Why is "I don't like it" not good enough?

[Rel]

So which word do you not understand:
No?
Tieflings?

I've made ample attempts to communicate my point to you shadzar and you're obviously not getting it, which I suppose should not surprise me at this point. Another attempt will not be made.

I have faith that we will both ultimately end up with the sorts of gaming groups we deserve. Good day.

 

[shadzar]

It could just as easily be "no pizza at the table while we play". Does that mean that you are allergic to pizza? Does it mean you hate the smell? Does it mean that you've had bad experiences with pizza-eating players, and no more will you risk it? They have no clue.

Nor do they have to have a clue. People just need to learn to accept things that are not in their control, rather than try to control everything they cannot accept.

If I say no eating or drinking in my car, and you question it, you will be looking for another ride.

I have offered a thing and only that. You seek something else, find it elsewhere.

Again someone trying to order a McRib at Burger King. Either you are confused about where you are, or you are trying to purposefully cause a conflict.

 

[The Shaman]

It's a creative challenge to work fictional elements I don't like, or at least didn't author, into the settings and campaigns I create. On the other hand, there's no challenge in simply mandating my own tastes, and in that way, 'just saying no' would rob me of an entertaining part of the game. The part where I work with another person to turn their idea of interesting into something congruent with my own.

As a player I feel it's a creative challenge to work up a character which fits a setting which I didn't create, and a referee who says 'yes' to everything isn't providing me with the boundaries to test my creativity, to turn her idea of interesting into something congruent with my own.

And around and around we go.

Somewhere upthread at least one poster, and maybe a couple of others, alluded to the idea that they like to create characters and then find games in which to run them. My personal feeling is that that's the source of at least some, and maybe quite a bit, of the friction over characters in games - a player buys a sourcebook or sees a 'build' online and decides, "I gotta run this!" then expects the next dungeon master to let that character in, without even considering the campaign, the setting, the dungeon master, or the other players.

I think there's a great deal of benefit which comes from making characters together for the game.

 

[catsclaw227]

Nor do they have to have a clue. People just need to learn to accept things that are not in their control, rather than try to control everything they cannot accept.

Asking "why" is not an attempt to control.

Again someone trying to order a McRib at Burger King. Either you are confused about where you are, or you are trying to purposefully cause a conflict.

Apples and Oranges.

If I ask about why there aren't Tiefling PCs, maybe it is so that I may understand if there are "demon-kin" monsters, NPCs or other similar creatures in the milieu (and by proxy, angel-kin, angelic NPCs, etc).

D&D is played (and DMed) a multitude of different ways, with different rulesets and editions, and with different houserules. Therefore asking questions is akin to getting your bearings.

If you go into a Burger King wanting a McDonalds product, well... its like asking why we aren't playing with d6 dice pools in D&D.

 

[ExploderWizard]

By telling them "No tieflings" they also have that same opportunity.

You somehow mistake that something is removed other than the tieflings in that case.

There is no "Mother May I" with ANYTHING banned. The fact it is banned, forbidden, disallowed, is the problem you have and issue you are having.

The automatic answer is NO, that is what banning is.

Lets call this "why" question as similar to threadcrapping. There is a line drawn that something isn't allowed in both cases. The rule was set, and if you come to that then you accept the rule.

You don't go to a 9-ball tournament to play 8-ball. You try playing 9-ball in an 8-ball tournament, and you are soon going ot be screwing up.

Here is a why for you: Why would someone be going to play for the sole purpose of confrontation? If you don't accept a game with "no tieflings" then why even go there?

The players requested and being sought were ones agreeing to "no tieflings". When a player then shows up wanting to dispute that, they have already violated a part of that "social contract" and shown they have no interest in communication, because they started out by not paying attention and not following the rules set forth by the DM.

This behavior 99.998% of the time carries over to being a disruptive player.

Seriously, why would someone go to a game set up with the rule of "no tieflings" be there with an attempt to play a tiefling, or even care?

The DMs job is to make the game work. Not to let just every Tom, Dick, and Harry off the street try to tell everyone else how to play. If there are other people that agree with this rule of "no teiflings" except this one, then you already see this one person asking doesn't have views aligned with the group.

If you already knew what to expect and then went counter to that, you are only there to BE disruptive to the others.

The school example was given, someone going to heckle a comedian, etc.... These are all the same type of disruptive people. There is no reason a DM or other player should have to put up with that.

You don't have to agre with it, and the fact that you take issue with it would make me ask you this:

Would you come to mine or his games saying "no tiefligns" and them try question that?
If so, then why did you come in the first place? Just to question why tieflings aren't allowed?

The person raising the question when the ground rules were set, should never have come if they didnt agree with those rules.

WOW.

And now, a random quote from shadzar's profile page:

"shadzar has not made any friends yet"

Don't think too hard about why, it might hurt.

Mod Edit: Ladies and gentlemen, you may be tempted to be personally insulting to people. We suggest you resist that temptation. EW here won't be joining the rest of this conversation because he didn't. ~Umbran

 

[pemerton]

I think there's a great deal of benefit which comes from making characters together for the game.

I couldn't imagine starting a serious game any other way. (Of course the "together" could be via email, phone calls, conversations between individual players, and between individual players and the GM etc. An activity can be cooperative without requiring everyone to be all in the same room at the same time.)

Con games and one shots and the like are of course completely different. But I don't think these are the sorts of game most people on the "communication is better" side (to the extent that there are sides here) have in mind.

 

[pemerton]

So which word do you not understand:
No?
Tieflings?

<snip>

If you go to a game to play, there are rules such as "no tieflings" before you go. You have zero excuse to start rocking the boat.

