If it wa just a tweak? Sure. But if I specifically remove something, I don't specifically remove it for a "tweak"
Things that are "tweaks" are "yellow lights"
I usually excuse specific things or, more rarely, specific categories of things. I don't tend to go "only this". But have a three phase; red light, yellow light, green light.
Red light is "this is excluded from the campaign. It just plain doesn't exist to be played. This category is usually small and carefully targeted. The dwarf example. A world with a different planar structure that doesn't include outsiders in the way the book does and thus is not including Asimar or Tieflings. Etcetera.
Yellow light is "I didn't think to include it or I am inclined not to, and i havent made a place for it, but if you can weave me a good yarn and make it sing or fit, you are good to go.
Green light is .... Everything that was specifically included. You pick one of these, you are likely good to go without extra commentary from me. You want an 'easy' character creation process? Stay here. You dip into yellow, there is going to be extra work involved, and red just isn't going to happen.
And I want to meet the player who just can't possibly play in a campaign without elves(dwarves, kitsune, whatever) and have fun. And that wouldn't be willing to find something else to play just so that work that went into his friends pet project wouldn't be wasted because he doesn't have the ability to be creative outside of a small box.So your response to the question as to why don't you ask the people you are going to play with what they are interested before dedicated enormous energy and time, is to say that if they were real friends they would be fine with you acting as if their interests are irrelevant and only your own matter.And does that same question not apply to them? If they were real friends they would make sure it fit in before they out a bunch of work into the character?
Sorry, I still don't buy that someone is going to have all the fun sucked out of the game unless they can play one specific race or class. I don't buy it even a little bit.
And if you are creating a detailed campaign sandbox, it takes quite a while to build it. You generally don't want to say "in a month or two I might run a campaign, think about it. Ok? The idea comes up when the idea comes up, and you build it when the idea is in your head.
You are saying that only the players interest in playing an 'x' matters?
I direct you to the Pathfinder Society boards with all the threads regarding the Advanced Race Guide. People went on to make dire predictions of how they'd never ever ever play again if they couldn't have their favorite thingy, despite reassurances they'd be looked into in the future and that it wouldn't happen right away.
As for the rest of it, we're supposed to be playing together and working to tell a story (and kill things for gold and experience.) If one idea doesn't work from either side, then hopefully both have more than one good idea.
Edited to add: Sometimes people really hate things just as much as someone else loves them. That is when everyone has to sit down and discuss whether Player 1's love of kitsune outweighs the GMs abject hatred of all things foxlike. This is where having Kirth's 7 GMs might come in handy!
Hero Games used to have 'flag' symbols to mark quirks in the rules: Stop signs for 'be careful', etc. I have, in the past, marked certain races and classes as 'RP' to let players know that I have very specific thoughts on how they are to be played. Of late, this has stopped a half-orc samurai, 2 elf barbarians and a dinosaur rider. Player input has resulted in my adding an 'Elf' class and a number of niche races that started as one-off encounters. My spell point system was horned in by one of my players. I have little problem with players are familiar with the world adding stuff, as they are invested and often have better ideas and even more unified visions than I do, I guess biggest gripe is with people who've never played my world insisting on something that just don't fit. I owe it to my legacy players to keep the game on an even keel.
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Kirth. Give up.
There is no point to this discussion anymore. You made your opinion clear a thousand times. They don't care. They don't want to listen to what you or anyone else has to say unless it some variation of "THE SETTING IS SACRED AND THE PLAYERS HAVE NO INPUT WHATSOEVER! SCREW THEM!".
Tyrannical GMs will always be tyrannical.
I'll now cease to post in this thread and block it. I suggest you do the same, Kirth.
I'm not sure that is what people are saying, but I'm not going to presume to speak for them.
Instead, I'll say that the comments I'm seeing seem to be saying that the GMs side of the conversation seems to be being downplayed; that the needs/wants of the player should have a heavier weight in the conversation.
I'm not sure if I'm similar to Democratus, but I've built a number of worlds without input from players, because of lack of available players at the time, as creative exercises, or just as something to do. That doesn't mean that I'm utterly opposed to changing anything about them, but that also doesn't mean I haven't given the world in general some thought about what its overall concept is.
This also doesn't mean that I should, as one person suggested, just go write about it instead of GM in it. Rather, I'd hope that any players I have, be it a home group or at a con or whatever, listen to what is being proposed and look to work within what is there instead of immediately getting upset that a particular race/spell/class/archetype/etc are not allowed for whatever reason, be it world view or dislike of it or the consideration that it is overpowered.
There are a lot of ways to world build and to play, and calling players spoiled or GMs tyrannical doesn't really do more than start/continue fights.
