Sell me on the "restricted" multiverse idea

[PhoenixPhyre]

Definition (for this thread): a restricted multiverse is one where there are many many settings with reasonably-easy (but not trivial) passage between settings but most play is intended to be in one setting with at most "visitors" from other settings.

For example, the 5e D&D concept of the multiverse, where all the published settings belong to a single cosmology and it is possible (via Spelljammer or spell or other means) to move between them, but most adventures assume a single sub-setting. This is different from something like Rifts (as I understand it), where universe-hopping/intersection is kinda the whole point and individual sub-universes aren't detailed nearly as much. A "true" multiverse would have only one setting--the multiverse itself; at the other end you have the "isolated universes" idea where each setting and its universe stands completely alone without intersection with any other.

To me, the restricted multiverse is the worst of all worlds:

Isolated universes can go all in on the variation aspect. You can have radically different games when one setting might have kebler elves and another might have Terry Pratchet elves and a third might have no elves at all and a fourth might have "standard" D&D elves. Or cosmologies (including pantheons, etc). Where the only things holding them together are a shared, "lore-free" skeleton of (generic) mechanics. It can also go hard on consistency--every element can be chosen to flow from the basic premises and cosmology, leaving a lean, mean setting that truly gets at the intended themes/tones, etc.

On the other hand, a true multiverse can go all-in on the wacky "kitchen-sink, but kinda makes sense because it's different universes" model. You can really have all sorts of things colliding, and you can craft a single coherent setting.

The mixed, "restricted multiverse" model gets neither side. You get the forced similarity of a single shared cosmology, but all the value of the weird-and-wacky variation is lost. Instead you just have the intrusion of incongruous elements (hey look, there's a walking robot man in my classically-medieval setting!) at random intervals. All of the downsides (as a DM/player), none of the upsides. While guaranteeing bland, homogenous "lore" (because it has to fit any possible setting). It's an awkward superposition of constraining and not constraining at the same time. Like a dress that binds where it should be loose and is loose where it should be fitted.

[NichG]

I'm not sure there's that much difference between true multiverse and restricted multiverse. But if I were to make sense of it, I'd say the point of a restricted multiverse is for doing things where there are different layers of metaphysics, such that multiverse travel is restricted based on being able to exist meaningfully and parse the higher meta level.

For example, universes that are connected by the fact that they're all different dreams of the sleeping deities of the multiverse. You can sort of get between them, but only by accepting that your existence is the idea of you and not anything about your body or powers or whatever.

If you want strong out of context reveals, it could be useful for that.

[RandomPeasant]

One player's "incongruous element" is another player's "important character concept". Sometimes you want your magic silver robot (Karn) in your gothic horror setting (Innistrad), and that's fine. Roleplaying games are about compromise, and "you get the thing you think is cool without having to retool the entire setting to incorporate it" is exactly the sort of compromise that makes them function.

[Mechalich]

This isn't really anything inherent to the concept of a multiverse, it's just a generalized guideline as to how your want the party to interact with the setting. Specifically, whatever the primary setting element happens to be, whether that's a town (common in Sword & Sorcery), an island (common in Age of Sail and 'pirate' fiction), a planet (common in space opera), or a bounded reality such as a dimension/plane (common in high magic or superhero settings), your deciding whether travel between these primary elements is rare or common and whether or not the focus is on the features of the setting element or the focus is on the shared cosmopolitan culture of those who travel.

For example, Planescape is the latter setup. The characters are presumed to be part of a broad, cosmopolitan community linked to planar travel through the city of Sigil, which serves as a neutral space guarded by fiat - the Lady of Pain - to preserve that culture from those who would destroy it, and wherever they go the characters bring the issues of that community - most obviously the Factions, but other stuff too - with them and they mostly interact with people who are either part of this shared culture or locals for the purpose of advancing the goals of that shared culture. By contrast Conan is arguably the former. Conan goes lots of places on his adventures, but this is presumed to be very rare in the Hyborian Age and Conan encounters few people like himself and each of the various places he spends time in has a different culture with different expectations and different stuff for him to get up to and limited continuity with any of the previous places he's been.

The advantage of a restriction is that because there's no shared cosmopolitan culture between the various travel locations, each new 'reality' is in a sense a completely new setting. The only thing moving from place to place is the characters - yes, in a game this means the rule set gets dragged along, but if the rules are sufficiently flexible this is not a huge problem, note that D&D is not sufficiently flexible, in any edition. This also has the secondary advantage of divorcing these adventures from some kind of overarching context that threatens to consume them. For example, Star Trek often tries to produce isolated and unique planets, sometimes including weird physics or even alternate realities, for the ship's crew to explore, but it is difficult to keep these stories isolated. There are greater overarching conflicts in the background, the ship can at least theoretically always call for help (a problem the writers had to work around a lot), and the crew always represents the Federation on at least some level.

Now, in the context of a TTRPG the characters are usually - not always, but usually - the weak link the story already, which reduces the benefit of this setup and makes overarching conflicts in a single shared culture that play easily to universal archetypes and themes easier. However, if you have high-commitment, high-immersion players who are actually interested in role-playing reactions to generally new horizons and circumstances, this can be beneficial.

[gbaji]

Yeah. There's a couple ways to approach this:

1. One set of game rules, and traveling to different universes/dimensions/whatever involve translating those rules for different settings (or translating the settings into the existing rules might be an easier way of thinking about it). This is probably the easiest way to manage this. You have to be careful with this (especially if travel is available via PC initiated action rather than GM scenario driven). I deal with this in my long running game by having different worlds have slightly different rules for magic/technology/whatever, such that there is some translation of spells/abilities (may work in a limited fashion, or may not work at all, or may work but in a completely different way). This allows for backwards restrictions, so if the characters from a high fantasy setting travel to "Shadowrun world", weapons and whatnot that they get there will just not work when they come back. No traveling to Robotech world and returning with a Mech and curbstomping everyone. Of course, you can introduce some tech/magic/artifact level stuff that may work properly anywhere, but you have to do this with caution. As a general rule, items that can function easily in the base rule system (without horribly breaking power levels) can maybe work well, but anything specialized to the one dimension/world they were in probably should not work when it's brought back home.

2. Worlds/dimensions are completely separate and distinct. The concept of characters being dreamed into existence is a good one. The idea that matter, energy, and reality itself doesn't actually move from one to another, but that the "idea" of the characters does. The characters get re-made in new forms (presumably analogues to their "real world" selves). This allows you to use completely different game systems in different worlds (and can be a lot of fun). This method automatically fixes the "bring back powerful stuff from another world" problem, but raises another: Don't forget that players tend to like when their characters gain not just levels/experience/whatever, but also items and abilities. If everything they gain is unusable or fades away once they return, there'd better be some serious game-scenario motivation for them to do this, and if you're constantly running the PCs through these "reality spanning" scenarios, be prepared for players to not be happy when after playing for X amount of time, they have very little to show for it item wise. I tend to use this only for somewhat extreme cosmic level scenarios where it's a short jaunt to "somewhere else" for some resolution or other, then they return having succeeded in that portion of the adventure and we return to our usual programming or something.


Obviously, if you have no intention or need for maintaining a longer running game world, then you can chuck out a lot of this. Although, I'm not sure why you wouldn't just play different games with different characters and go from there. It's a lot of work to translate characters from one game system to another, and unless you have some permanency going on in the first place, I'm not sure it's worth the bother. Again, this is my focus given that I run a long running continuous game world. Everything has to "fit" and not break things (too much). So I put a lot of focus on this. If you're just putting stuff out there and you and your players are fine with tossing one world into the trash and moving on to another, then your focus is going to be completely different.


What not to do though: We had a GM that for a period of time got really fascinated with certain computer tactical (more or less video) games, and kept running our PCs though dimensional portals where we were basically playing in these games. Was kinda fun for one time. Ok for the second. But after that I remember talking to one of our (newer) players and he was really complaining because he'd just started this character, picked skills and spells and whatnot, and absolutely zero of them had any effect on the game scenarios we were playing. Worse, all of the "stuff" we picked up were the stereotypical weapons and powerup style things you get in said video games, and were absolutely useless once we "returned home". Which might not be an issue in a D&D style level based game (cause you could still be awarded experience), but we were playing in a purely skill based game. So after playing his character for about a year in real time, he noticed that his character had not gained a single skill percentage, nor any items, no spells, no gains at all. We were just running through scenarios that seemed to have no purpose at all. The whole thing just felt like a waste of time.

On the flip side, we ran through a scenario with a broad story arc where we were trying to free some basic magical concept from an ancient prison thing. Near the end of the whole thing, we finally found all the pieces we needed to get to where it was imprisoned, and got transferred to another reality (more or less option 2) where our items/spells more or less didn't function, and we had to solve puzzles and figure out things in order to find the being we were freeing and open its cage or whatever. The point is that it was brief, tied into a larger scenario in which it had some broad impact on the game setting, and it was just one final component to a larger adventure in which lots of experience and items were gained along the way. So that worked very well and was rewarding as part of the finale. Additionally, we were granted a reward/boon for our troubles, which translated to points to spend basically creating permanent enhancements to the characters that completed the final portion and those *did* translate into real gains for the characters.

We also had another scenario in which our characters had to compete to achieve a "great victory" and gain some power which could be used in various ways in the "real world". In this one, the GM actually presented us with a set of character choices out of the Talisman game that represented "avatars" of our actual characters, and we played out said game. The character who won got to pick what to do with the power (there was a specific reason we were there, so that was the thing I think we were all going to do, but heck if I can remember what it was now). That character also got some reward that had some effect on the actual character (was enhanced in some way). The rest just woke up the same as they were before.

That one was also very fun. And yeah, also more or less option 2, but with rewards that can be applied back to the "real world" to benefit the character(s), but in ways that fit into said world well. So yeah. Lots of specific ways to handle this, but I do think that most will fit into one of the two broad methods.

[False God]

I'm not sure how your logic tracks.

How do you get from "These universes share a connection on the regular in various ways." to "These universes must be samey."? Further, I don't see how randos from other universes MUST be present in every universe. Further further, even if it is samey, I don't see how that makes it uninteresting. Paris and Tokyo are samey in that they're both dense major metrpolis' full of humans and visitors from elsewhere, but they're still very different.

The "universe" is a rather big place. Just because Gort traveled from Universe A to Universe B, doesn't mean he's on the same planet, much less the same solar system or even galaxy as whatever world the party exists on.

And even if Gort does, the reaction to this can vary from locale to locale, same as it could from Some Guy traveling from Some Town to Some Other Town. Town B need not be any more tolerant or accepting of travelers than Universe B. Just like travel around the world, the level of travel between any two points can be highly variable.

Maybe there IS a Giant Metal Man in some semi-earth-like-fantasy-world, but that world is kinda like some podunk town in the middle of Wyoming, not many folks go there because there isn't much reason for them to do so. Even if Giant Metal Man does go there, it's unlikely his visit will be anything but brief.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One player's "incongruous element" is another player's "important character concept". Sometimes you want your magic silver robot (Karn) in your gothic horror setting (Innistrad), and that's fine. Roleplaying games are about compromise, and "you get the thing you think is cool without having to retool the entire setting to incorporate it" is exactly the sort of compromise that makes them function.

I'm a big believer in setting invariants. And that setting comes way before character concepts. Character concepts come out of the setting and should fit it. Saying "we want to play a real-world WWII game" and someone saying "ok, I'll bring my D&D wizard" just doesn't fit. And aggressively so--you can't shoehorn it in.

And yes, you do have to retool the entire setting to incorporate those completely alien elements. Or accept that your setting is going to be lowest-common-denominator meaningless kitchen-sink. If everything is available, then there is place for nothing.

A true multiverse gets around this by defining a single setting that incorporates multiple possibilities and accepts the contradiction as a core invariant. Then it really becomes about how the characters interact with the weirdness. A restricted multiverse (which shares the same cosmology) ends up being neither varied nor consistent. It's just a mess of things thrown together.


This isn't really anything inherent to the concept of a multiverse, it's just a generalized guideline as to how your want the party to interact with the setting. Specifically, whatever the primary setting element happens to be, whether that's a town (common in Sword & Sorcery), an island (common in Age of Sail and 'pirate' fiction), a planet (common in space opera), or a bounded reality such as a dimension/plane (common in high magic or superhero settings), your deciding whether travel between these primary elements is rare or common and whether or not the focus is on the features of the setting element or the focus is on the shared cosmopolitan culture of those who travel.

For example, Planescape is the latter setup. The characters are presumed to be part of a broad, cosmopolitan community linked to planar travel through the city of Sigil, which serves as a neutral space guarded by fiat - the Lady of Pain - to preserve that culture from those who would destroy it, and wherever they go the characters bring the issues of that community - most obviously the Factions, but other stuff too - with them and they mostly interact with people who are either part of this shared culture or locals for the purpose of advancing the goals of that shared culture. By contrast Conan is arguably the former. Conan goes lots of places on his adventures, but this is presumed to be very rare in the Hyborian Age and Conan encounters few people like himself and each of the various places he spends time in has a different culture with different expectations and different stuff for him to get up to and limited continuity with any of the previous places he's been.

The advantage of a restriction is that because there's no shared cosmopolitan culture between the various travel locations, each new 'reality' is in a sense a completely new setting. The only thing moving from place to place is the characters - yes, in a game this means the rule set gets dragged along, but if the rules are sufficiently flexible this is not a huge problem, note that D&D is not sufficiently flexible, in any edition. This also has the secondary advantage of divorcing these adventures from some kind of overarching context that threatens to consume them. For example, Star Trek often tries to produce isolated and unique planets, sometimes including weird physics or even alternate realities, for the ship's crew to explore, but it is difficult to keep these stories isolated. There are greater overarching conflicts in the background, the ship can at least theoretically always call for help (a problem the writers had to work around a lot), and the crew always represents the Federation on at least some level.

Now, in the context of a TTRPG the characters are usually - not always, but usually - the weak link the story already, which reduces the benefit of this setup and makes overarching conflicts in a single shared culture that play easily to universal archetypes and themes easier. However, if you have high-commitment, high-immersion players who are actually interested in role-playing reactions to generally new horizons and circumstances, this can be beneficial.

That doesn't sound like a restricted multiverse. If you're regularly traveling (as opposed to "we're in Hyperborea but this random dude from Star Trek dropped in with full gear", which is what a restricted multiverse gives you) to different settings, then they're really all one big setting. Star Trek is an example of this gone wrong--in the end, all the differences become washed out and you just have technobabble gluing a bunch of things together. Star Trek has nothing like a coherent world/universe.

Restricted multiverses, unlike isolated settings, also end up with a power level equal to the strongest power level. Because those other settings can come and take over. A true multiverse doesn't allow that either because the powers are incompatible (ie if you take a Star Trek phaser into a Star Wars universe, it just doesn't work or it works like a blaster) or because everything's full on gonzo universal cold war.

----------

Personally (if you haven't noticed), I'm a big fan of the isolated setting. Every setting should have 100% freedom to define things like cosmology, pantheons, origins of races, available character concepts, and those invariants should be respected by everyone. "I have this nifty character idea" should only come after filtering out the ones that don't fit the setting. Or ideally, characters should arise organically from within the setting without reference to external ideas. No "superhero X, but in <setting>" things....unless you're playing a superhero game where that's a valid character. Limits and invariants are what make things interesting.

[Jay R]

The universe should be such that the story concepts planned can work well. [And the DM needs to provide good story concepts.]


Definition (for this thread): a restricted multiverse is one where there are many many settings with reasonably-easy (but not trivial) passage between settings but most play is intended to be in one setting with at most "visitors" from other settings.

For example, the 5e D&D concept of the multiverse, where all the published settings belong to a single cosmology and it is possible (via Spelljammer or spell or other means) to move between them, but most adventures assume a single sub-setting. This is different from something like Rifts (as I understand it), where universe-hopping/intersection is kinda the whole point and individual sub-universes aren't detailed nearly as much. A "true" multiverse would have only one setting--the multiverse itself; at the other end you have the "isolated universes" idea where each setting and its universe stands completely alone without intersection with any other.

To me, the restricted multiverse is the worst of all worlds:

Isolated universes can go all in on the variation aspect. You can have radically different games when one setting might have kebler elves and another might have Terry Pratchet elves and a third might have no elves at all and a fourth might have "standard" D&D elves. Or cosmologies (including pantheons, etc). Where the only things holding them together are a shared, "lore-free" skeleton of (generic) mechanics. It can also go hard on consistency--every element can be chosen to flow from the basic premises and cosmology, leaving a lean, mean setting that truly gets at the intended themes/tones, etc.

On the other hand, a true multiverse can go all-in on the wacky "kitchen-sink, but kinda makes sense because it's different universes" model. You can really have all sorts of things colliding, and you can craft a single coherent setting.

The mixed, "restricted multiverse" model gets neither side. You get the forced similarity of a single shared cosmology, but all the value of the weird-and-wacky variation is lost. Instead you just have the intrusion of incongruous elements (hey look, there's a walking robot man in my classically-medieval setting!) at random intervals. All of the downsides (as a DM/player), none of the upsides. While guaranteeing bland, homogenous "lore" (because it has to fit any possible setting). It's an awkward superposition of constraining and not constraining at the same time. Like a dress that binds where it should be loose and is loose where it should be fitted.

Not one single concept mentioned here as an upside forces good stories, and not one single concept mentioned here as a downside prevents good stories.

The universe should be such that the story concepts planned can work well. [And the DM needs to provide good story concepts.]

My current game has a basic "prime material plane" where most action will take place. There are times when there is no magic at all, and it's a generic medieval world, and there are times (including the current one) when magic is entering the universe, allowing caster classes and working magic. It also starts allowing denizens from other planes into that one. In the first two sessions, the PCs found kobolds, orcs, ogres, nixies, a quasit, zombies, and an entwife -- all in a universe where none of them usually exist.

The entire structure of the game calls for a universe with many settings but most play is intended to be in one setting, with at most "visitors" from other settings.

We have had seven sessions, and the players seem fascinated.

The universe should be such that the story concepts planned can work well. [And the DM needs to provide good story concepts.]

That's all.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm not sure how your logic tracks.

How do you get from "These universes share a connection on the regular in various ways." to "These universes must be samey."? Further, I don't see how randos from other universes MUST be present in every universe. Further further, even if it is samey, I don't see how that makes it uninteresting. Paris and Tokyo are samey in that they're both dense major metrpolis' full of humans and visitors from elsewhere, but they're still very different.

The "universe" is a rather big place. Just because Gort traveled from Universe A to Universe B, doesn't mean he's on the same planet, much less the same solar system or even galaxy as whatever world the party exists on.

And even if Gort does, the reaction to this can vary from locale to locale, same as it could from Some Guy traveling from Some Town to Some Other Town. Town B need not be any more tolerant or accepting of travelers than Universe B. Just like travel around the world, the level of travel between any two points can be highly variable.

Maybe there IS a Giant Metal Man in some semi-earth-like-fantasy-world, but that world is kinda like some podunk town in the middle of Wyoming, not many folks go there because there isn't much reason for them to do so. Even if Giant Metal Man does go there, it's unlikely his visit will be anything but brief.

I'm specifically thinking here of things like D&D 5e, which has gone all in on "each setting is basically a planet in the greater universe, and cross-setting traffic is frequent enough that everything exists everywhere" as well as "every setting has the exact same cosmological structure, named characters, gods (even if they call them different names), devils and demons, and even dragons are the same in every setting. Every elf is descended from Correllon, every world has "drow" that are tied to an underdark and eladrin that are tied to the feywild, and they all have the same traits, every world even has all the same spells, with the same names (including those named after famous people." To the level that if someone discovers a spell to create a nice floating disk, they'll also know that it's called Tenser's Floating Disk and that it was really invented by a guy named Tenser. Etc.

In that model, the only allowable differences are cosmetic. And you're fully expected to drop any character of any race or class into any game and not have any friction. Published in some obscure setting book? Yup, you can find him everywhere, even in areas that haven't seen outsiders in millennia. Every dwarf everywhere has an innate love of tools because Moradin. What, you want a setting where dwarves are atheist nomadic horse-riders? Nope, they have to be underground tool wielders who worship Moradin (by some name or other). Etc.

It leans really hard into the "it's all a cosmopolitan kitchen sink, races are just purely cosmetic, no one ever looks at you weird" model because it tries really hard not to publish anything that anyone anywhere might possibly get offended by. Which results in it not having any meat at all.

[Gnoman]

I'm not an expert on 5e D&D, but my limited experience says that doesn't sound right. The PHB even explicitly says "there's different gods in different settings, here are the more common sets for easy reference".

[Psyren]

The whole point, at least in a gaming context, is so you can use the stuff from setting book A in campaign setting B and give the DM a starting point for explaining that in a Watsonian sense.

If that doesn't appeal to you, that's perfectly okay - but it means there isn't really anything to "sell you on." Generally speaking, either you buy into that premise and its benefits, or you don't.



As a sidenote, you can have gameplay-divergent Keebler Elves and Pratchett Elves etc. in a multiverse setting with basically no extra work. Just have the former be a different mechanical race with that label, like Forest Gnomes, and be called "Elves" on their world. (Which is basically what they are, anyway.)

[PhoenixPhyre]

The whole point, at least in a gaming context, is so you can use the stuff from setting book A in campaign setting B and give the DM a starting point for explaining that in a Watsonian sense.

If that doesn't appeal to you, that's perfectly okay - but it means there isn't really anything to "sell you on." Generally speaking, either you buy into that premise and its benefits, or you don't.



As a sidenote, you can have gameplay-divergent Keebler Elves and Pratchett Elves etc. in a multiverse setting with basically no extra work. Just have the former be a different mechanical race with that label, like Forest Gnomes, and be called "Elves" on their world. (Which is basically what they are, anyway.)

AKA "sell more books", setting consistency and worldbuilding be darned. That's fine in a commercial sense, but inevitably (as far as I can tell) weakens the product. I have yet to see a piece of worldbuilding enhanced by introducing a multiverse that wasn't part of the core concept from the beginning. And even then...

@Gnoman--they've changed the philosophy starting in about Tasha's. Now it's all multiverse all the time, like it or not. Every published setting and every piece of published material presumes that there is one multiverse and one origin for everything and that everything is exactly the same everywhere except cosmetically.

[Telok]

For example, the 5e D&D concept of the multiverse, where all the published settings belong to a single cosmology and it is possible (via Spelljammer or spell or other means) to move between them, but most adventures assume a single sub-setting. This is different from something like Rifts (as I understand it), where universe-hopping/intersection is kinda the whole point and individual sub-universes aren't detailed nearly as much. A "true" multiverse would have only one setting--the multiverse itself; at the other end you have the "isolated universes" idea where each setting and its universe stands completely alone without intersection with any other.

Ironically the current 5e implementation of "multiverse" is basically "fantasy Rifts". There's one primary setting detailed that you play in (standard Earth version with add-ons), stuff falls into the main setting as required by plot, and some random splatbooks exist with half baked off-world setting pieces. The cut scenes for translating from world to world have been rendered functinally inconsequential as a couple level appropriate fight scenes with a no-effect "explore weird place" paint job.

[halfeye]

We hsd an old thread (don't reply in that thread, it's dead) about a subject related to this in the media forum:

https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?650052-Small-multiverses-in-fiction

[PhoenixPhyre]

Ironically the current 5e implementation of "multiverse" is basically "fantasy Rifts". There's one primary setting detailed that you play in (standard Earth version with add-ons), stuff falls into the main setting as required by plot, and some random splatbooks exist with half baked off-world setting pieces. The cut scenes for translating from world to world have been rendered functinally inconsequential as a couple level appropriate fight scenes with a no-effect "explore weird place" paint job.

Without any of the charm and wildness. It's "fantasy Rifts"...as compiled by committee 9-hells-bent on not offending anyone or presenting anything controversial.

[Telok]

Without any of the charm and wildness. It's "fantasy Rifts"...as compiled by committee 9-hells-bent on not offending anyone or presenting anything controversial.

