You do realize that if the players had a problem with the campaign then they wouldn't have agreed to play it to start with. .
I entirely agree that I'd never have agreed to a whitelist campaign from the start unless I liked what was on the whitelist in the first place.
If what you're saying is that an unreasonable person will agree to the whitelist up front then change your mind then I'd say that's a valid perspective.
That statement is sort of the I win because I win argument... Circular logic... So I'm not sure what the point of it is other than to bring forth the idea that someone could agree to your campaign then change their mind, and that such a thing can be disruptive or troublesome... sure it could be. An understandable perspective to be sure.
I'll go a step further and say that, if someone hands me a sheet of paper with like 5 choices on it and says "you must pick one of these or you can't play," I'll most likely be choosing not to play. Of course, that person, having read these threads, would not have invited me in the first place, so maybe there is some value in these discussions after all!
I'll go a step further and say that, if someone hands me a sheet of paper with like 5 choices on it and says "you must pick one of these or you can't play," I'll most likely be choosing not to play. Of course, that person, having read these threads, would not have invited me in the first place, so maybe there is some value in these discussions after all!
Agreed
Kirth, what if the list had 10 choices? Or 20? Or 300, and included every single thing you ever thought of plus more?
So what if that is what Sissyl is saying?
A white list sounds exactly like a list of what you can play. If you have a white list then you don't need a black one. Not hard to understand.
Evidently it is, because you'll recall that Sissyl became quite miffed when I inadvertently mischaracterized her stance. I am therefore trying to make sure that I undertand it better. Seeing other people's viewpoints is something you also might try to do at least once in your life -- it might do you good.
Kirth, what if the list had 10 choices? Or 20? Or 300, and included every single thing you ever thought of plus more?
Moot point -- I don't imagine you would ever present me with such a list, nor do I see myself counting how many things you put on it. Discussions on the messageboards are fine, but our conversations have been such that I imagine you and I would prefer not to actually spend time in one another's company. I say that without animosity; some people just don't "click," and that's OK. And that's sort of the point here -- everyone is best off finding a group they're comfortable with, not trying to force things in ways that don't work.
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I'll go a step further and say that, if someone hands me a sheet of paper with like 5 choices on it and says "you must pick one of these or you can't play," I'll most likely be choosing not to play. Of course, that person, having read these threads, would not have invited me in the first place, so maybe there is some value in these discussions after all!
And that is perfectly fine to opt out of the game. Personally, I don't "need" to run a game. I'm not an RPG crack addict who needs a fix. If the group says no then the game is calmly put away for another day.
You don't have to be in all games and all games don't have to have you in them.
It's simple.
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Kirth, what if the list had 10 choices? Or 20? Or 300, and included every single thing you ever thought of plus more?Moot point -- I don't imagine you would ever present me with such a list, nor do I see myself counting how many things you put on it. Especially because your question seems rooted in snark rather than honesty. Discussions on the messageboards are fine, but our conversations have been such that I imagine you and I would prefer not to actually spend time in one another's company. I say that without animosity; some people just don't "click," and that's OK. And that's sort of the point here -- everyone is best off finding a group they're comfortable with, not trying to force things in ways that don't work.
Basically what you are saying is that unless you are free to play what ever you want, you won't be playing in that campaign. Correct?
You don't have to be in all games and all games don't have to have you in them.
Exactly right. These discussions, until they get nasty, are useful to me from the standpoint of allowing me to (a) have a feel for which board members I would/wouldn't enjoy playing with IRL, if we ever met; and (b) what "buzz words" or standard attitudes different people have in common, that might be used to quickly identify sympathetic/unsympathetic gaming styles in the future.
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Basically what you are saying is that unless you are free to play what ever you want, you won't be playing in that campaign. Correct?
Incorrect. This is what I mean by trying to understand other people's points of view.
What I am saying is that, when I encounter people who, right away, aggressively assert their need to impose limits, I recognize that I'm better off not sitting in their games, because past experience has shown that I do not enjoy spending time around people like that.
A person who says, "we can probably work X in if you really want to play it, but to be honest, Y or Z or Q would work better, if you wouldn't mind..." is going to be able to quickly get me to pick Y or Z or Q, because they approach me with a compromise, and I'd feel obligated to return the favor.
