Actually, you CAN play a Paladin an an all evil campaign... freshly fallen, of course :D
Dalindra knows.
He knows everything about fallen paladins.
Thanks to me.
;-P
I have not fallen.
My former deity has.
My view is simply that I have played standard kitchen sink settings for decades now. The standard D&D loadout of races in their standard roles comprising the population, and the PCs consisting of a freak show of exotic races picked for the numerical bonuses they get; been there, done that.
So, why not ever do anything different? Pick six or so races. Make them the available ones. Develop their cultures. Let a campaign explore that interplay of cultures. You know, the Pick five races for a setting thread. Do the same with classes: Make a setting where arcane magic is replaced by occult classes. Make a primitive setting and limit the classes and equipment lists appropriately.
The game can support very different campaigns... if we let it.
Or we can refuse to play in any campaign that will not let you play a trox alchemist, human wizard, or a vishkanya monk.
Notice how all of your examples covered the the reasons why... You didn't tell the players they were playing RotRL in Golarion as the Pathfinder show it....and then tell the guy who texts you about his half-orc rogue and wondering if UC was okay only to be told no UC(which I can undestand but it was made out to be a huge deal to even look at it) and that Half-orcs didn't exist for this campaign at all.
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Randomly banning stuff is definitely not cool, but not informing your players about what is allowed and what is not is worse.
Being honest to your players is necessary if you want them to trust you.
There's nothing wrong about saying: «I don't have enough mastery of the system so I am not adding X and Y because I still wouldn't know how to handle them». I've seen many new GMs overwhelmed by the options they allowed and not knowing how to react to some situations. But when the reaction of those GMs is randomly banning things without any forewarning or even banning options in the middle of a campaign that can easily destroy a game. So the GM being consistent and honest from the beginning is something that is needed to avoid situations like the one you are telling.
I ban Gunslingers because they don't fit the theme of my campaign setting. The same with the "furry" races. I'll use them as foes or just treat most of them like they don't exist, anyway. I run a very anthropocentric game (core races, my own takes on Hobgoblins and the Elan from Dreamscarred Press) and a couple other Human types that I either created for the setting or modified from something else. I've thought seriously in the past of just allowing Humans as the PC race, but that doesn't fit the theme of the setting, either, and I don't want to change something that's been a part of my homebrew for over 20 years.
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Yay for settings that have been running for so many time that you don't want to change them! I know the feeling. Even though we play at Dragonlance it's mostly our own playground and we have been incapable of forgetting about all we have there and getting to Golarion.
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I've thought seriously in the past of just allowing Humans as the PC race
I play in a D&D5 homebrew that originated in 3.5, and the GM banned all races but humans as PCs. When we rebooted for 5e he agreed to let my character be reworked into a tiefling, but ruled that tieflings in his homebrew don't look significantly different from humans. I usually prefer to play non-humans, but since I knew in advance that wouldn't be allowed, I appreciate the GM giving me this little bit of what I enjoy.
My grievance this week:
I joined a Star Wars Saga campaign last year that had been running for a year or more prior to my joining. I came in at 1st level running a Jedi padawan, while the other PCs were all around 12th level. A couple of months ago that campaign came to a conclusion. The GM now wants to run a 'sequel' taking place about 10 years later. He originally suggested that I continue to play my existing character, while the other players run Jedi padawan and my character could act as a leader/teacher. The other players are fine with this idea.
But I'm very uncomfortable being in a leadership role in a game. At the same time, though, I like the idea of continuing to run my existing character. I'm really torn about what to do: play a padawan like everyone else, or play my higher-level Jedi. Should I challenge my comfort zone, or stay in it? I can't decide.
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Challenge your comfort zone. At least that's my two cents. You might be really surprised at how well you do.
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I've thought seriously in the past of just allowing Humans as the PC raceI play in a D&D5 homebrew that originated in 3.5, and the GM banned all races but humans as PCs. When we rebooted for 5e he agreed to let my character be reworked into a tiefling, but ruled that tieflings in his homebrew don't look significantly different from humans. I usually prefer to play non-humans, but since I knew in advance that wouldn't be allowed, I appreciate the GM giving me this little bit of what I enjoy.