Agree. But then I'm a nutso who has scraped probably a dozen wikis for different games & media to get background details for Acid Trip: The Setting for my next game.

[False God]

I'm specifically thinking here of things like D&D 5e, which has gone all in on "each setting is basically a planet in the greater universe, and cross-setting traffic is frequent enough that everything exists everywhere" as well as "every setting has the exact same cosmological structure, named characters, gods (even if they call them different names), devils and demons, and even dragons are the same in every setting. Every elf is descended from Correllon, every world has "drow" that are tied to an underdark and eladrin that are tied to the feywild, and they all have the same traits, every world even has all the same spells, with the same names (including those named after famous people." To the level that if someone discovers a spell to create a nice floating disk, they'll also know that it's called Tenser's Floating Disk and that it was really invented by a guy named Tenser. Etc.

In that model, the only allowable differences are cosmetic. And you're fully expected to drop any character of any race or class into any game and not have any friction. Published in some obscure setting book? Yup, you can find him everywhere, even in areas that haven't seen outsiders in millennia. Every dwarf everywhere has an innate love of tools because Moradin. What, you want a setting where dwarves are atheist nomadic horse-riders? Nope, they have to be underground tool wielders who worship Moradin (by some name or other). Etc.

It leans really hard into the "it's all a cosmopolitan kitchen sink, races are just purely cosmetic, no one ever looks at you weird" model because it tries really hard not to publish anything that anyone anywhere might possibly get offended by. Which results in it not having any meat at all.

I'm not a particular fan of 5E's cosmology.

But outside of 5E, or using 5E for purely the system, I think a "restricted multiverse" that is, one where visitors are common and there is strong commonality between them because the underlying rules are the same and therefore the potential outcomes are similar (ie: humanoids all have 2 arms, two legs, 1 head, etc....) are perfectly reasonable.

Including worlds where up is down, where nothing works as we know it, where everything is made from paint is creative, but your group will likely experience so little of it that the work required just isn't worth it.

But IMO, in a multiverse setup, restricted or not, I think a lot of the non-primary-play worlds will be simple set pieces, and they don't require more thought than that. You stop by Town A in World A and meet Group of People A, resolve the problem and move on. What the rest of their universe looks like doesn't really matter. No, it doesn't need to actually be a multiverse in this setup, it could be a planet with a lot of variety, a galaxy, but again, you're really just showing off this interesting set piece and once The Problem has been resolved, you move on.

Star Wars, for example, has a lot "set piece worlds", where you see one or two limited locales across the entire world and nothing else. No deeper dive into the nations or various cultures or people, just a short encounter with a specific group that makes no greater implication about the world as a whole. Once we have solved The Problem, the party moves on to the next one. Mario is an equally great example of this.

[Satinavian]

IME it is usually done do have the possibility to do a crossover arc. There is a certain appeal to mix and match different antagonists and protagonists, to play lots of culture shock and try out thing in a new environment. There is a reason it happens all the time in both fanfics and in comics, it is popular.

The second possibility is to do a single arc exploring a new, unknown, different environment. That is usually done to shake things up or bring some other perspective or to take a break from the current campaign.



Personally i don't need it much in my games. There are often even less intrusive versions : "dreamworld", "fey worlds", "mystic experience astral quest world" etc. that are by nature even better contained and still allow the GM to insert an episode in whatever setting.

[Mechalich]

Star Wars, for example, has a lot "set piece worlds", where you see one or two limited locales across the entire world and nothing else. No deeper dive into the nations or various cultures or people, just a short encounter with a specific group that makes no greater implication about the world as a whole. Once we have solved The Problem, the party moves on to the next one. Mario is an equally great example of this.

Star Wars is a universe where travel is easy. Spaceships are treated like cars and going to another planet is like driving down the highway to next town over. Consequently, Star Wars has a universal culture that, while not open to everyone in the galaxy (especially aliens whose minds don't fit its functionality, ex. Colicoids) it is presumed the PCs, and basically any recurring NPC will be members of. Local problems, in Star Wars, are usually tied into some vastly greater galactic scale conflict.

But yes, a serial format wherein the hero(es) got to place X, solve problem Y with the help of friendly local Z, and then move on when done never to return does commonly have a restricted setup. Specifically the restriction is that travel is rare and that most people can't or don't travel from place to place. Often the restriction is that only a tiny group of chosen individuals can travel at all. Magic: the Gathering is a good example of a universe like this - only planeswalkers can travel between the realms with any sort of reliability and they are almost incalculably rare to the point that they basically all know each other personally. The various planes are largely siloed from each other, with only the actions of planeswalkers able to breach those boundaries.

[RandomPeasant]

I'm a big believer in setting invariants. And that setting comes way before character concepts. Character concepts come out of the setting and should fit it. Saying "we want to play a real-world WWII game" and someone saying "ok, I'll bring my D&D wizard" just doesn't fit. And aggressively so--you can't shoehorn it in.

But that's a much larger differential than most of these "restricted multiverse" things are about. Yes, "D&D Wizard in WWII" doesn't work. But if "this guy is a lizardfolk when there mostly aren't lizardfolk" breaks your worldbuilding, you did bad worldbuilding. Similarly, if someone wants to show up with some non-standard class (like an Incarnate or a Binder in 3e), that only breaks the game if the designers give those classes capabilities that are themselves game-breaking -- and those break the game if you give them to the standard classes too.


And yes, you do have to retool the entire setting to incorporate those completely alien elements. Or accept that your setting is going to be lowest-common-denominator meaningless kitchen-sink. If everything is available, then there is place for nothing.

There is a large difference between "we could go over that hill and find anything, regardless of its consistency with the rest of the setting" and "Larry's character is the only Treefolk and the only Warlock we have ever encountered". The whole reason you have a restricted multiverse is so that all the retooling you need to do to accommodate a specific thing is say "and by the way, this weirdo showed up".


Every setting should have 100% freedom to define things like cosmology, pantheons, origins of races, available character concepts, and those invariants should be respected by everyone.

Then those invariants should be defined by everyone. The game belongs to everyone in it, coming from a position of "this is what allowed and if you want anything else sod off" is just unproductive. It does not break your setting to have a Warforged Duskblade when you expected Gishes to be Elven Wizard/Fighters.


Consequently, Star Wars has a universal culture that, while not open to everyone in the galaxy (especially aliens whose minds don't fit its functionality, ex. Colicoids) it is presumed the PCs, and basically any recurring NPC will be members of.

Star Wars has a universal culture in the way that the real world has a universal culture. But there's a lot of variation within that culture, just as there is in the real world. The culture of the Mandalorians is quite different from that of Coruscant, which in turn are different from various Sith or Jedi factions.

[Quertus]

Suppose I have a world where there’s a deadly disease that’s thrived on the planet for millennia. It spreads through multiple vectors, trans-species, including a highly infectious airborne vector that targets the Y chromosome.

In that world, the human population is all female clones. Other species, the males are often sickly, often passing the disease along in the act of mating, meaning animals have adapted with large litters and strong “constitutions”.

Trying to talk about adding “males” to such a setting could, of course, receive pushback in the form of just how stupid that is, given the disease, and how suboptimal it is compared to the established female cloning in the setting.

But that don’t make *this* world (where we’re posting) incoherent.

Point is, if you want people to sell you on the value of “the world of Man”, you may need to drop some of your preconceptions in order to hear what they’re saying.


I'm a big believer in setting invariants. And that setting comes way before character concepts. Character concepts come out of the setting and should fit it. Saying "we want to play a real-world WWII game" and someone saying "ok, I'll bring my D&D wizard" just doesn't fit. And aggressively so--you can't shoehorn it in.

And yet, the story of a D&D Wizard in WW2 could be an interesting one. Simple, honest question: can you imagine such a story being interesting? (Personally, I imagine it as a short story - a very short story, in which the clueless Wizard, unable to comprehend what’s going on, doesn’t see the elephant, and gets filled with lead while everyone else takes cover / drops prone / whatever. I think that’s the most likely story of that particular crossover, at least - and I find that those who deprioritize character often overlook that particular story.)

In my kind of multiverse, there are an infinite number of worlds that have followed our history up until that point. On this particular world that we happen to be looking at, perhaps the world will have a visitor, perhaps it will not. Shrug.

The point of a game is to choose a particular setup that will be good to play through. “Multiverse setting, world that up till now has followed our history. The setting is WW2”? Yeah, that’s a good start for a game, regardless of whether anyone takes an off-worlder or not.


I have yet to see a piece of worldbuilding enhanced by introducing a multiverse that wasn't part of the core concept from the beginning. And even then...

If you transitioned from thinking of “D&D Wizard in WW2 doesn’t fit” to “D&D Wizard in WW2 would make an interesting story”, if the focus of your world-building was on facilitating interesting stories rather than limiting yourself to certain types of stories, I’d contend it was entirely possible that your world-building might be improved. At least, I’d say mine was when I focused on what stories I could tell.

I mean, I’m deeply into world-building. But if you don’t accept the basic concept of the multiverse, then yeah, it’s hard to accept it. Which is why I suggest the infinite multiverse, and the “no one has happened to go here before” concept.

But that doesn’t help with your specific issue. To whit:

I'm specifically thinking here of things like D&D 5e,

and they all have the same traits, every world even has all the same spells, with the same names (including those named after famous people."
Let’s use Evard’s Black Tentacles as an example.

Obviously, no one has invented Evard’s Black Tentacles in Rifts, or Warhammer, or Pac-Man, or Shadowrun, or the WW2 setting. Why would you ever imagine that anyone (other than Evard) would invent it in a D&D setting? In fact, why would anyone have invented Sleep, or Magic Missile?

The answer is, they wouldn’t have. All world-building that doesn’t take that fact into account, that doesn’t invent a whole new arcane spell book for each world or accept branching realities / Flow of information between worlds / some other similar concept to explain similarities between worlds is ****. It’s like saying, “see these two worlds with completely different maps, cultures, technologies, and languages? Yeah, they’re completely different, but they both developed Pac-Man. And Asteroids. And Centipede and Joust and Mario Party and DOAX Beach Volleyball and Minecraft and…”

That’s just murder to suspension of disbelief.

Now, that’s an awful lot of work, working up a whole new set of spells for each supposedly sealed-off, never interacted with the outside Greater multiverse setting. So the lazy Gamist says, “it’s just a game, let’s sacrifice setting consistency for gameplay, eh?”

As someone who is a good programmer and therefore lazy, and who cares about setting consistency, my settings have answers, such as being open to the Greater multiverse. EDIT: in other words, to my mind, the existence of the multiverse helps with world-building. I don’t get why you consider it a detriment.

As someone who supposedly puts setting first, what do you do?


Limits and invariants are what make things interesting.

If taken as a definition, that would make The White Room interesting. Instead, consider “complexity and consistency are what make things interesting”.

[Mastikator]

I'm specifically thinking here of things like D&D 5e, which has gone all in on "each setting is basically a planet in the greater universe, and cross-setting traffic is frequent enough that everything exists everywhere" as well as "every setting has the exact same cosmological structure, named characters, gods (even if they call them different names), devils and demons, and even dragons are the same in every setting. Every elf is descended from Correllon, every world has "drow" that are tied to an underdark and eladrin that are tied to the feywild, and they all have the same traits, every world even has all the same spells, with the same names (including those named after famous people." To the level that if someone discovers a spell to create a nice floating disk, they'll also know that it's called Tenser's Floating Disk and that it was really invented by a guy named Tenser. Etc.

In that model, the only allowable differences are cosmetic. And you're fully expected to drop any character of any race or class into any game and not have any friction. Published in some obscure setting book? Yup, you can find him everywhere, even in areas that haven't seen outsiders in millennia. Every dwarf everywhere has an innate love of tools because Moradin. What, you want a setting where dwarves are atheist nomadic horse-riders? Nope, they have to be underground tool wielders who worship Moradin (by some name or other). Etc.

It leans really hard into the "it's all a cosmopolitan kitchen sink, races are just purely cosmetic, no one ever looks at you weird" model because it tries really hard not to publish anything that anyone anywhere might possibly get offended by. Which results in it not having any meat at all.

But D&D 5e isn't just a restricted multiverse, it's a restricted multi-multiverse. There are entire separate cosmologies that can be fully disconnected to the great wheel thingy. Like Eberron, or any homebrew setting with homebrew planes.

My problem with this restricted multiverse isn't that the great wheel exists but rather that the DMG itself tells the DM which planes exist and the PHB tells the player that dwarves live underground and halflings are jolly. THIS is the problem. The DMG should tell the DM how to make a cosmology, and the PHB should tell the player how halflings work physically.

The problem is that the DMG, MM and PHB all double as the Forgotten Realms campaign setting book. Halflings are NOT jolly in Darksun or Eberron. The core books should not be campaign setting books, there should instead just be a book on the forgotten realms, and that book can contain the great wheel cosmology.

So why does Dragonlance and Greyhawk use the great wheel too? Because the writers are too lazy to make up something original.

[Quertus]

Sell me on the multiverse? Well, I’ve already written a targeted attempt, and I’ll not try and sell a particular bad implementation of a multiverse, so instead I’ll just focus this post on a general pitch.

The multiverse is your friend, and can be for a great many reasons. As I’ve already stated and alluded, it explains similarities between worlds, and greatly reduces a GM’s workload in creating a believable setting using shared building blocks.

And it’s not just spells - technology, culture, art, clothing, language, construction techniques, every piece of the setting that isn’t hand-crafted by the GM for the setting can be explained as “familiar” by the connection to the Greater multiverse.

It allows the greatest diversity of content that explicitly isn’t required to have a native home or origin in that setting: if you don’t have Dragons in your setting, my half-Dragon can simply be from a world with Dragons, or the Dragon that impregnated my mom could have done so “on vacation”. You could have Drow seemingly wiped out, yet resurface (heh) at a later date with no incongruity. No fuss, no muss, everything just works.

It allows you the greatest possible breadth of stories and settings. Sure, you could tell a Star Wars story that took place entirely on one planet, limited exclusively to characters who are all natives of that planet, but, if you accept the idea of multiple planets, it opens up stories that span multiple planets, or involve beings from multiple planets. And these different planets might have different environments that might challenge or be utilized by the characters in different ways. Same thing with universes in a multiverse.

There’s plenty of “alt-history” stories where our world was shaped by aliens, or deities, or time-travelers, or beings from other dimensions (including programmers, like in The Matrix). Should not other worlds also be capable of telling such stories? Why should a fictional world be more limited in its scope of stories than the “real” one?

What would a D&D Wizard do in Star Trek, or Warhammer 40k, or WW2? I haven’t a clue, but, to my mind, that’s an interesting question. “What is a D&D Wizard” is a question I personally find interesting; and, when the players of the Star Trek / Warhammer 40k / WW2 game are ignorant of “D&D”, and don’t just see that the Wizard “doesn’t belong”, that’s when they get to be seen for what they truly are. Similarly, “what is this setting” is also best answered by an outsider.

D&D in particular has a long and glorious history of world-hopping, that it’s a disservice to the history and legacy of the game to ignore. “Mage’s Disjunction”, indeed! :smallannoyed:

But most any setting can benefit from the inclusion of the multiverse into its DNA - even if that inclusion is simply of the form, “but no one has made the voyage… yet.”.

That’s my attempt at a generic elevator pitch for the concept of the multiverse.

[Psyren]

AKA "sell more books", setting consistency and worldbuilding be darned. That's fine in a commercial sense, but inevitably (as far as I can tell) weakens the product. I have yet to see a piece of worldbuilding enhanced by introducing a multiverse that wasn't part of the core concept from the beginning. And even then..

@Gnoman--they've changed the philosophy starting in about Tasha's. Now it's all multiverse all the time, like it or not. Every published setting and every piece of published material presumes that there is one multiverse and one origin for everything and that everything is exactly the same everywhere except cosmetically.

"Selling more books" is a two-party transaction; for them to do that means more people are buying those books, which means there is demand for that content. That you think it weakens the product in your opinion is your prerogative, but clearly others don't agree.


IME it is usually done do have the possibility to do a crossover arc. There is a certain appeal to mix and match different antagonists and protagonists, to play lots of culture shock and try out thing in a new environment. There is a reason it happens all the time in both fanfics and in comics, it is popular.

The second possibility is to do a single arc exploring a new, unknown, different environment. That is usually done to shake things up or bring some other perspective or to take a break from the current campaign.

I'd say the primary benefit of a multiverse is to distill what is core or fundamental to the identity of a creation or brand. Consider the MCU for example - we saw in Loki that there were at least a dozen versions of the character, but they all shared traits that made them recognizable as Loki, such as a god complex / need for validation, low cunning, distrust of authority other than themselves, and an affinity for illusion magic.

For D&D specifically, a multiverse allows them to distill the elements of a given official setting that allow it to feel like D&D, such as the presence of elves, humans, dwarves and dragons in some form, but allowing them to play with different expressions of those core concepts. Eberron elves, Ravnica elves, Krynn elves and Faerun elves are all very different from one another, but not so different that a newcomer can't pick up those settings and still recognize them all as being elves.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm not an expert on 5e D&D, but my limited experience says that doesn't sound right. The PHB even explicitly says "there's different gods in different settings, here are the more common sets for easy reference". The opening to Fizban's Treasury of Dragon's is where the 5e Devs threw down the gauntlet.

But if "this guy is a lizardfolk when there mostly aren't lizardfolk" breaks your worldbuilding, you did bad worldbuilding. No, they didn't.
This is you making the accusation of badwrongfun based on your opinion, and as you know opinions are like navels.

There is no requirement for lizardfolk to exist in any setting. None. It's the call of the DM.
If you play at my table, you will find that Tiefling's as a PC race do not exist.
Genasi do, however. OG Genasi (EE Player Supplement) but I may fold in the more recent version soon if someone wants to play one.

If you play at some other tables, you will find that Multiclassing doesn't exist.

If you play at some other tables, you fill find that feats don't exist.

You don't get to dictate to others how to do worldbuilding or apply optional rules.
(~ AL is of course an exception to the above since it tries to be open to as much produced material as it can as a matter of good business practice ~ even though AL had some restrictions on alignment and on a few races). In the main, though, DM's aren't world building in AL in the same way that they do in a normal campaign).
IMO, PHB+1 was the better idea for AL, but I guess that ship has sailed.


For Phoenix: a problem that needs to be explored under this topic is:
"When you go from one world / setting to the other, what doesn't work in setting Y in the same was as it does in setting X?"

From one place to another, for example, magic works differently. (Dark Sun being a nice example from 2e AD&D). The lazy brains at WoTC have, through their attempt at 'it's all one multiverse because we said do' in Fizban's, are unwilling to consider that in World X/Setting X, certain magics don't work, or work differently, and so on. When I try to cast 'remove curse' in Setting Y, for example, something different happens in setting Y than in setting X; or a rosebush nearby suddenly blooms/dies as a side effect.

This gambit by WoTC devs is an aid to 'standardization' for their purposes, but it often is disruptive to coherent worldbuilding. Then again, some DM's don't want to do much world building. For them this is in the noise level.


I'm not a particular fan of 5E's cosmology. I'll go out on a limb and suggest that 5e doesn't actually have a cosmology, but FR has one (IMO a bad one). See also DMG pages 10-13 on Forces and Philosophies.

About Spelljammer: I think they put the cart before the horse in 5e on this one. It feels to me that Spelljammer is something fundamentally based on the Planescape setting...and Sigil as the nexus of a particular multiverse, or 'verse as they'd say in Serenity/Firefly.

[gbaji]

What would a D&D Wizard do in Star Trek, or Warhammer 40k, or WW2? I haven’t a clue, but, to my mind, that’s an interesting question. “What is a D&D Wizard” is a question I personally find interesting; and, when the players of the Star Trek / Warhammer 40k / WW2 game are ignorant of “D&D”, and don’t just see that the Wizard “doesn’t belong”, that’s when they get to be seen for what they truly are. Similarly, “what is this setting” is also best answered by an outsider.

There are other problems to consider though. Do these different universes all share the same core cosmology, or are they different? Do the "rules" of magic/technology/whatever work the same everywhere, or differently in different places.

You asked the question: "What is a D&D wizard?", but the more relevant question is the follow up: "And why don't they already exist in Star Trek world?". If the magic a D&D wizard uses works when he travels to Star Trek world, then one has to ask why there aren't already magic users there? And if Phasers and Warp drive work in Star Trek world, why don't they exist already in your D&D setting? Why does a powerful deity in one world, not have a presence in another? Are they restricted to their one world? Maybe a few worlds? All, but only if there's worship there? And how does that work if you have a world where divine spellcasting doesn't exist or work? And if it does, how do you explain why no one there uses it?

I tend to lean towards "open" worlds in that you can travel to other worlds, but "restricted" in that it's rare and difficult to travel and also that each world has its own rules entirely. Magic may work differently, or not at all. Technology maybe works in one world, but not in another (so that Star Wars blaster is just a crude club in many worlds). So yeah, in my game, the PCs can travel to other worlds, but it's always a risk, most likely most of their magic spells/abilities/items wont work (or wont work the same at least), and they'll be in a world full of people who have developed their own items/magic/tech/abilities that *do* work in their world, so the party will almost always be at a disadvantage. It's a place to visit, if you really have to for some reason, but not a lot of reason to stay or to go back.

It tends to work. Allows us to try out different settings and make it so there is other stuff "out there". I really do feel that the most dangerous risk of allowing this too much in a game is that the game itself loses its focus and feel. If you allow any character type from any game system/setting in your game, you can expect that players will come up with the ones most likely to break things. Depending on your game and table, this may be just fine. But for many game settings it will make it into a huge mess. YMMV of course.

If my players really want to play in a completely different setting with a different set of actual game rules, we'll just play that other game instead. I'm just not a fan of having players want to take their beloved character from gameA and play it (or a version of it) in gameB. Just create a new character in the new game. Variety is good.

[NichG]

In general I think one danger of a multiverse featuring strongly in a campaign is that it makes it much more important for players to feel strongly connected to the world/country/city/etc they're playing in. Otherwise 'eh, things are really bad here with the necromantic tides, let's just evacuate everyone into Elysium, it's literally heaven' or 'go ahead and kill me, that's just a free plane shift to a being such as I' sorts of responses can become easy.

Why would anyone stay in Dark Sun if they could leave? You have to have a good answer, or the game might just become about trying to find a way out and ignoring whatever is threatening Tyr.

Or you end up running a campaign about multiverse -scale threats and actors.

[Psyren]

The opening to Fizban's Treasury of Dragon's is where the 5e Devs threw down the gauntlet.

Do you mean the First World stuff? Sure it gives a Watsonian explanation for why every published D&D setting features dragons in some capacity (because they have to from a Doylist perspective too), but ultimately it's still a theory/rumor/myth that the DM can disregard if they want.


In general I think one danger of a multiverse featuring strongly in a campaign is that it makes it much more important for players to feel strongly connected to the world/country/city/etc they're playing in. Otherwise 'eh, things are really bad here with the necromantic tides, let's just evacuate everyone into Elysium, it's literally heaven' or 'go ahead and kill me, that's just a free plane shift to a being such as I' sorts of responses can become easy.

Why would anyone stay in Dark Sun if they could leave? You have to have a good answer, or the game might just become about trying to find a way out and ignoring whatever is threatening Tyr.

Or you end up running a campaign about multiverse -scale threats and actors.

"The multiverse exists and {setting} is part of it" does not in any way have to mean "going from one setting to another is easy (or even possible) for most people" nor even does it have to mean "the inhabitants of that setting are aware that a multiverse exists."

You're right that if leaving Dark Sun or Ravenloft were an option for most inhabitants they probably would. But you can have a multiverse without making that option available to them. The PCs are already assumed to be special baseline after all.

[Osuniev]

Personally (if you haven't noticed), I'm a big fan of the isolated setting. Every setting should have 100% freedom to define things like cosmology, pantheons, origins of races, available character concepts, and those invariants should be respected by everyone. "I have this nifty character idea" should only come after filtering out the ones that don't fit the setting. Or ideally, characters should arise organically from within the setting without reference to external ideas. No "superhero X, but in <setting>" things....unless you're playing a superhero game where that's a valid character. Limits and invariants are what make things interesting.