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Basically what you are saying is that unless you are free to play what ever you want, you won't be playing in that campaign. Correct?Incorrect. This is what I mean by trying to understand other people's points of view.
What I am saying is that, when I encounter people who, right way, aggressively assert their need to impose limits, I recognize that I'm better off not sitting in their games, because past experience has shown that I do not enjoy spending time around people like that.
I think you might be mistaken with regards to the aggression part. Being adamant about your restrictions is not being aggressive. Insisting you play what you want to play or the DM is bad is aggressive and a few posters here have done that.
I propose my games bluntly, like I would a business transaction.
I don't throw in a pretty please with a cherry on top. I lay it out there and that's it.
unless you are free to play what ever you want, you won't be playing in that campaign. Correct?
Contrariwise that's exactly what I'm saying.
In Mel's underwater campaign, our emails crossed in the server. I'd sent a character concept while she was sending a guidebook. She emailed, "This isn't in the guide, but we can work it in if we tweak A, B, and C," and I replied, "Wait! Option Q in the guide does a lot of that, why don't I stick with that and make things easier?" She issued no ultimatims; neither did I.
One dream, one soul,
one prize One goal,
one golden glance
of what should be
Its a kind of magic
The waiting seems eternity
The day will dawn of sanity
It's a kind of magic.
But if you'd read the guide first and saw the list of options would that have looked like an ultimatum?
Coming from her? No chance of that.
I've got one setting where for various background reasons the characters wouldn't know, elves at least don't make sense. The info for that game would say: No elves for world reasons. All other core races are around. Check with me for the non-core races and I'll see if I can fit them in on a case by case basis. Does that mark me as "agressively asserting my need to impose limits"?
Jeff, I would see a difference between "sorry guys, there's just one race I can't allow, because it's a big deal to to the story, but anything else can probably work," vs. "Here are 5 races I will let you play. No discussion. Anything else, and you know where the door is." Hopefully you can see a difference, too, despite this post from you.
Part of it's in the magnitude and invasiveness, and part is in the way it's presented.
I've got one setting where for various background reasons the characters wouldn't know, elves at least don't make sense. The info for that game would say: No elves for world reasons. All other core races are around. Check with me for the non-core races and I'll see if I can fit them in on a case by case basis. Does that mark me as "agressively asserting my need to impose limits"?Jeff, I would see a difference between "sorry guys, there's just one race I can't allow, because it's a big deal to to the story, but anything else can probably work," vs. "Here are 5 races I will let you play. No discussion. Anything else, and you know where the door is." Hopefully you can see a difference, too, despite this post from you.
Part of it's in the magnitude and invasiveness, and part is in the way it's presented.
Another repost from earlier in threads:
"I have three lists basically. Red light is 'this does not exist, cannot be here'. This list is small and targeted. Green light is 'this is easy, likely automatic approval'. Anything not on those two lists is 'yellow light' as in 'I'm disinclined to put it in or didn't specifically include it, but talk to me and if you can make it fit the setting well, I'll add it. But you will have to do some work to make that happen."
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Part of it's in the magnitude and invasiveness, and part is in the way it's presented.I do see the difference. And, as you allude to above, having played with the GM before makes a difference as well. Trust is earned.
Though part of the magnitude is just because I don't want to go through however many dozen non core races and figure out if and where they fit into the setting if no one actually wants to play them.
This is usually how I do it too. I don't want to say "anything goes" and then have a player waste hours on a concept I have to shoot down because it'll be a terrible fit. In fact my overall preference is to work with a player through their character creation as much as they're comfortable with, so they can ask me questions such as "I need to come from a town where there X, Y, and Z" and I can find an appropriate one on the map, and so I can make suggestions based on my knowledge of the game world "oh, hey, I see you've mentioned the village priest in your background story - if you tell me a bit more about them I can help point you at some possible deity choices for him"
Sometimes, yes, this will work in reverse too - something they've included may not have an exact fit in the game world, yet not break the overall theme of the game, so we can then work it in. "Well, we don't really have any villages matching that description.... so how about you tell me a bit more about what you want, and we'll write it up together and I'll find a spot to plop it down on the map?"
