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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ProgBard" data-source="post: 6767111" data-attributes="member: 6803722">Well, sure. The GM is also a player; I need to make sure I'm sufficiently indulging my own obsessions and favorite themes when I run. But I do feel pretty strongly that these need to flow around the space created by the PCs - it's that old idea that the players' choices in character creation tell you the kind of stories they want to be part of. And there are limits to how much it's reasonable to pre-cast the party. My first reaction to your sword & sorcery game is to feel like if you're not going to have fun in that setting if you're not running it for a party of Kulls and Grey Mousers and Mirt the Moneylenders, and that's not who the players are most interested in playing, it's a mismatch between DM and players; your protocols are going to be clashing too much. I've learned over the years to be a lot more lax about the kinds of stories I expect to happen even when I'm strongly invested in the elements of the setup, and that I like having players surprise me with unexpected directions. But if that's not your style, that's okay too - but as you say, it requires very clear, very specific conversations well in advance of chargen.And, look, we all carry unspoken expectations to the table, some of which are hard to articulate until we encounter something that violates them. One player in my current game is running a dwarven cleric; this player is fairly new to the game and innocent of Realmslore and half a century of fantasy stereotypes, and he picked Mielikki as his deity. When another player remarked what an unusual choice that would be for a dwarf, he IMed me after the game to ask if he should change it. Teenage me, much more wedded to the archetypes of D&D-style fantasy, would have been a lot more bothered by the disconnect and more likely to concur. Middle-aged me said, "If you really want to. But consider that adventurers SHOULD be unusual, remarkable people. What's the more interesting choice to you?" He wound up keeping it, and it's prompted some really awesome things in his backstory and character arc, and I think the game is stronger for it.</blockquote>

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