My grievance this week:
I joined a Star Wars Saga campaign last year that had been running for a year or more prior to my joining. I came in at 1st level running a Jedi padawan, while the other PCs were all around 12th level. A couple of months ago that campaign came to a conclusion. The GM now wants to run a 'sequel' taking place about 10 years later. He originally suggested that I continue to play my existing character, while the other players run Jedi padawan and my character could act as a leader/teacher. The other players are fine with this idea.But I'm very uncomfortable being in a leadership role in a game. At the same time, though, I like the idea of continuing to run my existing character. I'm really torn about what to do: play a padawan like everyone else, or play my higher-level Jedi. Should I challenge my comfort zone, or stay in it? I can't decide.
I'mgoing to be honest, that sounds like an exciting roleplaying opportunity. My advice is to try it, and if it turns out that you don't like it, simply talk with your GM about switching characters.
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I'mgoing to be honest, that sounds like an exciting roleplaying opportunity. My advice is to try it, and if it turns out that you don't like it, simply talk with your GM about switching characters.
My grievance this week:
I joined a Star Wars Saga campaign last year that had been running for a year or more prior to my joining. I came in at 1st level running a Jedi padawan, while the other PCs were all around 12th level. A couple of months ago that campaign came to a conclusion. The GM now wants to run a 'sequel' taking place about 10 years later. He originally suggested that I continue to play my existing character, while the other players run Jedi padawan and my character could act as a leader/teacher. The other players are fine with this idea.But I'm very uncomfortable being in a leadership role in a game. At the same time, though, I like the idea of continuing to run my existing character. I'm really torn about what to do: play a padawan like everyone else, or play my higher-level Jedi. Should I challenge my comfort zone, or stay in it? I can't decide.
Yes, I think you and DungeonmasterCal are right. I should try something outside my comfort zone. We'll be meeting in a few weeks for character gen, so I'll make sure my fellow players are still okay with that idea, and talk over with them and the GM how I may need some hand-holding with decision-making. My fellow players are all really good about being patient with my natural tendency to be indecisive.
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I guess it's coming from 30+ years of being the nearly sole GM, but no matter what party I'm with I end up being the leader, even if my character has a low CHA. I'm far from a control freak, and am actually quite introverted even among my close friends. But somehow leading the party comes naturally to me. Once you do it a few times you'll get past the nervousness and come into your own, I betcha!
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I guess it's coming from 30+ years of being the nearly sole GM, but no matter what party I'm with I end up being the leader, even if my character has a low CHA. I'm far from a control freak, and am actually quite introverted even among my close friends. But somehow leading the party comes naturally to me. Once you do it a few times you'll get past the nervousness and come into your own, I betcha!
I'm mostly worried about not being able to decide between Action A and Action B. But I would do that even if I wasn't a leader. And to be honest, the other players will probably take charge for themselves a lot of the time. My character may end up being more of a mentor than an actual leader, sort of like Kanan Jarrus from Star Wars Rebels (he's actually an NPC in the campaign so she could have learned from him).
Now I just have to adjust to not leveling up as quickly as everyone else until they catch up to me (GM ruled that things have been quieter for the Jedi after the conclusion of the last campaign, so my PC probably won't level up much in the intervening decade).
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Heh, speaking of deciding between A & B, no matter what I do my players will usually choose Action Q (something I totally didn't expect). And two of them are the kings of over-planning something. I just let them go at it one game to see how long it would take them to make a decision. They couldn't decide what the best way to open a non-magical, non-trapped, unlocked door was. It took nearly an hour before the Bard finally just walked up and opened the door. Nothing happened.
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In a game we were a few years ago we spent a full session in front of a door trying to decide if we should open it and how we could do it.
The GM was well known for being very consequent with everything we did and for some reason we were really scared of the door xD
Me and Dalindra are also the kind who tend to overthink. I usually discard a lot of good plans because they are not completely perfect and Dalindra has to device a plan F, just in case his plans A,B,C,D and E fail.
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Heh, speaking of deciding between A & B, no matter what I do my players will usually choose Action Q (something I totally didn't expect). And two of them are the kings of over-planning something. I just let them go at it one game to see how long it would take them to make a decision. They couldn't decide what the best way to open a non-magical, non-trapped, unlocked door was. It took nearly an hour before the Bard finally just walked up and opened the door. Nothing happened.