This thread has now forked into two separate threads. One which is an interesting discussion of shared power and responsibility at the game table; the other which is nothing but straw knights tilting at each other.
I'll stay in the former and bow out of the latter.
There's 3 "typical" kinds of game-start conditions I see at tables.
1) The players don't know the DM
This is typically at either convention or FLGS pickup games. In this case you only have the broadest social contract in action. The players have no opportunity to negotiate anything with the DM ahead of time and show up with characters made according to the pre-set rules.
2) The DM is running a pre-made campaign
This can either be a legacy campaign world which has been visited many times or it can be a new experiment that the DM wants to try. This is similar to #1, except that character creation usually happens at the table during the first session. Players discuss with themselves and the DM what they want to play while still staying within the confines of the campaign world.
3) The DM and players get together for an ad-hoc campaign
This is often the case when running published modules or if you are just getting together to throw some dice and see where the adventure takes you. The DM usually has one or two ready-to-go adventures but nothing much planned beyond that. Everything is on the table for negotiation and you build the game from the ground up so that everyone gets exactly what they want (or close to it).
In cases 1 and 2 I would say that the DM bears most of the executive power. There is some pre-condition in place before the players reach the table. These are less open to allowing players to try and break any of the campaign/adventure basic rules.
In case 3 players can feel free to play anything that everyone else at the table agrees is reasonable. For some groups this may mean anything up to vampire template drow noble half dragons. For others it may be much more traditional. This will depend entirely of the preferences at the table.
Some games are a blend of one or more of these. But I think this covers the basic conditions that I have seen in most cases.
My games are usually a blend of #2 and #3. I've used the same homebrew setting for 30 years, but I reboot it for each set of players (maybe retaining versions of 1 or 2 past PCs as NPCs, and deleting the rest), and I don't mind adding/removing/shifting some elements as needed to better personalize it for the group I'm DMing for. I don't consider "canon" to be particularly worth fighting over.
One thing that surprised me at first, but that I now take for granted, is that some of the additions suggested by players are now some of my favorite things about the setting.
My games are usually a blend of #2 and #3. I've used the same homebrew setting for 30 years, but I reboot it for each set of players (maybe retaining versions of 1 or 2 past PCs as NPCs, and deleting the rest), and I don't mind adding/removing/shifting some elements as needed to better personalize it for the group I'm DMing for. I don't consider "canon" to be particularly worth fighting over.
One thing that surprised me at first, but that I now take for granted, is that some of the additions suggested by players are now some of my favorite things about the setting.
With #2 and #3 it has a great deal to do with that the group of friends is like. Seems that you've found a way that works for you and keeps the table happy. Mission accomplished.
My primary game group is very amenable to #2 with little to no desire to try and test the boundaries of the world. Part of this, I like to think, is that they trust my reasons for any restrictions and have been rewarded in the past for their forbearance.
When we do #3 we usually do it big. Which means leaving the D&D/PF framework alltogether and trying something totally different like Dead Lands, Fading Suns, Call of Cthulhu, Eclipse Phase, etc.
I find players are somewhat insulted if I just remove their characters and actions from the world and reset it.
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Yup. Because unless there isn't anything in existence which isn't available to you at the beginning all of your fun is squashed.Nope. Because in setting what things are available, you can't be bothered to ask the players their opinions first.And this displays a misunderstanding of the creative storytelling impulse many DMs employ.
As a DM, I have a handful of worlds that I have either already established or that I have created on the side in my free time. I'm doing all this while running active campaigns.
When I create a new campaign world, it is because I have a new idea and a story to tell. I don't ask my players what stories it is okay for me to imagine. I imagine them, develop them, and if they seem like a fun place to go I take my players there.
Being that the players are normal and decent human beings they are nearly always delighted to take part in something new that I have cooked up. They embrace the concepts and limitations inherent in the new campaign and run with it.
They make their characters to fit within the world I have created. And then together and collectively we tell the story.
In this case, it has nothing to do with being "bothered to ask the players first". They are happy to have someone be the creative engine to drive new stories. Anyone who turns their nose up at the care and effort I put into these things certainly isn't in my group of friends.
The other case is when I run games at a convention or FLGS. In that case it isn't possible to "bother to ask the players their opinions" as there are no players until we all sit at the table with the pre-generated adventure.
Reasonable people are reasonable. Others aren't invited.
I actually think it is fine for GMs to have preplanned out the setting, campaign outline, and character creation rules without player input. What I have a problem with is a GM moaning and groaning about all the work they put in when the people they were going to play with say, "Nah, that doesn't sound interesting, maybe if change X instead." If a GM takes it upon themselves to do that work, and people aren't interested well them's the breaks.
