And that's not all that relevant, either. The DM above still has an "exciting, interesting" world, and also probably understands the concept of diminishing returns (and most likely has a life as well).
So, because one DM in particular doesn't want to put forth the effort, this means that no one should? In countering an absolute claim, counterexamples are most certainly relevant.
I've already stated that not having time to review and assimilate a new rules set is a perfectly acceptable reason to ban it. It's not true that all new things ruin a campaign; that's in the DM's hands. Therefore, simply being new shouldn't be an auto-ban.
And what if the GM feels a new rule set does not mesh with the flavor his his setting?
And what if the GM feels a new rule set does not mesh with the flavor his his setting?
Good response: "I don't have the time or ability to mesh it."
Poor response: "It will sully the divine purity of my beautiful, perfect world, because there is no way to mesh anything that I, the Supreme Creative Force, do not think of myself!"
I guess " Why I can mesh this it totally changes the feel and history of the setting and how it plays" does not count then?
I guess " Why I can mesh this it totally changes the feel and history of the setting and how it plays" does not count then?
If the purity of your pristine setting is your primary motive, you should be writing fiction, not running a game. A game is a cooperative exercise that involves people other than you. DM limitations on time, effort, and imagination are extremely valid reasons for omitting things. DM ego trips that refuse to acknowledge other participants' input are fairly weak reasons.
If the purity of your pristine setting is your primary motive, you should be writing fiction, not running a game. A game is a cooperative exercise that involves people other than you. DM limitations on time, effort, and imagination are extremely valid reasons for omitting things. DM ego trips that refuse to acknowledge other participants' input are fairly weak reasons.
In other world the setting does not count. Only the players wishes count and damned things such as setting history, tone and flavor.
IF the players can't play a plat mail wearing knight in a early bronze age setting then its the GM's or setting fault, not the players that it does not fit?
I simply do not agree. As a cooperative game, it is the players responsibility to create characters that fit the setting. Just as it is the GM responsibility for maintaining the settings flavor and style.
In other world the setting does not count. Only the players wishes count and damned things such as setting history, tone and flavor.
No. In other words, I think the players, together, should have input into the setting that is equal in weight to the DM's.
I do not believe that the players should have all the input.
And, unlike you, I do not believe that they should be denied any input into the setting. Like I said, if the prisine purity of your setting matters more to you than the other participants, then you should be writing, not DMing.
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Now, maybe your players are so sheepish that they need you to tell them every detail, and can't function without your approval. In that case, your approach is best. On the flip side, if your players are failrly mature and are interested in having some sort of creative input, a total DM ego trip will eventually inspire them to leave the game.
Not even then, Kirth. A writer should be thinking of his readers as he writes. Otherwise, he probably won't sell many books.
Point to TOZ.
Monk? You mean those guys with the shaved heads that pray a lot? I'm not all that into religion...
No. In other words, I think the players, together, should have input into the setting that is equal in weight to the DM's.
I do not believe that the players should have all the input.
And, unlike you, I do not believe that they should be denied any.
And once more someone assumes I deny player input just because I refuse to allow anything and everything into the setting. I do not allow players however who do not put time and effort into a setting to demand setting altering changes after I have put ungodly amount of work into it.
Simply put if you were not willing to help me craft the world and spend time working ironing out details such as history, races, and so forth then they have zero right to demand I change it to fit a single concept.
Monk? You mean those guys with the shaved heads that pray a lot? I'm not all that into religion...
Exactly. The mechanics build the character's abilities; they don't define his appearance, style, personality, or historicity.
And once more someone assumes I deny player input just because I refuse to allow anything and everything into the setting.
That's not an assuption. You told me point-blank that you deny player input into the setting: "it is the players responsibility to create characters that fit the setting. Just as it is the GM responsibility for maintaining the settings flavor and style."
Now, if you want to revise your earlier blanket statement about who has responsibility for what, I'm listening.
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Simply put if you were not willing to help me craft the world and spend time working ironing out details such as history, races, and so forth then they have zero right to demand I change it to fit a single concept.
No one has the right to demand anything of anyone else in world building. I don't think anyone is arguing to the contrary.
Now, maybe your players are so sheepish that they need you to tell them every detail, and can't function without your approval. In that case, your approach is best. On the flip side, if your players are failrly mature and are interested in having some sort of creative input, a total DM ego trip will eventually inspire them to leave the game.
You edited while I was posting. The player told me what kind of world they wished to play in, I gave them thoughts , they gave me input I worked it out and worked with them to craft the setting I use.