Agreed. My last campaign, I sent my players a list of 6 races, 10 classes, 15 "backgrounds" etc and said "this is it".
It made them coherent and helped the new players to not get overwhelmed.

[False God]

I'm specifically thinking here of things like D&D 5e, which has gone all in on "each setting is basically a planet in the greater universe, and cross-setting traffic is frequent enough that everything exists everywhere" as well as "every setting has the exact same cosmological structure, named characters, gods (even if they call them different names), devils and demons, and even dragons are the same in every setting. Every elf is descended from Correllon, every world has "drow" that are tied to an underdark and eladrin that are tied to the feywild, and they all have the same traits, every world even has all the same spells, with the same names (including those named after famous people." To the level that if someone discovers a spell to create a nice floating disk, they'll also know that it's called Tenser's Floating Disk and that it was really invented by a guy named Tenser. Etc.

In that model, the only allowable differences are cosmetic. And you're fully expected to drop any character of any race or class into any game and not have any friction. Published in some obscure setting book? Yup, you can find him everywhere, even in areas that haven't seen outsiders in millennia. Every dwarf everywhere has an innate love of tools because Moradin. What, you want a setting where dwarves are atheist nomadic horse-riders? Nope, they have to be underground tool wielders who worship Moradin (by some name or other). Etc.

It leans really hard into the "it's all a cosmopolitan kitchen sink, races are just purely cosmetic, no one ever looks at you weird" model because it tries really hard not to publish anything that anyone anywhere might possibly get offended by. Which results in it not having any meat at all.

To preface, I agree on all points about 5E. So I'm not going to argue there.

But really, thinking about it, thinking about other settings I'm familiar with that use a "restricted multiverse", I seem to notice that the overwhelming majority of them only use "other worlds" as temporary set pieces that never explore the real differences in the world. And I got to wondering, why do we need forest universe, water universe, fire universe, if functionally we're only going to see a single city and a tiny fraction of the population? Why can't these simply be elements of "the universe". We don't really even need different planes or planets, as we could reasonably cover most concepts on the same world.

So coming around, I actually agree that there's no point in a "limited multiverse" provided they all play by the same rules (even if each has their own unique spin on elves) ad we don't ever see more than a tiny sample of those alternate realities.

[Telok]

In general I think one danger of a multiverse featuring strongly in a campaign is that it makes it much more important for players to feel strongly connected to the world/country/city/etc they're playing in. Otherwise 'eh, things are really bad here with the necromantic tides, let's just evacuate everyone into Elysium, it's literally heaven' or 'go ahead and kill me, that's just a free plane shift to a being such as I' sorts of responses can become easy.

Why would anyone stay in Dark Sun if they could leave? You have to have a good answer, or the game might just become about trying to find a way out and ignoring whatever is threatening Tyr.

Or you end up running a campaign about multiverse -scale threats and actors.

Oh yeah, my players did that last campaign. Nuked Tyr from orbit because they didn't like the king. Let loose a shadow apocalypse that killed 99.99%, then left in their spelljammer. When the sacrifices stopped flowing the prison weakened and the Dragon had to flee. Next campaign features the escaped energy being that eats stars & life force, it's modron "antivirals" will go all Great March to exterminate all life in the universe, and the ancient forerunner weapon that drops whole sectors into the wh40k Warp will restart & take unaimed pot shots at the setting trying to hit the energy being. Also Athas is now lost in the warp like a giant demented spce hulk. Hilarious.

Didn't start the campaign that way, didn't plan it. Just happened and evolved from the players messing about in the setting.

[Pauly]

One of the reasons why restricted multiverses exist is post facto rationalization, which is essentially what happened in D&D as well as in DC/Marvel.

Creators make different settings for a game and then players want to take their Greyhawk characters (for eapxamo,e) into Forgotten Realms (for example) . So the writers of D&D went ummm … new spell - planar travel.

I am having a lot of trouble thinking of any “restricted multiverse” environments where the restricted multiverse was a core conceit at the time of creation.

[NichG]

"The multiverse exists and {setting} is part of it" does not in any way have to mean "going from one setting to another is easy (or even possible) for most people" nor even does it have to mean "the inhabitants of that setting are aware that a multiverse exists."

You're right that if leaving Dark Sun or Ravenloft were an option for most inhabitants they probably would. But you can have a multiverse without making that option available to them. The PCs are already assumed to be special baseline after all.

This is a practical matter for players in a campaign that features the fact its a multiverse, not a point of abstract theory or setting stability. If you are using these elements in a campaign, they can be a strong seasoning that takes over the rest unless the world the campaign primarily takes place on actually feels more interesting/worthwhile/connected to the PCs than the other settings they're aware of or have been clued in that they exist.

If one person brings in a githzerai crewmember from an experimental spelljammer that crashed through the grey and landed on Athas, yes, 'what if we fixed the spelljammer and used it to escape?' is going to be an option they feel when there's warfare building between two of the sorceror kings and their hidden town of escaped slaves is right in the middle of it. Especially if the person playing the githzerai says things like 'let me tell you about these awesome clubs in Sigil'.

[Psyren]

This is a practical matter for players in a campaign that features the fact its a multiverse, not a point of abstract theory or setting stability. If you are using these elements in a campaign, they can be a strong seasoning that takes over the rest unless the world the campaign primarily takes place on actually feels more interesting/worthwhile/connected to the PCs than the other settings they're aware of or have been clued in that they exist.

If one person brings in a githzerai crewmember from an experimental spelljammer that crashed through the grey and landed on Athas, yes, 'what if we fixed the spelljammer and used it to escape?' is going to be an option they feel when there's warfare building between two of the sorceror kings and their hidden town of escaped slaves is right in the middle of it. Especially if the person playing the githzerai says things like 'let me tell you about these awesome clubs in Sigil'.

It's not fixable unless the DM says it is - simple. Presumably they would control the circumstances of a crash. (And how would you fix a spelljammer spelljamming ship on Athas anyway?)

[Quertus]

In general I think one danger of a multiverse featuring strongly in a campaign is that it makes it much more important for players to feel strongly connected to the world/country/city/etc they're playing in. Otherwise 'eh, things are really bad here with the necromantic tides, let's just evacuate everyone into Elysium, it's literally heaven' or 'go ahead and kill me, that's just a free plane shift to a being such as I' sorts of responses can become easy.

Why would anyone stay in Dark Sun if they could leave? You have to have a good answer, or the game might just become about trying to find a way out and ignoring whatever is threatening Tyr.

Or you end up running a campaign about multiverse -scale threats and actors.

Build a stupid premise, get an unexpected response, learn to build a better premise, become a better GM. I’m not seeing the downside here.

“Give me a world worth caring about”. That seems a bar a GM should care about learning to not just meet but to exceed, regardless of what overarching, potentially “end of the world” threats they have planned, no?


There are other problems to consider though. Do these different universes all share the same core cosmology, or are they different? Do the "rules" of magic/technology/whatever work the same everywhere, or differently in different places.

You asked the question: "What is a D&D wizard?", but the more relevant question is the follow up: "And why don't they already exist in Star Trek world?". If the magic a D&D wizard uses works when he travels to Star Trek world, then one has to ask why there aren't already magic users there? And if Phasers and Warp drive work in Star Trek world, why don't they exist already in your D&D setting? Why does a powerful deity in one world, not have a presence in another? Are they restricted to their one world? Maybe a few worlds? All, but only if there's worship there? And how does that work if you have a world where divine spellcasting doesn't exist or work? And if it does, how do you explain why no one there uses it?


I tend to lean towards "open" worlds in that you can travel to other worlds, but "restricted" in that it's rare and difficult to travel

Well, I was going to ask, “has your D&D Wizard travelled to Star Trek? If not, that answers why they’re not there”, but it looks like you already have what is also my answer of “rare and nontrivial”.

And, unlike most, I agree that things aren’t just guaranteed to work in other universes. Not just “there is no ‘weave/Force’ to power Wizards / Jedi”, but “this D&D world doesn’t have the tech level to let your blasters work (although Placia does)”, “WoD doesn’t believe in your blasters either”, and (canonically) “even your Fighter is slowly losing levels as he remains on Earth”.

More “Magic? What’s that?” than “Matter? What’s that?”, but still best to learn to look before you leap.

Within a system, though, reality travel is generally much more forgiving. <looks at Athas> generally.


and also that each world has its own rules entirely. Magic may work differently, or not at all. Technology maybe works in one world, but not in another (so that Star Wars blaster is just a crude club in many worlds). So yeah, in my game, the PCs can travel to other worlds, but it's always a risk, most likely most of their magic spells/abilities/items wont work (or wont work the same at least), and they'll be in a world full of people who have developed their own items/magic/tech/abilities that *do* work in their world, so the party will almost always be at a disadvantage. It's a place to visit, if you really have to for some reason, but not a lot of reason to stay or to go back.

Knowledge is power. Home turf advantage, too. Still, a sufficiently clever party could be the ones with the advantage, if they play their cards right.


"The multiverse exists and {setting} is part of it" does not in any way have to mean "going from one setting to another is easy (or even possible) for most people" nor even does it have to mean "the inhabitants of that setting are aware that a multiverse exists."

Not sure what I wanted to say beyond “+1 this”. I find the “multiverse” concept much more enjoyable when it’s rare - perhaps even limited to only the PCs out of everyone the PCs ever learn about or encounter even the rumor or ripples of. And even then, the only way the PCs use it may well be, “nobody knows why I have scales and wings, or seem to learn things <2 tiers of spells> slower than everyone else, but have I got a party trick to show you!”.


thinking about other settings I'm familiar with that use a "restricted multiverse", I seem to notice that the overwhelming majority of them only use "other worlds" as temporary set pieces that never explore the real differences in the world. And I got to wondering, why do we need forest universe, water universe, fire universe, if functionally we're only going to see a single city and a tiny fraction of the population? Why can't these simply be elements of "the universe". We don't really even need different planes or planets, as we could reasonably cover most concepts on the same world.

So coming around, I actually agree that there's no point in a "limited multiverse" provided they all play by the same rules (even if each has their own unique spin on elves) ad we don't ever see more than a tiny sample of those alternate realities.

“No, I’m not talking about Earth, or real-world politics, I’m talking about Forest World.”

It’s a trick a lot of authors pull, and getting that separation can be good for the audience, too.

Granted, “the message” and/or the metaphor often fall apart, just like any sports analogy. But presenting a “pure” version of an idea, free from the reader’s preconceptions about their own reality, has value.

[Mechalich]

One of the reasons why restricted multiverses exist is post facto rationalization, which is essentially what happened in D&D as well as in DC/Marvel.

Creators make different settings for a game and then players want to take their Greyhawk characters (for eapxamo,e) into Forgotten Realms (for example) . So the writers of D&D went ummm … new spell - planar travel.

I am having a lot of trouble thinking of any “restricted multiverse” environments where the restricted multiverse was a core conceit at the time of creation.

There are examples, mostly of the 'person X is the only one who can travel between realities.' The sci-fi series Quantum Leap (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Leap) was built this way, with the title character Sam transiting through time and space. Similar structures are often with some frequency in highly speculative science fiction, with one character, the traveler, being the only person to move through a series of different environments that are otherwise disconnected. Said character is often The Man with No Name and may be drive by some sort of obsessive mission. For instance, Killy, the protagonist of Blame!, wanders endlessly through 'The City' a space the size if the Solar System and containing different levels that are effectively different realities. A fantasy version would be the Dreamlands of HP Lovecraft, a set of bizarre, interconnected spaces that can only be accessed by Dreamers, a set that was extremely restricted because, well, Lovecraft had views.

[False God]

“No, I’m not talking about Earth, or real-world politics, I’m talking about Forest World.”

It’s a trick a lot of authors pull, and getting that separation can be good for the audience, too.

Granted, “the message” and/or the metaphor often fall apart, just like any sports analogy. But presenting a “pure” version of an idea, free from the reader’s preconceptions about their own reality, has value.

While I understand that, you can have a single Fantasy World do all of these things. Specifically I was thinking of Star Wars, which has what I would consider a "limited multiverse". The party travels, via some means, to multiple worlds that fit the OP's description: worlds where travelers are not unheard of, it's possible to encounter any of the playable races at any moment and any one of could serve as a quest hub....BUT we never really see much of the greater world. We visit one town, maybe two, get the plot device we need and move on, while ostensibly all these elements showcased could be on the same planet.

[NichG]

It's not fixable unless the DM says it is - simple. Presumably they would control the circumstances of a crash. (And how would you fix a spelljammer spelljamming ship on Athas anyway?)

And congratulations, now you've fallen into a reactive DM pattern (and potentially an adversarial one if you decide 'the ship will not be fixed' as a constant you bend the world and your rulings around to enforce) to try to keep control over the strong setting element you allowed in on a lark.

I'd say in turn - don't build a setting with a multiverse and let people bring in characters from that multiverse unless you're willing for it to matter.

It's not an inherently bad setting element to include, but it's absolutely one to treat with respect and understand that it is going to exert a pull on your game, your campaign, and the way the players - not even their characters - view that world. Use it when appropriate to what you're trying to do. Don't feel ashamed of choosing to not use it or allow it if it doesn't fit what you're aiming for. It's better to tell someone at the start of the campaign 'no, you can't bring in the Doctor from Dr. Who as your character' if it turns out you aren't really on board for all that would imply - because you're going to do a lot worse to that player's agency later on if you feel like you have to keep things under control, than you would just saying 'yeah that doesn't fit, I can't run that for you'.


Build a stupid premise, get an unexpected response, learn to build a better premise, become a better GM. I’m not seeing the downside here.

“Give me a world worth caring about”. That seems a bar a GM should care about learning to not just meet but to exceed, regardless of what overarching, potentially “end of the world” threats they have planned, no?


It's often easier said than done because of the balance between 'there needs to be enough wrong with the world for there to be things to do, change, resist, or fight for' but also 'there needs to be enough right with the world for it to be worth fighting for it', and add in the mix of each player having their own tastes, views, etc, and also the characters they choose to play bringing perspectives that might be easier or more difficult to engage.

I'm not saying you can't do it, or you shouldn't try to get better at it. But part of getting better is to recognize the things you're doing to make the job unnecessarily difficult for yourself. You want to run Lovecraftian cosmic horror through the lens of petty small town politics and yet have people not just up and leave the town? Okay, that's challenging. Add to that that the D&D afterlives exist, people go to places like Elysium, and oh by the way one of the characters is an isekai reincarnator from Greyhawk who has memories of that afterlife? I'm not saying it can't be done. But if you do that just because you feel obligated to because some forumite said 'cmon, do it!' and not because you have some idea that actually makes use of that constructively for your campaign, I'd call that bad GM-ing - because its unintentional in nature, and its sort of an active ignorance about what the consequences are of the elements that you're including.

It's like, maybe a great pastry chef can take a custard base that someone accidentally dropped a habanero into and pivot it into something great. But they do so by understanding what the habanero is doing to the dish, not just pretending that its not there and going on to make creme brulee as if nothing had changed. But if someone comes to their restaurant and asks them to make a habanero dessert, sure, because of their knowledge and skill they can make that happen and make it good - but they probably wouldn't do it the same way they went about salvaging the custard.

[Psyren]

And congratulations, now you've fallen into a reactive DM pattern (and potentially an adversarial one if you decide 'the ship will not be fixed' as a constant you bend the world and your rulings around to enforce) to try to keep control over the strong setting element you allowed in on a lark.

I'd say in turn - don't build a setting with a multiverse and let people bring in characters from that multiverse unless you're willing for it to matter.

I'm not building anything; WotC established a multiverse that all their settings inhabit. Which they, you know, have every right to do. Use it at your table or don't.

My larger point was that your options are not a binary between letting the players walk all over you like a doormat, and throwing everything out. You can allow X from another setting, like having a Giff crash their spelljamming ship into Athas (or whatever else), without the resulting rubble opening the floodgates to every other setting under creation. It's not hard.

[NichG]

I'm not building anything; WotC established a multiverse that all their settings inhabit. Which they, you know, have every right to do. Use it at your table or don't.

I'd say to other GMs - just because WotC did something doesn't compel you to take it or leave it as a whole: every table, every campaign, the people are that table are the ones building it, not WotC. They might be borrowing elements from WotC, but they have no obligations to that company or its writers to execute things the same way as written. You can include what you want to use and discard the rest. But you should do so with intention and with understanding of what those elements actually bring to the table, and what pressures they create. Pretending 'oh that pressure doesn't exist because I can go do this in response' is not helpful.

Instead observe 'oh, because I have this element, it feels like maybe I also need to go and do this other thing'. That feeling is the pressure that is exerted by that setting element. Understanding that, you can anticipate whether or not it would be good to include the thing in the first place - is it pushing you to go somewhere you already want to go, or is it making it harder for you to go where you want to go?

[Psyren]

I'd say to other GMs - just because WotC did something doesn't compel you to take it or leave it as a whole: every table, every campaign, the people are that table are the ones building it, not WotC. They might be borrowing elements from WotC, but they have no obligations to that company or its writers to execute things the same way as written. You can include what you want to use and discard the rest. But you should do so with intention and with understanding of what those elements actually bring to the table, and what pressures they create. Pretending 'oh that pressure doesn't exist because I can go do this in response' is not helpful.

Instead observe 'oh, because I have this element, it feels like maybe I also need to go and do this other thing'. That feeling is the pressure that is exerted by that setting element. Understanding that, you can anticipate whether or not it would be good to include the thing in the first place - is it pushing you to go somewhere you already want to go, or is it making it harder for you to go where you want to go?

Nothing stops me from going where I want to go, or not going where I don't. Certainly not words on a page in a hobby book.

The feeling that "because of thing, you need to go and do other thing" is ultimately all in your head. Letting a player in your Athas campaign play something from outside Athas does not force you to run a reality-hopping campaign, or to allow XYZ other things either. And there's nothing wrong with simply telling them no.

[Pauly]

There are examples, mostly of the 'person X is the only one who can travel between realities.' The sci-fi series Quantum Leap (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Leap) was built this way, with the title character Sam transiting through time and space. Similar structures are often with some frequency in highly speculative science fiction, with one character, the traveler, being the only person to move through a series of different environments that are otherwise disconnected. Said character is often The Man with No Name and may be drive by some sort of obsessive mission. For instance, Killy, the protagonist of Blame!, wanders endlessly through 'The City' a space the size if the Solar System and containing different levels that are effectively different realities. A fantasy version would be the Dreamlands of HP Lovecraft, a set of bizarre, interconnected spaces that can only be accessed by Dreamers, a set that was extremely restricted because, well, Lovecraft had views.

A lot of sci-fi uses a de-facto multiverse. In Star Trek TOS each planet the crew encountered was effectively a new plane and the Enterprise a spelljammer ship. Star Wars on the other hand uses a galaxy spanning civilization that mostly makes each new location feel like it’s part of a coherent whole.

[Mechalich]

A lot of sci-fi uses a de-facto multiverse. In Star Trek TOS each planet the crew encountered was effectively a new plane and the Enterprise a spelljammer ship. Star Wars on the other hand uses a galaxy spanning civilization that mostly makes each new location feel like it’s part of a coherent whole.

I'd say Star Trek is kind of mixed, depending on the goals of the specific series. The original series and TNG mostly treated each planet as individualized, while DS9 interacted much more heavily with the galaxy's larger civilizations. In some sense Trek is at an earlier civilizational data compared to Star Wars, in that the various larger civilizations: the Federation, the Klingons, the Romulans, etc. are still expanding and contact with regions outside of their smallish home regions remains extremely limited while in Star Wars the known galaxy is largely claimed and navigation standards have been established to allow easy travel throughout, though there are Unknown Regions where this is not true. This is a matter of locating the 'frontier' in the greater setting sense, and whether or not the story takes place inside the frontier or beyond it.

This divide is found in many classic settings of this type, especially ones with sailing ships where the act of getting on a ship and sailing beyond now boundaries physically put the characters past the frontier. A classic example is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in the Chronicles of Narnia. Narnia exists, and the ship's crew essentially carries the conventions of Narnia with them, but they are exploring entirely new worlds one island at a time.

[Quertus]

While I understand that, you can have a single Fantasy World do all of these things. Specifically I was thinking of Star Wars, which has what I would consider a "limited multiverse". The party travels, via some means, to multiple worlds that fit the OP's description: worlds where travelers are not unheard of, it's possible to encounter any of the playable races at any moment and any one of could serve as a quest hub....BUT we never really see much of the greater world. We visit one town, maybe two, get the plot device we need and move on, while ostensibly all these elements showcased could be on the same planet.

Because flying around on the Millennium Falcon is cooler than “I took the bus”, and lends credence to “why hasn’t someone else done this / why don’t we let someone else do this?”?

I think Star Wars makes it easier to answer than most GM’s content would, but “it puts the focus on the PCs and their choices, makes them and their choices (artificially) important”?


And congratulations, now you've fallen into a reactive DM pattern (and potentially an adversarial one if you decide 'the ship will not be fixed' as a constant you bend the world and your rulings around to enforce) to try to keep control over the strong setting element you allowed in on a lark.

I'd say in turn - don't build a setting with a multiverse and let people bring in characters from that multiverse unless you're willing for it to matter.

It's not an inherently bad setting element to include, but it's absolutely one to treat with respect and understand that it is going to exert a pull on your game, your campaign, and the way the players - not even their characters - view that world. Use it when appropriate to what you're trying to do. Don't feel ashamed of choosing to not use it or allow it if it doesn't fit what you're aiming for. It's better to tell someone at the start of the campaign 'no, you can't bring in the Doctor from Dr. Who as your character' if it turns out you aren't really on board for all that would imply - because you're going to do a lot worse to that player's agency later on if you feel like you have to keep things under control, than you would just saying 'yeah that doesn't fit, I can't run that for you'.

Wouldn’t it be better to not try to control the game? :smallconfused:

If there’s a “session 0” premise that would be violated, it’s everyone’s responsibility to deal with that. If there’s not, then there should be no need to “control” anything.

If the Doctor won’t kill, but you’ve built a game that requires the PCs to kill, that’s bad move. If you’ve built a game that requires the PCs to assassinate the good and rightful king, and the Paladin kills the quest giver for suggesting such, you’ve made a bad game.

Don’t require - or forbid - anything that isn’t covered in session 0. Create interesting scenarios, and play to see what happens.

Or you could learn the lesson, “I let the Paladin in on a whim; from now on, PCs are not allowed to have codes of conduct. Or good alignments / morals. Or personalities.”

I know which lesson I think is the better takeaway.


It's often easier said than done because of the balance between 'there needs to be enough wrong with the world for there to be things to do, change, resist, or fight for' but also 'there needs to be enough right with the world for it to be worth fighting for it', and add in the mix of each player having their own tastes, views, etc, and also the characters they choose to play bringing perspectives that might be easier or more difficult to engage.

I'm not saying you can't do it, or you shouldn't try to get better at it. But part of getting better is to recognize the things you're doing to make the job unnecessarily difficult for yourself. You want to run Lovecraftian cosmic horror through the lens of petty small town politics and yet have people not just up and leave the town? Okay, that's challenging. Add to that that the D&D afterlives exist, people go to places like Elysium, and oh by the way one of the characters is an isekai reincarnator from Greyhawk who has memories of that afterlife? I'm not saying it can't be done. But if you do that just because you feel obligated to because some forumite said 'cmon, do it!' and not because you have some idea that actually makes use of that constructively for your campaign, I'd call that bad GM-ing - because its unintentional in nature, and its sort of an active ignorance about what the consequences are of the elements that you're including.

It's like, maybe a great pastry chef can take a custard base that someone accidentally dropped a habanero into and pivot it into something great. But they do so by understanding what the habanero is doing to the dish, not just pretending that its not there and going on to make creme brulee as if nothing had changed. But if someone comes to their restaurant and asks them to make a habanero dessert, sure, because of their knowledge and skill they can make that happen and make it good - but they probably wouldn't do it the same way they went about salvaging the custard.


