D&D 5E World-Building DMs

[TwoSix]

Going to have to disagree with this.

The amount of product has never had anything to do with this. Anything outside of the core three has always deemed as optional. What changed this was 4th edition because they made it clear that everything they came out with during 4th edition was considered core.

You should browse around the Paizo boards sometime, you'll see a very different consensus in terms of expectations of what should be allowed for character building.

4e was different in that most games defaulted to using the character builder, which included every relevant source material by default.

 

[Corpsetaker]

You should browse around the Paizo boards sometime, you'll see a very different consensus in terms of expectations of what should be allowed for character building.

4e was different in that most games defaulted to using the character builder, which included every relevant source material by default.

Either way, it's amazing what the power of "no" can do.

 

[TwoSix]

Are there that many people out there who sit around and develop their one and only character in a vacuum, and then seek out a campaign to play it in? This is just a very foreign concept to me. Don't get me wrong, I play around with character concepts using all of the published sources available for fun, but there's no point in picking one absent a campaign to play it in.

I don't know how many, but I absolutely know people who do that. Like, 20 page backstories worth of stuff.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think this is a 3e created problem, as a side effect of WotC selling their system down the river in exchange for short term profit. The third edition era was incredibly prolific in terms of rules supplements, and each rules supplement - no matter how DM centered the content would appear to be - usually had in it a considerable amount of player centered character building options. The reasoning is obvious. There are a lot more players than DMs.

Yep. Not only that, but they got the bright idea of making even focused supplements as un-focused as possible. So whatever your character, the latest supplement might have one feat or spell or item in it that'd be really useful for your build.

4e didn't exactly back off of that insight, indeed, it doubled-down with the 'everything is Core' conceit to re-assure players that they'd actually get to use the cool stuff they bought.

Back in the 1e era, the player could get away with buying only a PH and maybe an UA (and not even that if they were content to play non-spellcasters). The rest of the books were DM tools.

5e has rolled back the clock to classic D&D in this as in so many other ways, so it's all about the DM, again. There aren't as many DMs as players, you don't sell adventure paths to everyone who plays the games, just the DMs who're going to run them. But, DMs are likely more dedicated than players. You might have 6 or 10 players for every DM, but half those players don't buy anything but the PH, and some of the rest get by on the basic pdf and borrowing a book now and then - and the 'buy everything' fraction of the player base is likely still busy buying everything for 3.5/PF. Plus, DMs drive sales by getting games going and bringing people into the game, some of whom eventually become DMs. Making them feel good about the line could drive sales in the long run in a way that flooding the system-mastery-obsessed slice of the fanbase with player-oriented supplements may not.

 

[Shasarak]

Because campaign settings are defined just as much by their limitations as they are by what's included. Let's face it, if I go into a game where you've created 10 different homebrew races, I'm probably just going to shrug them off and pick human. But if I find out in your game that only elves can be clerics and only dwarves can be wizards, now you have my attention.

Yes and on the other hand does Dark Sun having Gnomes or not even make the top ten list of the defining features of Dark Sun. And does having a Gnome in Dark Sun ruin those other features of Dark Sun.

 

[TwoSix]

Either way, it's amazing what the power of "no" can do.

While I'm fully in the camp of "Let the DM do his pitch, and work with the DM to make a PC who fits the game," there's a lot of community expectation, dependent on the system. I would be leery of starting and/or joining a PF game that was Core Rulebook only, because the fun is Pathfinder is all of the interlocking pieces that have come out for it. Likewise, most other non-D&D systems I would walk into with the expectation of fairly by the book play. I haven't seen a Vampire game where the Storyteller is like "Ok, I've replaced these 3 clans with 4 clans I've made myself," because knowledge of the game's overall mythology is much more central to play.

 

[Phantarch]

I don't know how many, but I absolutely know people who do that. Like, 20 page backstories worth of stuff.

Wow. That's dedication. I guess my only response to a person who puts that level of detail into a concept absent a campaign to play it in, is that they should really give DMing a shot.

 

[TwoSix]

Yes and on the other hand does Dark Sun having Gnomes or not even make the top ten list of the defining features of Dark Sun. And does having a Gnome in Dark Sun ruin those other features of Dark Sun.

For myself it would, but I'm a fairly big proponent of not using campaign settings UNLESS there's total buy-in by all the players. I hate having to explain campaign conceits to players over and over again, it makes me feel like I'm futzing around getting the details right when nobody else cares.

 

[TwoSix]

Wow. That's dedication. I guess my only response to a person who puts that level of detail into a concept absent a campaign to play it in, is that they should really give DMing a shot.

My preferred response is a polite smile, then inching towards the door until I can run like hell.

 

[Shasarak]

For myself it would, but I'm a fairly big proponent of not using campaign settings UNLESS there's total buy-in by all the players. I hate having to explain campaign conceits to players over and over again, it makes me feel like I'm futzing around getting the details right when nobody else cares.

Right, and instead of futzing around with details that no one else cares about, why not futze around figuring out why there were no Gnomes and now there are. I can guarantee that there will be at least one other person that will care about those details.