Now the setting is limiting on magic and how it works but at the time that was what I wanted and the players liked that aspect. 70-80% of the setting is purely my stuff but they had influenced and it just made the setting more defined not less.
Its not an Ego trip but nor will I rebuild it for a new player. Just like if I ran DS I would not allow a gnome , half orc or paladin as they do not exist in that world.
A unique world is not a bad thing.
And once more someone assumes I deny player input just because I refuse to allow anything and everything into the setting.That's not an assuption. You told me point-blank that you deny player input into the setting: "it is the players responsibility to create characters that fit the setting. Just as it is the GM responsibility for maintaining the settings flavor and style."
Now, if you want to revise your earlier blanket statement about who has responsibility for what, I'm listening.
I am not revising a single thing. If you come to a set game and wish to play something that is totally outside the game style your not giving input your causing problems.
Once a setting is made asking to change the whole setting for one concept is not adding input. That is being unreasonable
Once a setting is made asking to change the whole setting for one concept is not adding input. That is being unreasonable
Yes, it is... but, that said, I can't think of a case in which one concept will invalidate an entire setting -- unless the setting itself is hermetically-sealed. Even on the very small, isolated setting on the show "Lost," we suddenly find out like 6 episodes in that there are other people on the "deserted" island; most fans don't feel that their inclusion ruined the entire series.
Gnome paladin in darksun, totally invalidates the whole setting flavor and concept. Some settings are like that.In my setting magic works in a very strict, very defined way that simply allows little room to expand it to other alt magic systems without breaking the setting tone and flavor.
I simply will not throw the tone, history and feel of the setting out because one player wants to play a "wizard" but not play the wizard class.
Not even then, Kirth. A writer should be thinking of his readers as he writes. Otherwise, he probably won't sell many books.
If that were true, nothing original would ever be published.
Gnome paladin in darksun, totally invalidates the whole setting flavor and concept.
Dark Sun has no gates, then? That's what I mean by "hermetically sealed." If there are multiple planes (the default in most D&D settings), then it's not unreasonable that at least one of those planes has gnomes on it, and some of them allow for paladins, and it's therefore not impossible that a gnome paladin might find their way elsewhere. He might be the only gnome on the planet, and the only paladin, but don't we expect PCs to be unique? The one PC in no way destroys the setting -- he only destroys your personal insistence that nothing should ever appear "out of place."
When the Conquistadors reached the New World, they didn't fit the setting. Metal armor! Horses! Firearms! Monotheism! Their arrival may have doomed the Aztec civilization, but it didn't destroy the Earth, nor did it invalidate the entire human race.
Dark Sun has no gates, then?
Nope totally cut off from the great wheel. A few very hard to get ways out, but no way in.
Your also assuming the standard plane set up, and of gates being on the world. Your assuming a whole lot of a world that is not generic fantasy 101. Hell horses don't even exist in my world, nor do Gnome or halfings. When talking about any setting your not familiar with you should never assume just anything is available.
That plane shifting paladin gets his powers from his god - who doesn't have access to Dark Sun.
Not always but his spellcasting would not work, and he would be killed for his armor and weapons if not by the heat and sand, even if a GM allowed him to break the setting rules by allowing both a class and a race long dead to the world by a portal that should not work.
Seeker, Lilithsthrall -- maybe you should have pointed out earlier that your blanket statements apply strictly to campaign worlds that are totally sealed off, and that do not follow the assumptions of the core rules, much less any expanded rules system. There would have been a lot less confusion.
If you want to run a hermetically sealed game world, have fun. But understand that it's not typical, and it's not supported by the core rules, much less the rules you're banning.
1) There is no weirdness in how magic and psionics interact. There really isn't. Psionics and magic work the same way. And believe me, any loophole a psion can do, a wizard can do better, faster, and earlier.It's statements like this that can ruin your entire argument. I've read the psionics handbook for 3rd edition. I've created more than one character using those rules. I've even played in a couple of games using those characters.
I've also played in a great campaign that used both psionics and the standard D&D magic system. The DM was bloody brilliant; he pulled it off in ways I would never have suspected possible.
But all that has illustrated to me very well that magic and psionics interacting together create a lot of weirdness. The other players in the campaigns commented on it. The DM who successfully wove it together commented on what a challenge it was. He had to work his butt off to make it as smooth as it was. People quit the campaign completely because of it. They two systems don't work the same way. They aren't the same thing, and they don't easily fit together.
