Why would you want to play *that*??

[Seeten]

Yes, I suppose it is, but it's also perfectly valid of me as a DM to require actual role-playing from such a character.

If I made a half-dragon/half-celestial with 7 PrC's you'd want me to rp it, right?

So can I make a fighter 17 and just not rp in your game?

If the answer is no, I have to ask, why the double standard? If I play D&D, I expect to RP whatever I make, not just one with non-standard powers.

By the by, Warlocks suck, so anyone taking them for the "Kewl powerz" isnt a powergamer, he's a conceptualist. Power gamers make things that actually kick ass in practice, not that sound Munchkinny on a messageboard.

Example: Human Cleric with divine metamagic. <---- Power gamer character

Example 2: Half-Dragon Half-Kobold Fighter <------- total wuss, but sounds cool.

Example 3: Human Wizard/Incantatrix/Arch-Mage <---- Power gamer character

Example 4: Thri-Kreen Psionic Warrior/Psion <---- Total wuss, but sounds cool

Example 5: Human Druid <----------- Power gamer character

Example 6: Succubus Thief <------ Total Wuss, but sounds cool

Example 7: Feral elf Rogue/Fighter <----- Power Gamer character

Example 8: Mind Flayer Paladin <---- Total wuss, but sounds cool

I believe this illustrates the point fully.

I would require RP from all of these example characters. In play, I'd expect the munchkins to be the ones with power gamer beside their example, the others obviously have a nonstandard concept. But, their nonstandard concept is awful, from a munchkins standpoint.

 

[Andor]

Given the commonality of such things as half-dragon paragon dwarven clerics of whatever, fiendish tiefling rogue/rangers, stonechildren scouts or reticulated yellow-bellied water diggers, I have to ask WHY?


I HAVE to believe that people who play these things have no desire to come at them from a role-playing perspective. When I see something that is the cross between an earth elemental and a mortal, the roleplayer in me dies a little bit. "How would I even approach something like that as a role-playing concept?" "What is the motivation of such an individual?"

I don't even role-play elves very often because they seem so foreign to my mindset. When I play halflings or gnomes, I try hard to not make them stereotypical. I rarely play dwarves because I think it would be too difficult not to play them at least somewhat stereotypical.

But I have to believe that people who play such mind-boggingly bizarre character concepts ONLY approach them as a collection of statistics. For example, do people who play Warlocks choose them because they would make an interesting role-playing challenge, or do people play Warlocks because they have a lot of phat k3wl special abilities?

For my money, I would be content if I could play nothing more than fighter, wizard, rogue or cleric for the rest of my natural life. I can think of an infinite number of possibilities within just those guidelines. Why the need for all the bizarre character concepts?

Have people lost site of the fact that this is a ROLE-playing game?

Emphasis added.

You state, above, that you do not, and cannot understand these things. Fine. You then go on to imply that because you cannot do it, no one can and there must be some other reason for it. False. I cannot benchpress 300 pounds, but I can turn on my tv and see that there are people capable of doing that. I cannot do trig in my head, but I know people who can. I can program in half a dozen languages and I know people to whom this is wizardry. I love to ride motorcycles and I know people who squeak in fear at the very thought. I am terrified of spiders yet I know people who keep them as pets. I can try to envision the thought processes of a being with a thousand year lifespan, and you apparently cannot.

All people are not the same. We have different abilities, different loves and fears, different beliefs, different minds.

It is a great glory of roleplaying that it can accomodate almost any desire. Whatever you want to do, can be done. Do you want to be a superhero? An angst filled creature of the night torn between hunger and remorse? A mysterious drifter who saves the small town from bandits? A mercenary slaying monsters for pay? An alien martial artist firing energy bolts from his eyes? A peasant turned warrior wandering with a group of friends to rid the world of evil and earn a paycheck? A space travelling powersuited imperial accountant? An anthropomorphic crocodile wizard struggliing to come to terms with a world run by mammals?

Why are some of these good fun, and others bad fun? I don't like sports viedo games, but it does not crush my soul to see others play them.

Finally if thinking like a gnome seems too alien to you I suggest you sit down and think about what it means to be a human living in a world with a definite divine presence. Not in the "I go to church and feel something' sense, but the 'I invited Thor to the wedding, so lay in a lot of mead' sense. Or to grow up knowing that a few years of magical study is all it takes to be able to turn yourself into a hawk, or a carp. Or to really believe in the divine right of kings.

 

[Black Omega]

I'll have to agree with the suggestion that weird combos in most cases are not all that kick butt. They might be cool, but for power gaming there are usually better options.