I'd say to other GMs - just because WotC did something doesn't compel you to take it or leave it as a whole: every table, every campaign, the people are that table are the ones building it, not WotC. They might be borrowing elements from WotC, but they have no obligations to that company or its writers to execute things the same way as written. You can include what you want to use and discard the rest. But you should do so with intention and with understanding of what those elements actually bring to the table, and what pressures they create. Pretending 'oh that pressure doesn't exist because I can go do this in response' is not helpful.

Instead observe 'oh, because I have this element, it feels like maybe I also need to go and do this other thing'. That feeling is the pressure that is exerted by that setting element. Understanding that, you can anticipate whether or not it would be good to include the thing in the first place - is it pushing you to go somewhere you already want to go, or is it making it harder for you to go where you want to go?

If I responded, “sounds like good practice, learning your craft and your players and your players’ preferences, and if you practice doing so with a handicap, it should become easier, until you can do it automatically”, would you say I’ve completely misunderstood what you’ve said? If not, if I’m at least in the right ballpark, then what smaller details do you think I’ve likely missed, that I seem to be facing the opposite direction? “Know yourself, admit when you’re not up to creating engagement in Lovecraftian horror… yet”? “Create stretch goals, not suicide pacts”? “Learn to evaluate your skill and the CR modifier of various elements”? Anything else?

[Jay R]

I build my own worlds. I borrow from published settings as little or as much as I want, but ultimately this world is my own creation, and fits the assumptions of the game, even if it contains Castle Greyhawk, the Temple of the Frog, the Feywild, the Spelljammer, Ankh-Morpork, the Shire, Hogsmeade, Dragonstone, Camelot, Caer Dallben, Cimmeria, Lantern Waste, Frostbite Falls, Jurassic Park, and the Alamo.

[RandomPeasant]

The DMG should tell the DM how to make a cosmology, and the PHB should tell the player how halflings work physically.

It's not really clear to me why "Halflings have this default culture" is unacceptable, but "Halflings have this default biology" is fine. Defaults are good. The reason Darksun Halfings are interesting is precisely that they exist in contrast to an expectation that Halflings won't be cannibal raiders.


"And why don't they already exist in Star Trek world?".

Have you not heard of Q?


If the magic a D&D wizard uses works when he travels to Star Trek world, then one has to ask why there aren't already magic users there? And if Phasers and Warp drive work in Star Trek world, why don't they exist already in your D&D setting?

I don't find these sorts of questions terribly troubling. There are lots of things that are possible in the real world, but had at various times not spread to various places, despite still being possible in those places (as they were possible everywhere, the laws of physics being universal to our knowledge). There certainly is a detailed explanation for why the Aztecs had not discovered gunpowder in 1400 (and if you can figure out precisely what it is, you can probably win some kind of award). But if you're doing a campaign set in Mesoamerica before the Columbian Exchange, all the answer you really need is "they haven't invented it".


We visit one town, maybe two, get the plot device we need and move on, while ostensibly all these elements showcased could be on the same planet.

Any campaign, unless you do something like destroy a whole world, is going to be something that could happen on just one world. After all, with the exception of a group of people who could just about fill up a large lecture hall, every story any real person has experienced has been experienced on just one world. The reason you have multiple worlds is precisely that a restricted multiverse allows you to support individual character concepts people think are cool (good) without having to retool all your worldbuilding (bad). If Ixalan has to be on the same world as New Phyrexia, allowing someone to play Koth requires you to concoct an explanation for why the phyrexians haven't compleated all the dinosaurs and pirates. If they're on separate planes, you can just point out that there's no way for Elesh Norn to get there and move on to having your dino-pirates campaign.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I guess I don't have nearly as much of a problem with

"There are many worlds and the viewpoint characters visit each one, spending a little time there" (basically treating worlds or universes like more constrained fiction treats cities or regions)

as with

"There are many worlds and the viewpoint characters really only belong to one of them and all the adventures happen in that world...except that those other worlds get airdropped in randomly with neither 'plot significance' or explanation" (which treats those other worlds as throwaway elements, sources of things that, in the end, aren't really incorporated into the world the narrative concerns itself with).

World-hopping can be fun. It's not my preferred mode, as I prefer detailed, as-if-it-were-real worlds built in depth over many game sessions and even campaigns. My personal world is a living world, now with campaigns number 17 and 18 with almost as many different groups, each one having left elements behind and enriched the world. But world-hopping can be fun. Tends toward the episodic/"situation of the week", but yeah. No big deal. And you can have coherent meta-settings that way if you try.

But throwing stuff into one world that really originated and has a home in another setting? You run several risks, with only a slim chance of getting it right. If the foreign element is one of the PCs (or worse, a key DMPC), you can end up with bad Protagonist Syndrome, the entire campaign warping around this alien element like an oyster with a grain of sand. If the foreign element is just thrown in without taking the effect seriously, it can be jarring and/or forgotten. Or worse, it can completely destroy suspension of disbelief for many people. As a PC, even if it doesn't end up in Protagonist Syndrome, it often leads to characters only glancingly connected to the world and the events. Ones where there's no real reason why the PC should even care about this situation, let alone know anything about it. And while the "naive exposition target/audience stand-in" can work in fiction (sometimes, but is way too often poorly implemented and overused IMO), it doesn't work well in a TTRPG without (to me) strongly contrived circumstances.

[False God]

Any campaign, unless you do something like destroy a whole world, is going to be something that could happen on just one world. After all, with the exception of a group of people who could just about fill up a large lecture hall, every story any real person has experienced has been experienced on just one world. The reason you have multiple worlds is precisely that a restricted multiverse allows you to support individual character concepts people think are cool (good) without having to retool all your worldbuilding (bad). If Ixalan has to be on the same world as New Phyrexia, allowing someone to play Koth requires you to concoct an explanation for why the phyrexians haven't compleated all the dinosaurs and pirates. If they're on separate planes, you can just point out that there's no way for Elesh Norn to get there and move on to having your dino-pirates campaign.

Or, as the OP IMO rightly gripes about 5E, you could just say "No, this campaign is set on Ixalan, your character is from Ixalan, we're not going to talk about New Phyrexia here." There's no need to accept any concept from anywhere and shove it into the world. Koth has ostensibly no reason to even by on Ixalan, considering his beef is with the Phyrexians and saving Mirrodin, the only reason he's on Ixalan is arguably to get people to leave Ixalan and go fight somewhere else.

Koth is antithetical to playing a game on Ixalan, because by nature Koth wants us to go play a different game somewhere else.

[NichG]

Wouldn’t it be better to not try to control the game? :smallconfused:

If there’s a “session 0” premise that would be violated, it’s everyone’s responsibility to deal with that. If there’s not, then there should be no need to “control” anything.


This is in the context of Psyren saying 'the DM can just make the ship not be able to be fixed'. That indicates a dissatisfaction with the campaign going that direction rather than e.g. dealing with the war, and a willingness to intervene to 'keep things on track'. That is, given that they expressed that they did actually care about controlling the campaign, there's a reaction that this multiverse element pushes them to take which leads in the direction of needing to exert more and more control to avoid this now natural idea of 'what if we just escape?'.

If you're fine with the players saying 'we don't like Athas, lets escape' and having that be the campaign, then of course you don't need to control anything.

The point I'm making is that you should understand that when you add 'character who knows about a clearly better in all ways place' to 'a crapsack world that no one would choose to be in', you really need to understand that it makes 'lets escape' become a much more obvious and central concept to the scenario. It isn't neutral, it moves things a certain way. If that's a way you're happy to go, then great! If that's a way you're willing to go, then great! If that's a way that makes most of the campaign setting meaningless - you wanted to run Dark Sun, not Planescape - maybe you should say 'no, the Great Wheel cosmology doesn't exist in this campaign' when the player pitches that character.



If I responded, “sounds like good practice, learning your craft and your players and your players’ preferences, and if you practice doing so with a handicap, it should become easier, until you can do it automatically”, would you say I’ve completely misunderstood what you’ve said? If not, if I’m at least in the right ballpark, then what smaller details do you think I’ve likely missed, that I seem to be facing the opposite direction? “Know yourself, admit when you’re not up to creating engagement in Lovecraftian horror… yet”? “Create stretch goals, not suicide pacts”? “Learn to evaluate your skill and the CR modifier of various elements”? Anything else?

I think the important thing you're missing is that knowing what to include and what not to include and why is part of the skill to be learned. It's not just 'work your way up to including everything (as a handicap)'. If you're skilled, you should be able to run 'kitchen sink' and make it not bad, but you should also be able to say 'I will take only these spare elements, and by doing so I can make something you just can't experience at all with pure kitchen sink'.

Basically, 'kitchen sink' is one kind of game, its not the only game. If you master making a soup with every ingredient in your kitchen, that isn't the same thing as mastering every soup that can be made with the ingredients in your kitchen. Stone soup can be good, but so can a soup featuring and amplifying a single central ingredient. And just like eating the same thing every day becomes boring, only being able to run 'the same kind of campaign' every time also becomes boring.

[Psyren]

This is in the context of Psyren saying 'the DM can just make the ship not be able to be fixed'. That indicates a dissatisfaction with the campaign going that direction rather than e.g. dealing with the war, and a willingness to intervene to 'keep things on track'. That is, given that they expressed that they did actually care about controlling the campaign, there's a reaction that this multiverse element pushes them to take which leads in the direction of needing to exert more and more control to avoid this now natural idea of 'what if we just escape?'.


If you're fine with the players saying 'we don't like Athas, lets escape' and having that be the campaign, then of course you don't need to control anything.

You don't need "more and more control." If the player wants to play something from outside the setting and you're okay with allowing that, it's a one-way trip for that character - simple. You seem hell-bent on complicating that and for the life of me I don't understand why.

You can even make it a long-term hook for the character. "My Astral Elf doesn't want to stay in this grimdark setting she crashed in forever, she wants to find a way home one day." "Great - her ship is irreparable but maybe she and this ragtag group of adventurers that took her in will figure something out eventually. Maybe they'll even want to go with her, Athas being Athas the retirement plans kinda suck." "Cool, let's play this campaign." You don't have to deal with the multiverse at any point until you want to. Get it?


The point I'm making is that you should understand that when you add 'character who knows about a clearly better in all ways place' to 'a crapsack world that no one would choose to be in', you really need to understand that it makes 'lets escape' become a much more obvious and central concept to the scenario. It isn't neutral, it moves things a certain way. If that's a way you're happy to go, then great! If that's a way you're willing to go, then great! If that's a way that makes most of the campaign setting meaningless - you wanted to run Dark Sun, not Planescape - maybe you should say 'no, the Great Wheel cosmology doesn't exist in this campaign' when the player pitches that character.

A desire being obvious doesn't make it feasible. I'd love to retire tomorrow, travel the world and never have to work another day in my life. Like people, characters can want all sorts of things they think (or even know) are better than their current situation.

[NichG]

You don't need "more and more control." If the player wants to play something from outside the setting and you're okay with allowing that, it's a one-way trip for that character - simple. You seem hell-bent on complicating that and for the life of me I don't understand why.

Because your response to nuanced 'these elements have effects and impact player psychology and relationship to the setting' has been basically 'don't bother to think about anything, just wave your omnipotent DM stick'. And my point is, the fact that you feel you would need to do so is itself evidence of the impact of these elements.

Your response to 'players are influenced by the context they have for understanding the events of the world and may act differently as a result' amounts to 'you can always just railroad them'. Well, what if you don't want to do that, but you also want to have a campaign in a certain thematic setting in which that theme has some chance of actually sticking? Well, then you have to consider those complicated things, and actually bother to understand what you're doing rather than just throw stuff in and hope and rely on heavy-handed DM-ing when its not working.

I say this as someone who primarily runs multiverse-heavy stuff. I'm very familiar at this point with the pattern of player interest when suddenly 'the world is bigger than you thought'. Everything at the local scale has its perceived relevancy and meaningfulness decrease unless the players have a strong bond with that element - like, something or someone that comes up every game. When you bring in an isekai character, they will tend to dilute the ability for events not directly personally involving the PCs to be taken as heavy or serious. Those are influences that you can lean into and take advantage of, or they can make the campaign feel flat and frustrating.


A desire being obvious doesn't make it feasible. I'd love to retire tomorrow, travel the world and never have to work another day in my life. Like people, characters can want all sorts of things they think (or even know) are better than their current situation.

And someone who is looking at a situation as something they want to be over so they can get to the stuff that's important to them will be more disconnected from events than someone for whom those events are the world.

[Psyren]

Because your response to nuanced 'these elements have effects and impact player psychology and relationship to the setting' has been basically 'don't bother to think about anything, just wave your omnipotent DM stick'. And my point is, the fact that you feel you would need to do so is itself evidence of the impact of these elements.

Your response to 'players are influenced by the context they have for understanding the events of the world and may act differently as a result' amounts to 'you can always just railroad them'. Well, what if you don't want to do that, but you also want to have a campaign in a certain thematic setting in which that theme has some chance of actually sticking? Well, then you have to consider those complicated things, and actually bother to understand what you're doing rather than just throw stuff in and hope and rely on heavy-handed DM-ing when its not working.

I say this as someone who primarily runs multiverse-heavy stuff. I'm very familiar at this point with the pattern of player interest when suddenly 'the world is bigger than you thought'. Everything at the local scale has its perceived relevancy and meaningfulness decrease unless the players have a strong bond with that element - like, something or someone that comes up every game. When you bring in an isekai character, they will tend to dilute the ability for events not directly personally involving the PCs to be taken as heavy or serious. Those are influences that you can lean into and take advantage of, or they can make the campaign feel flat and frustrating.

There is no nuance here. There are two axes:

- Either you want to allow players to use extra-setting races in your campaign, or you don't;
- Either you want to deal with them traveling between multiversal realms in your campaign, or you don't.

You can say yes to both, no to both, or even yes to one and no to the other. Fundamentally, those are your options.

The wishy-washy slurry resulting from you wanting to have your cake and eat it, or in this analogy chew your cake and then dribble it back onto the plate and try molding it back into a cakelike shape somehow, is entirely of your own making. Ask and answer those two bullets in session zero, and then stick to your guns. And you can change your mind later if you want to - D&D is a game, not an employment contract - but you should at least leave session zero with a firm answer to those two questions in mind, and your players should be aware of your decision even if one or more of them are disappointed by it.

[MoiMagnus]

"Restricted multiverse" is IMO very similar to some approach to the idea of "Medieval fantastic", which I will call "easy medieval fantastic".

In "easy medieval fantastic", the world is assumed to be somewhat medieval (not a historically accurate medieval, but one that looks medieval), and the presence of magic and its influence over the society is artificially reduced.

Human farmers are still assumed to be doing medieval farming without magical help, the power structure is still assumed to be made of kings and sword-yielding peoples with maybe a few advisors being spellcasters, etc. Sure, non-human races can have fantasy cities, but the "main civilisation" is usually grounded in what peoples will recognise as "real life medieval, but with actual magic sometimes".

The goal is to get the best of both worlds: let the players and the plot use the cool magic, while having everything non-plot-relevant follow the expectations of a non-magical world. No need to learn the inner working of the magocraty, they're just a wizard guild like we had some artisan guilds. No need to ponder the consequences of resurrections on the justice system, peoples don't use them that often. Etc.

However, if you go with the mindset of building a fully coherent world, it quickly falls apart.

And I think that's the core of the "restricted multiverse idea". The whole concept is to artificially maintain a familiar status-quo (so that peoples don't need to learn how the way works, or just to capture a specific theme), while allowing features that would theoretically break apart said status-quo if you think too much about it (but with some sort of gentleman agreement that neither the player nor the GM will actually use them to actually break the status-quo).

And IME, it's only effective in "low investment" campaigns where you don't expect peoples to care about the universe in details. If you have a group of players that will actually delve in your universe, you don't need to artificially maintain a universe that is already familiar (they'll get familiar with your universe soon enough), and incoherences in worldbuilding might actually break their immersion into the game.


While guaranteeing bland, homogenous "lore" (because it has to fit any possible setting).

Only if you try to get everything to fit a priori. You can get a non-bland non-homogenous "lore" that matches the core of the campaign you planned, and then find more and more contrived ways to fit things the players ask questions about.

[Mastikator]

It's not really clear to me why "Halflings have this default culture" is unacceptable, but "Halflings have this default biology" is fine. Defaults are good. The reason Darksun Halfings are interesting is precisely that they exist in contrast to an expectation that Halflings won't be cannibal raiders.

It's one of the premises of the thread that default culture is unacceptable. It's up to you to agree or disagree with that premise. I was drawing a line from how DMG, PHB and MM all enforce default culture to how all campaign settings in D&D seem to have the same cultures for races, you know as if these two points form a line.

I mean honestly, why would I bother with Dragonlance or Greyhawk? They're basically the same as Forgotten Realms, if I want to play Basic Default Standard Fantasy™ then FR fills that role and Dragonlance doesn't actually differentiate itself. Hell, even Spelljammer, a setting about space travel, is still Basic Default Standard Fantasy in space. It's an expansion on Forgotten Realms, it's not an independent setting, it's a highly dependent system.

If I want something actually unique and independent then the only two settings I can think of is Darksun and Eberron. We have 3 settings.

Eberron
Darksun (sadly not published in 5e)
Everything else

[Satinavian]

If I want something actually unique and independent then the only two settings I can think of is Darksun and Eberron. We have 3 settings.

Eberron
Darksun (sadly not published in 5e)
Everything else

Not that i am really an expert in D&D, but what about the MTG derived settings, are they the same as well in their D&D incarnation?

Otherwise, yes. Eberron is my favorite D&D setting and it irks me often how many of the assumptions about what D&D is tend to ignore it.

[Mastikator]

Not that i am really an expert in D&D, but what about the MTG derived settings, are they the same as well in their D&D incarnation?

Otherwise, yes. Eberron is my favorite D&D setting and it irks me often how many of the assumptions about what D&D is tend to ignore it.

As far as I can tell about Theros it seems to me to be standard +, it's not really different from FR, but it does have additional player rules regarding piety.

Ravnica's main aesthetic is the ecumenopolis and the various factions. It manages to be pretty different, but honestly Darksun and Eberron still feel a lot more alien to FR than Ravnica feels alien to FR.

Those are the only MTG settings I have anything to say about/own their books.

[Quertus]

This is in the context of Psyren saying 'the DM can just make the ship not be able to be fixed'. That indicates a dissatisfaction with the campaign going that direction rather than e.g. dealing with the war, and a willingness to intervene to 'keep things on track'. That is, given that they expressed that they did actually care about controlling the campaign, there's a reaction that this multiverse element pushes them to take which leads in the direction of needing to exert more and more control to avoid this now natural idea of 'what if we just escape?'.

If you're fine with the players saying 'we don't like Athas, lets escape' and having that be the campaign, then of course you don't need to control anything.

The point I'm making is that you should understand that when you add 'character who knows about a clearly better in all ways place' to 'a crapsack world that no one would choose to be in', you really need to understand that it makes 'lets escape' become a much more obvious and central concept to the scenario. It isn't neutral, it moves things a certain way. If that's a way you're happy to go, then great! If that's a way you're willing to go, then great! If that's a way that makes most of the campaign setting meaningless - you wanted to run Dark Sun, not Planescape - maybe you should say 'no, the Great Wheel cosmology doesn't exist in this campaign' when the player pitches that character.

If you wanted to run Dark Sun, that should have been stated in session 0, and it’s therefore everyone’s responsibility to make that happen. No control required.

It’s on the players to not create or to handle that pressure.


I think the important thing you're missing is that knowing what to include and what not to include and why is part of the skill to be learned. It's not just 'work your way up to including everything (as a handicap)'. If you're skilled, you should be able to run 'kitchen sink' and make it not bad, but you should also be able to say 'I will take only these spare elements, and by doing so I can make something you just can't experience at all with pure kitchen sink'.

Suppose you run 3 worlds set in WW2. If one game, one player runs a D&D Wizard who gets gunned down for their cluelessness; in another, a second player runs a Jedi berserker of Khorn, who gets gunned down for charging a machine gun nest; in the last, a third player runs a clerk who changes assignments to keep their brother from going to war, and gets gunned down for lacking the proper training.

I’m not seeing how “kitchen sink” really affected our ability to tell the story of “clueless/untrained guy got gunned down”.


When you bring in an isekai character, they will tend to dilute the ability for events not directly personally involving the PCs to be taken as heavy or serious.

That’s… not been my experience.

That is, when my character is connected to the world, they care about those connections… not the adventure that the GM is selling. When my character is an Isekai, they have no such biases, and are more likely to care about what the GM is presenting.

For example, I care about RPGs and roleplaying, not gardening. You present me with a gardening adventure, well, I already have my interests, I’m not interested. You Isekai me to a strange new world? Then I might care about their gardening.

Same thing with other connections: when you have none, you’re more open to the connections presented. Corollary: an Isekai is “easy mode” for investment; a GM who can’t make an Isekai invested needs to up their game.

That’s what my decades of experience with many players playing Isekai characters tells me.

EDIT: put another way, when the character is a native, the player creates and controls their connections to the world; when the character is an Isekai, it is the GM who does so. Which of these sounds more conducive to the PC having connections suitable to pushing the GM’s agenda?

[Quertus]

I guess I don't have nearly as much of a problem with

"There are many worlds and the viewpoint characters visit each one, spending a little time there" (basically treating worlds or universes like more constrained fiction treats cities or regions)

as with

"There are many worlds and the viewpoint characters really only belong to one of them and all the adventures happen in that world...except that those other worlds get airdropped in randomly with neither 'plot significance' or explanation" (which treats those other worlds as throwaway elements, sources of things that, in the end, aren't really incorporated into the world the narrative concerns itself with).

World-hopping can be fun. It's not my preferred mode, as I prefer detailed, as-if-it-were-real worlds built in depth over many game sessions and even campaigns. My personal world is a living world, now with campaigns number 17 and 18 with almost as many different groups, each one having left elements behind and enriched the world. But world-hopping can be fun. Tends toward the episodic/"situation of the week", but yeah. No big deal. And you can have coherent meta-settings that way if you try.

But throwing stuff into one world that really originated and has a home in another setting? You run several risks, with only a slim chance of getting it right. If the foreign element is one of the PCs (or worse, a key DMPC), you can end up with bad Protagonist Syndrome, the entire campaign warping around this alien element like an oyster with a grain of sand. If the foreign element is just thrown in without taking the effect seriously, it can be jarring and/or forgotten. Or worse, it can completely destroy suspension of disbelief for many people. As a PC, even if it doesn't end up in Protagonist Syndrome, it often leads to characters only glancingly connected to the world and the events. Ones where there's no real reason why the PC should even care about this situation, let alone know anything about it. And while the "naive exposition target/audience stand-in" can work in fiction (sometimes, but is way too often poorly implemented and overused IMO), it doesn't work well in a TTRPG without (to me) strongly contrived circumstances.

I guess I don’t have nearly as much problem with

“There are many beings with different personalities that the viewpoint characters visit and interact with, spending a little time with each.”

As with

“There are multiple valid personalities for the game, and, rather than merely being bland viewpoint characters that blindly follow the script, the PCs actually have such a personality, airdropped in without Plot significance or incorporation into the narrative.”

Colorful NPCs can be fun.

But throwing characters with personalities into my games? You run several risks, with only a slim chance of getting it right.

If the PC has a personality, you can end up with a Protagonist, the entire campaign warping around this alien element like an oyster with a grain of sand. If the personality is just thrown in without taking the effect seriously, it can be jarring and/or forgotten. Or worse, it can completely destroy the planned campaign, when the Paladin refuses to assassinate the Just and rightful king. As a PC, even if it doesn't end up in Protagonist Syndrome, it often leads to characters caring about how they are connected to the world and the events, instead of just following the script as viewpoint characters. Ones where there's no real reason why the PC should even care about this situation.