My point is this: You can't make a blanket statement like you did when so many others, many of whom have been playing the game for decades, have had absolutely contradictory experiences. What you're doing is suggesting that somehow, all these people, no matter how talented and capable, are wrong. And that's simply not true. Which, frankly, leads me to question a lot of your arguments.
How could he run it so well if players were quitting? Was that 3rd edition or 3.5 psionics by the way?
If the purity of your pristine setting is your primary motive, you should be writing fiction, not running a game. A game is a cooperative exercise that involves people other than you. DM limitations on time, effort, and imagination are extremely valid reasons for omitting things. DM ego trips that refuse to acknowledge other participants' input are fairly weak reasons.In other world the setting does not count. Only the players wishes count and damned things such as setting history, tone and flavor.
IF the players can't play a plat mail wearing knight in a early bronze age setting then its the GM's or setting fault, not the players that it does not fit?
I simply do not agree. As a cooperative game, it is the players responsibility to create characters that fit the setting. Just as it is the GM responsibility for maintaining the settings flavor and style.
What is being said is that if the new stuff can be fluffed to fit it should be allowed, but if it can't then it stays out. Most people would not mind changing the psionics label to something else if that was the only thing keeping it out of the game.
fit=no major world changes.
Seeker, Lilithsthrall -- maybe you should have pointed out earlier that your blanket statements apply strictly to campaign worlds that are totally sealed off, and that do not follow the assumptions of the core rules, much less any expanded rules system. There would have been a lot less confusion.
But does it matter? Seeker said "it is the players responsibility to create characters that fit the setting. Just as it is the GM responsibility for maintaining the settings flavor and style."
And it holds. If a player agrees to play in a certain world, then he/she agrees to play in that campaign world. Done and done. Even if DS has gates, playing a gnome paladin (or gnome, or paladin) in DS is nothing more than a problem player not agreeing to play the setting (in a rather annoying way), and lumping more unnecessary work on the GM.
If you want to run a hermetically sealed game world, have fun. But understand that it's not typical, and it's not supported by the core rules, much less the rules you're banning.
2e in and of itself has a lot of settings that have unique assumptions. To suggest that the PHB is anything more than a totally modifiable toolkit is woefully naive, IMO.
Just like if I ran DS I would not allow a gnome , half orc or paladin as they do not exist in that world.
A unique world is not a bad thing.
You would ban the mechanics or the concept?
Once a setting is made asking to change the whole setting for one concept is not adding input. That is being unreasonable
First you said if the person was not willing to help build the word=ld they should not be able to suggest changes. Now you are saying if they happened to not be around when the world was made. Those are two completely different things.
That plane shifting paladin gets his powers from his god - who doesn't have access to Dark Sun.Gnome paladin in darksun, totally invalidates the whole setting flavor and concept.Dark Sun has no gates, then? That's what I mean by "hermetically sealed." If there are multiple planes (the default in most D&D settings), then it's not unreasonable that at least one of those planes has gnomes on it, and some of them allow for paladins, and it's therefore not impossible that a gnome paladin might find their way elsewhere. He might be the only gnome on the planet, and the only paladin, but don't we expect PCs to be unique? The one PC in no way destroys the setting -- he only destroys your personal insistence that nothing should ever appear "out of place."
When the Conquistadors reached the New World, they didn't fit the setting. Metal armor! Horses! Firearms! Monotheism! Their arrival may have doomed the Aztec civilization, but it didn't destroy the Earth, nor did it invalidate the entire human race.
The same beings that grant powers to clerics could have chosen to give a player paladin powers. Why? It is up to the player to figure that out, but if he can come up with a good reason then I don't see why not.
The powerful, world changing stuff is already in my world's history- again, all of which have included psionics, because that mechanic is well established.
So your world history accounts for every mechanic in the game, and how it came to be?
Psions I feel shouldn't be "blasters".
Maybe we should leave it at this: There are two schools of thought in evidence here.
The first, if I understand it correctly, holds that the game mechanics and the flavor of the setting are inextricably linked, and any addition or tampering with the former will ruin the latter. In this school of thought, the DM's sovereignity over the setting is absolute, and players should accept that or find another game. Based on the testimony here, DMs of this school seem to prefer very restrictive settings (Dark Sun was specifically mentioned).
