more power to you. Many of your reasons are valid and I genuinely hope you're having a good time playing with those preferences. I happen to prefer lore over PC options, but that doesn't make me right and others wrong. It's just a preference.

 

[Oofta]

The level of hyperbole about how terrible DMs are if they don't allow everything a player wants always hits such ridiculous heights.

Yes I think the DM makes the final decisions about a lot of things. The DM should listen to their players, no DM can run games that their players hate. Every game I have ever played (outside of one failed experiment) has been that way. We discuss some opportunities, the DM makes their pitch and we all have fun.

If you run a cooperative game, cool. Do what makes sense. But please stop the exaggerated "The DM is on a power trip" because they make some decisions about the campaign that someone somewhere could might not like.

 

[Voadam]

I have played in games that had restrictions and games that were wide open. I have DM'd campaigns that were very open and ones that were theme restricted.

I have been a player in a game asking if a third party class I thought would be fun would be okay (a pathfinder soulknife from Dreamscarred Press's Psionics Unleashed). Turns out the DM was against 3rd party content, but was a huge fan of 3e psionics so he was willing to give it a shot as a pathfinder adaptation since Paizo did not make their own adaptation. I was completely ready to accept no as an answer though.

As a player I am fine asking about different player options, but I don't really want to negotiate or push anything the DM is uncomfortable with.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The level of hyperbole about how terrible DMs are if they don't allow everything a player wants always hits such ridiculous heights.

in the same thread where people literally insulted players who want to play a PHB race/class...

 

[Scribe]

in the same thread where people literally insulted players who want to play a PHB race/class...

I must have missed that.