Having a personality can work in fiction (sometimes, but is way too often poorly implemented and overused IMO), it doesn't work well in a TTRPG without (to me) strongly contrived circumstances.

As much as I jest, I can say that, having vast experience with both “characters with personality” and “off-worlders”, the former is much more likely to cause problems than the latter. EDIT: and that’s been true regardless of whether I was running the character, running the game, a fellow player in the game, or merely a bystander.

Also, per your “I prefer detailed, as-if-it-were-real worlds built in depth over many game sessions and even campaigns”, I can only say I prefer detailed, as-if-it-were-real characters, built in depth over many game sessions and even campaigns. (I like your wording.)

[RandomPeasant]

But throwing stuff into one world that really originated and has a home in another setting? You run several risks, with only a slim chance of getting it right. If the foreign element is one of the PCs (or worse, a key DMPC), you can end up with bad Protagonist Syndrome, the entire campaign warping around this alien element like an oyster with a grain of sand.

Why? If your world breaks down because someone shows up with a weird race or class, I think that's an issue with your world-building, not a reason to blanket-ban weird races and classes. It's just not that hard to deal with "this guy is weird" without the campaign warping around it.


Or, as the OP IMO rightly gripes about 5E, you could just say "No, this campaign is set on Ixalan, your character is from Ixalan, we're not going to talk about New Phyrexia here." There's no need to accept any concept from anywhere and shove it into the world.

The need is "someone wants to play this concept, and will have more fun if they're allowed to". The point of the game is to have fun, and you should reasonably accommodate people in things that will allow them to have more fun. Now, yes, you have to weigh that fun against whatever less fun people are going to have because of the foreign element. But, frankly, if "this dude is weird and has weird powers" breaks your worldbuilding, I don't think that worldbuilding is well-done. In any world, particularly any world at the level of advancement D&D postulates, there are going to be large sections of the world that anyone in some particular part of the world doesn't know about anyway. If Koth shows up in Ixalan for a campaign focused on the pseudo-Mesoamerican parts of the world, how are the people there (who are the ones from which any campaign-breaking would arise) supposed to tell that he is weird because he is from a separate reality that is a world full of metal people that has been taken over by the fantasy Borg and not because he is from the pseudo-Asian part of their world and people there simply happen to be like that? After all, some of the people where they live are fish dudes and some of the colonizers are literal vampires, is "there are metal dudes out there" really something beyond the pale for them?


Koth has ostensibly no reason to even by on Ixalan, considering his beef is with the Phyrexians and saving Mirrodin, the only reason he's on Ixalan is arguably to get people to leave Ixalan and go fight somewhere else.

By "Koth" I mean "a character like Koth, who is a Vulshok with geomantic powers", not "exactly Koth with precisely his motivations and characterization". Presumably this guy's response to the evens of Scars block was to cut his losses and run. Because the thing the player wants is to play a dude with metal sticking out of him and lava powers, not to do a whole "topple New Phyrexia" campaign.


It's one of the premises of the thread that default culture is unacceptable. It's up to you to agree or disagree with that premise. I was drawing a line from how DMG, PHB and MM all enforce default culture to how all campaign settings in D&D seem to have the same cultures for races, you know as if these two points form a line.

They don't "enforce a default culture", they provide a suggested culture, which is a different (and entirely acceptable thing). Books can't enforce a damn thing, they're books.


Dragonlance doesn't actually differentiate itself.

Not to defend Dragonlance or anything, but doesn't it have very strong opinions about how its crazy gods are good and a bunch of dragon-obsessed stuff?

[False God]

The need is "someone wants to play this concept, and will have more fun if they're allowed to". The point of the game is to have fun, and you should reasonably accommodate people in things that will allow them to have more fun. Now, yes, you have to weigh that fun against whatever less fun people are going to have because of the foreign element. But, frankly, if "this dude is weird and has weird powers" breaks your worldbuilding, I don't think that worldbuilding is well-done. In any world, particularly any world at the level of advancement D&D postulates, there are going to be large sections of the world that anyone in some particular part of the world doesn't know about anyway. If Koth shows up in Ixalan for a campaign focused on the pseudo-Mesoamerican parts of the world, how are the people there (who are the ones from which any campaign-breaking would arise) supposed to tell that he is weird because he is from a separate reality that is a world full of metal people that has been taken over by the fantasy Borg and not because he is from the pseudo-Asian part of their world and people there simply happen to be like that? After all, some of the people where they live are fish dudes and some of the colonizers are literal vampires, is "there are metal dudes out there" really something beyond the pale for them?
Then we don't need Koth to be from Mirrodin at all, and we don't need to introduce Mirrodin. We can just frame Koth as "some weirdo from some other part of Ixalan". That was my point originally. Introducing entire other worlds for nothing more than window dressing or to justify the existence of one person is unnecessary and wasteful. It's unnecessary to the world we're in and it's wasteful of the world we're creating. Not to mention it just introduces potential problems (world-hopping) that are antithetical to playing a game on Ixalan.

When I pitch a game, and I always pitch a game first, and someone says they want to play something totally outside of that, my first thought is not "Will this enable this guy to have more fun?" it's "Was this guy listening?" followed by "What else is he not going to listen to me on?" followed by "Why is this guy here?"

My history with players is that when I pitch Game A, and player comes back with Totally Unrelated Concept B, there's going to be trouble. Not just because of the disconnect between the character and the gameworld, but because of the disconnect between the DM, the other players, and this guy. If he is unwilling or unable to bring himself to invest in the very basic concept of the game, lets say "Ixalan", why is he here? Because we all enjoy each other's company so much? Okay that's fine, but if that's true, couldn't he have bent his concept to fit the world, rather than relying on our mutual enjoyment of his company to tolerate his disconnect?

In short: I find this sort of behaviour to indicate not just a disconnect, but a level of disrespect for the DM and the other players, who all chose to play in this game.

[NichG]

If you wanted to run Dark Sun, that should have been stated in session 0, and it’s therefore everyone’s responsibility to make that happen. No control required.

It’s on the players to not create or to handle that pressure.

Suppose you run 3 worlds set in WW2. If one game, one player runs a D&D Wizard who gets gunned down for their cluelessness; in another, a second player runs a Jedi berserker of Khorn, who gets gunned down for charging a machine gun nest; in the last, a third player runs a clerk who changes assignments to keep their brother from going to war, and gets gunned down for lacking the proper training.

I’m not seeing how “kitchen sink” really affected our ability to tell the story of “clueless/untrained guy got gunned down”.


Not 'story' exactly. Not 'events that have to happen'. Theme and feel. Assume that I'm saying these things because I want to not use railroading, not that I'm talking about an eclectic form of railroading.

Dump a D&D Wizard from Planescape into WW2 and they might say 'they've got a mini Blood War going on here about the dumbest things, how parochial. I guess I'll navigate around the edges until I can get out of here / I guess I'll help where I can as a matter of compassion for the people in front of me, but even if this is a world its still just a world'. Their life of course matters to them but WW2 isn't like 'up is down and the entirety of my life and my understanding of the world is being turned on its head and ordinary people are being called to acts of heroism because its just that dire' - because that character comes from a place where yeah people just go into dungeons and get loot or fight off monster armies or deal with the Harmonium causing entire layers of planes to be stolen. WW2 becomes the scenery for a tourist - maybe a tourist who doesn't take the situation seriously and goes and gets gunned down in a dark alley in the bad part of town metaphorically, but still a tourist attitude. And that's even just the magicless wizard gets tossed in example.

And it can absolutely be okay to run that sort of detached tourist themed game! There's a specific effect it brings in, of creating detachment, can be part of a bigger picture - I've run the 'PCs in an E6 world are embroiled in a fantasy world war but then discover aliens and go to space and then find out that the deity of the omniverse is trying to get everyone in less perfect versions of reality to kill each-other ASAP so it can bring their souls to the one it thinks is really perfect and everything is the fault of solars with planeshift and gee now that world war seems pretty pointless in retrospect' pivot before. One thing it excels at is creating the sort of flow of a group moving against the current or sense of what is important of the surrounding society. The whole 'don't mind me, you can keep shooting at each-other for whatever reason later, I just need to go get that box from the middle of your firefight'. Everyone thinks X is the most important thing, now you have a character who strongly cares about Y and not at all about X, and hijinks ensue. But the effect or side-effect of those hijinks is to diminish the significance of X.

Now take the clerk who ends up in a combat assignment - they know the people being killed in the war, they know and feel the reasons for the war, they may have been subject to rationing or the draft. Their actions in the war will impact whether they have a home to go back to that they can live with. It's a different feel, of the world narrowing to only what you can do in front of you and everything seeming to depend on the movement of forces much bigger than you. And again it can be absolutely okay to run that sort of thing!

But it is a different feel. And no, session 0 is not an answer to this because its not about what the characters do, its about how the players will relate to the world via their characters.

Now, have that D&D wizard bring magic with them into WW2 and you really will have a different thing, as events become less about 'platoon thrown into the meatgrinder' and more about 'enable a government supernatural weapons research lab, or try to avoid being a guinea pig'. Which is also a whole different thing than the other two.



That’s… not been my experience.

That is, when my character is connected to the world, they care about those connections… not the adventure that the GM is selling. When my character is an Isekai, they have no such biases, and are more likely to care about what the GM is presenting.

For example, I care about RPGs and roleplaying, not gardening. You present me with a gardening adventure, well, I already have my interests, I’m not interested. You Isekai me to a strange new world? Then I might care about their gardening.

Same thing with other connections: when you have none, you’re more open to the connections presented. Corollary: an Isekai is “easy mode” for investment; a GM who can’t make an Isekai invested needs to up their game.

That’s what my decades of experience with many players playing Isekai characters tells me.

EDIT: put another way, when the character is a native, the player creates and controls their connections to the world; when the character is an Isekai, it is the GM who does so. Which of these sounds more conducive to the PC having connections suitable to pushing the GM’s agenda?

Its not that an isekai character won't play the game, its that they generally make the events of the game less meaningful unless those events are multiversal in scale. Because 'there are other worlds?!?' is inherently far more impactful to worldviews than 'Bobby is cheating on Rachel?!?'.

Like, I love having an isekai character when I'm doing a campaign that looks like it's going to be local and prosaic but has an intended pivot to the cosmic, because that character will pave the way for the pivot nicely in creating something that looks like its both more interesting than the prosaic but also an irrelevant side thing, until it turns out that yes it was pretty relevant after all.

Example from one of my campaigns, it wasn't an isekai character but a gimmick where the activities of the party in a different campaign in a different world (but same multiverse) showed up in comic-book form in the characters' world. At which point the party messed around with it, summoned one of the (still around from that previous campaign, ascended into godhood) characters from that comic book with a ritual on a lark, got the whole 'yeah you're in a multiverse' talk, and the campaign focus became 'go mess around with the multiverse' rather than 'run the equivalent of the SCP'. Whether that was good or not aside, it was one of the most impactful elements of that campaign. Without that joke item, it would have been a totally different campaign with a totally different feel.

And that's really what I'm saying - when you do things, when you have things in a game, they can have impact. It does no one any good to pretend 'yeah its just another thing pay it no mind it won't matter' or 'no, we can't understand the impact of things and shouldn't try'.

[Mastikator]

They don't "enforce a default culture", they provide a suggested culture, which is a different (and entirely acceptable thing). Books can't enforce a damn thing, they're books.
And for a brand new group playing D&D using only the starter set and the core books, what is the difference between enforcing and suggesting?
That is a rhetorical question, the answer is "none". New players will always start out by discovering the great wheel as their first (and probably only) cosmology.



Not to defend Dragonlance or anything, but doesn't it have very strong opinions about how its crazy gods are good and a bunch of dragon-obsessed stuff?
Those are details, the setting is a standard default fantasy fake medieval Europe. The difference between FR and DL is the map and the names of the deities. The theme is the same.
DL also has no orcs, but in most standard default fantasy fake medieval Europe settings orcs are just standard bad dumb evil enemies, and standard dumb evil enemies are a dime a dozen. Removing one changes nothing.

If you compare the difference between DL and FR and Dark Sun one is very much not like the other. Dark Sun actually manages to be different from standard default fake medieval Europe setting.

And again, orcs, the standard bad dumb evil enemy, in Eberron they're a heroic race who once fought off the Daelkyr invaders and saved the world. They heroically stave off the demonic hordes from the demon wastes. Eberron I dare say is the only setting with interesting orcs in the D&D world.

[PhoenixPhyre]

And for a brand new group playing D&D using only the starter set and the core books, what is the difference between enforcing and suggesting?
That is a rhetorical question, the answer is "none". New players will always start out by discovering the great wheel as their first (and probably only) cosmology.


Agreed. And the new material makes it very clear that this is the expected path. If you want to use anything they publish from now on without major surgery, you have to accept the whole multiverse/great wheel/same stupid gods as everywhere/blood war garbage wholesale.



Those are details, the setting is a standard default fantasy fake medieval Europe. The difference between FR and DL is the map and the names of the deities. The theme is the same.
DL also has no orcs, but in most standard default fantasy fake medieval Europe settings orcs are just standard bad dumb evil enemies, and standard dumb evil enemies are a dime a dozen. Removing one changes nothing.

If you compare the difference between DL and FR and Dark Sun one is very much not like the other. Dark Sun actually manages to be different from standard default fake medieval Europe setting.

And again, orcs, the standard bad dumb evil enemy, in Eberron they're a heroic race who once fought off the Daelkyr invaders and saved the world. They heroically stave off the demonic hordes from the demon wastes. Eberron I dare say is the only setting with interesting orcs in the D&D world.

And in 5e's Multiverse stuff...Eberron doesn't actually get to be even that different. Different planar cosmology and racial origins? Nope, Great Wheel all the way, and same dumb gods. Gods are an unknown and may not exist? Nope, they're there and created everything just like all other settings and people are just dumb and don't realize it. Daelkyr invaders? They're just bog-standard Creatures from Beyond. All the originality gets leached out and you get "FR, but with more visible magitech".

[Telok]

... Because 'there are other worlds?!?' is inherently far more impactful to worldviews than 'Bobby is cheating on Rachel?!?'.

Depends on if Bob or Rach is a PC and getting stabbed/ assassinated/ turned into a toad.

In general talkies: I think my issue with the multiverse crap way of presentation in D&D is it 99% of the time just tuns into a themed dungeon for a few fights. If there's an ongoing quest/ theme/ story/ adventure based on the prime then any portal to shadowfel, private demiplane, plane of air, abyss, etc., etc., are all going to be just a door to an area with a few fights for a while.

Portal to air? Air & wings themed monster dungeon. Doesn't matter if it's "open" since there's a series of places to go and fights ti habe before returning to the prime and the rest of the adventure. Portal to shadowwankemoland? Just a pallette swap zone/dungeon with extra necrotic damage tacked on the enemies. Portal to over hyped abyss layer number 'who the **** cares'? Just a generic adventure with demon enemies this time. At least you know prot. from evil will be the op always buff this time. Portal to lolth's left butt cheek? Same as the abyss but spider themed and you want web & poison resist/immunity.

If you aren't doing some massive intensive plane hopping adventure to truly interesting places or a multiverse sandbox player goal directed one, then take a hard look at what you use this "multiverse" thing for. If the party is going to go a couple places, talk a couple people, fight a couple fights, then go back to prime, that's just a themed dungeon zone. Make a node map of your adventure of where the PCs actually went, each dungeon is a few nodes with a circle and either one entrance/exit or two. Check what your "multiverse" bits look like on that map and if you can put those same sorts of circles on them then congrats, your "multiverse" is a bull **** excuse for themed dungeons.

The D&D multiverse doesn't matter at all the vast vast majority of the time because at table, in the game, when the **** hits the fan, its a pathetic pallette swap or themed monster one-trip dungeon. No amount of pissing and moaning does anything if that's all your "multiverse" ends up getting used as in the adventures that are being run.

I'll see your "escaping Athais is ok/badwrongfun" stuff and raise you an "insane pickled dryad kosher vampire in a jar" pc/npc.

[Slipjig]

In that model, the only allowable differences are cosmetic. And you're fully expected to drop any character of any race or class into any game and not have any friction. Published in some obscure setting book? Yup, you can find him everywhere, even in areas that haven't seen outsiders in millennia. Every dwarf everywhere has an innate love of tools because Moradin. What, you want a setting where dwarves are atheist nomadic horse-riders? Nope, they have to be underground tool wielders who worship Moradin (by some name or other). Etc.

I guess that's true of the published settings (other than Dark Sun), but there's no reason it has to be true for your campaign. If you want to eliminate the names from the front of the "named-for-their-creator" spells, go for it. If you don't want dark-skinned Drow in your world, just say they don't exist. Maybe your evil elves are light-skinned and raid from the feywild instead of the Underdark, or maybe you just don't have evil elves. If you don't want Knights of Solamnia, or Artificers, or Harengon, or Tortles, just tell your players they don't exist in your setting. If you think the Outer Planes shouldn't be accessible to mortals, go for it (though this last one may require reworking or reflavoring certain abilities).

And I think we may be misusing the term "multiverse" here. It's not a multiverse until you get into alternate realities or different timelines. The fact that you can go from Krynn to Toril means they are in the same universe. It doesn't become a multiverse until you have a plethora of slightly different Krynn's.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I guess that's true of the published settings (other than Dark Sun), but there's no reason it has to be true for your campaign. If you want to eliminate the names from the front of the "named-for-their-creator" spells, go for it. If you don't want dark-skinned Drow in your world, just say they don't exist. Maybe your evil elves are light-skinned and raid from the feywild instead of the Underdark, or maybe you just don't have evil elves. If you don't want Knights of Solamnia, or Artificers, or Harengon, or Tortles, just tell your players they don't exist in your setting. If you think the Outer Planes shouldn't be accessible to mortals, go for it (though this last one may require reworking or reflavoring certain abilities).

And I think we may be misusing the term "multiverse" here. It's not a multiverse until you get into alternate realities or different timelines. The fact that you can go from Krynn to Toril means they are in the same universe. It doesn't become a multiverse until you have a plethora of slightly different Krynn's.

My issue is that because they're pushing this multiverse thing as core, now I have a bunch of expectations to undo. And, even if I'm not using that material, the printed material is weaker and less valuable to those that do. Basically, adding a "restricted multiverse" to a product inevitably makes it worse quality and less suited for purpose. Great cash grab though, although risky in some ways.

You can always rewrite stuff. That's not at issue. But the new stuff actively fights me when I do. Which makes it less likely that I (as someone who doesn't want all that crap and doesn't think their mechanical designs are much better anymore) purchase new stuff. Because if I have to rip out all the tight coupling everywhere and patch up the holes left behind...I might as well just make up my own material from scratch.

------

As far as "mutliverse" being in-apt--that's literally the word that the 5e devs are pushing. They literally call it the "D&D multiverse". So any misuse is totally on them. And by the "if you can go from one to the other it's the same universe" process...the Marvel Multiverse isn't a multiverse because you can travel between the realities.

[gbaji]

Have you not heard of Q?

Wizards in D&D have the same powers and abilities as Q from Star Trek?

Instead of leaping to extremes, let's stick to normal PC power level stuff. If your D&D party travels to a Star Trek universe, and the party wizard's spells work exactly the same as they did in their original world (memorizing spells from a spell book, casting them using various vocal, somantic, and/or material components, and generating the same exact effects), then one has to ask why there aren't other people in the Star Trek universe who have also learned how to do the same thing. It's not like the people living there haven't had the time to develop magic use, nor have they failed to advance through the same technological steps that might exist in say a Forgotten Realms setting in D&D.



I don't find these sorts of questions terribly troubling. There are lots of things that are possible in the real world, but had at various times not spread to various places, despite still being possible in those places (as they were possible everywhere, the laws of physics being universal to our knowledge). There certainly is a detailed explanation for why the Aztecs had not discovered gunpowder in 1400 (and if you can figure out precisely what it is, you can probably win some kind of award). But if you're doing a campaign set in Mesoamerica before the Columbian Exchange, all the answer you really need is "they haven't invented it".

But then you have to come up with a reasonable explanation for the question "why not?". Sure, you can speak about technological advancement, and that's a valid point. One thing learned adds to the next and all that. But that will tend your multiverse towards a "less advanced ---> more advanced" model, in which the more advanced folks should simply have access to and knowledge of everything "less advanced" than them, plus whatever else they've learned on top of that. This model makes sense, but is extremely problematic for a sustainable game setting.

Why on earth wouldn't your D&D based PCs go to an advanced world and come back with power armor, laser weapons, advanced sensor tech, micro-drones, advanced medicines, etc, and then use them to more or less wreck game balance back in their own less advanced world? Even if your game play only allows for occasional/rare adventures traveling to these other worlds and then back to their starting one, you have to figure out how to manage this, or your game will become a mess.

And if the answer is "magic"? Well, you didn't come up with a valid reason why "magic" didn't already exist in the advanced world in the first place, so the folks there would already have had to account for that. They either have to incorporate it into their own tech/whatever (which somewhat defeats the purpose of having different worlds in the first place) *or* you have to come up with some reason why the chocolate and peanut butter just can't exist in the same world at the same time. Otherwise, your Star Trek world would have to have phasers and warp drive, and orders of wizards casting spells, and druids keeping the green spaces green, and religions with clerics using divine magic, and every other thing that might exist in any other world that you have introduced. And if you later introduce another world with new/other things in it? You now have to retcon why all the worlds the party has already travelled to or even just heard of didn't always have those things as well.

Again. Mess. And yeah, you can try to explain this away as "well, they just didn't develop that in this world", but that excuse will start to wear thin and again, doesn't at all do anything to prevent individual world travelers from taking stuff from one world and introducing/using it in another. On a small scale it might be fun to imagine a scenario where the PCs have to deal with some evil guy who has travelled to some other universe and returned with some super powerful magic or tech and is inflicting it on their world (not a bad plot for a scenario at all), but once you open that can of worms you're going to be stuck with the "rule" that if someone takes some powerful thing from one world, it'll work just fine in another. So unless you really want to run a multiverse full of increasingly absurd mash ups, you might want to think this though before you introduce the very first instance of world travelling.

I'm not endorsing any particular approach here (mash ups can be fun actually), just pointing out the pitfalls and probable outcomes of different approaches. The GM has to think about what kind of game they want to run and then introduce things that make that happen. Not doing so will almost certainly result in unintended outcomes down the line.

[Slipjig]

When I pitch a game, and I always pitch a game first, and someone says they want to play something totally outside of that, my first thought is not "Will this enable this guy to have more fun?" it's "Was this guy listening?" followed by "What else is he not going to listen to me on?" followed by "Why is this guy here?"
Very much this. When I pitch a game, it's never been a problem to give the players a starting condition for the PCs. Something like, "you are all members of [Group], or have at least done contract work for them" or "you are all currently residents of [Place]" or "regardless of your background, you are all working as Shadowrunners when the game starts". Or, at a minimum, "you all wake up in jail".

The idea that, "if it exists in a book published by WotC, I'm obligated to let someone play it, otherwise they won't have fun" sounds to me like you have not-great players. If I tell my players the campaign is a story of seafaring exploration with a gritty tone in a low-magic quasi-Viking setting, if a player comes back to me and says, "Great! I'm playing a Harengon Bard who plays the electric bagpipes and is the only survivor of a Spelljammer that crashed near the village!
And he recites a filthy limerick every time he casts a spell! "...yikes. I mean, that sounds like an awesome character for the right game, but it's going to be a huge to all mismatch in most campaigns. You can try to capture the tones and themes of what appealed to this character while coming up with something that actually suits the setting. I'd probably at a minimum attempt to tone it down to where he's a shipwrecked sailor.

[Quertus]

Dump a D&D Wizard from Planescape into WW2 and they might say 'they've got a mini Blood War going on here about the dumbest things, how parochial. I guess I'll navigate around the edges until I can get out of here / I guess I'll help where I can as a matter of compassion for the people in front of me, but even if this is a world its still just a world'.

