Then the party opens some sealed tomb of ancient man, and out strides an army of nine foot tall, fire-breathing... humans.
Wouldn't be the first time a myth took on a life of it's own.
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Ancient Human
Type: humanoid (human)
+2 Strength, -2 Dexterity, +2 to another ability score of your choice.
Large size
Breath weapon 1/day, 30 ft. cone dealing 1d6 fire damage per two hit dice (minimum 1d6); reflex save DC equals 10 + 1/2 HD + Con modifier.
Starts with 1 level of humanoid, one feat and appropriate skill ranks for its humanoid hit die.
Ancient Human feats:
More Fire!
You may now use your breath weapon a number of times per day equal to your constitution modifier (minimum 1).
Bigger Fire!
Your breath weapon becomes a 60 ft. cone.
Actually, according to the class description, the Oracles explicitly do derive their powers from the gods, which is necessary because the whole, entire point is that they were chosen by something outside them, potentially even against their will. They don't need to like said gods that they get their powers from, but that's a different question. They're the one divine casting class that isn't given the option of getting their divine mojo from generic, impersonal forces.
Although the gods work through many agents, perhaps none is more mysterious than the oracle. These divine vessels are granted power without their choice, selected by providence to wield powers that even they do not fully understand. Unlike a cleric, who draws her magic through devotion to a deity, oracles garner strength and power from many sources, namely those patron deities who support their ideals. Instead of worshiping a single source, oracles tend to venerate all of the gods that share their beliefs. While some see the powers of the oracle as a gift, others view them as a curse, changing the life of the chosen in unforeseen ways.
So, they have many sources for their powers. Some of which are deities, but it doesn't limit them to deities. And even then, it's not a single deity, it's all deities of a given ideal. Or, as they say in crunch, a portfolio.
This is handled via the Mysteries, which are what actually power the Oracles, and from where they gain their power and spells (see Mysteries). These mysteries draw on divine power, but not of any specific god or pantheon, therefore it is more like the 'concept' cleric.
The Cleric, for their part, is stated in the CRB as being able to devote themselves to a divine concept instead of a deity, and the Druids get their powers from Nature itself and its "primal magics". The only way for "no-Druids-even-possible" to make sense is if in addition to no deities that continent had "no Nature" whatsoever on it... whatever that even means.
That is, per the class ability, up to the GM. Oh look, GM says clerics can't do that (to further differentiate them from Oracles) because the gods say 'If you are a cleric, you must worship us'. Done.
Ancient Human
Type: humanoid (human)
+2 Strength, -2 Dexterity, +2 to another ability score of your choice.
Large size
Breath weapon 1/day, 30 ft. cone dealing 1d6 fire damage per two hit dice (minimum 1d6); reflex save DC equals 10 + 1/2 HD + Con modifier.Starts with 1 level of humanoid, one feat and appropriate skill ranks for its humanoid hit die.
Ancient Human feats:
More Fire!
You may now use your breath weapon a number of times per day equal to your constitution modifier (minimum 1).Bigger Fire!
Your breath weapon becomes a 60 ft. cone.
May just use that at some point. :) Although it would be more along the lines of a summon or something. :)
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That is, per the class ability, up to the GM. Oh look, GM says clerics can't do that. Done.
I think you've wandered off-track a bit. Most of the point of the thread is to ask why the said GM would even WANT to say that, solely to prevent a specific player from playing certain classes in the Core rules. I can think of three reasons why a person might want to do that:
1. If the said combination would be disruptive. In that case, simply asking the player "Hey, Steve, I notice you're so good with clerics [or whatever] that you have a tendency to upstage the fighter and wizard... can you either tone it down a lot or else play something else?" is totally reasonable. Inventing "setting purity" reasons isn't needed.
2. The DM simply hate clerics, or druids, or whatever. In that case, being honest is, again, probably better than inventing "setting reasons."
3. The said DM actually can't wrap his/her mind around allowing them in the setting. In that case, some might suggest that the DM's rigidness of mind and inability to think outside of a very narrow box isn't something to brag about, but may actually in many cases be something of a liability.
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That is, per the class ability, up to the GM. Oh look, GM says clerics can't do that. Done.I think you've wandered off-track a bit. Most of the point of the thread is to ask why the said GM would event WANT to say that, solely to prevent a specific player from playing certain classes in the Core rules. I can think of three reasons why a person might want to do that:
We can also ask 'Why is everything the player wants on the table, but things the GM doesn't want are off the table and the GM must adjust?'. Why is the first more important than the second? Why must a GM running in Golarion required to allow Forgeborn? Why must a GM running a campaign in a highly civilized environment required to allow Barbarians? Why is it that a GM must stoop to allow things, but he's not allowed to restrict things? I think these are valid questions.
1. If the said combination would be disruptive. In that case, simply asking the player "Hey, Steve, I notice you're so good with clerics [or whatever] that you have a tendency to upstage the fighter and wizard... can you either tone it down a lot or else play something else?" is totally reasonable. Inventing "setting purity" reasons isn't needed.
Why is it that it's about one player again? Any restriction is about setting a restriction on a player? Those are wrong. Setting based restrictions are not about a single player, or shouldn't be. We don't ban Clerics from Golarion because Steve is good at clerics. And how is limiting clerics to 80% of the world but not the last 20% 'banning them from the world'?
2. The DM simply hate clerics, or druids, or whatever. In that case, being honest is, again, probably better than inventing "setting reasons."
