Shedeo's page

The issue was that I started big and moved to something small. If I had stated core books only initially (which is what I should have done) it would have never come up in the first place.

Next time, that is exactly what I will do.

At any rate, scent seems more like the kind of "allowance" you always intended to make.

The other thing was way over the top.

I'm glad you got closure on this, Shedeo. Good luck, and don't be a stranger!

Thanks again, and you can be certain I won't be a stranger.

Hmm, I had not considered that point, Epic Meepo. However, scent is one of those things that, while it is good, is not something that I am horribly worried about.

The unbalanced ability scores are more in the direction of something I disliked, but I can live with them. Honestly, I still prefer the dwarf's or human's modifiers for martial characters myself, but you are correct; they are very good for that kind of character.

So that said, I think that it worked out. He's happy with something that isn't half-orc or full orc (I still would have gone with half-orc myself, but whatever) and I am happy with something that seems more in-line with the other races than not.

Well, I have talked to all the players and we seem to have worked out a compromise that is acceptable to everyone;

I worked with him and created something more to his liking, which has the following abilities;

Humanoid (Orc)
+2 Strength, +2 Constitution, -2 Charisma
30 Base speed
Darkvision
Weapon Familiarity: Greataxe, treat weapons with "Orcish" in the name as martial
Scent
+2 racial bonus to Survival

This fits in well with the concept he had of orcs (being less dumb brutes) while also being something that I actually like. I believe it was worked out to 10 RP, bringing it more in-line with the other races. I don't really see any large issues with this, do you?

Thank you for all the help everyone. The support I received here has been phenomenal.

Gotta love optimization focused players.

Maybe this will help:

I had a player who tried this sorta thing with the ARG playtest. He claimed the race was well within boundaries of the Race Builder for Core Races. Well I told him I would review the playtest PDF and check. Told him build your character with that race and a Core Race. Well it was suspicious how he kept saying it wasn't necessary and so on.

The race he build was 30-35 RP. When I refused to allow him to play it he threw a Tantrum called me a lot of names and accused me of favoritism and so on. We were down to 3 players. We decided to continue the campaign. Well next session one of this guys friends didn't show up. Apparently he didn't like "Favoritist Pigs". We were Now at 2 players. The decided to restart the campaigneach playing 2 characters. It is still continuing today. In Pathfinder terms they are around level 50.

Though we Now just RP chat every so often.

Moral: It doesn't take a large group to play the game. In fact smaller groups can lead to a funner game.

For the last three years or so, I have been running a campaign that is very similar to what you experienced- started with four people and went down to two. Those two women are the best roleplayers I have seen (though maybe not on top of the mechanical side of things, they tend to weasel their way out of situations more often than not.) Two people can really make for a fantastic character-driven game, and I agree with you there. Now to continue down the thread, since I feel that I have been ignoring people/being rude in my previous posts.

@TheRonin
I had suggested this with the half-orc, and there's plenty others that would work, I'm sure, yeah.

@Montyatreus
I have become increasingly more careful over the years, but I used to not really care about this or that. The aforementioned three years playing with two people really changed my perspective on the relationship between "Fun" and "Mechanical Benefits." This is the situation where I am putting my foot down I suppose and that it seems alien to the players I have not gamed with in a while.

@Bruunwald
The race builder was, in his eyes, necessary for two reasons-
The orc was underpowered (though I initially agreed with him, I think that my opinion has changed) and the half-orc wasn't orcy enough for him (though that seems like it is more up to him- I've played a pretty orcy half-orc before in a 4e game where the DM wasn't allowing monster races, so I just built a half-orc and called him an orc.)

@Aioran
One of the other players I talked to was playing a drow (also at 14 RP, as you said) and after telling them of this situation agreed to play an elf and it seems she actually likes it better. The dwarf is 11 RP but it seems they are balanced because the bonuses they received adding up to 11 points are very situation/specific. Like you said; they're by no means grossly more powerful than an elf or a human.

@Wolflord
That really is the heart of the situation, yes. And I was worried about this becoming a downward spiral of custom races so I wanted to put an end-all stop to it before it began to get out of control.

@Vicon
Orcs are rather prevalent in this part of the setting, but honestly I would be perfectly happy simply building them all as half-orcs or normal orcs. As it turns out, he was bluffing (I always call bluffs, be it good or bad) but the situation hasn't exactly been resolved. I will hopefully be talking to him about this soon.

Also, in regards to the vampire/demon thing, part of the problem is the fact that I agreed to use it too hastily, then thought better of the decision and went back on it. So I broke said contract.

@Steve Geddes
That is exactly the approach I have taken. He and I talked about this and, as i said, I don't think he is going to quit. He offered to drop the race down to 10 RP (by making the +4 Strength a +2 instead) and I told him that I would think about it and get back to him. I don't want to make these decisions on the spot anymore.

@Roberta Yang
I will admit that perhaps I sent the wrong message with the group at the start. I said I wanted big-dumb-fun adventure, but I have had experiences since the last time I gamed with them that taught me that the system is not what makes big-dumb-fun (though it can help) it is the game and the adventures. I fear I may have sent the wrong message, since my style and perspectives have changed.