Sure, they might say that. Or they might say any number of other things about it. Just like a native human might have a very similar opinion (“this is just life, let them fight over it; the afterlife is all that matters”, for example), or any number of other things about the war. I doubt you can make an opinion and a vector for the D&D Wizard that can’t be roughly mirrored in a native. So “theme” and “feel” go right out the window as soon as you let characters have personalities, regardless of their point of origin.


WW2 becomes the scenery.

I think I’m onboard with that. The focus should be on the PCs.


And it can absolutely be okay to run that sort of detached tourist themed game! There's a specific effect it brings in, of creating detachment, can be part of a bigger picture - I've run the 'PCs in an E6 world are embroiled in a fantasy world war but then discover aliens and go to space and then find out that the deity of the omniverse is trying to get everyone in less perfect versions of reality to kill each-other ASAP so it can bring their souls to the one it thinks is really perfect and everything is the fault of solars with planeshift and gee now that world war seems pretty pointless in retrospect' pivot before. One thing it excels at is creating the sort of flow of a group moving against the current or sense of what is important of the surrounding society. The whole 'don't mind me, you can keep shooting at each-other for whatever reason later, I just need to go get that box from the middle of your firefight'. Everyone thinks X is the most important thing, now you have a character who strongly cares about Y and not at all about X, and hijinks ensue. But the effect or side-effect of those hijinks is to diminish the significance of X.

Remember that mostly-blue post I made? I want to make another after reading this, because I can’t help but keep thinking that “personality” perfectly matches this pattern of “this is why this is a problem”.

I mean, yeah, someone with a different personality and background will view things differently. I’d kinda hope that’s, y’know, what we’re going for in an RPG. If the game isn’t set up to view that as a feature rather than a bug, I think we’ve got problems.


Now take the clerk who ends up in a combat assignment - they know the people being killed in the war, they know and feel the reasons for the war, they may have been subject to rationing or the draft. Their actions in the war will impact whether they have a home to go back to that they can live with. It's a different feel, of the world narrowing to only what you can do in front of you and everything seeming to depend on the movement of forces much bigger than you. And again it can be absolutely okay to run that sort of thing!

But it is a different feel. And no, session 0 is not an answer to this because its not about what the characters do, its about how the players will relate to the world via their characters.

I feel I’ve lost you here, and that it may be important that I understand this.


Now, have that D&D wizard bring magic with them into WW2 and you really will have a different thing, as events become less about 'platoon thrown into the meatgrinder' and more about 'enable a government supernatural weapons research lab, or try to avoid being a guinea pig'. Which is also a whole different thing than the other two.

It might. I’d argue it would, if people were smart. IME, people are almost never that smart. Even at the gaming table.


Its not that an isekai character won't play the game, its that they generally make the events of the game less meaningful unless those events are multiversal in scale. Because 'there are other worlds?!?' is inherently far more impactful to worldviews than 'Bobby is cheating on Rachel?!?'.

Um… no? One is physics, the other is… relationships? Totally different beasts - and IME more people watch dramas than physics lectures. Let alone “maybe this isn’t a hoax, maybe there really are other words, but who cares, we’ve got a world war to _____” (unless that blank is “draft dodge”, in which case those line up nicely - and I can see those lines being delivered in a comedy).


And that's really what I'm saying - when you do things, when you have things in a game, they can have impact. It does no one any good to pretend 'yeah its just another thing pay it no mind it won't matter' or 'no, we can't understand the impact of things and shouldn't try'.

Still sounds like the personality of the Paladin interfering with the “assassinate the good and rightful king” adventure to my ears.

I mean, I get that someone running an Italian spy in the WW2 game could be important. Or not. Depends on the scope of the game. What I don’t get is why I should care. I’m running, say, (to move my goalposts for clarity) someone who <somehow> swapped places with their (twin?) brother (who has a wife and kids to go home to, and was about to be deployed). My character absolutely cares about the spy (or, well, would care if they found out), but their character having that importance is irrelevant to my ability to be involved in the telling of the story of “the guy who swapped places with his brother in the hopes of saving his brother’s life”.


Not 'story' exactly. Not 'events that have to happen'. Theme and feel. Assume that I'm saying these things because I want to not use railroading, not that I'm talking about an eclectic form of railroading.

So now we circle back to this. Theme and feel, as I understand it from your post, go out the window as soon as we 1) allow personality, without 2) setting bounds for acceptable “theme and feel” in session 0. Yet you’ve claimed that session 0 isn’t the place for this, so we’re left with “as soon as we allow personality”.

That’s… not anything worth defending, then, in my book.

[Satinavian]

Otherworldly characters are very much a matter of taste. Personally i don't allow them either.

Sure, you can have good stories with them. But those tend to not be the kind of stories i like. Because their existence inherently devalue the world of the setting and the importance of events in their. And their existance also always allows for knowledge transfer. And their existance always introduces world hopping as a thing that can be done. Which is the more interesting the more secluded the seting was before.

So yes, i would never allow such PCs. And if a player can't build a character that fits to the table and campaign, the table is probably better off without them.

[Quertus]

Very much this. When I pitch a game, it's never been a problem to give the players a starting condition for the PCs. Something like, "you are all members of [Group], or have at least done contract work for them" or "you are all currently residents of [Place]" or "regardless of your background, you are all working as Shadowrunners when the game starts". Or, at a minimum, "you all wake up in jail".

I don’t know if you did it in purpose or not, but not a single one of those precludes the multiverse. Foreign Wizard? Half dragon? No problem!

Member of [group]? Yeah, I showed up last week and signed up / yeah, I’ve got this unidentified skin condition, but [group] didn’t discriminate.

Resident of [place]? Yeah, I showed up last week and, not knowing alternate else to go set up here / yeah, I’ve got those unidentified skin condition, so I’ve been something of an outcast, but I live here.

Work as Shadowrunners? Ok, Shadowrun has Dragons; I don’t know if it has half-Dragons, to know whether that even requires a multiverse.

Wake up in jail? Those were some bad coordinates (alternately, “who knew you had to pay for food?”) / not surprising that I’m treated unjustly.

So I guess I’d say that “multiverse-enabled concepts fit your stated premises”, and hope that most GM’s can develop scenarios whose requirements are equally easily met.

[NichG]

Sure, they might say that. Or they might say any number of other things about it. Just like a native human might have a very similar opinion (“this is just life, let them fight over it; the afterlife is all that matters”, for example), or any number of other things about the war. I doubt you can make an opinion and a vector for the D&D Wizard that can’t be roughly mirrored in a native. So “theme” and “feel” go right out the window as soon as you let characters have personalities, regardless of their point of origin.


I didn't bring up afterlives because it's a very specific kind of restricted multiverse, but yes, having a confirmed and inviolable afterlife as part of a setting does have the same kind of impact of diluting the importance of events. D&D defaults avoid this in part because the afterlife is really not inviolable in D&D.

And as far as personalities go, a player can absolutely choose to play a blithering idiot who strolls through WW2 without anything actually leaving an impression on them, but they'd have to go out of their way. I generally play with reasonable people who don't make characters whose purpose is to be incoherent though. Deciding 'this war doesn't really seem significant' even as people around you are suffering and dying and your future is in peril is much more incoherent than deciding 'this war doesn't really seem significant' when you know there are other vibrant, prosperous worlds out there where things like true immortality and ascension to omniscience and bringing back the dead are possible.



I feel I’ve lost you here, and that it may be important that I understand this.


You can session 0 someone's behavior, but you can't session 0 how someone feels. "Alright, we're all agreed, we're all going to enjoy this game and find it deep and enlightening, we'll all feel as though the fictional world is so real we could imagine going there, and at least one of you will have a life changing experience in the process" is nonsense.

You have to actually make an enjoyable game if you want people to enjoy it. If you want it to be deep, you have to make it deep. If you want to make it transformative to how the players view the world, you have to make it transformative. Just declaring it so won't do those things. That means understanding the consequences of the choices you make - about setting, about ruleset, about NPCs, everything - towards creating that potential for enjoyment. You want to make something feel real, you can't just say 'let it feel real', you have to understand what contributes to that feeling. You want to make something engaging, you have to understand how engagement works for your players and in general - what do people find compelling, what makes people lose interest or get disconnected.



Um… no? One is physics, the other is… relationships? Totally different beasts - and IME more people watch dramas than physics lectures. Let alone “maybe this isn’t a hoax, maybe there really are other words, but who cares, we’ve got a world war to _____” (unless that blank is “draft dodge”, in which case those line up nicely - and I can see those lines being delivered in a comedy).


In authored fiction, its absolutely used for comedy because of this disconnect. Humor extends from surprise, and upon having some momentous event like 'an overdeity transmigrated me to this other universe after death in order to save the world with magic, which is like 4 important things in one sentence' the character is like 'imma go start a makeup company now'. The disconnect makes it funny. And you can absolutely use that in a campaign, if you want to have a comedic campaign or a campaign with that particular level of comedic element. Campaigns can be comedies. But not all campaigns must be comedies.

If the players are taking things seriously though, and if you're trying for a serious tone, well. A 30 second news clip 'we discovered intelligent alien life on Europa, and its more advanced than us' would have a lot more impact than 10 hours of watching, er... Game of Thrones? That counts as a drama right? Maybe not impact that people would enjoy as much - you'd get tons of fear, uncertainty, denial, etc. But in an instant it would become the most important historical event in most peoples' lives.



Still sounds like the personality of the Paladin interfering with the “assassinate the good and rightful king” adventure to my ears.

I mean, I get that someone running an Italian spy in the WW2 game could be important. Or not. Depends on the scope of the game. What I don’t get is why I should care. I’m running, say, (to move my goalposts for clarity) someone who <somehow> swapped places with their (twin?) brother (who has a wife and kids to go home to, and was about to be deployed). My character absolutely cares about the spy (or, well, would care if they found out), but their character having that importance is irrelevant to my ability to be involved in the telling of the story of “the guy who swapped places with his brother in the hopes of saving his brother’s life”.

So now we circle back to this. Theme and feel, as I understand it from your post, go out the window as soon as we 1) allow personality, without 2) setting bounds for acceptable “theme and feel” in session 0. Yet you’ve claimed that session 0 isn’t the place for this, so we’re left with “as soon as we allow personality”.

That’s… not anything worth defending, then, in my book.

It's not that 'Session 0 is not the place for this', so much as 'Session 0 cannot ensure this' because theme and feel are about how the game makes players feel, how things seem to them. Not what they choose to do.

You can say for example 'this is a WW2 game, and everyone should bring characters that are zoolanders who just don't understand what anything means and are traipsing through battlefields without a care' and ask players to play that. You can't simultaneously do that and say 'oh, but the mood of the game should be serious and gritty and you should find even small degrees of hope or loss poignant' (or at least, you won't get it if you ask for it).

[Fiery Diamond]

I didn't bring up afterlives because it's a very specific kind of restricted multiverse, but yes, having a confirmed and inviolable afterlife as part of a setting does have the same kind of impact of diluting the importance of events. D&D defaults avoid this in part because the afterlife is really not inviolable in D&D.

And as far as personalities go, a player can absolutely choose to play a blithering idiot who strolls through WW2 without anything actually leaving an impression on them, but they'd have to go out of their way. I generally play with reasonable people who don't make characters whose purpose is to be incoherent though. Deciding 'this war doesn't really seem significant' even as people around you are suffering and dying and your future is in peril is much more incoherent than deciding 'this war doesn't really seem significant' when you know there are other vibrant, prosperous worlds out there where things like true immortality and ascension to omniscience and bringing back the dead are possible.



You can session 0 someone's behavior, but you can't session 0 how someone feels. "Alright, we're all agreed, we're all going to enjoy this game and find it deep and enlightening, we'll all feel as though the fictional world is so real we could imagine going there, and at least one of you will have a life changing experience in the process" is nonsense.

You have to actually make an enjoyable game if you want people to enjoy it. If you want it to be deep, you have to make it deep. If you want to make it transformative to how the players view the world, you have to make it transformative. Just declaring it so won't do those things. That means understanding the consequences of the choices you make - about setting, about ruleset, about NPCs, everything - towards creating that potential for enjoyment. You want to make something feel real, you can't just say 'let it feel real', you have to understand what contributes to that feeling. You want to make something engaging, you have to understand how engagement works for your players and in general - what do people find compelling, what makes people lose interest or get disconnected.



In authored fiction, its absolutely used for comedy because of this disconnect. Humor extends from surprise, and upon having some momentous event like 'an overdeity transmigrated me to this other universe after death in order to save the world with magic, which is like 4 important things in one sentence' the character is like 'imma go start a makeup company now'. The disconnect makes it funny. And you can absolutely use that in a campaign, if you want to have a comedic campaign or a campaign with that particular level of comedic element. Campaigns can be comedies. But not all campaigns must be comedies.

If the players are taking things seriously though, and if you're trying for a serious tone, well. A 30 second news clip 'we discovered intelligent alien life on Europa, and its more advanced than us' would have a lot more impact than 10 hours of watching, er... Game of Thrones? That counts as a drama right? Maybe not impact that people would enjoy as much - you'd get tons of fear, uncertainty, denial, etc. But in an instant it would become the most important historical event in most peoples' lives.



It's not that 'Session 0 is not the place for this', so much as 'Session 0 cannot ensure this' because theme and feel are about how the game makes players feel, how things seem to them. Not what they choose to do.

You can say for example 'this is a WW2 game, and everyone should bring characters that are zoolanders who just don't understand what anything means and are traipsing through battlefields without a care' and ask players to play that. You can't simultaneously do that and say 'oh, but the mood of the game should be serious and gritty and you should find even small degrees of hope or loss poignant' (or at least, you won't get it if you ask for it).

I think you may be projecting, because you're flat out wrong on several counts. In order...

1) people can (and DO) have that attitude in the real world, where we don't have undeniable proof of an afterlife
2) personal stakes can be more important to people than world-shaking ones without being a "blithering idiot." It is absolutely possible for someone in, say, pre-US-involvement in WWII to say: "my issues are more important to me than the lives of the millions of people affected directly by the war; I wish it would stop affecting my grocery prices! And I really want to date this one girl..."
3) You can't dictate how the players feel in session 0, but you absolutely can dictate how the characters are meant to interact with the setting. Yes, it's up to the DM to provide a setting that's engaging enough for the players to live up to their commitments without bending over backward, but that's true regardless
4) The Europa thing? If there's no expectation of actual interaction with the Europans because whatever reason makes it unlikely we'll be able to have much interaction with them and it's just sort of a "hey, they exist"? I think you're vastly overestimating the number of people who would care about that any more than they do their own personal problems. In fact, aside from conspiracy nuts and science enthusiasts, I think most people would treat it the same as any other news fad.

[NichG]

I'm basing what I'm saying on the ~12 multiverse campaigns I've played in and run, out of... 25 or so?. I have seen this pattern happen again and again.

[Quertus]

You can session 0 someone's behavior, but you can't session 0 how someone feels. "Alright, we're all agreed, we're all going to enjoy this game and find it deep and enlightening, we'll all feel as though the fictional world is so real we could imagine going there, and at least one of you will have a life changing experience in the process" is nonsense.

You have to actually make an enjoyable game if you want people to enjoy it. If you want it to be deep, you have to make it deep. If you want to make it transformative to how the players view the world, you have to make it transformative. Just declaring it so won't do those things. That means understanding the consequences of the choices you make - about setting, about ruleset, about NPCs, everything - towards creating that potential for enjoyment. You want to make something feel real, you can't just say 'let it feel real', you have to understand what contributes to that feeling. You want to make something engaging, you have to understand how engagement works for your players and in general - what do people find compelling, what makes people lose interest or get disconnected.



It's not that 'Session 0 is not the place for this', so much as 'Session 0 cannot ensure this' because theme and feel are about how the game makes players feel, how things seem to them. Not what they choose to do.

You can say for example 'this is a WW2 game, and everyone should bring characters that are zoolanders who just don't understand what anything means and are traipsing through battlefields without a care' and ask players to play that. You can't simultaneously do that and say 'oh, but the mood of the game should be serious and gritty and you should find even small degrees of hope or loss poignant' (or at least, you won't get it if you ask for it).

Well, “player feelings” would be a huge step forward in communication, except that a lot of the stuff you describe - like “you should find even small degrees of hope or loss poignant” - seems very character dependent to me. And other pieces - like “fun” - seem silly / facetious… and, I believe, intentionally so.

For something I think we can agree is Player side… “we'll all feel as though the fictional world is so real we could imagine going there” seems a good example. This is absolutely a goal that can be shared with the players, possibly even before session 0. And it’s absolutely something that could be used to impact player choices: Aim for believable character over other considerations (like, say, comedy); assume CaW and rulings based on realism over CaS and rulings based on other considerations (like “what’s fun” or “rule of cool”); etc. And this is absolutely something that a GM could get player buy-in and assistance in creating, or call a player on for sabotaging with their actions. As surely as if the GM had said, “this is a comedy version of Game of Thrones” or “this is a dance musical version of a Diplomacy-focused game”.

Is this truly a foreign concept to you, for the players and GM to work together to create things like “a believable world”, through consistent approach to the setting? Or have I misunderstood something?

Yes, the burden is largest for the GM, but the players can (and should) have a hand in creating an environment that facilitates certain players-facing outcomes, too.

(Granted, I personally think it’s usually a terrible goal to prioritize such things over other considerations, as it’s high-cost, high-risk. I prefer to generally let the “feel” of a game grow to be whatever it turns out to be, organically, rather than trying to force something particular. Shrug.)

[NichG]

Well, “player feelings” would be a huge step forward in communication, except that a lot of the stuff you describe - like “you should find even small degrees of hope or loss poignant” - seems very character dependent to me. And other pieces - like “fun” - seem silly / facetious… and, I believe, intentionally so.

For something I think we can agree is Player side… “we'll all feel as though the fictional world is so real we could imagine going there” seems a good example. This is absolutely a goal that can be shared with the players, possibly even before session 0. And it’s absolutely something that could be used to impact player choices: Aim for believable character over other considerations (like, say, comedy); assume CaW and rulings based on realism over CaS and rulings based on other considerations (like “what’s fun” or “rule of cool”); etc. And this is absolutely something that a GM could get player buy-in and assistance in creating, or call a player on for sabotaging with their actions. As surely as if the GM had said, “this is a comedy version of Game of Thrones” or “this is a dance musical version of a Diplomacy-focused game”.

Is this truly a foreign concept to you, for the players and GM to work together to create things like “a believable world”, through consistent approach to the setting? Or have I misunderstood something?


I think you're fixated on the actions part of the equation, which certainly exists, but its not all there is.

Let me put it another way - if what you say is all there is, why is playing a D&D game set in Dark Sun different than playing a D&D game set in Faerun? Not 'could you conceive of playing Dark Sun in Faerun' but rather, why bother having settings at all? If the only thing that matters is what characters people decide to create and how they decide they will experience the game and so on, then the setting can't matter.

But I would say, clearly, the setting does matter. Regardless of people's intent going into the game, the stuff in Dark Sun leads to a different feel than the stuff in Faerun. People can push against that or lean into it or whatever - its not like they have no agency at all - but it has an effect.

If you want to be a good world-builder and a good GM, it's important not to leave that on the table. Understand why Dark Sun feels different than Faerun and when you build your own world, you can make one which is resonant with what you're trying to achieve.

[Fiery Diamond]

I think you're fixated on the actions part of the equation, which certainly exists, but its not all there is.

Let me put it another way - if what you say is all there is, why is playing a D&D game set in Dark Sun different than playing a D&D game set in Faerun? Not 'could you conceive of playing Dark Sun in Faerun' but rather, why bother having settings at all? If the only thing that matters is what characters people decide to create and how they decide they will experience the game and so on, then the setting can't matter.

But I would say, clearly, the setting does matter. Regardless of people's intent going into the game, the stuff in Dark Sun leads to a different feel than the stuff in Faerun. People can push against that or lean into it or whatever - its not like they have no agency at all - but it has an effect.

If you want to be a good world-builder and a good GM, it's important not to leave that on the table. Understand why Dark Sun feels different than Faerun and when you build your own world, you can make one which is resonant with what you're trying to achieve.

Quertus isn't saying setting doesn't have an effect. You, however, are demoting the player agency to an afterthought when Quertus is saying that player agency has at least as great an effect as the setting, if not greater. Personally, I think the relative effect of setting versus character is highly dependent on the specific game and not something you can generalize without coming across as either clueless or "my way is the only way."

[icefractal]

If the only thing that matters is what characters people decide to create and how they decide they will experience the game and so on, then the setting can't matter.I don't think I agree. The exact same party will have a different experience in Ravenloft than they do in Starjammer, for example.

I mean, you're presenting character restrictions based on setting as vital to the feeling of that setting, but several classes and races exist in all WotC settings. If having a single Warforged is enough to make a Greyhawk game feel interchangeable with Eberron, then does having a party with no Warforged or Changelings make an Eberron game feel interchangeable with a Greyhawk one? Neither one does, IMO.

I'm not saying that all restrictions are bad, I'm just not at all convinced that they're the key factor separating unique settings from a homogeneous slurry.

[RandomPeasant]

Then we don't need Koth to be from Mirrodin at all, and we don't need to introduce Mirrodin. We can just frame Koth as "some weirdo from some other part of Ixalan".

But then you are disrupting the worldbuilding. Because now you've postulated that there's a society of geomancy-doing metal dudes somewhere out there in Ixalan, and they could potentially show up in your dino-pirates campaign. The benefit of the restricted multiverse is that you can have one character in the campaign (Koth) without having to alter the campaign setting to add the supporting infrastructure.


Not to mention it just introduces potential problems (world-hopping) that are antithetical to playing a game on Ixalan.

I think that's more to do with the specifics of how Magic does it than the concept in general. Yes, in MTG's version of a multiverse the only way (modulo some very limited exceptions) for a character from one plane to get to another is for them to be a Planeswalker who could just go back, but that's a specific setting choice made in service of the kind of story Magic is telling (one where characters move between settings frequently).


When I pitch a game, and I always pitch a game first, and someone says they want to play something totally outside of that, my first thought is not "Will this enable this guy to have more fun?" it's "Was this guy listening?" followed by "What else is he not going to listen to me on?" followed by "Why is this guy here?"

But again, what is "totally outside of"? If I want to play psuedo-Koth, but am totally on board with him doing adventures to find hidden treasure in pseudo-Mesoamerica, rather than fighting fantasy Borg, it seems to me that there's a fairly large degree to which that's inside the concept of an Ixalan campaign. And even if it's somewhat outside, I think that coming to an RPG (a fundamentally cooperative exercise) from a perspective of "this is what I want to do, and I will not accept anything outside it" is fundamentally unhealthy.


And for a brand new group playing D&D using only the starter set and the core books, what is the difference between enforcing and suggesting?

And what exactly is the alternative? Are we going to have two cosmology sections, so that people won't feel pressured to pick one? Is every race going to get an "option A" and an "option B" writeup? Are we going to give new players nothing, so that rather than tweaking an existing default the first-time DM is required to create an entire setting from scratch? Because I can tell you which of those options appeals to new players and which sends them screaming for the hills.


And again, orcs, the standard bad dumb evil enemy, in Eberron they're a heroic race who once fought off the Daelkyr invaders and saved the world. They heroically stave off the demonic hordes from the demon wastes. Eberron I dare say is the only setting with interesting orcs in the D&D world.

And Eberron is just "fantasy Late Medieval/Early Modern Europe". And Eberron's orcs are interesting precisely because they are different from your expectations of orcs.


Agreed. And the new material makes it very clear that this is the expected path. If you want to use anything they publish from now on without major surgery, you have to accept the whole multiverse/great wheel/same stupid gods as everywhere/blood war garbage wholesale.

Again, and the alternative is what exactly. That you get mechanical pieces completely devoid of any suggested flavor? That they never release any new material because you don't want to adapt it to your setting?


All the originality gets leached out and you get "FR, but with more visible magitech".

AlwaysWas.jpg

I promise you, the Forgotten Realms Guy has a rant all keyed up about how the lost empires of the Forgotten Realms are very special and different from other lost empires in important ways that 5e flattens.