Except, that clerics and druids aren't banned. THey are only banned on one specific continent because the magic of the world doesn't work there for them. Nobody screams and rants that it's wrong that a heavily anti-magic zone exists (Alkenstar), yet if magic is different and doesn't work right for one class over another, that is the GM 'hating' rather than just having an interesting world? I find that really rather selfish on the part of people who espouse that. Their desires are more important than the setting and the story. If that's the case, that's fine, they can run a game instead. If you are agreeing to run a character in a game world the GM has, then you are agreeing to the rules he lays out for that world. It's no different than me agreeing to a D&D game and then wanting to play a street samurai troll from Shadowrun. Would you allow this street samurai troll in your games Kirth? Or would you say 'The setting does not have street samurai trolls or cybernetics'?
3. The said DM actually can't wrap his/her mind around allowing them in the setting. In that case, some might suggest that the DM's rigidness of mind and inability to think outside of a very narrow box isn't something to brag about, but may actually in many cases be something of a liability.
Again, not seeing how having different magical rules for different parts of the same world is 'banning things from the world' or that the DM is 'too rigid and too stupid to figure out the rules' which is what you're saying. I love the strawmen, a setting has some areas that have magic that work like the core rules, another area (very seperate) has no magic at all, and a final area where magic works, but so differently that some classes simply don't function there. Hmmm, yep, that sounds very rigid and very in the box and nobody could possibly think that's creative.
Apparently I'm not grasping your point then. If your stance is actually what you're claiming, then why can't druid from continent X be a PC on continent Y? On the other hand, saying "All PCs are on continent Y and will stay on continent Y and no one can be a druid on continent Y" is basically just a lot of fancy-talk for "No PCs druids, but I want the freedom to add them in as NPCs" (and, if that's the case, it's again preferrable to be up-front about it).
Also, I'd note that "banning druids and clerics as PCs" is a very far cry from "banning exceeding-party-CR PCs who have 10x allowable WBL."
That is, per the class ability, up to the GM. Oh look, GM says clerics can't do that (to further differentiate them from Oracles) because the gods say 'If you are a cleric, you must worship us'. Done.Kirth made the salient point here. It's not that the GM "can't" say that Clerics depend on a deity, or that Druids depend on a deity, or that Rangers depend on a deity or any other divine caster. The GM can spin whatever setting they want, if they can get player buy-in. In most settings, players would probably find that unobjectionable flavor. Heck, the GM "could" say that in their setting, Barbarian Rage had a divine component.
Yep, nice to hear that. So far in the thread, there's a heavy leaning of 'any flavor that interferes with me playing whatever I want is evil bad D**K GM maneuvers'.
But its when you combine, for example, houseruling the Druid class to make them dependent on a particular deity AND removing all deities from play that just comes across as a passive-agressive way of banning/nerfing Druids while hiding behind the "demands" of the storyline.
Since I at no point advocated or said I did anything like that, I will assume it is a purely rhetorical example, and agree with you. Or at least, agree that it's unlikely many will play druids unless the god happens to be one they'd like anyway.
That, to me, feels like a pretty far cry from compromise, when there are obvious methods provided right in the CRB itself to harmonize "the story-plot-situation with respect to the gods" and "the player's desire to play the class they want" such that they both work and are feasible, without any nerfs required.
And yet, despite the great start, we go back to 'Alter the world to accomodate the player'. Or at least, a heavy leaning toward that. I do a lot to work with players to get them the character they want. But I draw the line at putting humans in the city who's entire history is about the fall of humans and elves and what took their place as that is, you know, the whole freaking point of that city.
By the same token, the entire continent has no gods because the gods have abandoned it. To say there must be allowed clerics (which in the campaign world only get power from deities) on it is sort of like saying someone must be a cleric in Dragonlance during the period when all the clerics were gone.
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I'm still confused. Why spend so much effort developing settings that the players don't want to play in? Remember, we're all agreeing that if all but one of the players is on board with your restrictions, the lone player out is a jerk. The only case worth discussing is when the majority of the players disagree with your restrictions, and that's why the sum of the players' votes would count for more than the lone DM's idiosyncratic preference.
Apparently I'm not grasping your point then. If your stance is actually what you're claiming, then why can't druid from continent X be a PC on continent Y?
Also, I'd note that "banning druids and clerics as PCs" is a very far cry from "banning exceeding-party-CR PCs who have 10x allowable WBL."
If the campaign is foreigners visiting Continent X, then that's fine. If the campaign is starting out as the local heroes in the village of Fun'tan who have lived in the area all their lives then no there is no cleric there.
And yes, requiring people to have characters built within the rules is different, but that's not what you said earlier. 10x WBL is not within the rules, you were talking about Steve who makes Clerics way better than anyone else does and not allowing them because he's in the game.
I'm still confused. Why spend so much effort developing settings that the players don't want to play in? Remember, we're all agreeing that if all but one of the players is on board with your restrictions, the lone player out is a jerk. The only case worth discussing is when the majority of the players disagree with your restrictions, and that's why the sum of the players' votes would count for more than the lone DM's idiosyncratic preference.
Oddly enough, I've never had anyone say they didn't like the setting. Please forward me the list of people who have complained to you about my setting. I'd be interested.
And yes, requiring people to have characters built within the rules is different, but that's not what you said earlier. 10x WBL is not within the rules, you were talking about Steve who makes Clerics way better than anyone else does and not allowing them because he's in the game.
You were the one who brought up "why does the DM have to allow cybernetics in his Golarion game!?" Cybernetics, to me, imply WBL far above 1st level PC starting cash.
Oddly enough, I've never had anyone say they didn't like the setting.
Then why are they compaining about your class restrictions? Or, if no one is, then what the hell are you arguing, insofar as we've all repeatedly said over and over and over that restrictions everyone agrees on are fine.
Please forward me the list of people who have complained to you about my setting. I'd be interested.
See above. If they don't exist, you're arguing with yourself.