As a GM, I do this. Part of the designing process is the joy of doing it. If I never get to use it as is, it was not a waste. Anymore than me painting a miniature that I never use, because the act of creation is a reward in and of itself. That others want to share it with you is another reward, but don't moan and groan that you got to get the first without the second. And those skills and details I can now use for other things. Maybe I lift out a kingdom and place it in another setting.
I find players are somewhat insulted if I just remove their characters and actions from the world and reset it.
I find that players I was in a group with 20 years and 2 states ago now have families and stuff and don't even remember the names of their old PCs.
Even if not, they realize that the Nolan Batman movies did not "delete" the Burton Batman movies from existence, and might even enjoy both sets of films equally.
In the odd case that a former player ended up playing in the same setting with a new group and a new campaign, I'd work a lot harder towards continuity, but that situation hasn't ever come up, to be honest.
Or, if you prefer, "dial back the snark" until you have some inkling of the situation.
I actually think it is fine for GMs to have preplanned out the setting, campaign outline, and character creation rules without player input. What I have a problem with is a GM moaning and groaning about all the work they put in when the people they were going to play with say, "Nah, that doesn't sound interesting, maybe if change X instead." If a GM takes it upon themselves to do that work, and people aren't interested well them's the breaks.And this displays a misunderstanding of the creative storytelling impulse many DMs employ.
As a DM, I have a handful of worlds that I have either already established or that I have created on the side in my free time. I'm doing all this while running active campaigns.
When I create a new campaign world, it is because I have a new idea and a story to tell. I don't ask my players what stories it is okay for me to imagine. I imagine them, develop them, and if they seem like a fun place to go I take my players there.
Being that the players are normal and decent human beings they are nearly always delighted to take part in something new that I have cooked up. They embrace the concepts and limitations inherent in the new campaign and run with it.
They make their characters to fit within the world I have created. And then together and collectively we tell the story.
In this case, it has nothing to do with being "bothered to ask the players first". They are happy to have someone be the creative engine to drive new stories. Anyone who turns their nose up at the care and effort I put into these things certainly isn't in my group of friends.
The other case is when I run games at a convention or FLGS. In that case it isn't possible to "bother to ask the players their opinions" as there are no players until we all sit at the table with the pre-generated adventure.
Reasonable people are reasonable. Others aren't invited.
Is someone in this thread saying that they are "moaning and groaning"? I don't remember reading that.
I've stated repeatedly that when I offer a campaign my players nearly always embrace it, and the few that don't sit out that campaign no harm-no foul.
No moans or groans from player or DM.
Red light is "this is excluded from the campaign. It just plain doesn't exist to be played. This category is usually small and carefully targeted. The dwarf example. A world with a different planar structure that doesn't include outsiders in the way the book does and thus is not including Asimar or Tieflings. Etcetera.
I think this is a nice example of a case where a race can be tweaked to fit into the setting. Aasimar and tieflings wouldn't be descended from outsiders who come from one of a set number of alignment-aligned outer planes. Rather, angels/devils/whatever would reside elsewhere, possibly the material plane. A lot of the major good/evil-aligned outsiders are inspired by Christian mythology---which of course does not posit the existence of a D&D-style planar multiverse. You could very easily fit the ancestors of tieflings and aasimar into the setting by looking at the original inspiration for them.
I suppose this requires some compromise on the part of the player. Aasimar and tieflings couldn't be added into the setting with the exact same fluff as in the ARG. I don't think it's reasonable for a player to expect that to happen, though.
If one of my friends felt that strongly, then rather than have him gone from our sessions (and despite the fact that I don't personally "get" why Kitsune in particular are so important to him) I expect that I would change my story, even if I had specifically written Kitsune out. If they're absent because they were genocided ages ago, and that's a major plot point, then maybe I shift it so that it was a different race got killed off that none of the PCs picked and rework things from there to see where the changes lead. I've done stuff like that before. It's not that hard.
It's a pretty common trope in fantasy and science fiction that an extinct race isn't really extinct. There's a surviving diaspora or they were sealed away or they traveled through time or whatever. It seems like it'd be really easy to do something like that if a player wanted to play a member of a genocided race.
No snark there at all. I tend to have at least a few really long time players in my group.
OK. People I've played with in the past are scattered all over the U.S., generally after one or even all of us moving for work or family reasons. As we all say, "Real Life Happens."
We all fondly remember the games we played together, but the Aviona games I played with Paul and Matt in New York in the 90s don't really resemble the Aviona games I played with Mike in South Carolina in the early '00s, or with the Houstonians in the 2010s.