But then you have to come up with a reasonable explanation for the question "why not?".

I mean, do you? There was a time when some people had invented the trebuchet but not gunpowder and other people had invented gunpowder but not the trebuchet. That is a real time that historically existed in the world. Technological advancement does not process by a single linear path. Sometimes you just miss stuff. Sometimes you miss blindingly obvious stuff. No joke, hammocks weren't in use by Europeans until Columbus brought them back from the New World (https://kammok.com/blogs/the-outpost/the-history-of-hammocks). Because apparently "what if we hung a thing between two things to sleep in" eluded a civilization with gunpowder and printing presses. You certainly could postulate something like "the first step in the development of formalized magical techniques is the study of innate magical abilities and the Federation has not happened to encounter any of those yet", but I think the history of scientific and technological progress in the real world suggests that you don't really need to.


Why on earth wouldn't your D&D based PCs go to an advanced world and come back with power armor, laser weapons, advanced sensor tech, micro-drones, advanced medicines, etc, and then use them to more or less wreck game balance back in their own less advanced world?

As I understand it, this is a fairly common premise for Spelljammer games. "Why not" also seems like it has a fairly simple answer in "how are you going to find them". It's not like you can necessarily plane shift to "a world with some really cool guns to buy", you have to wander around a bunch, which is a campaign in and of itself. But more than that, I don't think you need "planar travel is easy and frequent" to support "characters from distant worlds can appear in the party". You can also postulate that the differences between settings are primarily cultural, political, or environmental, allowing you to have different worlds without necessarily making sharing things between them setting-warping. To look at Magic again, there's not really any technology in Innistrad that would blow up Ixalan or vice-versa, they just have different cultures and problems, allowing you to have different adventures in them.


So unless you really want to run a multiverse full of increasingly absurd mash ups, you might want to think this though before you introduce the very first instance of world travelling.

It seems to me that this is only a problem if your setup postulates A) long stretches of shared continuity B) an easily-traversible multiverse and C) doesn't want to do this. Given the number of escape hatches where you can just not do one of those things, I don't see this as a serious issue.

[NichG]

I don't think I agree. The exact same party will have a different experience in Ravenloft than they do in Starjammer, for example.

Of course they will. It was an argument about how absurd it was to insist that 'just do it in session 0' was as much as anyone should think about the elements that are included in a game and what they do. In the line immediately after this one in the post, I say as much. Note the 'if'. 'If X then absurd outcome -> not X'. That's not me arguing for X.

And I'm not presenting 'character restrictions as vital' either. I'm only saying that elements of a setting have an impact - and that impact exists both if those elements were introduced to be included in the campaign purposefully, or if they're introduced as a side effect of someone bringing in a character who implies them.

I am distinctly not saying 'you should not allow isekai characters'. I'm saying that 'if you have an isekai character, expect there to be a stronger pull to zoom out to multiverse-scale concerns than if you did not have such a character'. Likewise if you have no such character but have books in the library of a sage in Faerun talking a mage's journey to a weird realm called Earth.

I find it odd that people are interpreting me saying 'it has an effect, you probably want to take that into account and either adjust for it or don't allow it if that effect goes against what you're trying to achieve' as 'you should not allow isekai characters' or 'you should not use multiverses'. Why is 'this thing might matter, give it a careful think before you include it' so threatening?

[False God]

But then you are disrupting the worldbuilding. Because now you've postulated that there's a society of geomancy-doing metal dudes somewhere out there in Ixalan, and they could potentially show up in your dino-pirates campaign. The benefit of the restricted multiverse is that you can have one character in the campaign (Koth) without having to alter the campaign setting to add the supporting infrastructure.
Uh, no. Both things interrupt my worldbuilding. But postulating that there are some weirdos out there who do things differently is a far cry from saying there are alternate realities and other worlds and planets created by super-wizards entirely out of metal and clockwork that then became flesh thanks to an ancient virus created by a dead god on another another world.

You DO see the rather substantial scale and scope of the differences being introduced right? Where one I include a little village of earth-benders who got jiggy with some elementals and another where I include a multiverse?


I think that's more to do with the specifics of how Magic does it than the concept in general. Yes, in MTG's version of a multiverse the only way (modulo some very limited exceptions) for a character from one plane to get to another is for them to be a Planeswalker who could just go back, but that's a specific setting choice made in service of the kind of story Magic is telling (one where characters move between settings frequently).
It's actually substantially harder to "planeswalk" than it is to "plane shift" in MTG vs D&D yes. There are ways to do it without being a planeswalker, and namely the Phyrexians know how. So not only is Koth introducing the multiverse, he is also introducing a very real threat to this game. AGAIN Koth's mere existence is a threat to playing a game on Ixalan.


But again, what is "totally outside of"? If I want to play psuedo-Koth, but am totally on board with him doing adventures to find hidden treasure in pseudo-Mesoamerica, rather than fighting fantasy Borg, it seems to me that there's a fairly large degree to which that's inside the concept of an Ixalan campaign. And even if it's somewhat outside, I think that coming to an RPG (a fundamentally cooperative exercise) from a perspective of "this is what I want to do, and I will not accept anything outside it" is fundamentally unhealthy.
Pot, kettle. You've written up an awful lot about how it's a bad DM decision to say "this is what I want to do, and will not accept anything outside of it" but seem to also write an awful lot about how it's totally fine and dandy for a player to say "this is what I want to do, and will not accept anything outside of it".

Again, my experience has taught me that people who have "fun" by being contrary are people who don't concern themselves with anyone else's fun and I am quite frankly happy to be rid of them before it results in trouble for everyone.

[Quertus]

The benefit of the restricted multiverse is that you can have one character in the campaign (Koth) without having to alter the campaign setting to add the supporting infrastructure.

I think that this is probably the best answer to the question asked.

/thread?


Of course they will. It was an argument about how absurd it was to insist that 'just do it in session 0' was as much as anyone should think about the elements that are included in a game and what they do.

If that’s supposed to be my belief, our miscommunication runs deeper than I thought.

Instead, try “get people to think about and commit to, by introducing in session 0”.

Honestly, when is “just do it in session 0” ever sufficient (unless it’s, say, choosing a starting point, or kicking a bad GM from the group in session 0)? That very concept of “one and done in session 0” for something obviously ongoing seems dumb enough that I’d hope that, if you ever think you’ve heard something that dumb in the future, you’d ask for clarification about what you heard before building a straw man around a misunderstanding.


why bother having settings at all?

That’s a very good question. And I’ll try answering it. But please try setting aside your preconceptions when reading this, as my answer seemingly goes against some of them.

At a basic level, you could say that each setting poses a different question, or a different set of questions. This, I believe, you are very familiar with.

So, at the most basic level, the answer is “variety”. Not unlike why we have more than one challenge for characters to face, more than one character / build to play, etc. Again, I expect you’re with me so far.

Now things get complicated. Because different people can answer the same question differently.

Imagine a grid of “characters” and “responses”, where the responses are color-coded by “theme”. Maybe fear is a shade of yellow, envy a shade of green, sadness a shade of blue, anger a shade of red, curiosity’s a different shade of blue, annoyance a shade of… orange? There may be some general trends, but you won’t have a solid bar of one color on that chart. Maybe a spider fills one person with fear, while another is filled with curiosity. Why, stories are even rife with examples of where the death of a particular loved one fills a character with relief.

Or, as @Fiery Diamond put it,



personal stakes can be more important to people than world-shaking ones without being a "blithering idiot." It is absolutely possible for someone in, say, pre-US-involvement in WWII to say: "my issues are more important to me than the lives of the millions of people affected directly by the war; I wish it would stop affecting my grocery prices! And I really want to date this one girl..."

So, if you just assume you can run a “red” campaign, simply by choosing the setting as “WW2”, you have failed to understand how the element works. If you want to run a “red” campaign, you need to explain that to the players in session 0, and work with them to find characters who will respond Red to the specific scenario you intend to present.

I much prefer for color to be organic, to come about as a natural relationship between character and setting / scenario. For example, when brought to Ravenloft, my character from not!Athas was not filled with dread - he thought he was in heaven! They had forests, abundant food and water, beings who needed him, and plenty of things to take out his aggression on (Note that the GM never made those last two be the same thing (to the detriment of my previous Ravenloft character)). Simply heaven!

So the answer isn’t “to produce a particular color”. It could be, “to have a chance to produce a different color than a different setting would have produced”. It could be, “to affect the distribution of colors across the populous”. Why, it could even be, “to have this particular member of the population have this particular color” (what if… the god of war were scared?).

So, for example, if Quertus, my signature academia mage for whom this account is named, were to Travel to all those worlds, Encounter all those scenarios, I would get to see every shade of Quertus, his portrait would finally be complete. Which is hopefully obviously better than just seeing a single side of him, say, reacting to a WW2 setting. That’s another advantage of a multiverse setting, albeit one very few are like to take advantage of.

So, what is the value of having multiple settings, insofar as color is concerned? Well, that for any desired character-color pair, there likely exists a setting wherein that can happen.

Obviously there’s a lot more to it, like a setting providing a springboard for inspiration for ideas, both of characters (“untrained ‘soldier’ taking his brother’s place”) and actions (“what if… a Wizard started polymorphing bugs into trees on Athas… or a Necromancer bred flying air-cacti, that didn’t need soil?”). But, insofar as both player and character “feels” go, a setting provides a different set of opportunities for that character.

Regardless of whether or not you agree, I hope you can at least understand my response.

[NichG]

I think that this is probably the best answer to the question asked.

/thread?



If that’s supposed to be my belief, our miscommunication runs deeper than I thought.

Instead, try “get people to think about and commit to, by introducing in session 0”.

Honestly, when is “just do it in session 0” ever sufficient (unless it’s, say, choosing a starting point, or kicking a bad GM from the group in session 0)? That very concept of “one and done in session 0” for something obviously ongoing seems dumb enough that I’d hope that, if you ever think you’ve heard something that dumb in the future, you’d ask for clarification about what you heard before building a straw man around a misunderstanding.



That’s a very good question. And I’ll try answering it. But please try setting aside your preconceptions when reading this, as my answer seemingly goes against some of them.

At a basic level, you could say that each setting poses a different question, or a different set of questions. This, I believe, you are very familiar with.

So, at the most basic level, the answer is “variety”. Not unlike why we have more than one challenge for characters to face, more than one character / build to play, etc. Again, I expect you’re with me so far.

Now things get complicated. Because different people can answer the same question differently.

Imagine a grid of “characters” and “responses”, where the responses are color-coded by “theme”. Maybe fear is a shade of yellow, envy a shade of green, sadness a shade of blue, anger a shade of red, curiosity’s a different shade of blue, annoyance a shade of… orange? There may be some general trends, but you won’t have a solid bar of one color on that chart. Maybe a spider fills one person with fear, while another is filled with curiosity. Why, stories are even rife with examples of where the death of a particular loved one fills a character with relief.

Or, as @Fiery Diamond put it,




So, if you just assume you can run a “red” campaign, simply by choosing the setting as “WW2”, you have failed to understand how the element works. If you want to run a “red” campaign, you need to explain that to the players in session 0, and work with them to find characters who will respond Red to the specific scenario you intend to present.

I much prefer for color to be organic, to come about as a natural relationship between character and setting / scenario. For example, when brought to Ravenloft, my character from not!Athas was not filled with dread - he thought he was in heaven! They had forests, abundant food and water, beings who needed him, and plenty of things to take out his aggression on (Note that the GM never made those last two be the same thing (to the detriment of my previous Ravenloft character)). Simply heaven!

So the answer isn’t “to produce a particular color”. It could be, “to have a chance to produce a different color than a different setting would have produced”. It could be, “to affect the distribution of colors across the populous”. Why, it could even be, “to have this particular member of the population have this particular color” (what if… the god of war were scared?).

So, for example, if Quertus, my signature academia mage for whom this account is named, were to Travel to all those worlds, Encounter all those scenarios, I would get to see every shade of Quertus, his portrait would finally be complete. Which is hopefully obviously better than just seeing a single side of him, say, reacting to a WW2 setting. That’s another advantage of a multiverse setting, albeit one very few are like to take advantage of.

So, what is the value of having multiple settings, insofar as color is concerned? Well, that for any desired character-color pair, there likely exists a setting wherein that can happen.

Obviously there’s a lot more to it, like a setting providing a springboard for inspiration for ideas, both of characters (“untrained ‘soldier’ taking his brother’s place”) and actions (“what if… a Wizard started polymorphing bugs into trees on Athas… or a Necromancer bred flying air-cacti, that didn’t need soil?”). But, insofar as both player and character “feels” go, a setting provides a different set of opportunities for that character.

Regardless of whether or not you agree, I hope you can at least understand my response.

I mean, I see what you're getting at but I think it's just a relabeling.

You're saying 'the setting is a function mapping x character to y response, and you can have different functions'.

In those terms what I'm saying is that, rather than 'trying to achieve a specific output y' it's 'trying to achieve a specific function f'. Not all functions are equally worth evaluating. And once you've evaluated one, evaluating the same or similar ones also becomes of different value. I think this is the key point: as a GM pitching a campaign you do need to aim for 'the worthwhile functions' not just be able to act as an interpreter for some externally provided set

The added wrinkle is, when the existence of a particular input x1 mandates that you change the function in some way, there are now some functions that you can't actually get to if you want to include x in the domain. Or more often it's that you can't construct them the same way you would if x1 were not an input - the naive procedure you think you can use to get f instead gets you g, and you have to do things differently if you actually want f.

So to put my experiences in those terms: If I'm trying to ask a question about nontransactional interpersonal relationships in light of economic class differences (my target f, running a Les Miserables campaign) and someone brings in a time traveler from the year 2700 of the Star Trek universe, I have to make adaptations if I want to still ask the question f.

I need to more frequently have particular NPCs that the PCs have shown any sympathy or interest with be on screen consistently from session to session even if that means doing third person perspective interludes, for example. I need to use a higher level of descriptive detail and not use as much abstraction when it comes to day to day difficulties of doing things in the setting as I could otherwise get away with, in order to keep things grounded. I need to be careful to avoid creating and introducing NPCs who would want to use the Star Trek PC as a Connecticut Yankee for the setting to reform industrial process.

Otherwise I will end up with g instead of f. And if as a group we were more interested in f than g, I will have GMd poorly.

Or, maybe the character suggests that h would be an even more interesting and fun question and we end up with Javert also being a time traveler, hunting down the PC for violating the temporal prime directive, and I go all in on h instead of trying to ask f. But h and f are still different functions, which is my original point.

[Slipjig]

I don’t know if you did it in purpose or not, but not a single one of those precludes the multiverse. Foreign Wizard? Half dragon? No problem!

I wasn't addressing the "interdimensional traveler" question, I was responding to the "DMs are obligated to let players play whatever they want, both in terms of crunch and backstory, even if it's a total mismatch for the campaign" idea from a few posts earlier.

[Anymage]

So, for example, if Quertus, my signature academia mage for whom this account is named, were to Travel to all those worlds, Encounter all those scenarios, I would get to see every shade of Quertus, his portrait would finally be complete. Which is hopefully obviously better than just seeing a single side of him, say, reacting to a WW2 setting. That’s another advantage of a multiverse setting, albeit one very few are like to take advantage of.

There's a lot to be said for a tightly themed game where all the characters have ties to both the world and each other. Especially for the GM, but also for making it easier for the other PCs to play off of each other. (A large part of the GM's benefit coming from letting the other players engage each other instead of having to rely on the DM to do it all.) While it's possible for a cyberpunk ninja who fell off a spelljammer to wind up integrated into Middle Earth, it creates that much more work to pull it off. In my experience players with oddball characters rarely take that extra work onto their own shoulders. Quertus the mage in a Vietnam setting may be enjoyable for Quertus the player to continue exploring a favored character, but you don't mention how you'd actively tie your plane shifting D&D wizard to the themes and tropes that most people buy into when they sign on for "Vietnam" as a setting.

I'd be a lot more amenable to oddball PCs if the player was the one who put most of the effort into giving their character ties to the setting and the rest of the party. That hasn't been my experience, so I'm going to groan inwardly when someone wants to bring their oddball character.

[icefractal]

There can definitely be characters who are ill-fitting to a given campaign, but IME that's only semi-correlated to whether they're from the appropriate setting books.

For example, which character will fit better in a "court intrigue" game set in Greyhawk?
* a changeling spy, impersonating a minor noble who actually died a year ago?
* a barbarian who thinks that cities are stupid, insults should always be met with the blade, and plans to leave the court bull**** behind ASAP?

I'm not saying the second one could never work, but it's a character that relies shaping the game around, to an extent. The rest of the players would have to be ok with cajoling and working around the character, and the GM would probably have to fudge NPC responses to certain actions if they didn't want it to change from "court intrigue" to "wanted fugitives" or "itinerant outcasts".

Meanwhile, the first would slide right in, with some easy hooks as well. But apparently that's the character that will ruin the feeling of the campaign, because it doesn't come from the right book?

Edit: Fixed mistake

[gbaji]

I mean, do you? There was a time when some people had invented the trebuchet but not gunpowder and other people had invented gunpowder but not the trebuchet. That is a real time that historically existed in the world. Technological advancement does not process by a single linear path. Sometimes you just miss stuff. Sometimes you miss blindingly obvious stuff. No joke, hammocks weren't in use by Europeans until Columbus brought them back from the New World (https://kammok.com/blogs/the-outpost/the-history-of-hammocks). Because apparently "what if we hung a thing between two things to sleep in" eluded a civilization with gunpowder and printing presses. You certainly could postulate something like "the first step in the development of formalized magical techniques is the study of innate magical abilities and the Federation has not happened to encounter any of those yet", but I think the history of scientific and technological progress in the real world suggests that you don't really need to.

There's a difference in specific implementation of physical concepts and not ever having discovered them at all. And I think the larger point here is that the moment they first saw a hammock they had no problems making their own. It's not like they didn't know everything required to do so, they just hadn't put their knowledge into that exact form. Same thing with the trebuchet and gunpowder. Once someone from one culture sees something that exists, they know it's possible to do, and will return to their own culture with that knowledge. At that point, it's merely whether they have the technical ability to do that thing that matters. So woodworking and ropes and you can build a trebuchet once you've seen one. Quite a bit more knowledge required to make gunpowder. But then, it was the introduction of advanced metallurgy that allowed for true firearms to be created, so that's actually a great example of cross development.



It seems to me that this is only a problem if your setup postulates A) long stretches of shared continuity B) an easily-traversible multiverse and C) doesn't want to do this. Given the number of escape hatches where you can just not do one of those things, I don't see this as a serious issue.

I play in a game setting that has been being run since 1982 (with 140 something years having passed in the setting filled with continuous play). I think that qualifies as "long running". So yeah, it's really important to think very very hard about these sorts of things. Trust me. You will literally blow up a game setting over time if you don't put some sort of restrictions, not just on travel, but also on "what works where".

I also think there's some differences when people talk about universes. It's one thing to have two different places like FR and DL, where the rules are more or less the same, the "stuff" you can find is pretty similar, and it's really not much different then sailing to a new continent on an existing world. It's an entirely different thing when you mix in worlds that have powerful magic, other worlds with varying levels of technology, worlds dominated by demons, worlds where the gods are more active, less active, maybe don't exist at all.

If we're worrying about allowing a playable race from one D&D setting into another? No biggie. Maybe a pain to run, and maybe wont fit perfectly, but does not cause significant game balance problems. Trying to mix a high fantasy game with high level sci-fi world? Much trickier (in either direction).

Oh. But having said all of that, about tech tending to flow forwards, I do have to say that one of my favorite sci-fi short stories, which I cannot remember the title or author (it was in one of the old Analog magazines my older brother had that I read as a kid), was a story told from the pov of a soldier fighting for his world against other worlds. They were a powerful space faring race that had conquered dozens of other species, and had discovered a new one, ripe for the pickings. It described him sitting in this wooden hulled ship, sailing through space. His species utilized some form of anti-gravity field that they had discovered that allowed them to travel quickly to other worlds, create bubbles of air, and a few other things (memory is hazy). So they arrive at the new planet, and are descending, and notice out the porthole a flying vessel! But they had detected no use of anti-gravity on this world. They are primitive. The soldiers could not figure out how there could be a flying machine, but there it was pacing along side them. So they land and get out and into formation. They load up their muskets and march onwards, and are brutally cut down by modern Earth tanks and machine guns. In the hospital recovering, the soldier learns that this world just never stumbled upon this easy method of generating gravity fields, and so had instead developed much more advanced chemistry and metallurgy, and even methods for flying (and limited space travel!) that didn't require the "easy way" of utilizing gravity fields. He hears that they even have weapons that can incinerate whole cities in one blast. He's horrified that his species has unleashed this new power on the galaxy, and that his own species will certainly be conquered in no time.

So yeah. It's possible I suppose that one could just 'miss' something. But once you introduce travel from one to the other, those things tha were missed will be picked up pretty quick.




Again, my experience has taught me that people who have "fun" by being contrary are people who don't concern themselves with anyone else's fun and I am quite frankly happy to be rid of them before it results in trouble for everyone.


I'd be a lot more amenable to oddball PCs if the player was the one who put most of the effort into giving their character ties to the setting and the rest of the party. That hasn't been my experience, so I'm going to groan inwardly when someone wants to bring their oddball character.

Yup, and yup. My experience is that it's usually players who just really want to play this specific class/race combo, even in a setting where that isn't maybe appropriate, or doesn't fit in well. Figuring out how to squeeze this oddball into the setting can be some work, and yes, I find that the player rarely wants to do anything more than just create his favorite character and leave all the hard work to the GM.

[Psyren]

It's one of the premises of the thread that default culture is unacceptable. It's up to you to agree or disagree with that premise. I was drawing a line from how DMG, PHB and MM all enforce default culture to how all campaign settings in D&D seem to have the same cultures for races, you know as if these two points form a line.

I mean honestly, why would I bother with Dragonlance or Greyhawk? They're basically the same as Forgotten Realms, if I want to play Basic Default Standard Fantasy™ then FR fills that role and Dragonlance doesn't actually differentiate itself. Hell, even Spelljammer, a setting about space travel, is still Basic Default Standard Fantasy in space. It's an expansion on Forgotten Realms, it's not an independent setting, it's a highly dependent system.

If I want something actually unique and independent then the only two settings I can think of is Darksun and Eberron. We have 3 settings.

Eberron
Darksun (sadly not published in 5e)
Everything else


Your "everything else" is way too broad. Ravnica, Ravenloft, Krynn, and Theros are nothing alike.


The benefit of the restricted multiverse is that you can have one character in the campaign (Koth) without having to alter the campaign setting to add the supporting infrastructure.
...
It seems to me that this is only a problem if your setup postulates A) long stretches of shared continuity B) an easily-traversible multiverse and C) doesn't want to do this. Given the number of escape hatches where you can just not do one of those things, I don't see this as a serious issue.

This! Seriously!

[Quertus]

I wasn't addressing the "interdimensional traveler" question, I was responding to the "DMs are obligated to let players play whatever they want, both in terms of crunch and backstory, even if it's a total mismatch for the campaign" idea from a few posts earlier.

Ah. Just a happy coincidence then.


I'd be a lot more amenable to oddball PCs if the player was the one who put most of the effort into giving their character ties to the setting

That’s… odd. I mean, IME, those who lack connections by virtue of being “not from around here” tend to be the ones most likely to be trying to connect to / forge connections with the setting.

I mean, if you have 4 people, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, and the stranger in town, wouldn’t you expect the stranger to be the one spending the most time and effort of the 4 on “forging connections”? :smallconfused:

I mean, sure, the Italian spy in the WW2 game is likely to avoid things that draw “the wrong sort” of attention to themselves, but, otherwise, wouldn’t you expect them to be the most active in trying to gather intelligence?


I mean, I see what you're getting at but I think it's just a relabeling.

You're saying 'the setting is a function mapping x character to y response, and you can have different functions'.