And yes, requiring people to have characters built within the rules is different, but that's not what you said earlier. 10x WBL is not within the rules, you were talking about Steve who makes Clerics way better than anyone else does and not allowing them because he's in the game.You were the one who brought up "why does the DM have to allow cybernetics in his Golarion game!?" Cybernetics, to me, imply WBL far above 1st level PC starting cash.
So, you'd be perfectly fine with a cybernetic troll in your campaign as long as his cybernetics cost less than wbl? Well, if I'm making an 8th level character, you'll need to accomodate me by putting in prices for cybernetics in your world. You'll also need to make them reasonable, otherwise you're banning my concept by making it too expensive to do within the rules.
If you don't, you're basically making it so druids can only be of one god, who's evil, and no evil characters or god worshippers are allowed in your game, without actually banning druids (or in this case, Cybernetic Street Samurai).
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Oddly enough, I've never had anyone say they didn't like the setting.Then why are they compaining about your class restrictions? Or, if no one is, then what the hell are you arguing, insofar as we've all repeatedly said over and over and over that restrictions everyone agrees on are fine.
Please forward me the list of people who have complained to you about my setting. I'd be interested.See above. If they don't exist, you're arguing with yourself.
I never said anyone complained about it. I specifically said, several times, that nobody had.
The original post was a Hypothetical (stated in that post) asking what people would consider each of the situations and arguments.
I can't help it if you didn't read that. However, even if one person didn't like the restriction, that doesn't make it invalid. It means either they live with it, or we play something else, but agreeing to it and then b$~*~ing and demanding something that violates the setting is, to me, childish.
I'm amazed at how many people in this thread are childish and demand that anything they want, regardless of what the setting has must be accomodated.
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So, you'd be perfectly fine with a cybernetic troll in your campaign as long as his cybernetics cost less than wbl?
AND you're within the troll's LA for being a PC. Don't forget that part.
Well, if I'm making an 8th level character, you'll need to accomodate me by putting in prices for cybernetics in your world. You'll also need to make them reasonable, otherwise you're banning my concept by making it too expensive to do within the rules.
So we've gone from "exotic races should be allowed" to "PCs can set prices for all items." Drawing ONE line in a different place than you =/= erasing all lines everywhere.
I never said anyone complained about it. I specifically said, several times, that nobody had.
Then you're arguing with yourself. The ONLY time this DM attitude is an issue is when the majority of the players disagree with it.
The original post was a Hypothetical (stated in that post) asking what people would consider each of the situations and arguments.
Hypothetically, if you want to DM a game, the setting should be one that fits what the players as a group want to play. Otherwise they tend to leave.
However, even if one person didn't like the restriction, that doesn't make it invalid. It means either they live with it, or we play something else, but agreeing to it and then b&@~~ing and demanding something that violates the setting is, to me, childish.
If one person doesn't like it, then we're all in agreement. You're back to arguing with yourself.
I'm amazed at how many people in this thread are childish and demand that anything they want, regardless of what the setting has must be accomodated.
A total of one person has said anything like that. Everyone else is saying that the setting should probably accommodate what the players as a group want to play.
So, you'd be perfectly fine with a cybernetic troll in your campaign as long as his cybernetics cost less than wbl?AND you're within the troll's LA for being a PC. Don't forget that part.
Well, if I'm making an 8th level character, you'll need to accomodate me by putting in prices for cybernetics in your world. You'll also need to make them reasonable, otherwise you're banning my concept by making it too expensive to do within the rules.So we've gone from "exotic races should be allowed" to "PCs can set prices for all items." Drawing ONE line in a different place than you =/= erasing all lines everywhere.
I'm only quoting a comment from earlier, if you say only druids who worship one god are allowed, then don't allow that god, then you're really banning druids without banning them.
Just curious what the difference is between saying Cybernetic Street Samurai Trolls are allowed, but the cybernetics are so expensive no character can afford them. Seems like Cybernetic Street Samurai Trolls are banned in your games. It just seems like a mighty fine line to split to stay on a pedestal.
Just curious what the difference is between saying Cybernetic Street Samurai Trolls are allowed, but the cybernetics are so expensive no character can afford them. Seems like Cybernetic Street Samurai Trolls are banned in your games. It just seems like a mighty fine line to split to stay on a pedestal.
You're still talking about staying within the rules, vs. not. If the DM prices a belt of strength +2 at 1,000,000 gp, then that's essentially denying their use, yes. So if I were to intentionally price cybernetics that way, I'd be wrong to do so. But if I were to price them as, say, the same as equivalent Core rules magic items, I don't see the problem.
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FAQ
1. Q: "Why should I allow one person to always get their way (preferred race or whatever) when everyone else is against it?"
A: "You shouldn't. ONLY if the majority of the players disagree with a restriction should the DM reconsider it."
2. Q: "If you allow a 1st level kitsune sorcerer for one player, you must also allow another player to have a half-troll balor with several artifacts at 1st level, right?"
A: "No; issues of LA and WBL are different from simple issues of race, and need to be dealt with as such."
3. Q: "What if I'm not the one banning it, the setting is?"
A: "The DM and players presumably need to agree on the setting for there to even be a game, so see #1, above."
These are to save myself time in the future, so I can anwser these FAQs by citing the number. Other questions I'll be happy to address in full.
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I sort of disagree and agree at the same time with some of these points. For me, the game can/should accommodate what the players are interested in playing. That said, the setting itself may not always accommodate these wishes, and that is totally OK!
In mdt's settings, he has shown three different continents that can accommodate a wide assortment of races and play styles, but they do not all accommodate the same thing, and that is totally OK too.