HA!
Years ago I had a player who was a genius at paranoid rambling. If I didn't have time to prep a session, I'd just throw out 3 NPCs and 2 events (one normal and one unusual) and sit back. He'd go on and on about what the plot "obviously" had to be. Then I'd steal that and make it the session's plot...
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Heh, speaking of deciding between A & B, no matter what I do my players will usually choose Action Q (something I totally didn't expect). And two of them are the kings of over-planning something. I just let them go at it one game to see how long it would take them to make a decision. They couldn't decide what the best way to open a non-magical, non-trapped, unlocked door was. It took nearly an hour before the Bard finally just walked up and opened the door. Nothing happened.
In a homebrew scenario I put what was an upturned bucket with some holes in it in the middle of a long empty corridor. The players wasted a whole load of resources and about half an hour real time on it.
I nearly got a slapping for that. And coffee rationed.
Heh, speaking of deciding between A & B, no matter what I do my players will usually choose Action Q (something I totally didn't expect). And two of them are the kings of over-planning something. I just let them go at it one game to see how long it would take them to make a decision. They couldn't decide what the best way to open a non-magical, non-trapped, unlocked door was. It took nearly an hour before the Bard finally just walked up and opened the door. Nothing happened.HA!
Years ago I had a player who was a genius at paranoid rambling. If I didn't have time to prep a session, I'd just throw out 3 NPCs and 2 events (one normal and one unusual) and sit back. He'd go on and on about what the plot "obviously" had to be. Then I'd steal that and make it the session's plot...
I have changed the solution for some mysteries or filled plot holes with ideas that my own players brought to the game. Sometimes their ideas are way better than mine or make too much sense so I make full use of them.
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I Had a DM plan on making me fall as a paladin because my pally got married to a half-elf. I'm like My deity is Zeuz he has no problem with me marrying outside my species i'm sure (I mean he turned into a goose for gosh sakes) and its only half-outside! I won this arguement because I just never played that character again.
imagine the meme
If you don't play the character the DM can't make you fall.
So yeah that is my grievance.
my grevance is that there are a bevy of characters of mine that survived x adventures and that never managed to get played again... and now I would have to translate them from AD&D1 or D&D3.xx to PF... and I don't even know what to do with my 4e minotaur barbarian.
@Vid, that's one of the weakest reasons for a Paladin to fall that I have ever heard.
Now come to think of it... one of Dalindra's Antipaladins, the one who used to be a Paladin, is a half elf who is dating a human disciple of the dragon. Should I make him fall even more? Should I make her fall? (Dispelling her wings or something)
@Klorox, I also have a lot of old characters from old editions to translate to Pathfinder and I feel too lazy to do it. Some of them are NPCs so I never bothered to adapt them as they don't use their character sheets a lot. One day I'll do it. One day.
@Vid, that's one of the weakest reasons for a Paladin to fall that I have ever heard.
Now come to think of it... one of Dalindra's Antipaladins, the one who used to be a Paladin, is a half elf who is dating ahuman disciple of thereally awesome dragon woman. Should I make him fall even more? Should I make her fall? (Dispelling her wings or something)@Klorox, I also have a lot of old characters from old editions to translate to Pathfinder and I feel too lazy to do it. Some of them are NPCs so I never bothered to adapt them as they don't use their character sheets a lot. One day I'll do it. One day.
FIFY
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I Had a DM plan on making me fall as a paladin because my pally got married to a half-elf.
The key, remember, is to lift with your legs.
my grevance is that there are a bevy of characters of mine that survived x adventures and that never managed to get played again... and now I would have to translate them from AD&D1 or D&D3.xx to PF... and I don't even know what to do with my 4e minotaur barbarian.
My friend blew my mind one time translating a character from 1st to 3rd he said this will be his grandson since its two editions down. I was like HUH you mean as in the later edition is actually later in the characters life like a new generation wow I never would of thought of that. (I guess that is not really a grievance. )
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I Had a DM plan on making me fall as a paladin because my pally got married to a half-elf.The key, remember, is to lift with your legs.
ofcourse that is a quibblemuch alt who else makes me laugh out loud and get weird looks from people.
