Insisting on the tengu seems like sabotage to me.Who's "insisting"? He proposes it, everyone discusses and comes to a yes/no agreement together.
It seems like a disincentive to play a game master to me.
The way my group rolls, we do a lot of one-shot gaming where we decide at the end of last session who wants to game master for that session.
"So, who wants to run next week?"
"I've got a big presentation to make, so I don't have time to prep anything."
"I have time, but I don't have any ideas, really."
"Well, how about I run something? I've been kicking around some ideas in Classical Greece."
"Good." "Sure." "Fine." "That's it, then."
The GM will later send around a note: "Okay, everyone. Greek game next session. The game starts on the island of Gyros, you are all crewing the ship [i]Kalamata[i]. Third level, standard Greek pantheon, basically a bug-hunt with lots of aberrations. Email me with concepts to discuss if you like." We don't want to spend half the night making characters for a one-shot.
So, the game shows up and we have : a human priestess of Athena, a human ranger bow specialist, a cavalier in full plate, and a tengu Jedi.
The first two are fine; full plate is a little problematic on shipboard but it's easy enough to scale back to something more thematic like a breastplate, but what do you do about the tengu Jedi?
If the answer is "the game doesn't happen," the GM's just wasted a hell of a lot of time prepping the adventure, making maps, handouts, et cetera.
For the longer-term campaigns, which we also do, it's even worse. I want to run Way of the Wicked and I've shelled out a hundred bucks for materials that I'm not sure I'm going to be able to use because someone wants to play a Jedi. Or I'm running something homebrew that I've put several hundred hours into preparing and designing and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to use it because someone wants to play a Jedi.
Far easier for me just not to GM at all. I don't have to spend the time, I don't have to spend the money, and I can just drag out this dog-eared and tattered copy of whatever I feel like playing tonight.
Another reason to ask "why" about a DM's campaign restrictions is that those restrictions could inspire a character background. Suppose the DM says no to the idea of a dwarf wizard (after all, that combination was generally not allowed prior to D&D 3rd edition). Are dwarves actually incapable of becoming wizards? Then an obvious question to pursue would be the fate of a dwarf character who has the intelligence and desire to become a wizard -- What did he end up doing instead when he was absolutely unable to learn that craft? Is there some quest he could go on that might unlock that ability later on? How close can he ever come to his dream of becoming the first ever dwarf wizard?
I often find that limitations can offer great inspiration for character backgrounds, especially if the DM can give me some insight into how his world works (or appears to work to a typical inhabitant), who would be a typical adventurer, who would be distinctly an oddball, and what type of character would fit into the existing party best.
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When I am in the player chair, and the GM says 'think LotR' or 'think David Eddings' or 'think Game of Thrones' - I immediately understand I'm not playing a kisune.
I don't know, I think all three of those settings could handle the rare kitsune. GoT would be the hardest to pull off, but the Belgariad and Mallorean had plenty of fantastic races.
I often find that limitations can offer great inspiration for character backgrounds, especially if the DM can give me some insight into how his world works (or appears to work to a typical inhabitant), who would be a typical adventurer, who would be distinctly an oddball, and what type of character would fit into the existing party best.
Absolutely. When mdt explained that one of the dwarven mountain lands casts out those who do not worship one of their two gods, I immediately knew where my dwarven cleric was from and why he left to go adventuring.
So you suggest Ravenloft. Everyone says cool. Someone shows up with Bozo. You and everyone else look at him like he's got two heads. Either he says "I don't know what I was thinking" and comes up with something appropriate or "I don't really want to play Ravenloft anyway". Either way, you never have to run Ravenloft for Bozo.
So what DO you do, then? If he says that he didn't want to play Ravenloft, that's a lot of time that you put into designing a game that just goes back on the shelf (or into the trash). Are you supposed to pull a vampire-hunters-and-clowns scenario out of thin air at the spur of the moment? Are you suppose to turn to the other three people in the group and say "well, sorry you drove all this way to get here, I'll see you next week"? Are you supposed to say "well, everyone remembered to make an emergency Bunnies and Burrows character, right?"
@orfamay
Its true. Our tables style definitely stops certain styles of gming before they get started. That or they dont put in the hundreds of hours worth of work building a custom setting until after the 'jedi issue has been resolved first'
Its a procedural shift (reversing your order-of-operations) to get the concensus before development starts instead of the other way around. You make the world first then you havent achieved concensus first, and when the concensus doesnt work, your work has been wasted. Better to get the concensus first.