Saying 'no' isn't a bad thing or even an undesired one, and despite the fact that we keep saying that one person (player or GM) stomping their foot and wanting their way all the time is a jerk, in practice I'm seeing a lot less forgiveness for settings and GMs. Here and there posts have been made that the GM should move to make it so a player's idea can be played .. which, ok, sure sometimes. But othertimes I have no problem with a GM saying "Sorry, that's a great idea Player 1, but it'll have to be in another setting or game, there are no guns/katanas/tengu/pixies/whatever in this particular game." And that is totally OK too.
At that point, people can have a (hopefully) civilized conversation about what they want to do about all this.
Anything can be shoehorned into a game if you try hard enough. The question, at least for me, is will it be fun for everyone involved and not cause more headaches than the fun is worth. This applies to a post upthread where someone claimed that you should allow in anything from any product or book as long as it looked sort of OK. That doesn't really work for me; not every race/class/item/whatever is balanced for every game or playstyle or group.
in practice I'm seeing a lot less forgiveness for settings and GMs. Here and there posts have been made that the GM should move to make it so a player's idea can be played ..
FAQ #1 and #3.
in practice I'm seeing a lot less forgiveness for settings and GMs. Here and there posts have been made that the GM should move to make it so a player's idea can be played ..FAQ #1 and #3.
Ha!
Again, yes and no. If it were that cut and dried, I don't think we'd have had 20+ posts trying to determine why you cannot play a cleric on X continent. I guess my point of contention is, looking at some of the arguments against mdt's hypothetical setting, that there were fewer "Hey cool, let's play here" and more "but WHY can't I play X in Y!? You Suck!"
Just seems that people are more willing to look for fringe cases and why can't we play something to be a "fish out of water" than trying to work within the framework. Which may be the jerk player syndrome coming out, or just people being naturally contrary.
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mdt. Please calm yourself. Kirth. Please ease off for a moment.
Dang it, guys, I really thought this thread was finished. Sigh.
mdt, up until this most recent argument about the details of your home setting, I've been pretty solidly on your side. But you're being overly reactionary and not listening to some of the arguments made.
(Similarly, Kirth, you're arguing on the wrong track, here, and are being aggressive when you don't need to be.)
The difference between cybernetics and druids is that druids already exist in the game, as a written concept, have particular rules, and you're changing them to arbitrate them out. This is not inherently a bad thing, but it is an arbitration, and a dissonant one due to the fact that you allow oracles, which are also divine spellcasters; cybernetics, on the other hand, don't exist in the game. You're not "banning" them, you're simply not creating them.
These are a very, very different things.
The question that arises is "Why did you house rule," (aka "change from the base rules) "a class so that it was restricted, when another class that has the same core element," (divine spells), "is not equally house-ruled?"
This isn't a question of, "Why do the gods abandon the place?" which is a valid story question and a good hook, but rather becomes a piece of metagame dissonance. That is the issue many are taking with it. The dissonance behind the current rules and your changing of them to ban certain classes but not others for a story, when, at the current time, those rules don't really seem to gel together to tell the story you're trying to.
It's your setting. Do what you like. But I'm letting you know I'm reasonably sure that's the disconnect.
You mentioned that the kitsune wouldn't be able to hide forever before. I let that go, though I'm curious, as a fellow GM, if true seeing often comes into play in your games. Unless there's a given reason in ours (including paranoid or suspicious creatures), it really doesn't. So, to me, your answer is odd. I accept it, because I presume you work under the assumption that it does.
The other question is... if someone does discover it... so what? Why would that make a big splash? I'm not saying it wouldn't, and you've given some answers of how things would happen, but really it doesn't have to unless you want it to.
As I said above... no one is really being a jerk. They're being inflexible in different ways (the kitsune being the least flexible, but that's the one most easily accommodated), but not jerks.
To be clear, mdt is not banning anything in specific from his world, but rather from certain continents. Thus, his world holds all sorts of possibilities for players.
To be clear, when you ban certain things from entire continents, and you make it exceedingly difficult for players to get from continent to continent, it can feel like you are, in fact, banning them from the "world"... at least the entire world that matters to a player playing within it.
Both of these are reasonable reactions and thought processes. Don't get bogged down in terminology differences.
EDIT: so I was ninja'd while writing this by Kirth among others. Just letting you guys know when this was written.
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I have never met a player that wanted to play a character in one of my games of a race that was not already explicitly included.
At least, in RL tabletop. Online I have run into so many thousands of nutcases that I couldn't possibly say that's true.
One guy even insisted on playing a character that was exempt from the setting's 'no magic, hard SF only' rule by having magic that could bridge dimensions between magic worlds and hard SF worlds.
He wasn't joking.
Ancient Human
Type: humanoid (human)
+2 Strength, -2 Dexterity, +2 to another ability score of your choice.
Large size
Breath weapon 1/day, 30 ft. cone dealing 1d6 fire damage per two hit dice (minimum 1d6); reflex save DC equals 10 + 1/2 HD + Con modifier.Starts with 1 level of humanoid, one feat and appropriate skill ranks for its humanoid hit die.
Ancient Human feats:
More Fire!
You may now use your breath weapon a number of times per day equal to your constitution modifier (minimum 1).Bigger Fire!
Your breath weapon becomes a 60 ft. cone.
You just made this whole thread worth it. XD
I have never met a player that wanted to play a character in one of my games of a race that was not already explicitly included.
At least, in RL tabletop. Online I have run into so many thousands of nutcases that I couldn't possibly say that's true.
One guy even insisted on playing a character that was exempt from the setting's 'no magic, hard SF only' rule by having magic that could bridge dimensions between magic worlds and hard SF worlds.
He wasn't joking.
