Saint Caleth wrote:

Andrew Christian wrote:

But let me ask you this, how does it restrict fun if I allow someone to use free dye to be yellow, vs. being born yellow?

And I disagree, Corvid’s in real life, don’t get to choose what color they are.

If I were to sit down at a table and for example, have a tengu oracle who is yellow and his color marks him as a divine conduit, when the DM says "By RAW you can only be a yellow tengu if you dye your feathers" you really can't see the problem with that?

The problem is that when the DM power trips over stupid minutiae like that, OP or no OP, it is over the line of agency between players and the DM.

I'm not sure if you are actually making a point or just snarking me here, but if you are serious, unless you force everyone to roll randomly for their physical characteristics you are just being intentionally obtuse.

Why does there have to be immediately an adversarial relationship between GM and player?

I don’t see trying to maintain game world continuity as power tripping.

Well there wouldn't be an adversarial relationship until the DM told me my character was badwrong for what is essentially a non-reason.

Being the setting police is absolutely a kind of power tripping. Here and here are two great posts about the balance between cannon and fun which are germane to the topic.

Just a quick question. Let's say I want my draconic heritage dwarf sorcerer to have jet black skin and downward-curving horns like his black dragon forebear. ("The horns? They're just gristle, just for show.") If you're fine with the yellow-by-birth Tengu, are you okay with the black-and-horned-by-birth dwarf?

Of course, the character in question is a draconic sorcerer after all. Is there anyone who would actually come right out and tell a player that their draconic sorcerer is too draconic looking? I hope not.

Chris Mortika wrote:

Just a quick question. Let's say I want my draconic heritage dwarf sorcerer to have jet black skin and downward-curving horns like his black dragon forebear. ("The horns? They're just gristle, just for show.") If you're fine with the yellow-by-birth Tengu, are you okay with the black-and-horned-by-birth dwarf?

Of course, the character in question is a draconic sorcerer after all. Is there anyone who would actually come right out and tell a player that their draconic sorcerer is too draconic looking? I hope not.

That would actually kill half the fun of playing a draconic bloodline sorcerer. Or an aberrant bloodline sorcerer. Or verdant. Or any number of bloodlines.

Half the fun of those options, IMO, are the aesthetics that can grow more wild as they grow in power.

I want my draconic bloodline sorcerer to have the option to lose all her hair and have a crown of small horns grow from her scalp, with her skin slowly growing soft scale the color of her ancestor's. I don't expect mechanical advantages from that look.

I want my aberrant bloodline sorcerer to have his arms rupture into a mass of tentacles when he hits level 3, with each mass of tentacles having to act as one to function like a normal humanoid arm. I'd have to twist them together and cover them with Sajan-style sleeves to make them pass as humanoid limbs. I don't expect any advantages out of that beyond what the bloodline ability adds.

I want my verdant bloodline sorcerer's appearance to change with the seasons once he becomes more plantlike. I don't expect a whole subsystem to be made to support that change in appearance.

The bottom line is: If it provides literally and theoretically no advantage and is literally and theoretically just fluff. It's fine.

As a GM I wouldn't even care to justify how they're yellow, because ultimately even if it was some other method than dye, there's no rule to say genetic abnormalities can't and won't happen ie albino or some equivalent. Further, rarely are lists of anything pathfinder explicit, and 100% defined, and there are plenty of precedents to support this in PFRPG and PFS.

The only exceptions to the above where I might raise an eyebrow and speak up are in clearly defined subrace situations such as the dark skinned elf. Elf (Drow) is defined, and pretty clear cut. If you're a black skinned elf, you're drow. This example would be an example of trying to circumvent campaign management decisions regarding certain flavor. There are no defined subtypes for tengu, thus open game.

I have always had a problem with the attitude that because we are playing in world of magic and wonder that essentially anything goes.

It is a question of dramatic integrity that if gnomes are not born with fox shaped heads or elves with vestigal wings then that applies to all gnomes and elves unless rules appear to change that state of affairs. This is regardless of great fluff ideas. I have no issue with Birdmen with yellow plumage but I do with the idea that a species that has the same plumage as a raven might have, suddenly can have any colour.

Love the visual joke. I am not 100% sure that Big Bird is a Natural Blond himself. Though I am sure he's worth it...

W

The bottom line is: If it provides literally and theoretically no advantage and is literally and theoretically just fluff. It's fine.

As a GM I wouldn't even care to justify how they're yellow, because ultimately even if it was some other method than dye, there's no rule to say genetic abnormalities can't and won't happen ie albino or some equivalent. Further, rarely are lists of anything pathfinder explicit, and 100% defined, and there are plenty of precedents to support this in PFRPG and PFS.

The only exceptions to the above where I might raise an eyebrow and speak up are in clearly defined subrace situations such as the dark skinned elf. Elf (Drow) is defined, and pretty clear cut. If you're a black skinned elf, you're drow. This example would be an example of trying to circumvent campaign management decisions regarding certain flavor. There are no defined subtypes for tengu, thus open game.

This.

ok, how many people are going to ASK the guy who says he's running a yellow tengu? I mean really? Take time from a game to check to see if his "fluff" is cannon? In the 10 minutes I devote to player introductions - I am not likely to quiz someone on why thier Elf has half his face tatooed... it might be from a scenario I have not played!
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