As i said above, you sort out the concensus before wasting any time worldbuilding. Bozo showing up to ravenloft never happens at our table and nobody ever wastes time making ravenloft just to have bozo show up and ruin it because we sort out the bozo thing before world development even starts. There are no last minute suprise ravenloft bozos because we do it in the reverse order. Sorting out the bozos before spending the time developing the setting.
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I think that misses the point. If the major plot point in my setting is that dwarves are extinct, killed off by a magical plague - it's just poor to show up with a dwarf rolled up and ready to go. That PC is antithetical to the entire campaign focus.
Then your issue lies in your expressing of the setting. Don't use general statements like 'think LotR' and then get mad when your player asks if he can work kitsune into it. Or you head this off at the pass and ask the players what they want to play ahead of time and see what campaign will match that.
So what happens now if the guy shows up with a Jedi? Do you kick him out of the house? Waste half the night arguing with him about playing a Jedi and making a new character?
And shouldn't have that been dealt with in the email ahead of time?Consensus breaks down if someone is determined to be a jerk, but the game's going to break down if someone is determined to be a jerk anyway.
What happens now is I hand him a character sheet for something vanilla like a rogue. (The iconics work well for that, if I'm pressed for time. I also have an advantage that two players in the usual group are very good at designing playable if generic characters in about three minutes.) There's no argument, he is playing a human rogue tonight for this one-shot and he'll learn to read his email before next week.
If it's not a one-shot, he's playing a human rogue for tonight, and he can design a new character for next week. Hopefully after reading his email.
Yes, this is heavy-handed. But it's also the only fair way to preserve the game for everyone else involved, the ones who actually thought about the kinds of characters that would fit into Ancient Greece.
The person playing a Jedi agreed to an ancient Greek game, received a reminder notification, and was given the opportunity to discuss anything he felt was a significantly controversial aspect of his character. Having ignored all three of those, he shows up with a game-breaking character and ticks off the rest of the group. I feel justified being heavy-handed.
@orfamay
Its true. Our tables style definitely stops certain styles of gming before they get started. That or they dont put in the hundreds of hours worth of work building a custom setting until after the 'jedi issue has been resolved first'
Its a procedural shift to get the concensus before development starts instead of the other way around. You make the world first then you havent achieved concensus first, and when the concensus doesnt work, your work has been wasted. Better to get the concensus first.
This actually is the problem for me as a GM. I have to let my campaign ideas percolate for quite awhile before they're developed enough for me to run them. I'm not going to ask players for characters and consensus on a game that might be 6 months away. At least not expect them to stick with or even remember those character ideas by the time the game rolls around.
Yep. That can be a problem. It works better for our table because I'm the kind of gm that adheres to the tenet that the players will ruin your best laid plans, so 6 months of development can be ruined in 15 minutes by the glorious power of free will. You dont see 6th months of planning kind of settings at my table, for better or for worse. Our worlds havent been worse off for it though.
I'm reminded of Steven Brust's "Khaavren" series. Yes, you could say "Think Three Musketeers," because in most ways it is a straight re-creation (er, "homage") of that series. But it also has elves and wizards and demons. And, somehow, it works in those books -- they're popular, and, more importantly, they're entertaining. If he'd stuck with straight Dumas, well, I doubt he'd have sold a single copy. It's examples like this that make me a lot more open to Tengu in my Tolkien.
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Vincent, we should hang out. :)
Agreed! And we will not charge for awesomeness... Or attractiveness!
Or you head this off at the pass and ask the players what they want to play ahead of time and see what campaign will match that.I think this boils down to - does your GM say 'here is the setting' and the PCs are then developed? Or do the players say 'here is my PC' and the GM has to 'fit them in'?
I agree. The way we like to phrase it is 'are you all getting together to play a campaign everyone can enjoy or are you running your own thing your own way and hoping/expecting people will enjoy it.'
Obviously this is true for encounter level effort - but I think what some of the previous posters were talking about is campaign backstory, people, places, organizations, etc. If I spend time on an organization, the League of the Lance, which was formed to save the world of men from the baddies (orcs maybe). That's a centerpiece to my setting. I might develop a mythology of Garanor who formed the league, and Gaerond, his brother who did something else. I can create a 'history' of the setting that (hopefully) will provide depth the game and allow the PCs to immerse themselves in that depth.
My players recognize that effort and will then create PCs accordingly because they want to 'swim' in that setting (to continue to metaphor). If I do all this and tell the players 'the plot point is the League vs the orcs' and you show up with an orc PC - i'm not going to be happy.
Right. This is where order of operations is important. You sort out the fact that there will be no orcs ahead of time. Then having a plot of league vs orcs and by doing it that way you dont have to 'trust your players not to show up with an orc'... you know ahead of time what they're playing, which can add to the personalization and interactiveness of the world you create.