Now I will sometimes do "time jumps" to put pcs more firmly in the past or alternately move to different areas of the continent.
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It's a pretty common trope in fantasy and science fiction that an extinct race isn't really extinct. There's a surviving diaspora or they were sealed away or they traveled through time or whatever. It seems like it'd be really easy to...
The problem with this is that it can ruin the flow of a campaign story. An example would be Mass Effect I-III.
*Mass Effect Spoilers Ahead*
This campaign world does follow the trope, where the Protheans are not all extinct. But if the player starts the campaign as a Prothean then it removes too much from the later reveals in the campaign.
Not to mention the reaction on the Citadel when a Prothean walks in and is immediately "impounded" for study and interrogation.
Frankly, it simply wouldn't work given the world and story of Mass Effect. And a player should trust the DM when he says, "sorry, that race can't be played."
*End Mass Effect Spoilers*
In a more fantasy example, I have a campaign where the existence of orc blood (orc or half-orc) would unmake the universe by its very presence. A player simply can't be an orc in this world because the mystery of the missing orcs is the central puzzle to be solved throughout the campaign.
Not only would a PC orc ruin the story but it would destroy the game world.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, not a means of oppressing the players.
Well, and Kirth, your not talking about removing anything your players have done, so much as always starting at the same date/point , so the campaigns you run are all concurrent, right?
Now I will sometimes do "time jumps" to put pcs more firmly in the past or alternately move to different areas of the continent.
That is fun. In one current campaign, it is 1000 years later and the previous party members are the gods of the "new" world.
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For example one campaign featured a long ruined city half buried in dust thousands of years old ... The next was set in that city at its height.
(Incidentally in that one I did accommodate a playe from a restricted race - because in that time there was no reason for its restriction.)
Now I will sometimes do "time jumps" to put pcs more firmly in the past or alternately move to different areas of the continent.That is fun. In one current campaign, it is 1000 years later and the previous party members are the gods of the "new" world.
Very much this. I have a great deal of fun using characters from old games (ones that I ran, and characters from games I played in) and incorporating them into future campaigns. A lot of my players enjoy running into their "former selves" and see where the winds have taken them. Sometimes they don't always agree (the standard WHY AREN'T I GOD YET argument is often used) but they usually find it a pleasant and amusing trip down memory lane. I do admit to a fair bit of horn-blowing on my own behalf by frequently incorporating past characters of mine as powerful NPCs in various incarnations.
As a point of fact, I once played in a game where we were all given the opportunity to play Dragons, whose sole purpose was to evaluate the status of the world to see if it was time for them to return after thousands of years of seclusion. I ended up playing a Spell-Hoarding Tome Dragon, who through much play and shenanigans ended up becoming practically a force of nature, with a borderline extreme obsession for Tea. He's now almost my own version of Baba Yaga, in and of that he's now become a multi-planar being. Originally from Faerun, Mystra convinced the other dieties that Hafer (short for Vehafor Arcanis, literally "Crafts Magic" in the dragon translator I used) would ultimately become a threat to the realm, and so they banished him, locking him away on his own small demi-plane, but not before he managed to siphon away some small portion of Mystra's power. He now sits forever writing, constantly inventing new spells (he gleaned the 3.5 Arcane Mastery diety power, thus knowing all spells that were, are, and ever will be, etc etc) because of his psychosis and his desire to write down all spell knowledge he comes across. However his prison isn't perfect, and occasionally he manages to sneak out some of his influence onto planes he passes by, including a few custom-made magic items.
I enjoy building upon my 15 years of gaming by using my prior experience to enrich and diversify my worlds. I know my players tend to be amused by it, and Hafer is now a fairly regular NPC in many of my games, simply because the players end up metagaming (if only a little) just to try and see if they can find him again.
Is someone in this thread saying that they are "moaning and groaning"? I don't remember reading that.
I've stated repeatedly that when I offer a campaign my players nearly always embrace it, and the few that don't sit out that campaign no harm-no foul.
No moans or groans from player or DM.
As long as people aren't talking about the "onus" of being a GM or being creative and spending time doing what they enjoy. Sometimes it starts to sound as if some GMs see it as a "owe-us" and that players should not say they are not interested because the GM has spend 50 years on a setting.
Well, and Kirth, your not talking about removing anything your players have done, so much as always starting at the same date/point , so the campaigns you run are all concurrent, right?
I used to do the "it's been 100 years since the events of the last campaign" thing that Arss mentioned, but I find I now favor doing the total reboot you're talking about. It's a lot of fun for me to run the same adventure for two different groups, and see how the adventure -- and the game world, in consequence -- ends up totally different each time.