Nor do they have to have a clue. People just need to learn to accept things that are not in their control, rather than try to control everything they cannot accept.

Rel's point, and Crazy Jerome's, as I read them, is that asking "why" isn't necessarily about rocking the boat or trying to take control.

I teach law students. One thing I teach them is to ask, of the laws that I teach them, "why"? Not because I think the laws need to be changed, but because it can help with understanding the function of the rule, and the sort of social structures it supports, to know why the rule has been adopted.

Likewise with a GM. Knowing why the GM has banned tieflings can help understand the GM's game. For example, if it's just because the GM doesn't like them, then I'm probably safe in guessing that there won't be that many opportunities to play a half-vampire or lycanthrope (or perhaps even drow) PC either. Or, as Rel said, the explanation might help me understand the game's cosmology. Or . . .

I have seen that very thing in stores offering games.

And I think it's pretty obvious that Rel, Crazy Jerome and others aren't talking about one-shot pick-up games. They're talking about games where the GM's vision for the gameworld actually makes a difference.

 

[Hussar]

First you have made an assumption about me that is wrong and condesending. My players don't accept "my authority". You don't know them or me. My players trust that I can provide a fun time, and that is why they don't argue. There is a big difference there, and I'm sorry if you have never run into that type of relationship before.

Ahh, you had the high road and then jumped into the ditch with me at the end. Shame. I'm basing my response on the fact that you specifically stated that you would go out of your way to passive aggressively force a player from your table, rather than have an up front conversation with him.

Second, the player who is arguing back and forth has already taken away from the fun. Why would I have any reason to feel it will be different int he future. His options are contimue with the game, and choose something else, or make it an issue. He chooses the latter, and is already showing himself a person who can't be trusted to put aside disagreements for the better of the game.

But, how are you different? It takes two to have an argument. Why are you presupposing that this guy is doing it deliberately to ruin your game?

Let me ask you a question, if a player said "I'll play monday as long as I don't have to play the wizard" If I ask why, and he says "I don't like wizards" do I have the right to argue with him about it? Should I just let him play something else?

I would have zero problem with asking him why he doesn't want to play wizards. And, if he simply says, I don't like wizards, he's being every bit as poor of a player as the DM who does it. I believe I stated this upthread a bit in my response to Crazy Jerome.

If a player absolutely refused to play a particular character, yeah, I'd ask. To the point where he made his resusal to play that character an issue? Oh yeah, we'd have a conversation.

But, guess what, I'd let him play something else. Forcing players to play something they don't want to play never works.

But, that's what I'd do at my table. I'm not saying that's what everyone should do.

See, the thing is, every single poor DM I've ever played with gave me this exact same line - "No X because I don't like it". Every one. Without fail. So, yeah, when the DM plays the hard line like this and refuses to expand on it, that's going to be my first clue that this DM is headed for a player revolt in short order.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Not all things that happen between our hypothetical DM and player having (or not having) this conversation are about the two of them.

If I'm in a pickup game, whether as a DM or player, I'll tolerate people that I'm sure are idiots ("sure" as in the weight of evidence from what they say, their attitude, body language, and a whole host of factors) for somewhat longer than I would in my own group. Part of it is that one is never truly "sure." And part of it is that if I set my mind to it, I can shrug off that stuff for awhile and truly not let it bother me.

But mainly, I'll tolerate the idiots because Rel or Hussar might be one of the other people sitting there. Or maybe there is a lady there who has had nothing but dick DMs for 10 years, and this game is the very last time she is going to give it a chance. I don't want to do anything to drive her away. Eventually, however, that idiot is leaving. If I get to know Rel and Hussar and our tentative lady gamer well enough, quickly enough, the idiot is leaving soon. In my own group, this isn't an issue, because I already know everyone there well, and they know me.

This is important: I'm 43 years old. Since age 9 or so, I've been known by most of my personal peers as someone that better natural "idiot radar" than most. This means that I know the guy is an idiot before most people, and I surely know it before our tentative lady gamer. She isn't even focused on the idiot, anyway. She's zeroed in on the DM to see if he is like the rest.

Despite this, I've been in the situation over and over (not only gaming by any means) where I had some kind of responsibility for policing, gave the idiot every chance possible, but finally had to act in some overt way. Every single time this has occurred, several other people in the group have asked afterwards, essentially, "What took you so long?" The last time someone said to me, "You know, you were kind of hard on him. Maybe give him another chance," I was 17 and screwed up in my head over a girl. So I think my track record for cutting people some slack, in practice, is reasonable.

Which I guess is a long-winded way of saying that don't mistake what I say here for what I'm thinking at a given moment to necessarily be directly linked to decisive action at that moment. I've also learned that anyone that really is the idiot will give you plenty of opportunities to call them on it. So it's really just what you are willing to take and how much of his nonsense you are willing to let the other people in your group take.

 

[shadzar]

Not all things that happen between our hypothetical DM and player having (or not having) this conversation are about the two of them.

I think most of the discussion may be happening in some people's mind in that vacuum where only the one player and DM exists.

The DM is responsible for the game for all. If one player is taking the time form the others after having joiend the "no tieflings" game, then they are in the wrong place.

Idiot or not, they are just in the wrong place. When the "no tiefling" parameter was set, the DM must assume all people there already want a "no tieflings" game.

If the other 4 players are there for "no tieflings", then even the one other asking about them, have violated what they are there for. The DM allowing for said discussion, is taking away from those other 4 who wanted the "no tieflings" game by discussing the tieflings in any manner with the one.

That one asking about tieflings has already become a disruption to the game that was wanted by everyone else. The game without teiflings present.