It could be reasonably assumed that even the idea you present above about League of the Lance and Garanor and Gaerond might be a campaign idea you created in the last 15 seconds to put into your post, but I don't usually see many gms that need more than a week to make immersive settings and plots...
Knowing what the players are playing before you make the setting/story almost irrevocably makes the setting or story you make more personalized to the characters because you know what you're up against ahead of time and can tailor it to suit them better. It solves the suprise issue and improves personalization and immersion.
So what happens now if the guy shows up with a Jedi? Do you kick him out of the house? Waste half the night arguing with him about playing a Jedi and making a new character?
And shouldn't have that been dealt with in the email ahead of time?Consensus breaks down if someone is determined to be a jerk, but the game's going to break down if someone is determined to be a jerk anyway.
I agree with Orfamay Quest.
As for the Jedi it's fairly simple. You start the game without him.
No need to kick him out since he can just watch till he has a character ready. No need to argue with him at all... GM decision is final. As for email... it would have been nice if the Jedi wannabe had warned people by email he was going to be this way. But these types don't usually show their hand till last minute in order to create the greatest disruption. THIS IS a good example of why I always use a character creation day to get everyone on page together. OR in the case of a one shot game have a stack of pregen characters handy for the people who want them.
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I'm not saying the GM campaign is something that is inviolate and should be admired by the fawning players (although some are pretty good). But it's a setting where the PC should be designed to fit. I just don't get how someone would want to develop a detailed setting and then have completely misplaced PCs try to be shoehorned in.
That's good, because your video game comment had me worried. :) But the strength of the tabletop game is its very malleableness, and to not even attempt a shoehorning, to not even ask if something can be changed, on either side of the screen, is a waste of that strength.
Do you feel it would have been the same if we threw JK Rowling and Robert Jordan's zombie in the room with him, and they had to vote on the characters/events? Works of art are rarely crafted by committee.
Actually, modern books are definitely subject to this sort of thing. John Greene specifically says that the Fault In Our Stars which you get to purchase is not the book he originally wrote. The Publisher and the Editor changed it entirely, and while the original book was still a good book, the one that got published is a good book as well and is more enjoyable to more people, even if its not the idea John Greene originally had. Which he freely admits.
I'd like to think if JK Rowlings publisher read her stuff and said 'It's good... But it needs more zombies" that she'd be like. uhhhh. Okay. And get to work on it.
I can't create the League and the plotpoint of League vs orcs if Player A says 'I'm an orc' and I can't veto it. It's cart before the horse. If the GM can't limit the racial/class/whatever options, it's limiting how he can craft the campaign setting.
Definitely. If someone wants to play an orc then its a bad idea to hold fast to the idea that your campaign enemy is going to be orcs unless you can find a way to do it that doesnt bring the orc player into conflict in an undesirable way. There are plenty of ways to do that "I'm a traitor to my own people" "I was raised by elves" whatever... Its just as easy to make the bad guys 'gnolls' instead. But far better to know all that ahead of time than to be surpised by an orc at the last minute after spending a week writing orcmageddon. Even if you give up the ghost and say I really want this to be an anti orc campaign and someone does say 'i want to be an orc' you can sort out if you'd be able to make it interesting and fun before you waste a whole week creating the whole plot for it. And if you know you cant? Say you can't.
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I want to develop a tone where, when they PC sees orcs, they froth at the mouth. I want the orcs to be so hated that the PLAYERS have an emotional reaction. I simply can't do that if I can't say 'no orcs as PCs'. The GM drives the setting.
And you could accomplish that whole dynamic by changing the word orc to gnoll or troll or mountain giant or whatever.
Do you feel it would have been the same if we threw JK Rowling and Robert Jordan's zombie in the room with him, and they had to vote on the characters/events?
Blake, if you want to write a novel with no additional input, you should do so. And it can be as pure and unsullied as you choose -- you can even self-publish so that an editor doesn't compromise your typos. But when you intentionally bring in four other people... well, as one of those people, I'd think I was maybe brought in to have some input, not just to be a spectator. If I just wanted to watch, I'd buy tickets instead.
Again, the dynamic might be different in your group. But "other people will ruin my work" is, for me, a very good argument in favor of not involving other people in the first place.
Why let one player disrupt the game for everyone?
Indeed, why let any players disrupt anything for you? Just omit them!
And you could accomplish that whole dynamic by changing the word orc to gnoll or troll or mountain giant or whatever.Why should I have to?
Why is it so hard to?
