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

[Ancalagon]

Are you allowed to restrict stuff for mechanical reasons? What if the DM thinks artificers are overpowered?

The DM can impose whatever restriction they want, and the players can agree with them or not, or perhaps negotiate.

Some of you may familiar with my famous "ladle" system. In the Ladle system there is one race (ladle), one class (ladle), one stat (ladle) and you fight ladle monsters to get ladle coins.

The players have a huge power though - they can tell me "Anc, the ladle system SUCKS and we don't want to play". Ie, VETO.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Because, what the world really needs is more people JUDGING each other?

maybe, maybe not but I cant imagine how to go forward without doing so unless we remove all emotion

 

[Vaalingrade]

The Lore isn't playing in my game, inviting me to dinner, going to my birthday party, letting me cry on its shoulder or doing anything for me in general.

PC options all the way.

 

[Oofta]

Lore for me. I want the world I'm campaigning in to make sense, especially to the DM. If the DM ain't happy with the setting, ain't nobody happy with the setting. I think things like FR with dozens of different intelligent races is a bit goofy and it starts to feel like the Star Wars cantina scene.

The cantina scene makes sense in a setting where there are dozens if not hundreds of worlds with intelligent humanoids, not so much when there's only one. If you set up a world that has gateways to other worlds it might make sense, so a Spelljammer game I'd allow for anything you want. But my main campaign world? Nope, you're limited to my list of established races.

I also limit some class options just for thematic versions and preference. I don't want to deal with someone that made a deal with the devil to gain power because that devil is going to want their employee to do things I don't want to deal with.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

My next campaign will be a pirate-themed one, set on the vast Bard Juice Sea.

That ain't juice.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Which is more important: preserving the lore of a setting or having the full range of PC character creation options?

Breaking the false dichotomy that one has to choose only one or the other. I would call it one of the most important "secondary" lessons of DMing. (That is, "primary" lessons are about how to do the brute act of running a game, "secondary" are at the meta/self-analysis level where you determine best practices, and "third" concern answering almost fully abstract questions about what is worthy of pursuit as GM and why.)

For example, in the lore of Dragonlance between the Cataclysm and the start of the first novel there are no true clerics. Likewise, there are no halflings, orcs, changelings, tieflings, dragonborn, etc.

Then the task is to do one of the following things (in no particular order):

1. Explain why something that is clearly a Cleric, halfling, orc, changeling, tiefling, or dragonborn is present.
2. Determine what, exactly, the player wants from their choice, and propose something extant which fulfills that desire.
3. Accept the incongruity as a mystery which the party is invited to solve, should they be interested in doing so.

None of these involve making lore or breadth more fundamental or important. Instead, they involve recognizing that both things tend to be necessary for an enjoyable game, and that one needs to think outside the trap of eternally fixed and unchanging world-knowledge OR perfect adherence to maximum permissiveness in all things, and ne'er the twain shall meet.

So which is more important: preserving existing lore or the full range of 5E PC character creation options?

Respecting and investing into player enthusiasm is more important than either one.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Lore for me. I want the world I'm campaigning in to make sense, especially to the DM. If the DM ain't happy with the setting, ain't nobody happy with the setting. I think things like FR with dozens of different intelligent races is a bit goofy and it starts to feel like the Star Wars cantina scene.

The cantina scene makes sense in a setting where there are dozens if not hundreds of worlds with intelligent humanoids, not so much when there's only one. If you set up a world that has gateways to other worlds it might make sense, so a Spelljammer game I'd allow for anything you want. But my main campaign world? Nope, you're limited to my list of established races.

I also limit some class options just for thematic versions and preference. I don't want to deal with someone that made a deal with the devil to gain power because that devil is going to want their employee to do things I don't want to deal with.

My theory is that many of us players don't really want to be playing Dungeons and Dragons at all. Instead we want to be playing Star Wars. So, through the choices we make, we shape Dungeons and Dragons into something that resembles Star Wars.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Are you allowed to restrict stuff for mechanical reasons? What if the DM thinks artificers are overpowered?

Yes but: as a player, if I don't agree with the balance concern I'd be a lot less enthusiastic about the game. No class in 5e is overpowered, and I'm not worried about any official subclass offhand. If we're playing 3.5 there's several options that I would agree are too powerful - or so underpowered that you'd rather the player refluff a better class to make the concept work (ie don't play a samurai - play a warblade with pseudo-Japanese fluff). If I don't know the game I'd probably roll with whatever the dm thinks.

It all comes back to a more basic premise in my mind: I don't judge restrictions in themselves; I judge the reasoning behid the restriction.

For example, if your setting just does not have anything even kind of like steampunk in it, you might remove artificers as a class. If that's because you want a really low magic setting that's one thing - but if it's just a low-tech setting I might really want to make a swordmage using the battlesmith mechanics and the rune knight fluff, which could work with nary a cog at all. I'd expect a reasonable hearing-out of the idea, at least.

Honestly the only way you can dm "wrong" is to not let the players pitch stuff at all. What you exclude is just playstyle.

 

[payn]

My theory is that many of us players don't really want to be playing Dungeons and Dragons at all. Instead we want to be playing Star Wars. So, through the choices we make, we shape Dungeons and Dragons into something that resembles Star Wars.

Hmm, so thats why I dont want to play D&D these days

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My theory is that many of us players don't really want to be playing Dungeons and Dragons at all. Instead we want to be playing Star Wars. So, through the choices we make, we shape Dungeons and Dragons into something that resembles Star Wars.

And my theory is that this is judgmental hypertraditionalism which holds the hobby back from achieving its highest heights and best implementation. Derogatory dismissal does the hobby a disservice, and "ah, you don't actually want to play D&D, the things you like don't actually belong here" is absolutely derogatory dismissal.