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Heh, speaking of deciding between A & B, no matter what I do my players will usually choose Action Q (something I totally didn't expect). And two of them are the kings of over-planning something. I just let them go at it one game to see how long it would take them to make a decision. They couldn't decide what the best way to open a non-magical, non-trapped, unlocked door was. It took nearly an hour before the Bard finally just walked up and opened the door. Nothing happened.
Yesterday our group ran into two locked doors. We don't have a rogue in our party, and no one has any ranks in Disable Device except for the shaman, who has a few ranks. The shaman had a chime of opening, but we discovered to our disappointment that it doesn't automatically open anything, it just gives a bonus to Disable Device checks.
On the first door we ended up having one of the PCs use his adamantine morningstar to smash through the door. The next door the shaman kept using the chime until he finally rolled well enough to open the door, but it was the chime's last charge. Door opens, chime goes poof!, and the evil cleric who's been waiting on the other side listening to the chime ring followed by the shaman's cursing then hurls a fireball at us.
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Drow are the worst race, and always have been. Their best moment has been as a vaguely problematic "ex-slave race" in Eberron. They are the embodiments of everything to dislike about gamer nerds. I've said it before, and I'll say it again.
What? It's a legitimate grievance of mine! :P
Also, all the "bondage misandrist" stuff was pretty much "just because" even with Lolth. We all know the real reasons gamers fell in love with it.
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(Strikes defiant pose) I love the Drow.
I really like the concept of the Drow but they have been constantly been poorly portrayed. I have to admit to be fascinated by them from the first time I heard about them.
I have never played one, but in our Ravnica setting I have played a Devkarin, which are pretty similar, and I had a lot of fun.
If I ever get the chance to run another Drow character, it'd be more as a deconstruction of drow culture in general--from their dress habits, to their faith in Lolth and their spider fetish. And she'd be a common-born gutter rat.
Also, an actual grievance: in every story about drow, the drow protagonists are always from noble houses. There's never any common-born drow characters that serve as viewpoint characters. Apparently, they're not nearly as interesting. :(
Also, an actual grievance: in every story about drow, the drow protagonists are always from noble houses. There's never any common-born drow characters that serve as viewpoint characters. Apparently, they're not nearly as interesting. :(
In the later years of Dungeon Magazine, back when it was run by Paizo, there was a comic strip about a lowborn drow named Downer Tarantula. When they gave him a character sheet, he was described as "Even among a race as vile as the drow, there are those jerks who just don't fit it."
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The drow origin story bothers me.
It's a variant on the old "descendants of Ham" racist trope from the Bible. The pure, good white elves start consorting with demons and so their skin turns dusky black as the outward visible sign of their evil? Um... not at my table.
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Never thought of it like that. I just like the concept. The drow like creatures I have played were actually pale as dead as they lived underground. And they were kicked out of the surface by other elves for practising necromancy.
The idea of corrupted or evil elves seduces me.
Also, an actual grievance: in every story about drow, the drow protagonists are always from noble houses. There's never any common-born drow characters that serve as viewpoint characters. Apparently, they're not nearly as interesting. :(In the later years of Dungeon Magazine, back when it was run by Paizo, there was a comic strip about a lowborn drow named Downer Tarantula. When they gave him a character sheet, he was described as "Even among a race as vile as the drow, there are those jerks who just don't fit it."
Yep. He was pretty much the only one I remember.
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Never thought of it like that. I just like the concept. The drow like creatures I have played were actually pale as dead as they lived underground.
See, the pale skin makes sense. I wonder why the original drow creators didn't go with that...?
Also, as an aside, Tolkien's "dark elves" were so known not because of the color of their skin, but because they had never directly seen the light of the Two Trees of Valinor. Which is an entirely different theological matter...
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Actually, you CAN play a Paladin an an all evil campaign... freshly fallen, of course :D
Ah, I do love to drive out into the countryside in the autumn to jump around in all the freshly fallen paladins...
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(Strikes defiant pose) I love the Drow.
*Stands shoulder to shoulder with DungeonmasterCal*
I too love bondage mis... the Drow!
