Expectations of willing suspension of disbelief apparently know no limits. Add in that each of those is its own exotic race, and the issue gets worse. But hey, there isn't anything wrong with four portals just dumping them together, right?
I don't see the problem. As a player, it's your job to explain how your character from a distant place wound up in the starting location of the campaign. Once your foreign character shows up in, say, a tavern in Falcon's Hollow, and finds all the native Andorans are keeping to themselves, that character may wind up associating with the others who don't fit in, like the samurai from Tian Xia, the wizard from Varisia, the rogue from Galt and the cleric from Geb. If the locals are less likely to hang around with people of exotic races, then it's all the more true.
If it's the player's job, what resources does the player have?
"I happened to walk through a magic portal to... uhhh, wherever we were supposed to meet"?
"A demigod I know well did me a favour to transport me there, he said something about 'it's fate that you get there'"?
"I dug a hole through the planet to get to whereverton"?
... etc.
Someone who actually decides to say "I have been walking for several months to get there", and gives a plausible reason why his samurai from Tian Xia decided to go to Falcon's Hollow is another thing, of course.
Yeah, I always thought that it was the player's job to give a reason why his character went to the starting location. I've never heard of a player who demanded that the GM come up with the explanation.
And it's not that hard on the player. "I fled from the Revolutionary Council in Galt, or from undead in Geb who regarded me as food, for fear of my life." Or simply "I wanted to see distant places, so I left home." If your character has no reason to travel to the starting location, why did you create your character that way?!?
And if the PC in question is from another planet? Pretty fast, we're down to "I stumbled into a magic portal" territory again. Add in a whole party of players who use that explanation...
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The issue I have with characters from exotic locals (e.g. the samurai from Tian Xia), is if the location is far away (e.g. the other side of the planet), how is such a character, a would-be adventurer, still only 1st level after such a long journey? I mean even the far-side of the continent stretches my suspension of disbelief.
And if the PC in question is from another planet? Pretty fast, we're down to "I stumbled into a magic portal" territory again. Add in a whole party of players who use that explanation...
I still maintain that the onus is on the player.
(I mean... yeah, I could start a campaign like "You wake up naked in a coal mine with no memory of how you got here," in which case a player might get away with that kind of stuff. But as a GM, I never have begun a campaign that way.)
So again, I ask: Why did you create your character that way? If you, as a player, can't explain why or how your character came from a distant planet, then I, as your GM, would reject your character idea and tell you to come up with a different one. A GM can only be expected to go so far to accommodate difficult players. If I couldn't accept that all the PCs teleported over - although I MIGHT accept that - then I would ask my players to come up with better back stories. That's my right as a GM.
...how is such a character, a would-be adventurer, still only 1st level after such a long journey?
Well, speaking as a GM, I don't worry about making a back story comply with game rules like that. I mean... how, mechanically, did the character become a first-level fighter in the first place? How many years, and how much adventuring, did it take to achieve first level? The game rules don't worry so much about that sort of thing, so why should I?
Hey, my current PC is a gnoll, with the backstory that he, as a human, got killed and reincarnated as a gnoll. Mechanically, his stats would be very different if that actually happened during game play - and if my GM rejected my PC idea for that reason, it would be his right - but a GM doesn't have to worry about THAT much verisimilitude. Most stories (in novels, movies, etc) have problems like that.
|
|
...how, mechanically, did the character become a first-level fighter in the first place? How many years, and how much adventuring, did it take to achieve first level? The game rules don't worry so much about that sort of thing, so why should I?
I can see that working in PF, as a character can gain a new class as easily as buying a new long sword... But I run 2nd edition, and use the optional training rules where it could take weeks just to gain access to the new level. So I think about such details, and would as a DM reject such a background as the samurai from a far-away land... Having said that, I would still allow the samurai character if the player could rework the background to something a bit more believable.
YMMV. :-)
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
first level doesn't mean what you think it means. Look at the iconic Wizard and the iconic investigator. The Wizard is 42 his parents were traders. He's been places seen things but at 42 he's still a first level wizard. The investigator is similar except he's 36. So travelling from one end of the world to the other say by ship - or form Tian to say Varisia across the crown of the world - doesn't mean you still won't be 1st level.