So, I'll tend to say what from the corebook is okay (typically "anything" unless there's specific requirements for the campaign), and anything else they just have to ask. "So, I'd really like to play an Aasimar..." "Hmmm, yep that'll probably work, give me a skeleton back story and we'll work together on it from there". Sometimes it'll be closer to "I'd like to play a Kobold" and "Well, a monster PC isn't really going to work out in this campaign, at least not something that obvious, they'll be kill-on-sight in civilized lands. Tell me what you're looking to get out of your character, and we can go through some alternatives", "Well, I kinda wanted to play a weak little character from some monster-like race that gets kicked around a lot but not a kill-on-sight one", "Ohh, well, in this game world there's a number of goblins in human towns employed to do menial tasks and generally getting treated like pond scum, was that the sort of thing you wanted?", "Perfect!"
I'll go a step further and say that, if someone hands me a sheet of paper with like 5 choices on it and says "you must pick one of these or you can't play," I'll most likely be choosing not to play. Of course, that person, having read these threads, would not have invited me in the first place, so maybe there is some value in these discussions after all!
Oh. :( With the 25th anniversary of HeroQuest coming on, I thought ..., but the basic game only has 4 characters.
;D
Basically what you are saying is that unless you are free to play what ever you want, you won't be playing in that campaign. Correct?Incorrect. This is what I mean by trying to understand other people's points of view.
What I am saying is that, when I encounter people who, right away, aggressively assert their need to impose limits, I recognize that I'm better off not sitting in their games, because past experience has shown that I do not enjoy spending time around people like that.
A person who says, "we can probably work X in if you really want to play it, but to be honest, Y or Z or Q would work better, if you wouldn't mind..." is going to be able to quickly get me to pick Y or Z or Q, because they approach me with a compromise, and I'd feel obligated to return the favor.
This is the same perspective as I have. I am cool with restrictions, if they are explained to me and the GM is willing to work with me for my character to work.
I absolutely understand that some races/classes don't work for all campaigns, either because they are poorly suited for a campaign (merfolk in a desert campaign), truly distasteful for the GM (Psionics, guns), are from sources that a GM is not comfortable with for whatever reason (3rd party, homebrew, not familiar with the race or class), or to tied into the plotline (elf PC's in a storyline where you try to find out what happened to the elves; goblins in a campaign where they are the main bad guy, etc).
Although I would argue there are degrees to this. If a DM is restrictive to the extent that I am only have a specific backstory, or be from a specific village, or only worship specific gods, I am going to get all sorts of red flags. That strikes me as a GM less interested in his players having fun and more interested in his players acting out events for his novel.
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Don't let anyone tell you you're not an awesome GM no matter which side of this fence you happen to land on. And try not to be resentful that there's a good chunk of the gaming community who thinks your playstyle isn't one they'll enjoy. Even if you feel that opinion is unjustified.
This can't be stressed enough.
These threads are funny.
I would present the whitelist of races and classes along with the suggestion to play the setting, of course. Typically, when playing a "restricted" campaign, I have significantly more options for race and class than in core. The prospective players can of course choose not to play this campaign, knowing about the restrictions. As I said, if they agree and then still want to break the restrictions, it's their problem, not mine. If someone wants to play something outside the whitelist, I will of course let them explain to me how this character would fit into the campaign setting, tone and themes included. Still, once only, I hate nagging. It has no part in what I do for fun.
Nor is defending myself in this what I want to use my free time for. Give it a rest, Kirth.
Nor is defending myself in this what I want to use my free time for. Give it a rest, Kirth.
Wait, if I misunderstand and you feel misrepresented, I'm a bad person. If I ask for clarification so I can better understand, you feel you have to "defend yourself" and I'm a bad person. That's kind of a no-win deal, isn't it?
EDIT: That's a rhetorical question. No need to waste your free time on it.
You know, it occurs to me that I'd hoped for too much. Most people don't seem to actually want to understand one another's positions; they just want to be self-righteous and/or snide. At least I enjoyed talking to Matt and Vincent, but aside from that, this is another thread that I clearly need to bow out of.
Even though I'm aware of that problem, I keep coming back to these threads. Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment :D
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You know, it occurs to me that I'd hoped for too much. Most people don't seem to actually want to understand one another's positions; they just want to be self-righteous and/or snide. At least I enjoyed talking to Matt and Vincent, but aside from that, this is another thread that I clearly need to bow out of.
