Would you play in a campaign with racial/class limits of it fits the story?

[aramis erak]

Not just to you, but your post gave me a post to ask it...

Is the DM who always has the same restriction when running D&D cutting out a lot less playing opportunity than the GM who only runs fantasy games and never does any other genres (supers, post-apoc, space opera, western, steam punk, urban fantasy, etc...)?

How is not having casters less internally consistent than this plethora of x,000 year old civilizations always being stuck in the late medieval/early renaissance and never having developed (possibly partially magical) steam engines, firearms, airships, printing presses, etc ... ?

One interacts with the casters. One seldom interacts with the pre-present of the setting...

 

[FrogReaver]

Doesn't the equivalent of what spell using classes are available vary widely in different fantasy literary/TV/movie series?

Yes. Was that really the comparison you were making before?

And classes always that different from changing genre and tech level? Are the artificer and gunslinger (that often eventually get added) just a different class, or are they different tech levels? Why is gun knowledge or printing knowledge different than some new kind of magic knowledge?

Yes. For a multitude of reasons.

And for internal consistency/realism, how many years have Greyhawk and Faerun and Krynn pretty much not had any notable tech advances? How does that compare to IRL?

Don’t know. But my disagreement wasn’t based around internal consistency of any particular class or setting.

IMO if someone wants to sometimes play a wizard they shouldn’t play with a DM that never allows wizards. If someone wants to sometimes play in medieval inspired fantasy settings they shouldn’t play with a DM who never does that. Do you agree?

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I still am curious though. If a DM has a world where scholarly magic is lost since the god of magic went mad during the 47th cataclysm, then it's fine? But if the god of magics madness is an excuse for the DMs loathing of the wizard class, then it's a no go?

That was kind of my thought, as well. If the rationale for "no wizards" can be that thin, then why even ask for a justification? Just go with it - or don't. Maybe the DM wants to emphasise the spontaneity of magic; maybe they want to remove any scholastic-methodical-study-of-magic connotations; maybe they want to emphasise a pre-literate society; maybe the transmission of magic doesn't work via the written word at all, etc.

I also think that asking for a justification for every aesthetic choice that a DM makes when creating a campaign milieu might kill some of the discovery for the players - sometimes it's good to just sit back, accept the limitations, and enjoy the ride.

 

[Cadence]

Yes. Was that really the comparison you were making before?

I was just getting at how the 'internal consistency' argument is used in ways that seem spotty to me, and that whether one is modeling off of parallels to IRL or fiction, that a lot of D&D race/class combinations. (D&D doesn't need to have IRL or literary consistency!!! But sometimes I don't know what people mean by the word).

Don’t know. But my disagreement wasn’t based around internal consistency of any particular class or setting.

Fair enough (I had to go back to make sure my first post today wasn't replying to you, even though it followed your post).

IMO if someone wants to sometimes play a wizard they shouldn’t play with a DM that never allows wizards. If someone wants to sometimes play in medieval inspired fantasy settings they shouldn’t play with a DM who never does that. Do you agree?

Yup!

 

[dytrrnikl]

Absolutely fine with it. With so much of the improbable and fantastic being available, having specific restraints in place is good thing and adds consistency. Nothing more aggravating as a GM, than setting up a short campaign in which there are no sylvan/fey creatures or races due to a campaign specific Cataclysm and someone wants to play an Elf or Satyr; or a campaign centered around discovering and ultimately removing why Dwarves are unable be any kind of arcane magic using class and someone want to play a Dwarf with an arcane magic using class.

 

[pogre]

I would be fine with restrictions as part of a campaign.

Personally, I am more of a kitchen sink type DM as far as races and classes go. I used to be more restrictive, but as I have gotten older I have realized that players are very comfortable with a Mos Eisley Cantina situation. This is particularly true for D&D for our table.

What I find odd is the demanding nature of some players on LFG forums and Reddit. The player will say something like - I have this awesome character concept I want to play through a campaign. I am always thinking shouldn't you hold off on the character creation until you know what everybody else is playing and what the campaign background is? Or even stranger are the posts where the player wants the DM to incorporate their homeworld ideas into the campaign. I guess at least they are upfront about what they are looking for in a game.

 

[Scott Christian]

As a player, I would ask for the written work of the setting for two reasons:

1. To understand why it is this way
2. To better build a character that matches the setting and the group I am with

I am not going to lie. I would be very hard pressed to accept this if all they had was a couple of pages or small notebook with ideas. Especially, if it was with a game like D&D or PF that already had established settings.

As a DM, I am always ok with this. But again, I would question the effort and forethought that was put into it.

 

[Thunderfoot]

As a player, I would ask for the written work of the setting for two reasons:

1. To understand why it is this way
2. To better build a character that matches the setting and the group I am with

I am not going to lie. I would be very hard pressed to accept this is all they had was a couple of pages or small notebook with ideas. Especially, if it was with a game like D&D or PF that already had established settings.

As a DM, I am always ok with this. But again, I would question the effort and forethought that was put into it.

I will say, I don't play the established settings because they are someone else's game not mine. Not sure if that's a weird misplaced pride, or just a leftover from 1e when it was assumed you'd make your own. Yes, the mods were set in Greyhawk, but were so generic when they were first written they could be dropped in anywhere.

Later 1e and then 2e started changing that, with 2e opening the floodgates of 'new setting every month' disease (hyperbole but look back on the number of settings released for D&D during this period). 3e really started the binding all the worlds together that continued until now. But I digress. On with the discussion.

 

[Scott Christian]

Not sure if that's a weird misplaced pride, or just a leftover from 1e

I don't know you, but it seems hard pressed that it is "misplaced pride," unless the pride was just taking satisfaction in creating something from scratch. And, there is definitely something to be said versus creationist DMs (output) versus standardist DMs (input). It seems 1e, for better or worse, created more creationists. But again, time might be a factor there too, with those DMs being older.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Would you play in a campaign with racial/class limits of it fits the story?

If I'm going to play, I expect 'em as part of the referee's due diligence. If I'm going to ref, I'll have 'em baked into the character creation options before I ever invite the first player to join.