The only time I recall not allowing something in one of my games was when someone wanted the demonic shifting fae/elves from Forgotten Realms, I forget how to spell the name. And even then I checked on the boards, posted a thread asking advice and ended up offering it with an adjustment that adjusted the part that seemed broken. I found in 3.5 they changed it to something pretty close to what I'd offered.

 

[fusangite]

I wish I'd said what Andor said.

 

[Seeten]

Andor totally rocked this post.

A shout-out to Andor. You rock on toast.

 

[Henry]

I wish I'd said what Andor said.

Munchkin. You just want to play Andor for the cool powers.

 

[Andor]

Munchkin. You just want to play Andor for the cool powers.

How could I possibly not .sig that?

I wish I'd said what Andor said.

And here I was thinking your post was so much better reasoned out than mine. Are you in Toronto now btw? I'm not going to make it to the cons this year so no hashing out magical theory over beer there sadly.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I'm personally suspicous that der_kluge is currently playing a Fiendish Troll, but I'll bite with a far from perfect analogy:

One reason why people play these kinds of characters is the same reason people with VCRs might buy DVD players, then get an HD DVD player - because it is the latest toy to play with. Certainly some people buy HD DVD players to get better quality picture, increased content etc., but there are certainly people who get it because it makes them think how kewl they are to have one.

As for passively sitting and watching D&D turn into a Dragonball-Z game, its not my job to go out there and tell other people how to play, or tell WotC how to make the game.

Next year WotC might release a new edition of the core books with Mialee and Tordek replaced by Gohan and Goku (or whatever those characters are), and yet I'll still play D&D as I always have (you can take my core books when you pry them from my cold, dead hands). I may buy the new books and use some of their new powers, or I may passively show my disapproval of the new books by not purchasing them.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I'm just trying to figure out why, in a typical D&D campaign, someone would choose to play a bizarre, off-the-wall character concept like some of the ones I see people talking about on here. Are they playing them because they say "Damn, I'd really love to be able to role-play a half-troll, half-elemental whsiper gnome rogue/cloistered cleric?" Or is it because they say "Damn, look at all these bonuses a half-troll, half-elemental whisper gnome rogue/cloistered cleric will give me, and all these phat abilities, and and and..."

So your problem is with inexperienced powergamers? Picking on the sick and weak is an effective trait in nature, but generally considered poor form.

Most DMs would have more of a problem with powergamers who actually created functional PCs.

It seems to me, that the nature of the game has changed quite a bit over the years. It's tending more towards "phat, kewl Final Fantasy-esque" type of play where characters become nothing more than their special, unique abilities

Have you played any Final Fantasy games? I'm assuming not, since 50% of those released in the last decade have essentially no mechanical character uniqueness (abilities are determined almost solely by equipment), none of them have tactical combat in the D&D sense, and the games spend at least as much time on cut scenes dealing with the characters' thoughts and feelings as they do on gameplay.

Not to mention, out of the last seven Final Fantasy games (4-10), there have been 9 characters who could reasonably be described as non-human in D&D terms, out of 57 PCs. None of the non-humans were main characters, and (rather like in D&D), the vast majority were essentially background characters, and none were even close to being the most powerful.

When I ran a game explicitly set in a Final Fantasy universe, it was limited to human PCs only for the sake of genre emulation.

If anything, I could see you complaining that the game is rapidly moving away from the Final Fantasy style.

We've already seen the game grow more in the players favor with feats, and prestige classes - players can tailor their characters to be almost anything. I'm al for variety, but is the game moving more towards a DragonballZ game: "I attack you with my FISTS OF FURY!" "Oh yea?! Well, I counter you with my ELDRITCH BLAST!!!"?

"Grow more in the players' favor," eh? Smacks of adversarial DMing. Rather like, well, everything else you've posted in this thread.

I've never actually seen an episode of Dragonball Z, and so am not qualified to comment.

 

[Rystil Arden]

By the by, Warlocks suck, so anyone taking them for the "Kewl powerz" isnt a powergamer, he's a conceptualist. Power gamers make things that actually kick ass in practice, not that sound Munchkinny on a messageboard.

This is true. I GMed a game where the players became extremely powerful, and it wasn't the PC Azer Cleric who was the cause--in fact, he may have held them back. It was the Elf Wizard and the Dwarf Barbarian.

As for me, I almost always play Humans as PCs. I want the feat, and I can make them different enough to suit me. However, I once made an Elf Warlock for purely RP reasons--her first invocation was Beguiling Presence (bonus to Diplomacy and Bluff). She is much weaker than my other characters. When I GM, I enjoy RPing the unusual characters that I would never play as a PC because of prohibitive LA.