This. So, so, so much this. Face to face gaming I have very rarely met someone who was just adamant about a concept and wouldn't let it go. I can think of maybe three instances in 35 years. Online? At least once a day, one of the many reasons I had to get away from some of those games.
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Maybe I'm misunderstanding, then. If you didn't houserule in a requirement for Druids to have a specific deity give them their powers, and your Druids can get their powers straight from Nature itself like they do in the CRB, then why would they be unable to do exactly that on the continent where the forces of the gods aren't in play?Since I at no point advocated or said I did anything like that, I will assume it is a purely rhetorical example, and agree with you. Or at least, agree that it's unlikely many will play druids unless the god happens to be one they'd like anyway.
But its when you combine, for example, houseruling the Druid class to make them dependent on a particular deity AND removing all deities from play that just comes across as a passive-agressive way of banning/nerfing Druids while hiding behind the "demands" of the storyline.
Extremism I see. I didn't say, 'you can only have one druid god'. I said 'Druids get their powers from their deity' in this setting. Not 'from that god', but from 'their' god. There are several deities that can be a druid's god in the setting, about a third of the 27 gods and demigods.
There is a point between 'no god' and 'only one god'. You skipped right past it.
We can also ask 'Why is everything the player wants on the table, but things the GM doesn't want are off the table and the GM must adjust?'. Why is the first more important than the second?It's not that the things the DM doesn't want are completely off the table; they're open to negotiation like everything else. If they're enjoyed by the other players, cool.
Still, to your point, I think part of the reason the "active" desires are percieved as tending to be more important is because "wanting to be able to do something" and "wanting everyone else not to be able to do something" are things we treat differently in our perceptions.
I actively want to run a game in this setting. That is an active desire. If nobody wants to play in that setting, that's cool, we'll do something else. But if you want to play in the setting (or if you are not wanting to GM) then you're asking me to either GM in that setting, or GM and not play and to GM the setting I want to GM. Either is cool, you can run, you can play in something I'm willing to GM, or we can play board games. But dictating that I run exactly what you want is hypocritical.
More stuff about the Gm being second tier, and the player being first tier.
So, we're back to the GM being the second tier, and his preferences are secondary to everyone elses. That's fine, but then someone else can GM. I am perfectly fine with running, or playing. I prefer playing. But I GM because not everyone enjoys it, and I enjoy it. But I don't enjoy being told how to GM. I try to work with people, but I'm not a slave, I'm not here to be your GM slave and run things the way you want them run. Either we work together, or we don't, but it's a two way street and my desires as GM are equally important to the players. I shouldn't be a jerk, and the player shouldn't be a jerk.
Saying that the GM is secondary is basically saying that the GM is less important. If you think that, that's fine, you be the GM and I'll tell you what to run and how to run it.
You mentioned that the kitsune wouldn't be able to hide forever before. I let that go, though I'm curious, as a fellow GM, if true seeing often comes into play in your games. Unless there's a given reason in ours (including paranoid or suspicious creatures), it really doesn't. So, to me, your answer is odd. I accept it, because I presume you work under the assumption that it does.
The other question is... if someone does discover it... so what? Why would that make a big splash? I'm not saying it wouldn't, and you've given some answers of how things would happen, but really it doesn't have to unless you want it to.
After a certain level, true sight becomes common (8th or late levels). And I would assume that the PCs are good guys yes? Thwarting Evil? And that Evil has access to such things as scry and true sight? Then yes, the evil would figure it out. What better way to thwart the good guys than to reveal that Sir Hexen, the virtuous Knight has been lying to the good folk of the LN kingdom about being human for the last 6 years? Add in a little tale of how they are a plant from a foreign land, and a land that distrusts foreigners is going to not like Sir Hexen anymore.
Most people, in my experience, don't like being lied to, even through lies of omission. Actively hiding that you are a foreign born person and pretending to be human would be extremely suspicious, wouldn't it? Especially with a big fat lie to go with it about you really being a bad guy? Why should people believe you? You've been lying for years about what and who you are.
The gm isn't a public utility.
This. So, so, so much this. Face to face gaming I have very rarely met someone who was just adamant about a concept and wouldn't let it go. I can think of maybe three instances in 35 years. Online? At least once a day, one of the many reasons I had to get away from some of those games.I have never met a player that wanted to play a character in one of my games of a race that was not already explicitly included.
At least, in RL tabletop. Online I have run into so many thousands of nutcases that I couldn't possibly say that's true.
One guy even insisted on playing a character that was exempt from the setting's 'no magic, hard SF only' rule by having magic that could bridge dimensions between magic worlds and hard SF worlds.
He wasn't joking.
I had it happen once. I was running a Champions game set in 1982, super powers just awakening. Someone insisted on running a gadgeteer battle suit guy. I told him about 20 times that due to the technology in 1982 it would be an extremely difficult character to play. Hard to get into his suit, hard to use it, a giant clunky thing almost steampunkish, and he agreed to it.
Then the game blew up when he threw a fit because he was never in his suit when fights started (he never wanted to wait in the truck with it, or take the 5 minutes to get into it and power it up) and that it couldn't fly or anything else cool like Iron Man.
Sheesh.
Just out of curiosity, if you're a player and you feel it's your right to play anything you want, regardless of group consensus, please post in the affirmative. I'm anxious to see if there are any at all who are willing to admit it, so that hopefully we can either establish the fact of their existence or else stop agruing about them as if they matter.
Second, please reply in the affirmative if you as a DM, take this stance: "My setting is what I want to run, and that takes priority over what the players want to run, because I do more work than they do. Therefore, I am under no obligation to, and will not, change my setting or any detail in it, for any player or group of players." I want to know once and for all who actually takes that as a stance, vs. who might sometimes be sympathetic to parts of it in theory.