Although I tweek them alot.
My drow, for example, tend to have different skin-colors, based on exposure to (un)natural flora and fauna.
Those lives in areas where cytillesh is common, tend to have more of a blue-ish skin-color, where Russet-mold is common it is more brown-ish or red-ish, and so on.
HELP!!!! I accidentally blocked Kileanna from my forum email list. How do I unblock her?
HELP!!!! I accidentally blocked Kileanna from my forum email list. How do I unblock her?
"You can unblock people on the Address Book tab of your private messages page."
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Why do you hate me!!!???
;-D
Edit: By the way, reading you saying «HELP!!!» with your avatar is hilarious. It just makes too much sense.
I chose that avatar for that very reason. That's how I feel half the time GMing for my group... LOL
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HELP!!!! I accidentally blocked Kileanna from my forum email list. How do I unblock her?"You can unblock people on the Address Book tab of your private messages page."
Thank you! Whew! That was a close one!
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Thank you! Whew! That was a close one!HELP!!!! I accidentally blocked Kileanna from my forum email list. How do I unblock her?"You can unblock people on the Address Book tab of your private messages page."
Oh good! It worked.
I once discovered I was inadvertently unfollowing people on social media because of my cursed thick fingers. I have no idea how many people I mortally offended as a result of being insufficiently evolved to use a touch screen properly. :)
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(Strikes defiant pose) I love the Drow.*Stands shoulder to shoulder with DungeonmasterCal*
I too love
bondage mis...the Drow!Although I tweek them alot.
My drow, for example, tend to have different skin-colors, based on exposure to (un)natural flora and fauna.
Those lives in areas where cytillesh is common, tend to have more of a blue-ish skin-color, where Russet-mold is common it is more brown-ish or red-ish, and so on.
I love the dark skinned drows from an aesthetic point of view, but I had never considered the connotations it could have.
In the case of dark elves in Ravnica, they have also a sort of voodoo aesthetics that I love.
They are matriarchal in a way too, at least they have very defined sex roles. They define themselves as keepers of the life cycle, so women define themselves by giving life and men by taking it. In their case giving life means being priestess who reanimate the dead and enslave them. Men are often assasins and hunters. My character was a female ninja assasin, so she rejected her gender role. In the past they were adamant about gender roles, but when a male necromancer became their ruler (previously all queens were female) they started to be more flexible about them.
I really like how they look.
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(Strikes defiant pose) I love the Drow.*Stands shoulder to shoulder with DungeonmasterCal*
I too love
bondage mis...the Drow!Although I tweek them alot.
My drow, for example, tend to have different skin-colors, based on exposure to (un)natural flora and fauna.
Those lives in areas where cytillesh is common, tend to have more of a blue-ish skin-color, where Russet-mold is common it is more brown-ish or red-ish, and so on.I love the dark skinned drows from an aesthetic point of view, but I had never considered the connotations it could have.
In the case of dark elves in Ravnica, they have also a sort of voodoo aesthetics that I love.
They are matriarchal in a way too, at least they have very defined sex roles. They define themselves as keepers of the life cycle, so women define themselves by giving life and men by taking it. In their case giving life means being priestess who reanimate the dead and enslave them. Men are often assasins and hunters. My character was a female ninja assasin, so she rejected her gender role. In the past they were adamant about gender roles, but when a male necromancer became their ruler (previously all queens were female) they started to be more flexible about them.
I really like how they look.
Yea, those ideas could definitely add a nice and cool spin to dark elves.
Good find Kile!| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's from Magic the Gathering. Ravnica had a pretty interesting background so after reading the novels, some of the info that they posted online, etc. we thought it could make a good roleplaying setting. As it is a huge city that covers all the planet it's something kinda different. The differences between evil and good are less relevant too. I.e. the Guild where the devkarin are is purely NE and they are mostly necromancers but they are also the ones with the task of feeding the hungry and they use the mindless undead for the evil mission of... farming food. This means that all alignments are more or less accepted into society as everybody fills a role.
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(Strikes defiant pose) I love the Drow.
So do I, my first Elf character was actually a drow, and my latest (a warlock in 5e) is too, and I'd love to be able to play a PF drow, just to test the racial feats.