...And then, all of a sudden, once actual play starts, the aforementioned wide and far traveled 1st level character, instantly begins to accumulate XP, being beset by goblins or what have you just while simply traveling from one city to the next - which as it so happens, is exactly what he has been doing all along before play began (i.e. simply travelling)... It's amazing, this far traveled globe-trotting neophyte character, never once, encountered bandits, goblins, or anything else that would have normally provided XP if said travel actually occurred during a game session, now all of a sudden, is a monster magnet.
Makes sense to me... 8-)
But hey, whatever works for you and your games. YMMV and all of that. :-D
first level doesn't mean what you think it means. Look at the iconic Wizard and the iconic investigator. The Wizard is 42 his parents were traders. He's been places seen things but at 42 he's still a first level wizard. The investigator is similar except he's 36. So travelling from one end of the world to the other say by ship - or form Tian to say Varisia across the crown of the world - doesn't mean you still won't be 1st level....And then, all of a sudden, once actual play starts, the aforementioned wide and far traveled 1st level character, instantly begins to accumulate XP, being beset by goblins or what have you just while simply traveling from one city to the next - which as it so happens, is exactly what he has been doing all along before play began (i.e. simply travelling)... It's amazing, this far traveled globe-trotting neophyte character, never once, encountered bandits, goblins, or anything else that would have normally provided XP if said travel actually occurred during a game session, now all of a sudden, is a monster magnet.
Makes sense to me... 8-)
But hey, whatever works for you and your games. YMMV and all of that. :-D
If he was traveling on a boat or a caravan, it's conceivable that there were guards who did the majority of the fighting during the trip.
They don't always have to be disposable cannon fodder.
|
|
If he was traveling on a boat or a caravan, it's conceivable that there were guards who did the majority of the fighting during the trip.
Yes, and it's also possible that he stumbled through one of Sissyl's "magic portals"... ;-)
But the caravan/boat trip theory breaks down when the same character is on an adventure travelling by caravan or boat and jumps out to help the guards fight the threat.
"Oh, but he wasn't an adventurer before play began."
"Oh but he..."
One can make up counter arguments for every angle to justify how pre-game globe-trotting neophyte characters remain 1st level.
Such travel, pre-game, by adventure oriented characters (I play 2nd edition, where NPC specific classes such as "Commoner" or "Aristocrat" do not exist. Such characters, are simply "0-level"), tends to break my suspension of disbelief.
If one wants to hand-wave pre-game events like world-wide travel, that's fine... I don't like to hand-wave such events. :-)
Then don't. If you don't like playing with such characters, that's up to you and your gaming group. If you don't want to find an explanation for it, and refuse any offered one, that's up to you.
If other people are fine with it, that is their choice, and you can not debate them about it.
As for PC motivations to do a thing, I as GM do not see it as my responsibility to provide that motivation. I will provide interesting characters to interact with, interesting locations to explore and exciting combat. Your character's psychology is up to you. As a veteran GM who has a busy life, I don't have time to literally come up with everything in the game. I expect my players to be responsible for certain elements, and their motivation to go on the adventure is one of them.
That said, I do think a campaign has to be based around a central concept, and that is important to have. Some classic examples are the rod of seven parts (macguffin), Strahd von Zarovich (based around a villain), or Undermountain (exploring a location). As GM, I pitch the central theme, the players tell if they're interested or not.
|
|
Then don't. If you don't like playing with such characters, that's up to you and your gaming group. If you don't want to find an explanation for it, and refuse any offered one, that's up to you.
Well, as should be obvious, I don't. :-)
But don't get me wrong. I may have a hard time buying into 1st level characters from far away places, I don't come up with backgrounds for the player's characters however, unless they want me to... But like I said in a post further up in this thread, using the samurai as an example, if that player can come back to me with another reason for his exotic character to be where he is, sans the long distance travelling, then I'll work with the player from there to make the character fit into the campaign.