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Because it's just not worth it to me. Just the mere "sanctity" of my given plotline/worldbuilding with regard to races is absolutely not worth having someone else's fun spoiled to that degree--much less them sitting a whole campaign out.
Yeah, the sanctity of the setting thing and turning people away because you refuse to budge on it, rubs me too much like the guy who keeps trying to backstab and steal from the party and when confronted with it says, "I am just playing my character, it is what he would do." I just want to grab those people and say, "Find a reason for your character not to be a douche to the people he trusts his life with, I don't give a damn if he is CE."
It's a pretty common trope in fantasy and science fiction that an extinct race isn't really extinct. There's a surviving diaspora or they were sealed away or they traveled through time or whatever. It seems like it'd be really easy to do something like that if a player wanted to play a member of a genocided race.It's true that might very well be an option in many cases, but as Democratus points out sometimes that doesn't work as well without changing the surrounding story.
So if it's just that Kitsune were all killed, then I might well throw out the idea of a "last survivor"... but if it's a situation where my current plotline has it that the existence of Kitsune blood would "unmake the universe by its very presence", and a player said the quote in my previous post to me, then that's when I'd maybe do something like what I originally said, and switch it to "the existence of Dwarf blood (or whatever race the PCs didn't pick) would unmake the universe by its very presence" and rework things from there, making changes as needed.
And there's probably oodles more ways beyond either of those, depending on the situation.
Also do the players or their characters know this will unmake the world. How sure are they it will. Maybe that is how people have interpreted the prophecy for centuries, but what if it is wrong. Everyone is wrong and it some other creature?
Well, and Kirth, your not talking about removing anything your players have done, so much as always starting at the same date/point , so the campaigns you run are all concurrent, right?I used to do the "it's been 100 years since the events of the last campaign" thing that Arss mentioned, but I find I now favor doing the total reboot you're talking about. It's a lot of fun for me to run the same adventure for two different groups, and see how the adventure -- and the game world, in consequence -- ends up totally different each time.
And I love going back and seeing how much players have changed things from where it started. I am playing in a campaign right now that does what you say though.
So if it's just that Kitsune were all killed, then I might well throw out the idea of a "last survivor"... but if it's a situation where my current plotline has it that the existence of Kitsune blood would "unmake the universe by its very presence", and a player said the quote in my previous post to me, then that's when I'd maybe do something like what I originally said, and switch it to "the existence of Dwarf blood (or whatever race the PCs didn't pick) would unmake the universe by its very presence" and rework things from there, making changes as needed.
And there's probably oodles more ways beyond either of those, depending on the situation.
I've never had a player tell me that they can't play in any RPG unless they play one particular race. It is nothing I would ever see from anyone I know.
But if I did have a friend who couldn't play a game without being a fox-man I wouldn't write a whole campaign world that precluded them. But, to be honest, I wouldn't be playing with fox-man in the first place. My group of players isn't that inflexible in their ability to enjoy a game.
Also do the players or their characters know this will unmake the world. How sure are they it will. Maybe that...
In my campaign, the players/characters know nothing of the "true reason" orcs are gone. It's one of the puzzles they need to solve throughout the campaign.
But they trust me enough to just say 'okay' when I say no Orcs or Half-Orcs.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, not a means of oppressing the players.
I would liken this to the scenario of the campaign introducing guns that was bandied about earlier in this thread. As I mentioned, there may need to be some changes made to the structure of the campaign to allow players to have guns/be an "extinct" race/whatever. I haven't played much Mass Effect and I obviously haven't played in your setting, so I cannot speak too much to the specifics. Mass Effect is probably not the best example, however, as you get relatively little control over major character decisions, relative to a tabletop game.
As to your orc example, I don't know what you mean by "the existence of orc blood (orc or half-orc) would unmake the universe by its very presence". Does this mean that if a single orc or half-orc exists, the universe would explode? Or does there have to be something more? Does someone have to take some sort of action with the orc-blooded person? Is there an angry god who would kill everyone if they discovered an orc exists? The specifics of this determine how the world could be tweaked to allow a half-orc PC. You may have to change some stuff to make a half-orc PC possible, but if it's something that hasn't been revealed to the players, then it's not retconning to change it. It can then be worked into the campaign and this character. For example, if orc blood can be used in a world-ending ritual, then you have an easy source of conflict for your party. They have to keep [insert antagonists here] from learning of the half-orc in the party and kidnapping them for an evil ritual.
As for spoiling the mystery, I think there's ways around that. For example, while the player may know that their character is a half-orc (someone with sufficient orc heritage that they have half-orc stats), the character doesn't have to know. They'll probably know they're different somehow from normal humans, but not that they've orc blood. You could even have it so the other players don't know this character is a half-orc. Then, this player's character is deeply tied to the campaign and the mystery of the missing orcs.