So yeah, to be more clear, it's that to add a houserule that the Druid class needs an actual, particular deific entity backing them (even if that entity can be different for each Druid) in a campaign taking place on a continent where the gods aren't in play, strikes me as needlessly un-fun.
So, you should not vote to play on that continent should you? Nor should you play in a game I run if you don't want to play in a world where that continent exists. And that is perfectly fine. If you find it unfun, don't play. Run the game instead, put in whatever rules you want, in whatever setting you want. But have the decency to allow players to demand to play any character in any setting, since you wish to enforce this on the person GMing when you play. Remember that, if you insist on every option being available on the table when you play, you should GM and have no restrictions either. Otherwise, you are the unfun one. And if you don't GM, you really do have very little in the way of a leg to stand on. Because you are criticizing the way people GM, without ever having been in their shoes.
As long as you will do that, then that's fine. You can play and run however you want. Others who disagree with you are not doing it wrong however.
So, we're back to the GM being the second tier, and his preferences are secondary to everyone elses.No, that's... not at all what I said. I said that the assumption is generally that the GM doesn't specifically want you to not play your class, but rather that the class not being available is in most cases a secondary side effect of how he wants his campaign to be like. Thus, if there's a way that you can find to make the class work, to reconcile it to the important details without compromising the parts the GM is himself particularly geeked about, then everyone can get what they most want.
But that is what you said. You said it's a second tier when it comes to the GM. Did you not? It's often telling how people describe it. You described it as the GMing being under the assumption to allow everything. But that's a bad assumption, when you assume, you make an Ass of U and Me. Please don't do that, I don't like being made into one.
But to the extent that the GM takes the hard line out of the gate, that the setting itself absolutely will not change, that it's inviolate in all respects even in small details, just by virtue of being THE SETTING, then the chances for that kind of happy compromise being able to happen are correspondingly reduced. I personally think that's a... less than optimal approach in terms of generating table fun, and not something I would suggest to any GM.
So, no setting should ever be fixed enough to have any limitations, since all settings must have flexibility enough to handle all conceivable character concepts?
Why is it you get to decide what is a 'small detail'? How is having an entire continent where magic doesn't work the way it does elsewhere a 'small detail' and what makes it a small detail that can be deleted from the setting? What makes it a 'small detail' that there are 27 gods, no more, no fewere, exactly 27? So another god can just be put in, despite there being a specific setting reason for their being exactly those 27? In exactly that configuration? It's just a 'small detail' though.
That's the problem, and I doubt you've GM'd, or you would realize some of these things. Very often there are things behind the scenes that are necessary for a story, and what seems like a 'small detail' to a player is actually a big detail. But the GM can't come out and say 'Hey, it's important that this world have exactly 27 gods and only 27 gods, and the specific ones with their specific alignments and portfolios because when you hit level 12 we're going to have a major story arc where you all end up investigating and finding out how the gods came to be, and why they are like they are'. But changing out that one CE demigod for a LN demigod is only a 'little detail'. The fact it throws the alignments out of balance and creates more neutral and lawful gods than their are any other type is just a 'little detail'.
*sigh*
I'll say it again, if you want to play in a completely fluid world, where nothing is set in stone, and there's no overarching theme or coherence, then that is perfectly fine. Not everyone likes playing like that, and insisting that people that do like theme and coherence and a fixed setting sandbox are having wrong bad unfun is hypocritical.
I prefer to play and run in worlds that have structure, not giant rube goldberg machines that have half-fiend mutant ninja turtles one week and human clerics of Victor Von Doom the next.
If people don't want to play in my structured game world, then that's fine, we'll play something else, or hey can run something else. My only concern is, if they don't want to play in my world because of the limits, then they shouldn't have limits either.
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Second, please reply in the affirmative if you as a DM, take this stance: "My setting is what I want to run, and that takes priority over what the players want to run, because I do more work than they do. Therefore, I am under no obligation to, and will not, change my setting or any detail in it, for any player or group of players." I want to know once and for all who actually takes that as a stance, vs. who might sometimes be sympathetic to parts of it in theory.
I have a homebrew world. I run games in it. I will work with you as much as I can to accommodate your desires for a character, but there are certain immutables that don't change, because while they may seem minor to you, I have a web of interlocking metaphysics behind the scenes in it's history that a lot of plots revolve around, and those things don't change. There will never be a cleric from Ren'Shan. There will never be a Samurai from the Deserts of Bastra. There will never be a Barbarian born and Raised in Korsiva, the City of Paladins.
I have 3 continents we can have stories on, and I can do any one of a dozen types of stories, from starting at 1st level to starting at 15th level. The higher we start, the more options are open to start with (starting a 5th level campaign that starts out in the Port of Itakka is vastly different from the campaign that starts out at 3rd level in the Landlocked Last Bastion of Good in a Land Of Evil Kitane where no humans or elves or dwarves etc live which is different from a campaign starting at 1st level in the City of Bastra, Run by Her Bustyness the Bastardess Vanellah). If you can't be happy with any of those, then you are welcome to run something yourself. Or we can play board games. But My Enjoyment of GMing is to paint a story and Tell a Tale with you in a setting I know intimately. If you want a game set in Eberron, or Dragonlance, then that's just fine. I'm not running it though. I simply don't know the setting well enough to run in it. And if I did, I wouldn't import Warforged from Eberron into Dragonlance. If you want Warforged in Dragonlance, then run that game. I'll try to play in it, and if it's not fun, I'll bow out. No harm, no foul. But if you can't find something you enjoy in those thousands of options I listed earlier, I don't think it's me being the unreasonable one.