The second holds that almost any mechanics can be integrated, given a bit of inginuity. With that being the case, oddball player input, that on first glance is incompatible, can usually be accommodated with no impact on the "flavor" of the game world -- and is then viewed as "canon" for that world. DMs of this school often prefer somewhat looser settings, like Greyhawk or Golarion.
As a player, I would not participate in a Type 1 campaign, as I personally find this approach too limiting. Conversely, I have had players who did not enjoy the Type 2 game I run, because it was too open-ended. The main thing, then, is to make sure that the players and DM all agree which one they'll be playing. Psionics are more likely to be embraced in Type 2 campaigns, and rejected in Type 1 -- with some obvious exceptions (Dark Sun, for example!).
Seeker, Lilithsthrall -- maybe you should have pointed out earlier that your blanket statements apply strictly to campaign worlds that are totally sealed off, and that do not follow the assumptions of the core rules, much less any expanded rules system. There would have been a lot less confusion.
My statement applys to Every single setting period. If your playing in a setting at lest learn the base of the setting before start asking to play a concept that is inappropriate. Playing a Jedi hiding from the empire in FR is as inappropriate as a paladin in darksuns.
If your unwilling to play in a setting say so, don't cause issues for the rest of the group by trying to kill the tone of the setting.
You would ban the mechanics or the concept?
They are one and the same here. The setting has a long list of allowed races and class, both the Gnome and paladin are long dead on athas
First you said if the person was not willing to help build the word=ld they should not be able to suggest changes. Now you are saying if they happened to not be around when the world was made. Those are two completely different things.
Correct, neither changes however. A player who leaves world development up to the other players and the GM has no say. A new player who comes into a setting everyone else is fine with also has no say.
If the new player does not wish to play that setting or game he is not forced to do so. You simply do not show up to a new game and start demanding changes to an established setting.
My statement applys to Every single setting period. If your playing in a setting at lest learn the base of the setting before start asking to play a concept that is inappropriate. Playing a Jedi hiding from the empire in FR is as inappropriate as a paladin in darksuns.
False. A Jedi hiding from the Empire could be accommodated in almost any game I run. Just because you can't conceive of it doesn't mean that it's impossible.
If you, personally, can't or won't integrate it, OK, that's fine. But to make the blanket claim that therefore no one can is untrue and also a bit insulting.
Fluff is mutable.
Banning psionics because you don't like the fluff is like banning rogues because you don't like the fluff. Right now you're probably scratching your head and going "What fluff do rogues have that make them bannable?"
Exactly.
Jedi are literally just "Space wizards" with a vague religious theme and a sword. A jedi in D&D is pretty much a gish of some sort with a variable amount of melee or casting capability depending on what sort of "jedi" they are.
Jedi are literally just "Space wizards" with a vague religious theme and a sword. A jedi in D&D is pretty much a gish of some sort with a variable amount of melee or casting capability depending on what sort of "jedi" they are.
Oh, so the Jedi are Suel Arcanamach! :D
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As for the point brought up earlier - what if the game is being held at the home of the player who wants psionics and the player says that if he can't play a psionic character, the game can't be held at his house - personally, my response would be to tell everyone "John has decided that since I don't want psionics in my game, he doesn't want to play, and since he doesn't want to play, we need to find another place to hold the game".
Which works fine if you have another place to game it. If not your screwed. Some in this theread need to stop acting as everything wroks in their favor as a DM. In a hypotethical situation sure. In real life it is different.
One thing I would not do is allow a player to hold the game hostage. It would set a bad precedent which would most likely lead to more problems down the road (ie. "if you don't let my 3rd level character have a staff of the magi, you can find another place to hold the game", "I know you said Elminster isn't in your world, but if you don't let my character have Elminster as a close, personal friend, you can find another place to hold the game", "my character has wish as an innate ability or you can find another place to hold the game").
What you want as a DM and what happens are usually different. I agree that a player should not hold the game hostage. Yet it sometimes happens as some players are just that immature and petty. Same can be said of some DMs. The thing is you want to play the DM has the absolute power card then you better be willing to face up to what happens after. Usually it it never good. Or if you do be upfront about what you will allow even before an interested player asks.
I stopped gaming with my first gaming group because eventually a combination of both the DM banning too many things out right and not being diplomatic about it and players wanting too much just combined toghhter into a nasty power keg that exploded. Fortuntaly I left before yet for the longest time both the players and DM involved became pariahs in the gaming community of ouyr area The DM because even if he did get screwed by the players went around badmouthing the players when he should have just kpet quiet and the players because they caused a game to implode.