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

[Bill Zebub]

That doesn't make any sense to me. If the players agree to restrictions and then actively try to subvert them by trying to find a loophole, they are being disingenuous and shouldn't have agreed to the original restrictions (as is of course their right). Why wouldn't the unhappy player just tell the DM they don't want to play that way?

Or it could just be that the players aren't trying to be combative, but simply see the restrictions as a new challenge to be overcome with ingenuity. They might not even be aware that they aren't playing in the spirit intended.

In my experience, gamers are more likely than average to be unaware of such things.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

In another thread somewhere Umbran said something to the effect of, "We start off saying pineapple pizza isn't so bad, and end up arguing that anything without pineapple couldn't possible be pizza."

it feels like that sometimes.

I suspect lots of us have basically the same opinion here: players should be willing to be flexible, GMs should take into account what players want, and if the two can't agree they should probably find other folks to play with.
Somehow tiny differences get magnified into bitter turf wars.

yup

I think we just need One Playtest #3 to argue about.

lol nothing ends an argumeent like a new argument

 

[Xamnam]

I suspect lots of us have basically the same opinion here: players should be willing to be flexible, GMs should take into account what players want, and if the two can't agree they should probably find other folks to play with.
Somehow tiny differences get magnified into bitter turf wars.

Yeah, that's part of why I posted my needlessly lengthy list. I was just trying to re-establish "Most of us agree on most of this, right?" Hopefully to mitigate some of the raised tension.

 

[Aldarc]

Sorry for the offense, but dragging the other players round the board is a pretty standard and well-known tactic in Cluedo. Preferably to a room you have in your hand, so that every time they make a suggestion you show them the same room.

Thanks. I'm not sure if I ever heard of this strategy as dragging other players around the room.

 

[Scribe]

this isn't true... you are worried enough about it to spend the last week on here argueing about it

Discussing a hypothetical, isn't the same as a pressing concern.

Just as a restriction without a full write up of explanation and justification, is not an attack upon an individual.

 

[Vaalingrade]

One thing is very clear: No one here. NO ONE. Should be having any dinner parties, playing board games, or attempting analogies ever again.

 

[Maxperson]

Max, I know that you love idiosyncratic definitions, but that is literally saying "it is a two way street, but it isn't."

Either the need to respect one another's preferences does, in fact, actually apply mutually, or it does not. Either the street goes both ways, of it only goes one way. You have just explicitly described a street that actually goes only one way: the DM must be respected flat out always, and the players get only what the DM deigns to give them, nothing more. That is, by any reasonable definition, NOT a two way street.

No. What it's literally saying is that it's a two way street, but driving down it typically begins on the right hand side, but sometimes on the left. It's a street. It goes in two directions. It's a two way street. Literally nothing requires two way streets to be equally travelled in both directions, or that they be travelled in both directions at the same time. The only requirement is that travel occurs in both directions.

A street that only goes one way is NEVER travelled in the other direction, which isn't at all what I described. I described a valid two way street.

And Max explicitly treats it as all, or effectively all, players who fail to instantly bend to any DM restrictions as being ones with obvious malicious intent, exclusively pursuing something forbidden to be a disruptive little naughty word, with zero mention of not allowance for genuine, heartfelt enthusiasm that might lead them to say, "hey, I really love X, can I play one?"

"Max" explicitly does not treat or even imply that it is effectively all players who fail to instantly bend. That's a blatant misrepresentation of my words. I have in fact said several times in this thread and others that compromise happens and described times when I do so and when I do not.

THAT is the true insult here.

You're being insulted by a Strawman of your own making. You should probably construct a Straw apology to make things all better.

See above, Max. The true insult wasn't calling people douches. It was the assertion that only a tiny vanishing proportion of people would ever do something like asking for an option because they just really, earnestly like it, and instead saying that the overwhelming majority is people with active malicious intent.

I did see the above Strawman of my words. There was no such assertion except in your own head due to you twisting both my words and my intent. Perhaps untwist the pretzel you made out of my words and you will feel less insulted.

 

[Morrus]

Same few faces shouting at each other endlessly again in yet another thread. This is getting really tiresome. Another thread closed.