If it's any consolation most players and DMs are anything but what you see here on these boards. Not to say they don't exist. They do yet imo and thankfully for the hobby as a whole very rare. I just found it strange and a little funny that even when you agree with Shallowsoul. He still seems to want to be argumentative. Why argue with someone who agrees with you. I just don't get that.
I find I'm more restrictive when it comes to player backstory. You tell me what race and class you are and I'll tell you where you're from and what your life may have been like, and you can run with it or pick another thing. It works because only a few of my players are familiar enough with my setting through playing in a lot of games that they know any of that information to choose for themselves.
I can see how that would work sometimes, but I think it depends a lot on the players involved and the kind of game being played.
For something like a published module, where there isn't a lot of exploratory room for things outside of what's written on the page, this works. For casual players who aren't too hung up on imaginary events that took place before the game technically began, this sort of works.
I tend to write very drawn out, very detailed backstories for my characters. If I'm not familiar with the setting, then I will take the time to get with the DM and sort out where's what and who's who.
I get very specific with names and details, but I tend to leave actual locations vague so that I can work in campaign specifics later, when the info becomes available. For example; if I roll up a ranger from a wooded, forest-based village, I'll leave off the name of the village and ask the DM where such a village might be located in the setting. I find that most DM's appreciate the extra effort I take to integrate my character into the setting, and appreciate that I'm willing to work towards a better, immersive experience, rather than "here's my story, now you better write up my village and my tribe and blah blah blah". Integration, over shoe-horning potentially conflicting ideas.
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I find that most DM's appreciate the extra effort I take to integrate my character into the setting, and appreciate that I'm willing to work towards a better, immersive experience, rather than "here's my story, now you better write up my village and my tribe and blah blah blah". Integration, over shoe-horning potentially conflicting ideas.
Yep, that's always a good way to ensure you both have an investment in that part of the game, rather than seeing "your bit" and "my bit". If you've worked together on that village and tribe, ownership doesn't become such an issue, and neither feel it was forced upon them.
If you both walk away with a sense that it was tailored to your needs, then you're both going to have that emotional tie to feel you have a place in the game and aren't just viewed as another game accessory like a screen or the dice.
EDIT: I'm going to expand on that - there is a real danger in games that you can start to think that you're simply viewed as "the AI device that makes judgement calls for character X", or "the AI device that makes judgement calls for the monsters and NPCs". It's far more than that, you're supposed to be collaborating, working together.
That can be done in many ways - it doesn't mean the GM has to get involved in character creation, or that the Player has to get involved in world creation. It does mean, though, having an overall sense that you're working together rather than against one another, and that you're a valued member of the group (no matter which side of the screen you're on) rather than an easily replaceable one. It doesn't dictate a specific way of playing out of all the methods people have talked about above - it's not about what you allow or disallow in a game, but how you do it. It's about being seen to help people to find their place in the game, rather than having them go away with a feeling they've been told what it is (and again, that applies to both sides of the screen, if indeed you've decided to use one ;) )
I find that most DM's appreciate the extra effort I take to integrate my character into the setting, and appreciate that I'm willing to work towards a better, immersive experience, rather than "here's my story, now you better write up my village and my tribe and blah blah blah". Integration, over shoe-horning potentially conflicting ideas.Yep, that's always a good way to ensure you both have an investment in that part of the game, rather than seeing "your bit" and "my bit". If you've worked together on that village and tribe, ownership doesn't become such an issue, and neither feel it was forced upon them.
If you both walk away with a sense that it was tailored to your needs, then you're both going to have that emotional tie to feel you have a place in the game and aren't just viewed as another game accessory like a screen or the dice.
I agree entirely, Matt. My point for the last couple of pages has been that if the GM is willing to work with the players like that, the campaign world probably deserves to be called collaborative rather than restricted. Color me tautological, but if the GM and player collaborate on how the PCs backstory fits into the campaign world, how restricted is that world?
Edit: this was written before your edit, but I still agree.
I find I'm more restrictive when it comes to player backstory. You tell me what race and class you are and I'll tell you where you're from and what your life may have been like, and you can run with it or pick another thing. It works because only a few of my players are familiar enough with my setting through playing in a lot of games that they know any of that information to choose for themselves.I can see how that would work sometimes, but I think it depends a lot on the players involved and the kind of game being played.
For something like a published module, where there isn't a lot of exploratory room for things outside of what's written on the page, this works. For casual players who aren't too hung up on imaginary events that took place before the game technically began, this sort of works.