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Just out of curiosity, if you're a player and you feel it's your right to play anything you want, regardless of group consensus, please post in the affirmative. I'm anxious to see if there are any at all who are willing to admit it, so that hopefully we can either establish the fact of their existence or else stop agruing about them as if they matter.
Second, please reply in the affirmative if you as a DM, take this stance: "My setting is what I want to run, and that takes priority over what the players want to run, because I do more work than they do. Therefore, I am under no obligation to, and will not, change my setting or any detail in it, for any player or group of players." I want to know once and for all who actually takes that as a stance, vs. who might sometimes be sympathetic to parts of it in theory.
Much like mdt, I have several homebrew worlds/settings that I use that have certain immutable facets. On one, gunpowder does not function, at all. No, you cannot have a gun, no you cannot invent gunpowder, yes I understand that you could have come through a Gate and blah blah, but it doesn't function. You may want to choose something else.
My settings are what I want to run, because they are what I am familiar with and have spent time on. For the most part, those who I play with want me to run them because they are what I am familiar with and what I have spent time on. No, I don't feel an obligation to re-write the setting or large details of it to shoehorn in something given the myriad of options available. If the hankering for something outside the scope of the setting is so strong that the majority of the players demand a one off or short series of games on Generic World: World of Ultimate Options, I am flexible enough to run something in the city of Whereever, but no, I don't feel any urge to redo the existing settings for things well outside the scope in the player treatment.
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because while they may seem minor to you, I have a web of interlocking metaphysics behind the scenes in it's history that a lot of plots revolve around, and those things don't change.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for consistent metaphysics. But given that everyone's imaginary world is just that -- imaginary -- the metaphysics don't have to follow monolithic and immutable natural laws. The "metaphysics" are as you decide, and they can "interlock" any way you declare, into any "web" you care to imagine.
This can be done to add internal consistency, richness, and immersiveness to a setting, no argument, and for a good DM, that's exactly what it's used for. I'd go so far as to argue that's pretty often a hallmark of a good game. But unfortunately that's not all it can be used for.
It can also become a kind of solipsism, and is especially seductive in that role. When a DM succombs to that temptation, at its most essential level, the metaphysical setting constraints begin to simply translate to "because I said so." Anything you don't like can easily be claimed to be a part of this supposedly essential "web of interlocking metaphysics." This imaginary "web" can eventually become a self-reinforcing cop-out for a lazy DM to avoid having the troublesome experience of actually having to face up to a shared world, instead of a sole-proprietorship one. In the absolute worst case, "web of metaphysics" can be shorthand for "my preferences trump everyone else's."
I'm not saying the second use is true in anyone's particular case. On the contrary, I'm inclined to think that mdt, for example, is cleaving hard to the first, better, use. But I think it would be more than just "nice" -- but almost imperative -- to be able to distinguish when DM has crossed the line there -- myself included. In my personal experience, I find that willingness to meet a player halfway is a very, very clear signal that you're still pretty far on the "good" side of the use of your setting metaphysics. On the flip side, I find that DMs who peremptorily reject very plausable reasons for inclusion are most often doing so because they've slipped into the second use.
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The problem Kirth, is that people assume it's the second, and then flame anyone from their high horse.
Not saying that's what you're doing in your last post, just saying it's what the majority of people do in this thread.
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I doubt you've GM'd
That's a poor argument to try to make, that experience running a game would drive one towards your view. I have DMing experience and I thought claymade was making rather good points. There is an easy fix to have druids on a godless continent: druids, as written in the CRB, don't need to get their powers from a deity. If your desire as DM is a godless continent, then this easy fix lets everyone have what they want. If your desire was a campaign without druids, then I agree with the assertion that you should directly ban druids, rather than obfuscating that ban through the setting.
If there is an easy way to tweak a detail of the setting to allow a player their character while respecting what you as DM regard as important details, then I think you are a bad DM if you refuse. (I didn't say "refuse to compromise", because you aren't giving anything up by tweaking an unimportant detail.) I think this is bad DMing regardless of what the player concensus is. If all players but one are perfectly happy playing a druid-free game, you are still a bad DM if you refuse to let an unimportant detail be tweaked.
As a kind of corollary to this, all else being equal, the setting which allows everyone to play what they want is better than the nonflexible setting. I'll use an example from earlier. Say you want to run a campaign centering around a vanished gnome civilization. Saying all gnomes ever in the setting were part of this civilization (hence no one may play a gnome) is less preferable to this saying civilization is one of multiple places gnomes are from.
The problem Kirth, is that people assume it's the second, and then flame anyone from their high horse.
I think there's a lot of truth to what you're saying. Which is why we need a meter stick -- I'd like some way of proving false allegations to be false.
The only one I've ever come up with that's been of any use is the "will-you-meet-the-player-halfway" rule. Yes, you get a few false positives that way, when an otherwise reasonable DM just happens to be having a lousy day or whatever. But, overall, in my experience, I've found that it's a suprisingly useful quick assessment.
When the player sits down and says, "I'd like to play a ninja," the good DM will say, "Well, there are no assassin organizations in the setting that wear black pajamas and throw smoke bombs as a signature, so we're not going to be playing Sho Kusugi all the time. But that doesn't mean the class can't possibly be used. Tell me how you see your ninja fitting in." Then the onus is on the player to come up with a good explanation.
On the other hand, the DM who replies, "Ninjas cannot exist in my setting," and supplies as "evidence" some BS about how only monks have ki because the Goddess of The Letter K has arbitrarily denied it to all other classes? 99% of the time that's a sure sign of a DM who has fallen hard for that second use.
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I don't disagree Viv, but I think Kirth's point is that unimportant detail can be surprising subjective. Hell, given how emotionally invested a GM is in their setting, it can vary week by week.
Edit: Ninja'd (HAH!) by Kirth.