It's true that there are settings which don't allow for the existence of certain kinds of PCs. That's obvious. Settings, however, aren't static from the moment you first conceive of them. I know that when I have an idea to use for DMing a campaign, it always ends up very different from its inception by the time I get around to sharing it with the players. Sometimes this is because I think of ways to improve the idea and make it more interesting. Other times, the impetus comes from players. I don't think this process is bad---in fact I think it's very good.
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But if I did have a friend who couldn't play a game without being a fox-man I wouldn't write a whole campaign world that precluded them. But, to be honest, I wouldn't be playing with fox-man in the first place.
We haven't agreed much, D, but I'd like to nominate these as the best two sentences in the thread.
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Also do the players or their characters know this will unmake the world. How sure are they it will. Maybe that...In my campaign, the players/characters know nothing of the "true reason" orcs are gone. It's one of the puzzles they need to solve throughout the campaign.
But they trust me enough to just say 'okay' when I say no Orcs or Half-Orcs.
I get that, and I wouldn't say you would have to change the setting for a player. But from a purely philosophical standpoint, you do realize that it is something that you control. You are no way bound by it.
If you wanted to do a whole switch-a-roo and the players find an orc and its blood shoots all over the place and they all expect the world to blow up and it doesn't. It might be that orcs weren't really the creatures in question and someone misinterpreted something somewhere and the orcs were exterminated for no reason. There is nothing stopping you from doing that.
If this is something that the players and their characters have no way of knowing if it is absolutely 100% true, you as the GM can always switch things up.
Take a situation where I have a bunch of goblins stealing from a town. The party is trying to find out who is doing it. One of the places that gets robbed is a cheese shop. Some cheese was eaten. A player says off-handedly, "I bet it is were-rats doing it. HA HA HA." As a GM I rub my chin thoughtfully. Well I hadn't originally intended them to be were-rats, but why not? When the party later corners them and learns they are in fact were-rats (evil snicker), they go, "Dude you totally called it!"
Until a point where something has to be true, there is always the chance as a GM we can make something else true.
Also do the players or their characters know this will unmake the world. How sure are they it will. Maybe that...In my campaign, the players/characters know nothing of the "true reason" orcs are gone. It's one of the puzzles they need to solve throughout the campaign.
But they trust me enough to just say 'okay' when I say no Orcs or Half-Orcs.
I get that, and I wouldn't say you would have to change the setting for a player. But from a purely philosophical standpoint, you do realize that it is something that you control. You are no way bound by it.
If you wanted to do a whole switch-a-roo and the players find an orc and its blood shoots all over the place and they all expect the world to blow up and it doesn't. It might be that orcs weren't really the creatures in question and someone misinterpreted something somewhere and the orcs were exterminated for no reason. There is nothing stopping you from doing that.
If this is something that the players and their characters have no way of knowing if it is absolutely 100% true, you as the GM can always switch things up.
Take a situation where I have a bunch of goblins stealing from a town. The party is trying to find out who is doing it. One of the places that gets robbed is a cheese shop. Some cheese was eaten. A player says off-handedly, "I bet it is were-rats doing it. HA HA HA." As a GM I rub my chin thoughtfully. Well I hadn't originally intended them to be were-rats, but why not? When the party later corners them and learns they are in fact were-rats (evil snicker), they go, "Dude you totally called it!"
Until a point where something has to be true, there is always the chance as a GM we can make something else true.
Absolutely. Love doing this. And incidentally its one of the best ways of making a sandbox game work ...
And the pathfinder equivalent of the southpark toilet seat argument continues.
The worst railroader I ever knew allowed you to create anything you ever brought a book for. The most open I ever had was restrictive in what you could start with so, no. Not in y experience.I have to disagree. Railroading and setting based restrictions are too very different things. From a dm that has run sandboxes with some heavy initial restrictions (and gloves off later once they are genned up).Could you two then give me a quick example?
I'll give you the rest of the example I already started with the red-haired-weretiger group:
So as I said: we all had to be red-haired humans/half-elves...
we found out that we were hunted by our country's baron because he was pissed about were-everythings and weretigers especially (and we were weretigers... daddy was a weretiger, no getting cured). So we flee because we were getting sent wave after wave of cavalier squads trying to imprison us again after we broke out (before getting executed, no negotiating). Running to another country: nope, they'd send us back. Running to the king: not his problem, unlikely we'd even be able to talk to him since we are hunted and "dangerous" weretigers. Hiding... sure, how long will we survive the tracking? only viable option: assassinate the baron to stop the hunting... sure we were not told how we go about the killing, but we still pretty much only had a single cours of action...
