To me, good games involve "hard" stakes, i.e. serious consequences. That's where drama and juicy stories live. Trusting the group allows me to "lean into" hard stakes, to accept big risks and big setbacks. I know the thing that follows will be cool and juicy -- it isn't always, because RPG play is sloppy and extemporaneous in all the best ways, rather than polished and perfect. But I can extend the benefit of the doubt! Because we like and value the same things.
We are filled with the improv-y collaborative spirit. We all build together. So the setbacks you offer me are just gonna lead to more opportunities for both of us to play. I trust you to change my character, maybe for the worse. I trust that even if something is painful and wrenching right now, we'll make good awesome stuff come out of it subsequently.
Bujold's lesson to me is that I should help my players tell stories about their characters, rather thanhave the players uuse their characters to help tell my story.
@BESW I've said it over and over again; the longer I've been involved in RPGs, the more I move away from mechanics and toward story. I figure when I'm 50 and still RPing, we won't have dice or stats or anything.
The only time Vow of Poverty is worth taking is on a Druid build that plans to be using Wild Shape constantly, because your items become non-functional in that state anyway and you probably took Natural Spell at 6th level so you still have your casting ability while shapeshifted. By the time you ...
When it comes to character creation, a player has both freedom and responsibility. The DM has only responsibility. Everyone's first responsibility is to ensure that the concept is fun and won't be disruptive at the table. Since fun is the goal, y'know?
After that, it's the DM's responsibility to clearly communicate, in no particular order of importance, the campaign's setting, their tolerance for off-the-wall concepts, any and all mechanical bonuses & restrictions, houserules, and any group idioms that new players should know.
This is where we differ slightly. I believe it is the entire group's responsibility here. It's not the DM's game where the players visit, it's the group's game.
It is then the player's freedom to do anything they want within those expectations.
Mm. My groups tend to have plots and themes that are heavily DM-driven, with players being reluctant to be active participants in the moods and themes.
Coming back to yesterday's discussion with Zach, I understand how he has a problem with SOD if a character seems to behave in a way that's not in keeping with his characterization up to that point.
As a DM, I feel that my players have every right to frame their characters within those limits that I've set. Those limits exist primarily because I know that a certain level of immersion is what they want, and that they'll communicate their desired themes and moods to me when they express their concepts
Zach's problem...I cannot express Zach's problem politely.
And I think it's legitimate to come to the player and tell him that's a problem, just like a player can and should come up to the DM and tell him if the way he's running the game is disruptive.
He probably really should DM for you, and for other players with the same expectation of character autonomy. I think he can DM just fine to players who share his views.
Thing is, Zach isn't engaging in the behavior you described. Instead of talking to the player OOC about the difficulties and seeking the heart of the issue, he's declaring that "You can't do that," and then coming here to whine and cut his wrists about how horrible his players are.
Now, I realize that I'm Captain Wrist-Slasher the Player Hater
I don't know if you caught some of my thoughts from last night (well, last night in my time zone. About 9-10 hours ago), but I feel that requiring characters to be set in stone once play has begun is entirely unrealistic. RPG characters aren't literary characters.
But I do believe that just like it's acceptable to demand mechanical consistency from characters (you can't just change your spell list every day, or retrain feats freely), you can also demand roleplaying consistency. And failure to do that can be a strain on a game.
@Andras (or someone with access to Dragon Magazine 371) - could you verify that the following text from page 9 is actually generic and a broad ruling, and not something specific to someone who picks up a specific class or etc?
> If you choose multiple heritage feats (or feats that similarly modify at-will powers), you choose which feat modifies the power for the purposes of resolving the attack with the power.
And just like a in-play justification can be found for any mechanical retraining, if all sides agree to it, so can an in-play justification be found if a player feels his character should do behave in a certain way.
It sounds like each of the major participants in the discussion have different ideas about where an RPG places final authority over each of its elements, and simultaneously each is telling a different kind of story in their games.
Whereas my stance is that you should not have to be in a position to demand roleplaying consistency, and that a group dysfunctional enough to require such a ruling needs to stop playing and resolve the issue.
@Lord_Gareth I can say the same about mechanical consistency. In my last PF game, we had a player who really wasn't in it for the mechanics. She hated remembering them, and came to roleplay. So we fudged together some homebrew rules for her sorcerer (she wasn't really limited by spells/day, but she also rolled a die to randomly select a spell, even if inappropriate) and everyone enjoyed that.
I'm saying that demanding mechanical consistency is acceptable, so why shouldn't demanding roleplaying consistency be too, if that's what the table wants?
I know roleplayers who come from a heavily artistic/literary background, and that's what they want and require in their games. For them, this sort of breaking character would be a huge no-no.
@Lord_Gareth Not going by the rules. Say... picking a feat because I wanted to even though I don't meet the prereqs, or casting a spell and claiming it did X even though the rules say otherwise.
@lisardggY But he's going off of a tiny sampling here. A backstory is not pre-established characterization and is notably missing out on nuances and development.
You can't cast fireball if you've only memorized haste, and you can't suddenly decide to let the goblin go after you've established yourself as a vengeful vigilante.
But that's just the technicalities of where you draw the line at "Now the character is formed". Regardless of whether it's "before play starts" or "after 4 sessions", Zach's approach (Again, @Zach, feel free to come in and correct me if I'm wrong) is that once established, you can't start fiddling with the personality without explicit explanation to those changes.
Personally, I feel that even after months or years of play, RPG characters are never as fully sketched out as literary characters, and room should be left to expand and realize new things about them. But I understand where he's coming from.
@Lord_Gareth Well, this undying hate of yours, restrained or not, comes out as a very antagonistic discussion style. When you tell someone "You shouldn't be allowed to DM with that attitude", you will never get a reasoned discussion, since people will get defensive. Zach might have a much milder, more flexible approach then the one we've brought up here, but when he suddenly had to justify his place in this hobby (hobby!), it would stand to reason that he'll find himself digging into his stance.
@JonathanHobbs From the little 4e I played the D&D Character Builder thingie was treated as the final arbiter of what feats and powers were available, and was relatively complete.
> That all said: a Dragon Magazine article lays down what appears to be a general rule that applies to everyone, is it an official rule that is as strictly applicable to the game as the rules from a core rulebook?
@stizzle Since it depends on a computer to control the world and interactions, instead of a living person, it's not an RPG in the sense that this chat is interested in.
This site is about games where living people tell stories together without the intercession of a computer, working out the rules and interactions between each other using dice or other physical aids.
> That all said: if a Dragon Magazine article lays down a general rule that can apply to all games of D&D 4e (including those not even using Dragon Magazine content), is that an official rule?
I'm... wondering if this is just opinion-based. Some people will respect Dragon Magazine rules. Others won't. The ones who don't care about them certainly won't. There might not be such thing as an 'official rule', except for something that came from an official source (which Dragon Magazine is).
Effectively it strikes me as more of a Meta question for the D&D 4e community here: if a D&D 4e answer hinges on a ruling exclusively from Dragon Magazine, should we respect that ruling, or not care because it came from Dragon magazine?
@TylerLangan I disagree that the puritan ethos, such as was found in New England (and Boston, I guess) was "all about fortune and fame". It valued the success and influence, including material success, but the ethos would treat such success as indicative of divine favor, and those thus blessed would be expected to use that power and influence for the community, not for their own "fame and fortune".
