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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 4974527" data-attributes="member: 32164">Lots of good points here. Personally, I'm not sure it's a strict dichotomy of "DM's like dark and gritty settings and players don't." I think there's a couple of different issues at play here.Firstly, I have noticed some preference for dark settings in gamers of a certain type, more of whom tend to be DMs. Let's bluntly state that only more committed/serious gamers are likely to take up the reins of the DM. More casual gamers just don't DM. That said, more serious gamers are more likely to favor a dark and gritty setting. Partially, that's a desire for variety and involvement. Hack and slash dungeon crawl settings are perfectly fine for casual gamers - for the more "involved" players, they get real old, real fast.Secondarily, I think DMs tend to favor worlds that have more adversaries. As a DM, it's much easier to move from one adventure to the next if you don't constantly have to either a) randomly move from one adventure to the next, or b) invent reasons why the foes are connected (or fall back on the old stereotype of the BBEG and his legions of goblins, undead, and yadda, yadda, yadda). Hence, "more evil" (i.e. darker) worlds are easier to create adventures for, because you have more adversaries to pick from for any given adventure.Finally, there's the issue of "world consistency" versus "player options." Now, while these aren't necessarily in conflict, they tend to be. Players, naturally, like to have plenty of options for their characters - often gravitating to an unusual race so that they don't have to play "the same character" over and over again. DM's, by contrast, tend to like worlds where each race has a set "place" and role. Partially, that's the influence of the fiction on which we're basing stories. Most fantasy novels feature between 1 and 4 protagonist "races." Fitting in more than that can start to feel very cluttered from a DM's point of view. And it presents a problem.As a DM, you have a couple options. First, you can embrace the "Mos Eisley Cantina" feel of D&D and let your players play any race imaginable. But the problem with this approach is that it tends to feel very "unrealistic" very quickly. Mos Eisley has dozens of sentient races because it's a waypoint for hundreds (thousands?) of worlds. A D&D world (other than, say, Sigil) is, almost by definition, a SINGLE world. It's hard to imagine all those races in a single world "getting along." Tolkien made it work (mostly) for 4 races (Men, Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits). But each added race raises the complexity level (and hence creative challenge) required to make the world "work" in a consistent way. For obvious reasons, halfbreeds and related races don't increase the complexity level much.Multiple races tend to feel more "logical" in higher fantasy settings (like Eberron, for example). Why that is, I don't exactly know. Maybe it's the influence of, on the one hand, the Star Wars cantina, and on the other, classic Sword & Sorcery novels, where there's only usually ONE protagonist race - men. But for me, multiple races fit better in a freewheeling high fantasy mix. Lower, more "down-to-earth" settings seem to call for fewer races.I hesitate to say this, but I'm tempted to think of Athas (Dark Sun) as down-to-earth - which makes it an exception to the general rule.Personally, my current conundrum is making room for Dragonborn (which I like the idea of being available) into my setting. For the record, I have the same problem with all the different kinds of "magic" in D&D. But that's me.Just a few thoughts. Cool discussion thread.</blockquote>

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