Oh and talking with villagers was a 50-50 bet on whether it'll be mistrust/pitchforks or grudging help/but-don't-tell-or-we'll-die.Needless to say our group characters decided to disagree on what to do...
after we spent 3 sessions arguing whether we hide (which our DM told us would never work forever), flee to a very far away country (which our DM told us would never work forever) or just go on a rampage (which our DM told us would never work forever). At some point we did try to find our daddy to tell him what an a*****le he is for putting us in this sh***y situation, but...
As I said, I run sandbox games that have quite a lot (well what I consider quite a lot) of initial restrictions on what you can be. I'm up to my third sandbox like that, but I also hate railroads and don't use them.
At the moment, latest game they are playing is a fantasy sci fi game. Stuck in a game as you will, and everyone starts of the same race (but some made some heavy cosmetic changes) and there are only five classes. Sounds restrictive yeah? Well the focus is on adventure, dungeons, what you do in these fantasy worlds, finding new monsters, capturing them (players chose to do this), setting up adventurer guilds and any relationship stuff they want to get into. It started with a high level of initial restrictions (no orcs, elves, etc, it isn't Tolkien) and has expanded out heavily from there. As they try to beat this game, the players are part time leaders of the largest guild going.
Excluding one option out of many is indeed different than insisting on one option out of many.Why? There are near-infinite possible settings among the set of "campaigns with dwarves in them", just as there are near-infinite possible characters among the set excluded by "no dwarves".
To turn this around on myself a bit, part of my "fun criteria" is that I don't like Evil campaigns. At all. Maybe you can understand that feeling. Maybe it seems as odd to you as insisting that the campaign have Dwarves in it. I don't know. Simply in terms of the combinatorial heuristic you describe above, my requirement is a lot more "unreasonable" than the "needs dwarves" requirement, in terms of the wide sweep of "options" it goes against as far as storyline goes, across the board.
All I know is, whether it's reasonable or unreasonable, I won't enjoy a game that doesn't follow that. So if a DM really, really has an awesome "story" they want to tell where the PCs are orc raiders out to raze and slaughter peaceful human settlements (and he's more like Democratus than Kirth in his opinion of the DM's role) then I'll need to respectfully bow out of that for as long as that campaign runs.
In the end, what it simply comes down to is what requirements the participants (players and GMs equally) are looking for in a game that will make it a fun time for each of them. If you can find an intersection of that set, you can have a fun game. If not, then it may not work out so well for everyone. If there's a split decision, you'd probably go the way that A) makes the most people happy, and B) leaves you with someone willing to DM.
To be honest, I do agree with you that I find it... odd... that someone might find being a Kitsune so crucial to their having fun. But I'm not going to judge them for it; it's just part of that "fun criteria" for them. After all, I have my own sticking points, as I mentioned above, and mine are even more...
Aww, that is unfortunate to hear. A "good" evil campaign run once in a while can be absolutely thrilling. Now peasants are easy killing but they don't give good loot, but there are always mayors and former adventurers to gank, and don't forget the clergy! Pick your targets, be absolute jobbers and it can be really fun. It is like a dungeon, above ground and everywhere!
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3) The DM and players get together for an ad-hoc campaign
This is often the case when running published modules or if you are just getting together to throw some dice and see where the adventure takes you. The DM usually has one or two ready-to-go adventures but nothing much planned beyond that. Everything is on the table for negotiation and you build the game from the ground up so that everyone gets exactly what they want (or close to it).
This is pretty much me, thanks to moving and changing groups every couple years. I get to run the same adventures over again with new characters, and there are no continuous worlds. The players are dropped into a new dimension one over from the previous one, that may have some of the same elements from the previous. The setting is almost entirely contained to where the players go, so there is no canon to conflict with per se.
This is pretty much me, thanks to moving and changing groups every couple years. I get to run the same adventures over again with new characters, and there are no continuous worlds. The players are dropped into a new dimension one over from the previous one, that may have some of the same elements from the previous. The setting is almost entirely contained to where the players go, so there is no canon to conflict with per se.3) The DM and players get together for an ad-hoc campaign
This is often the case when running published modules or if you are just getting together to throw some dice and see where the adventure takes you. The DM usually has one or two ready-to-go adventures but nothing much planned beyond that. Everything is on the table for negotiation and you build the game from the ground up so that everyone gets exactly what they want (or close to it).
... And that sort of gming would hold zero interest for me. None.