I tend to write very drawn out, very detailed backstories for my characters. If I'm not familiar with the setting, then I will take the time to get with the DM and sort out where's what and who's who.
I get very specific with names and details, but I tend to leave actual locations vague so that I can work in campaign specifics later, when the info becomes available. For example; if I roll up a ranger from a wooded, forest-based village, I'll leave off the name of the village and ask the DM where such a village might be located in the setting. I find that most DM's appreciate the extra effort I take to integrate my character into the setting, and appreciate that I'm willing to work towards a better, immersive experience, rather than "here's my story, now you better write up my village and my tribe and blah blah blah". Integration, over shoe-horning potentially conflicting ideas.
What y0u described is basically how it works with my experience players. But if someone came to me with "I'm playing an elf who comes from elf kingdom with a rigid caste society", I would say elves have not played out like that in the game that I've run and no such place or society exists for them, but if you want that type of character as an elf, an alternative could be _________ and get you the same feel.
I find that most DM's appreciate the extra effort I take to integrate my character into the setting, and appreciate that I'm willing to work towards a better, immersive experience, rather than "here's my story, now you better write up my village and my tribe and blah blah blah". Integration, over shoe-horning potentially conflicting ideas.Yep, that's always a good way to ensure you both have an investment in that part of the game, rather than seeing "your bit" and "my bit". If you've worked together on that village and tribe, ownership doesn't become such an issue, and neither feel it was forced upon them.
If you both walk away with a sense that it was tailored to your needs, then you're both going to have that emotional tie to feel you have a place in the game and aren't just viewed as another game accessory like a screen or the dice.
I agree entirely, Matt. My point for the last couple of pages has been that if the GM is willing to work with the players like that, the campaign world probably deserves to be called collaborative rather than restricted. Color me tautological, but if the GM and player collaborate on how the PCs backstory fits into the campaign world, how restricted is that world?
Edit: this was written before your edit, but I still agree.
save that everything you said could still happen in a world that excludes one or more rades; it just happens for everything but those specific elements.
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That's true, Ars. There's no reason an entire play group, including the GM and all the players, can't collaborate using the options which have been included (past tense) in a campaign. I agree with you on that point. I have for God knows how many threads now.
It's just that every time I point out that I've had good experiences collaborating with my players on what to include (future tense) in a campaign, you seem to decide that I'm the worst sort of GM who gives free rein to problem players because I don't care about my own setting and am out to actively ruin other peoples.
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You know, it occurs to me that I'd hoped for too much. Most people don't seem to actually want to understand one another's positions; they just want to be self-righteous and/or snide. At least I enjoyed talking to Matt and Vincent, but aside from that, this is another thread that I clearly need to bow out of.
I think for some they do not see the other position and/or do not see a problem. It is impossible to say for sure, and I am fairly certain that we could argue until the end of time and not really get a clear answer from some of our posters; that said, I think that, given some of the posts, I can speculate.
I think that some GMs are reticent to give up "control" over the campaign because, in a very real way, that is giving up total creative dominion over everything. A smaller percentage may be afraid to let the players see behind the screen because it might spoil some secrets; I image that grouping is fairly small.
I say this because I can recognize some of these traits in myself. There's that moment of "Wait, what do you want? Why do you want to change that? It's perfect the way it is! Can't you just play something else?"
It's a hard hurdle to cross, and might be impossible for some. It is important to understand, however, that you aren't giving up control or somehow losing the creative thread of your world. Often, as seen in Kirth's example and many others, you can actually gain interesting elements to your world and spin that into adventures and plots that you had previously never thought of.
There's a reason that many game company people have several folks working for them -- it gives them someone else to bounce ideas off. All ideas are not winners. Believe me, I've had some really strange ideas that I was glad to get rid of!
In any case, listening and considering an idea -- even if it goes against your hard set ideas of no whichever -- can lead to the creative juices flowing. Maybe you don't give in on the elf bit, but the resulting conversation spurs you to create another race that creates an overriding plot thread that goes on for years.
Even the silly horse sorcerer idea can be fodder for ideas and imagination; while I'm not a fan of My Little Pony, I could easily see working Lackey's Companions into a game and letting someone play one, especially in a game with only a few players.
Final Thoughts: Bending is not giving up.