In closing, I will likely post soon-ish explaining if and how things got resolved. Thank you all for your excellent advice and support in this.

btw, what are you using for ability score generation?

Pathfinder points buy, using the High Fantasy value (20.)

The game I want to run is something that is typical, adventurous, big-dumb-fun. I fear that using such descriptions might have sent the wrong idea.

*snip*

This is a lot of VERY good advice, for my situation and a million others.

In regards to this situation, its not really that I fail to be assertive. Honestly, I am usually pretty good about that. However, one of my other players even said that I am a pushover when it comes to him.

The point I have tried to stress is that I didn't make the decision to block anyone out of what they wanted to do. I made the decision because I struck out the houserules on the premise I just wanted to play the game stock, as it is.

In speaking with him, he claimed that he and another player would not be playing if this rule stood. I spoke with him a bit about my philosophy behind it and his opinions on it and told him I would think on allowing a custom-built race at 10 RP.

At that point, though, I would simply just say use the half-orc, but then we start going round on that circle again.

I've seen this before, in myself.

This is why I try not to design the things because I want to play them. I try to design new things that everyone would want to play. It is too tempting to make things "mary-sue" designs.

In this case, tell him to pick a few of the best things about his vision and attribute those to remarkable specimens of the race. Those are the people with whatever class levels. He gets to play one of those, but he has to work toward it, like everyone else.

Acknowledge that you see what he thinks is cool about it, but make it clear that it has to be a progression, not a donation.

Also, I really want to see this 14 point race he came up with.

I can't really remember the particulars; I was too tired to give it an in-depth read, let alone commit it to memory. Its ability mods were +4 Strength, +2 Constitution, -2 Charisma. I believe that it had 40 foot speed, scent, stalker, and a smattering of other things as well.

In regards to the power level, its honestly the strength bonus that bothers me. Beyond that its more... I guess the concept. That I just wanted to run a standard by-the-book game, but now I am getting custom content (regardless of whether or not the framework was supplied by Paizo) put on my desk.

I should have just said no. I think I will invest in some assertiveness training classes. The whole thing has turned into far more of a mess than I intended.

Thanks again for all the help. I've said it before but can't say it enough.

May I humbly suggest he play a half-orc, and call it an orc?

That's what I would do, if I were him. Golarion orcs actually do breed selectively to gain half-orcs as military leaders (or at least I read that somewhere and ran with it)... so even the orcs want to overcome their -2 mental stat, and do so though breeding programs!

But seriously, if you want to play Lt. Worf, half-orc is your best bet. As GM, cut him some slack and let him play it as a smart full-orc.

That's actually what I asked him, but he mentioned that it does not match up to what, in his opinion, half-orc does not represent what he believes an orc should be.

Granted, we aren't playing in Golarion (we have a custom setting we have been using for years) but that is the route that I would pursue, were I in his situation.

Sorry it took me so long to reply. I was on the phone with another player.

Firstly, let me thank all of you for your support in this matter and the excellent advice you have given me.

The race in question was a "fix" to the orcs. He doesn't like the -2 to mentals (which I will admit is an ass-kicker) and the half-orc does not represent what the orc, to him, "really is." (Which seems somewhere between a Klingon and an Ork from Warhammer 40,000, or sort of like those in the Warcraft franchise.)

I have had a chat with a few of them, one agreed to switch from drow to elf (because drow are also 14 RP it seems) to help in not having "advanced" races or somesuch.

I know that this is my first post on these forums, and in many online communities, that does me a disservice. Hopefully that will not be the case here.

The long story short is that I am running a Pathfinder game (my first one, but I am a veteran of many systems) for some old friends, one of which (we'll call him Charlie) is someone I have known since Kindergarten. Charlie tends to have a rather large and forceful personality, and so he convinced me to incorporate some houserules. They were simple little things, but I have long since come to the conclusion I need a twenty-four hour window to make any decisions in regards to rules changes or additional content. I decided to send out a posse of text messages to my players telling them that we will be doing things by the book, no exceptions. Charlie did not approve, but he seemed to take it better than I expected.

Charlie decided, however, that his character was not where he wanted him to be mechanically, and decided to use the race builder to make his own race. I am entirely unfamiliar with this tool, but told him I would take a look at it. Due to scheduling conflicts, it was a day or so after he mentioned it that he finally stopped by. Being as exhausted as I was, I skimmed over the race and approved it because, well, I did not have the energy for the war of attrition arguments with Charlie tend to be.

I haven't yet had the opportunity to look at the race builder, but he mentioned that it was 14 points, I don't know in comparison how good that is, but from what I remember, his proposed "fix" to the race in question was fairly potent.

Now I'm simply annoyed by it, and even though it will likely cause him to get pissed off, I am still tempted to tell him to only use the races available in the core book.

In my situation, what would you do? Am I in the wrong here (ie, being too overbearing and/or controlling of what my players do.)

tl;dr- DM approved a player-made race and now regrets doing so. What to do?