I've liven in the same town now for 27 going on 28 years. The larger pool of players adds and subtracts a few, but there is a good core of the same people around I play with. Including the guy I sat next to in high school band. Non continuous worlds would fail t hold my attention. I want a bigger picture that I can effect(as a player) and that can be affected by the players(as a gm)
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... And that sort of gming would hold zero interest for me. None.
No worries, I'm not going to twist your arm. :)
If I had been able to continue with my last group, I would have started the second campaign in the port town they had visited in the first campaign, some time after the previous events of that one, and using some of the same NPCs. (Shackled City to Savage Tide.)
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I find players are somewhat insulted if I just remove their characters and actions from the world and reset it.
I find players don't care about what happened last campaign, unless the GM wants it to matter. Not saying there is anything wrong with not resetting every campaign, I just haven't played regularly with anyone who actually cares about whether past campaigns happened in the world that the current campaign is happening in.
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ven funnier if the rest of the world doesn't actually take on the same cartoonish ethos, and we're the only oddballs. So the forces of Good are used to dealing with the sort of actual, honestly-brutally-horrifying evil that Golarion has so much of... and then they come smack up against this group of complete and total loons who rant and rave about the power of Eeeeeeevil and their brilliant plans to take over the world by gathering all the MacGuffins and attaining Ultimate Cosmic Power... but who wouldn't actually be able to so much as kick the proverbial puppy should the opportunity present itself, and who'd probably throw in for an Enemy Mine should any of those aforementioned actual nasties show up and attack.
So they'd play the Amoeba Boys?
Zorajit this really boils down to if the player have a theme, and a good idea, and is able to get what he wants out of the character. Furthermore, if the character IS unbalanced for said game it really just depends on how the character is played.
I am playing an aasimar Nat born werewolf in my Second Darkness campaign, and as of right now I am pretty much invulnerable to damage. That will change as we gain levels, but my DR is my defense since I simply don't use armor for this character (War1 => Sorc => Dragon Disciple) and I have a decent branching story for his good self. Is he broken right now? Yeah, he is, he can solo every encounter. So what do I do during fights? I stand near the door to not let thugs escape, I come to the rescue if one of my allies needs help, and mostly hold my ground. The DM sends enemies my way but is allowed to focus on the party that he can hurt. The point is I did my research, I know how he is going to progress, and his personality. Most importantly: His parents are still alive and well unlike 1/2 the people's folks at the table. My DPS at lvl 20 will be lower than most, and nowhere near the nova magus or anything else.
Allow people to play exotic races if they want, but do not allow them to ~build~ these races or classes. I wanted 3 natural attacks since this build has crappy BAB, I could get this same effect by going Kitsune Ranger 2 (natural weapon style), but this was more thematic for what I wanted.
If a player comes up with an idea that he wants to play, I like werewolves and lycanthropes and have pretty much loved the idea for probably more than a decade, then you should try to not hold them back. If they know their stuff they will make their character of the race(s) you force them to choose and then make something that will start decent and become an OP monster like a nova-magus. Or if he just wants to start as a monster he'll go Zen archer or Gunslinger.
Leaving the races and alignments open for use makes things harder on the DM, but enables the players to do the most. One of the most tense games I have ever been in involved LG, LE, CG, CE characters on the same team working together.
It's a fantasy game. I can play a human any time I want to. I am one. Why would I want to RP as one? I've played elves, half-elves, dwarves, half-orcs, tieflings, aasimar, goblins, and, yes, humans.
However, I usually pick races to match with the characters I want to play. A snake-tongued tiefling alchemist taking the Master Chemyst route to do Jekyll/Hyde in order to become much more hellion than normal while transformed (which was due to finishing the book Jekyll&Hyde). Another is an oracle of metal that is a heavily pierced half-orc just due to the imagery of it. Dhampir paladins. Aasimar oracles of bones. Mermaid druids using wildshape and alter self to navigate the world above the waves. I have a long list of neat character concepts where the races were picked not for a mechanical advantage, but for an RP advantage.
If it really bothers you that your players are choosing things outside of the statistical norm for the world they're playing in then make a percentile chart. Weigh it heavily toward humans with the other races scattered appropriately with most of the really exotic ones getting 1% each. Make the players roll. They get the race they get.
Or set them in an incredibly racially restrictive locale where they'll be overcharged, shunned, or worse for being an exotic. That will cause them to jump through lots of hoops to play their characters which could possibly add a lot to the RP experience or just make them want to play "more traditional" characters.
Or just flat say, "We're only doing the core rulebook races in this campaign." And give some reason like it has to do with the plot, the setting, the fact you're tired of them, or something of that nature.
You could broaden the types of races available, and then insist 50% have to be non human.