I doubt you've GM'dThat's a poor argument to try to make, that experience running a game would drive one towards your view. I have DMing experience and I thought claymade was making rather good points. There is an easy fix to have druids on a godless continent: druids, as written in the CRB, don't need to get their powers from a deity. If your desire as DM is a godless continent, then this easy fix lets everyone have what they want. If your desire was a campaign without druids, then I agree with the assertion that you should directly ban druids, rather than obfuscating that ban through the setting.
So, you maintain that a BAD GM is anyone who doesn't change anything at all to accomodate anything at all the player wants.
If there is an easy way to tweak a detail of the setting to allow a player their character while respecting what you as DM regard as important details, then I think you are a bad DM if you refuse. (I didn't say "refuse to compromise", because you aren't giving anything up by tweaking an unimportant detail.) I think this is bad DMing regardless of what the player concensus is. If all players but one are perfectly happy playing a druid-free game, you are still a bad DM if you refuse to let an unimportant detail be tweaked.
Yep, that appears to be your assertion. May I ask what authority made you the judge of badwrongunfun? Basically, the GM must kow tow to any request, in any setting, because really, anything is 'a minor detail'. Why is everything a 'minor detail'? Because it is you who are making that distinction. I'm so glad you stopped in to explain to me why I am badwrong, and why my setting is 'trivial' in every aspect. It's amazing how you can make these distinctions without even playing in one of my games, or knowing anything about it. :)
As a kind of corollary to this, all else being equal, the setting which allows everyone to play what they want is better than the nonflexible setting. I'll use an example from earlier. Say you want to run a campaign centering around a vanished gnome civilization. Saying all gnomes ever in the setting were part of this civilization (hence no one may play a gnome) is less preferable to this saying civilization is one of multiple places gnomes are from.
So, again, don't play in the setting if it doesn't have your special snowflake. But don't complain if someone else doesn't want to run your special snowflake. I am a very flexible GM, and I try my best to accommodate things. But having someone dictate to me that I will do A, B, or C or I am a bad GM just tells me that I shouldn't GM for them.
I will give you one bit of advice, what is more or less preferable to you is not what is more or preferable to other people. So broad statements about what is or isn't preferable really do sound well... rather inflexible and hypocritical.
I guess that if a detail is important today but not next week, it probably wasn't very important at all to begin with.
BTW, has anyone read Monte Cook's article in Kobold Quarterly that directly addresses most of the issues brought up in this thread? I find that I often disagree with Monte when it comes to matters of game design, but when it comes to advice on actually running a game, I usually enjoy reading what he has to say.
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As a kind of corollary to this, all else being equal, the setting which allows everyone to play what they want is better than the nonflexible setting.
I have to respectfully disagree. Our most memorable games have been played under some restrictive settings. All divine classes, all monstrous races, all multiclass, or something else entirely. Maybe it was the challenge we enjoyed? Maybe we liked it because it would change from one setting to the next? At any rate, our group would discuss what restrictions we would play for our next campaign if any, then go with it. Sometimes I wouldn't like how a certain restriction worked out. We would discuss afterwards. Talk about what we liked and didn't, then brainstorm the next concept.
Having wide open, choose anything in print, is fine, but restrictions need not reduce the fun that we have as a group.
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When the player sits down and says, "I'd like to play a ninja," the good DM will say, "Well, there are no assassin organizations in the setting that wear black pajamas and throw smoke bombs as a signature, so we're not going to be playing Sho Kusugi all the time. But that doesn't mean the class can't possibly be used. Tell me how you see your ninja fitting in." Then the onus is on the player to come up with a good explanation.
"What is the reason you want to play a Ninja? Is it the Fluff, or the Crunch, or just the Flavor?"
Fluff : Well, that's an issue then, there really isn't any black pajama wearing, smoke bomb throwing groups in the world. The best I can do for you is a group of trained assassins in the Assassins Guild. They are second story guys, and mostly they are Rogues. We might be able to do what you're looking for with Rogue, since they don't really do the 'mystic' ki thing. There's a couple of Rogue archetypes that I think work really well. Think the assassins from Discworld, Lord Vetinary for example. They don't use exotic weapons.
Crunch : Well, we might be able to reflavor it as a variety of Monk, given the Ki usage. They wouldn't be running around throwing bombs and wearing black pajama's, but if you're ok with a massive fluff change, we might be able to work something out. They'd be more along the lines of mystics, lawful, who specialize in rooting out evil. They'd use monk weapons, but not exotic eastern weapons. That work for you?
Flavor : Ok, that might be doable. But you'll need to give me your version of flavor, since there's a lot of different flavors of Ninja, from Zatochi assassins to Naruto 'hidden leaf' good ninjas.
Now, if the player responds : No, I want to play a black wearing ninja who uses a katana and wakizashi and he throws bombs and shuriken and uses ki powers to walk on water, now here's how I'm going to make him.
Then we're talking about a player who can't possibly be bothered to work with the GM.
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Yeah, I think we're on the same page now, mdt. I might be a little less proscriptive than you are, but ultimately we'd be following the exact same procedure, and probably coming to the same conclusions.
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Yeah, I think we're on the same page now, mdt. I might be a little less proscriptive than you are, but ultimately we'd be following the exact same procedure, and probably coming to the same conclusions.
I figured we probably were, TOZ was too enamoured of your GMing style for us to be that far apart. :)
If you can't tell yet, I tend to get on my own high horse when people try to go to extremes and then tell others that they are doing it wrong. Different people can have different styles, and that's fine. But I don't particularly like the idea of someone proclaiming 'the one true way'. :) It sticks in my craw. Too many religious people telling me that when I was young (and none of them agreeing on the 'one true way'). :)