In those terms what I'm saying is that, rather than 'trying to achieve a specific output y' it's 'trying to achieve a specific function f'. Not all functions are equally worth evaluating. And once you've evaluated one, evaluating the same or similar ones also becomes of different value. I think this is the key point: as a GM pitching a campaign you do need to aim for 'the worthwhile functions' not just be able to act as an interpreter for some externally provided set


The added wrinkle is, when the existence of a particular input x1 mandates that you change the function in some way, there are now some functions that you can't actually get to if you want to include x in the domain. Or more often it's that you can't construct them the same way you would if x1 were not an input - the naive procedure you think you can use to get f instead gets you g, and you have to do things differently if you actually want f.


So to put my experiences in those terms: If I'm trying to ask a question about nontransactional interpersonal relationships in light of economic class differences (my target f, running a Les Miserables campaign) and someone brings in a time traveler from the year 2700 of the Star Trek universe, I have to make adaptations if I want to still ask the question f.


Otherwise I will end up with g instead of f. And if as a group we were more interested in f than g, I will have GMd poorly.

Or, maybe the character suggests that h would be an even more interesting and fun question and we end up with Javert also being a time traveler, hunting down the PC for violating the temporal prime directive, and I go all in on h instead of trying to ask f. But h and f are still different functions, which is my original point.

…

“I wanted to tell the story of assassinating the good and rightful king, but someone ran a Paladin.”

“I walked to tell the story of the Realm of Terror, but the character from not!Athas felt Ravenloft was paradise.”

“I wanted to run the story of food rationing in a besieged city, but the party created a ‘Create Food and Water’ trap.”

If I’m understanding you, and those match the “changing the function” concern you have, I’m not seeing how a) that isn’t much more strongly impacted by personality and history and perspective and ability than by which universe your carbon molecules come from or which expansion your <tech> (Race/class/feat/gear/etc) was printed in; b) why this wouldn’t be a good thing for the GM to bring up in session 0.

Or, as @icefractal said,



There can definitely be characters who are ill-fitting to a given campaign, but IME that's only semi-correlated to whether they're from the appropriate setting books.

For example, which character will fit better in a "court intrigue" game set in Greyhawk?
* a changeling spy, impersonating a minor noble who actually died a year ago?
* a barbarian who thinks that cities are stupid, insults should always be met with the blade, and plans to leave the court bull**** behind ASAP?

And I’m still on the side of, “anything the GM didn’t specify in session 0, let the chips fall where they may” and “the game is easiest (and thus usually best) when such specific outcomes aren’t desired, when the GM just creates an interesting scenario, and lets the PCs respond however they want to”.

That said, my version of the “function” involves static values, like “Athas” or “a spider”. My point was that it produces different questions/responses/foci (your use of “function”, I think) in different characters. It really sounds to me like you’re under the mistaken belief that a particular setup (“Athas”, “Game of Thrones”, “Les Miserables France”, “WW2”) should inherently only produce one question. If I’m misunderstanding, please let me know, but I’m still stuck on “it sounds like ‘having a personality’ can wreck your expectations”.

[NichG]

…

“I wanted to tell the story of assassinating the good and rightful king, but someone ran a Paladin.”

“I walked to tell the story of the Realm of Terror, but the character from not!Athas felt Ravenloft was paradise.”

“I wanted to run the story of food rationing in a besieged city, but the party created a ‘Create Food and Water’ trap.”

If I’m understanding you, and those match the “changing the function” concern you have, I’m not seeing how a) that isn’t much more strongly impacted by personality and history and perspective and ability than by which universe your carbon molecules come from or which expansion your <tech> (Race/class/feat/gear/etc) was printed in; b) why this wouldn’t be a good thing for the GM to bring up in session 0.


I've been purposefully avoiding the phrase 'tell the story' though because it strongly implies that e.g. certain outcomes or actions are mandated, and that's not what this is about.

Out of those three, I'd say the last one is closest to what I mean, except I'd phrase it:

"I wanted to ask a question about what people will do when the last resources run out and there is no way to get more, and I picked the scenario of a city under seige to explore that. Unfortunately I picked a system to run it in in which Create Food and Water is a low level, easily accessible spell. Now my scenario doesn't ask the question I thought it did, because I failed to understand the properties of the setting that I actually ended up creating. Gee, maybe I should have known better."

[gbaji]

That’s… odd. I mean, IME, those who lack connections by virtue of being “not from around here” tend to be the ones most likely to be trying to connect to / forge connections with the setting.

I mean, if you have 4 people, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, and the stranger in town, wouldn’t you expect the stranger to be the one spending the most time and effort of the 4 on “forging connections”? :smallconfused:

I assume Anymage was talking about constructing some additional backstory to explain *why* this character, that is perhaps not of a class/race native to the setting, came to be there in the first place. Or what they're doing now that they're there. What motivates them? What are their goals? Are they trying to "get home"? A wanderer? Fell through a portal? On a mission from some extra-dimensional deity? Some players will just look at the setting and say "i want to play <something that isn't normally in that setting", and they'll give lots of reasons why they want to play that particular type of character (usually more focused on class/race abilities than RP), but if/when you allow it, spend virtually zero on those other things. It's just played as though it's perfectly normal for that character to be there.

And this puts the onus on the GM to provide that detail. And then explain why there aren't more of whatever it is in the setting, or add it in, even if there was no intention to in the first place. Sometimes, this can spur some ideas in the GMs head (Your Kung Fu Panda is an orphan and there is a distant land in this world where your kind come from that no one around here knows about). Sometimes, that's just not as easy or possible though.

[Mechalich]

I assume Anymage was talking about constructing some additional backstory to explain *why* this character, that is perhaps not of a class/race native to the setting, came to be there in the first place. Or what they're doing now that they're there. What motivates them? What are their goals? Are they trying to "get home"? A wanderer? Fell through a portal? On a mission from some extra-dimensional deity? Some players will just look at the setting and say "i want to play <something that isn't normally in that setting", and they'll give lots of reasons why they want to play that particular type of character (usually more focused on class/race abilities than RP), but if/when you allow it, spend virtually zero on those other things. It's just played as though it's perfectly normal for that character to be there.

And this puts the onus on the GM to provide that detail. And then explain why there aren't more of whatever it is in the setting, or add it in, even if there was no intention to in the first place. Sometimes, this can spur some ideas in the GMs head (Your Kung Fu Panda is an orphan and there is a distant land in this world where your kind come from that no one around here knows about). Sometimes, that's just not as easy or possible though.

At the end of the day, bad roleplaying is bad roleplaying. This kind of move, taking a thing that doesn't belong in a given setting, dropping it in for a single case, and then ignoring implications of the new arrival purely to seize some kind of mechanical advantage, is regrettably common. In tabletop is tends to specifically brush against certain gaming conceits, such as the absence of linguistic barriers or a universal built environment (ex. when people operate under the assumption that a six-legged arthopoid can move around in a human-designed starship without any problems). However, this is mostly a matter of GM responsibility, it's one of the points in a session zero where the GM has to be willing to say 'nope that's not going to work in this setting.'

Admittedly, this gets harder when official rulebooks throw out character options that are presumed to exist in a given setting that don't actually play well with the setting as a whole, like some of the more exotic 'race' options including construct races, plant-people, flying species, and so forth. This is a general problem with the kitchen sink approach to game and setting design, kitchen sinks are terrible settings. In some sense travel restrictions are actually an attempt to limit this problem, but they are a much weaker option than outright bans. 'X doesn't exist,' is much more solid than 'X is only found far away.'

[gbaji]

Hah! Yeah. I've run into players who absolutely refuse to play anything that isn't some variation of construct, or some other "weird" thing (usually in some obscure setting resource book). And yeah, it's almost always for some specific racial feature advantage that they think is essential and just absolutely can't live without. It's like, er... can't you just play a human, or a elf, or a dwarf. And you know, just a normal human, elf, or dwarf? Just once?

It always feels like I'm the oddball if I play a pickup table/online/whatever and I'm listening to everyone describe all these bizarro characters in the party, and my side of the conversation goes something like "Oh. My characters a human fighter. Yup. Nope. He's just a farmer's kid. Got bored working the fields. Nope. He's from right outside of <town we're starting from>. Er... Nope. He's not an orphan with potential to be the long lost heir to <wherever>. Um... No. He doesn't have half <something else> blood that gives him special powers. Nope. No divine calling/destiny involved. Just a normal guy who's decided to try adventuring for a living instead of farming. Just a fighter. Yes. A normal fighter. You know, right out of the book. What's wrong with that?". It's like I've grown two heads or something.

That actually *should* be something like 99% of all PC backgrounds (with parent profession and chosen class varying of course). Yet, oddly, its closer to 1%.

[Anymage]

I do have to say that one of my favorite sci-fi short stories, which I cannot remember the title or author (it was in one of the old Analog magazines my older brother had that I read as a kid)...

"The Road Not Taken", by Harry Turtledove. Because there's a good chance someone reading this isn't familiar with Turtledove and would enjoy becoming so.


There can definitely be characters who are ill-fitting to a given campaign, but IME that's only semi-correlated to whether they're from the appropriate setting books.

If they're in setting books someone put some thought into integrating them with the rest of the setting. If not, someone has to do that work. Otherwise the character is just kind of there adrift ("I'm a changeling, just roll with it"), a distracting fish out of water ("I fell through portal from Eberron"), or at worst tries to use their unprecedented status to argue that countermeasures against them shouldn't be present.

If the player is willing to do the work to make the character feel like a natural fit for the world around them, I'm happy to work with them. If it's going to create friction points and/or more work for me as GM, I'm going to be less well disposed. My experiences have been that it's relatively rare for a player to think things through beyond what character they want to bring.

[Fiery Diamond]

I've been purposefully avoiding the phrase 'tell the story' though because it strongly implies that e.g. certain outcomes or actions are mandated, and that's not what this is about.

Out of those three, I'd say the last one is closest to what I mean, except I'd phrase it:

"I wanted to ask a question about what people will do when the last resources run out and there is no way to get more, and I picked the scenario of a city under seige to explore that. Unfortunately I picked a system to run it in in which Create Food and Water is a low level, easily accessible spell. Now my scenario doesn't ask the question I thought it did, because I failed to understand the properties of the setting that I actually ended up creating. Gee, maybe I should have known better."

I could be wrong, but I think Quertus is saying that all three of those are essentially the exact same issue, and your insistence on seeing one as a problem but not another is baffling.

[NichG]

I could be wrong, but I think Quertus is saying that all three of those are essentially the exact same issue, and your insistence on seeing one as a problem but not another is baffling.

In the three examples Quertus gave, they're all framed as DM vs player.

In the version I gave, it's a DM self own.

In all of these posts I have not argued 'you should not permit multiverse characters '. I've only argued 'yes, there being a multiverse changes things about campaign focus, understand that before you include it'

Somehow 'it makes a difference' is getting translated to 'you don't want to let players play what they want'.

Which honestly suggests an insecurity to me that 'if a DM thinks it makes a difference, they're going to ban my character concept'. But the right way to deal with that is to negotiate 'hey, can we play a campaign that would benefit from me having an out of context character?' rather than 'hey DM, don't think about it'

[Quertus]

I assume Anymage was talking about constructing some additional backstory to explain *why* this character, that is perhaps not of a class/race native to the setting, came to be there in the first place. Or what they're doing now that they're there. What motivates them? What are their goals? Are they trying to "get home"? A wanderer? Fell through a portal? On a mission from some extra-dimensional deity? Some players will just look at the setting and say "i want to play <something that isn't normally in that setting", and they'll give lots of reasons why they want to play that particular type of character (usually more focused on class/race abilities than RP), but if/when you allow it, spend virtually zero on those other things. It's just played as though it's perfectly normal for that character to be there.

And this puts the onus on the GM to provide that detail. And then explain why there aren't more of whatever it is in the setting, or add it in, even if there was no intention to in the first place. Sometimes, this can spur some ideas in the GMs head (Your Kung Fu Panda is an orphan and there is a distant land in this world where your kind come from that no one around here knows about). Sometimes, that's just not as easy or possible though.

First things first: that part I bolded? Absolutely not! That’s the answer to the thread question, that’s the value of the “restricted” multiverse, that the GM doesn’t have to do that.

As to the rest, well, again, my experience goes in the opposite direction, that those who care what they play tend to have more in the way of background and motivations. Shrug.


"The Road Not Taken", by Harry Turtledove. Because there's a good chance someone reading this isn't familiar with Turtledove and would enjoy becoming so.

Thanks. I’ll have to investigate that.


at worst tries to use their unprecedented status to argue that countermeasures against them shouldn't be present.

Um… given the whole “multiverse” and “there are no X native to this world, there’s probably shouldn’t be countermeasures to X in the world without X. If your world doesn’t have Dragons, but does have something that explicitly interacts with my half-Dragon whose father was from another universe, that’d better be a major Plot point in my character understanding their strange skin condition / learning disability.

And it likely opens the multiverse up as “a thing” that the party can care about now.


I could be wrong, but I think Quertus is saying that all three of those are essentially the exact same issue, and your insistence on seeing one as a problem but not another is baffling.

Well, yes. Or, rather, “I see those all as instances of the same issue”, which isn’t exactly the same thing. That NichG sees them as having different “matches what NichG is talking about” ratings is potentially valuable information.


I've been purposefully avoiding the phrase 'tell the story' though because it strongly implies that e.g. certain outcomes or actions are mandated, and that's not what this is about.

Out of those three, I'd say the last one is closest to what I mean, except I'd phrase it:

"I wanted to ask a question about what people will do when the last resources run out and there is no way to get more, and I picked the scenario of a city under seige to explore that. Unfortunately I picked a system to run it in in which Create Food and Water is a low level, easily accessible spell. Now my scenario doesn't ask the question I thought it did, because I failed to understand the properties of the setting that I actually ended up creating. Gee, maybe I should have known better."

You picked the scenario of the city under siege… to Explore the question of what people will do when food runs out. Great.

Maybe the party goes all Soylent Green. Maybe they make rooftop gardens before it gets to that point. Maybe they turn the town (or just themselves) Undead. Maybe they make a pact with the fey, or demons, or Tzeentch, for a different Fate. Maybe they surrender or switch sides before it gets to that point. Maybe they die before it gets to that point.

I still see this as, “if the characters have personality, and you give them agency, and don’t have player buy-in on getting to that question, you aren’t guaranteed (or even likely, at least at most tables I’ve known) to get to that question.” Further, afaict, “personality” matters much more than “which splatbook the character or their <tech> came from” wrt the odds of getting to ask your question.

Also, my “tell the story” is equal parts “intent” and “after the fact framing”. You intended to tell the story of “food shortage during a siege”. I intended to tell the story of “Guy who traded places with his brother”. Instead, on a terrible fumble, we told the story of, “that time the PCs killed themselves and the town they were trying to defend when they destroyed the dam”. :smalleek: Which may or may not have anything to do with either of our intended stories (maybe it was part of a desperate plan to break the siege or get the surfing army to leave food unattended; maybe the disaster was caused by my character being an imposter and not having been trained. Or maybe it happened independent of either of those.).

[Quertus]

In the three examples Quertus gave, they're all framed as DM vs player.

In the version I gave, it's a DM self own.

In all of these posts I have not argued 'you should not permit multiverse characters '. I've only argued 'yes, there being a multiverse changes things about campaign focus, understand that before you include it'

Somehow 'it makes a difference' is getting translated to 'you don't want to let players play what they want'.

Which honestly suggests an insecurity to me that 'if a DM thinks it makes a difference, they're going to ban my character concept'. But the right way to deal with that is to negotiate 'hey, can we play a campaign that would benefit from me having an out of context character?' rather than 'hey DM, don't think about it'

Maybe I’m backwards here. So, when you allow a character who can build a Create Food and Water trap into your “finite food town siege” scenario, do you… realize that you are no longer asking a “finite food” question… and are instead asking… a “single point of failure” question? A “hero of the people” question? A “my friends eat, and the rest of you starve” question? A “finite arrows” question? A “they blocked the outgoing sewers” question? A “when is Gandalf coming back” question?

What are you suggesting that the GM in that scenario is now asking? Or, to flip that, why should the GM be asking any question in the first place, instead of simply providing an interesting scenario (“a city under siege”), and playing to find out what questions and answers arise from the PCs that the players bring?

[NichG]

You picked the scenario of the city under siege… to Explore the question of what people will do when food runs out. Great.

Maybe the party goes all Soylent Green. Maybe they make rooftop gardens before it gets to that point. Maybe they turn the town (or just themselves) Undead. Maybe they make a pact with the fey, or demons, or Tzeentch, for a different Fate. Maybe they surrender or switch sides before it gets to that point. Maybe they die before it gets to that point.

Yeah that's all fine, though if 'rooftop gardens, duh' resolves the situation then I also messed up with setting up the scenario.

I said resource instead of food specifically to suggest also that it doesn't have to be food. If creating food is easy, maybe I should instead have made it an afterlife running out of space. Or a living dream where the dreamer's attention is shifting and causality has become a measured resource.

I can get the question asked if I understand why the magic system made it meaningless and change my plans to ask a version that would actually be meaningful to those characters. But if I don't understand that interaction it's likely that what I'm running will flop.



I still see this as, “if the characters have personality, and you give them agency, and don’t have player buy-in on getting to that question, you aren’t guaranteed (or even likely, at least at most tables I’ve known) to get to that question.” Further, afaict, “personality” matters much more than “which splatbook the character or their <tech> came from” wrt the odds of getting to ask your question.

You aren't guaranteed to get it asked even with buy in. You can make bad choices about how you go about asking where, sure, the players might humor you and go through the motions but it won't change that the game sucked.

That's again why I don't use 'tell the story'. Because succeeding in getting the story told doesn't mean it will have impact or be enjoyed. Better to fail to tell the story but keep the impact than vice versa.

In general I would say you should never try to tell a story, as GM or player, you should only try to create experiences and in turn experience things (for both roles). But that gets to my own philosophy rather than the things I think every table should be aware of.



What are you suggesting that the GM in that scenario is now asking? Or, to flip that, why should the GM be asking any question in the first place, instead of simply providing an interesting scenario (“a city under siege”), and playing to find out what questions and answers arise from the PCs that the players bring?


Because going new places successfully requires effort and intent. You can't get everywhere it's possible to go by just acting thoughtlessly.

It's like, you're describing an endless fruit sorbet display - add your favorite fruit juice, sugar, and churn. It's great and all, but if someone wants to experience dairy ice cream you aren't going to get a good result just throwing in milk. You might instead have to prepare a custard carefully, let it stabilize, boil the fruit juice into concentrate then gradually add it to get the fruit flavor without curdling the mixture.

E.g. you have to know (or at least gradually discover) what you're about, and go for it with intent.

[Telok]

This is all just pretty much modern D&D problems right? Because fer Paranoia, Champions, Traveller, Starfinder, DtD40k7e, AD&D, Call of Cthulhu, Rifts, VtM, etc., for 30+ years I've never seen weirdo characters from another dimension being a problem. Either the game engine & setting & adventures are fine with it or the GM drops a "nope" that's perfectly understandable & reasonable.

[NichG]

This is all just pretty much modern D&D problems right? Because fer Paranoia, Champions, Traveller, Starfinder, DtD40k7e, AD&D, Call of Cthulhu, Rifts, VtM, etc., for 30+ years I've never seen weirdo characters from another dimension being a problem. Either the game engine & setting & adventures are fine with it or the GM drops a "nope" that's perfectly understandable & reasonable.

VtM would feel very different than, say, a VtM/Exalted crossover with the Exalt showing up in the modern world.

Whether its a problem or not depends on what people are trying to achieve.

[Mechalich]

VtM would feel very different than, say, a VtM/Exalted crossover with the Exalt showing up in the modern world.

Whether its a problem or not depends on what people are trying to achieve.

VtM has, entirely on its own, a whole menagerie of obscure bloodlines that tend to make a giant mess of a campaign if allowed into play and not handled carefully. If some player tries to play a Baali, or a Gargoyle, or a Nagaraja, or something similar, that character's very existence has the potential to hijack the whole blasted campaign.

This can happen even when there's no intent by the player to be disruptive, because many settings do not handle rare, out-of-place stuff very well. VtM, which is supposed to be a tightly wound enterprise with highly political storytelling (in practice this was rarely the case) was notably vulnerable to exactly this kind of disruption. By contrast something like RIFTS, which is already in the realm of gonzo insanity, can tolerate pretty much anything without blinking. D&D is somewhere in the middle with certain settings, like FR, tolerant of all sorts of bizarre diversity, extraplanar exiles, and weird origins, while others like Dragonlance or Ravenloft are considerably more constrained.

[RandomPeasant]

Uh, no. Both things interrupt my worldbuilding. But postulating that there are some weirdos out there who do things differently is a far cry from saying there are alternate realities and other worlds and planets created by super-wizards entirely out of metal and clockwork that then became flesh thanks to an ancient virus created by a dead god on another another world.

Really? Please explain to me how you forsee "there is a place you will never go and will never interact with except perhaps through war stories your friend tells around the campfire" is more disruptive to your worldbuilding, or even as disruptive to your worldbuilding, than "there is a group of guys who could all show up and start **** if they decided to go on an ocean voyage that's, like, three months long".


You DO see the rather substantial scale and scope of the differences being introduced right? Where one I include a little village of earth-benders who got jiggy with some elementals and another where I include a multiverse?

Did the existence of the MCU multiverse impact in any way the story of Hawkeye? Did they suddenly have to refigure all the alliances in the criminal underworld of New York City to account for the fact that somewhere out there there's a timeline where people go on red? Your worldbuilding doesn't have to account for anything the campaign doesn't touch, and what the restricted multiverse does is provide you with a ready-made excuse for why things don't touch. You need to spend exactly zero words figuring out why the psuedo-Norse of Kaldhiem or the psuedo-Egyptians of Amonkhet or the Harry Potter ripoffs of Strixhaven don't show up in your psuedo-Mesoamerican Ixalan campaign, because them not showing up is the default.


There are ways to do it without being a planeswalker, and namely the Phyrexians know how.

Oh, wow, such a horrifyingly hard problem to solve. Wait, no, it's fine, we can just declare that this campaign is happening after Karn goes to New Phyrexia, shouts "it's Sylexin' time" and Sylexes all over them. Or in an alternate timeline where New Phyrexia lost and Karn is free to galivant around the multiverse and that's why he's on Ixalan in the first place. Or you could stop getting so caught up in the example I picked off the top of my head and engage with the general principle of "planar travel being hard means you don't have to introduce elements from other planes". Pretend we were talking about, like, some Kithkin planeswalker showing up without needing to go into whatever the hell is happening with Lorwyn's aura right now.


Pot, kettle. You've written up an awful lot about how it's a bad DM decision to say "this is what I want to do, and will not accept anything outside of it" but seem to also write an awful lot about how it's totally fine and dandy for a player to say "this is what I want to do, and will not accept anything outside of it".

The character is the only thing the player controls. Of course they have proportionately more influence over it than the DM has over any particular element of worldbuilding. But, no, I don't believe the player should get to do whatever they want. "I have this weird race and this weird class" is simply not all that intrusive to world-building. It just isn't. But if someone says something like "I want to play a Dragonmarked Heir of House Cannith, and by that I mean I want to play a guy who gets a significant amount of his power by calling in favors from House Cannith", I would in fact say that is an unreasonable ask, because it can't be accommodated easily (though maybe instead of just shouting "no", you point that guy to some of the politics established in your setting and see if he can play a version of his concept that's compatible with what's already been laid down). But you actually can allow the guy who wants to play a Vulshok Geomancer to play a Vulshok Geomancer without re-writing your notes on the power dynamics of early colonial Ixalan, so you should just do that if someone asks you.


There can definitely be characters who are ill-fitting to a given campaign, but IME that's only semi-correlated to whether they're from the appropriate setting books.

This is very true. It's also worth pointing out that it's much easier to get people to buy in on the important stuff if you don't act tyrannical about the little stuff. A character is something the player brings to the table. If you let them bring the one they want, they will naturally care more about the story and the rest of their character's interactions with it.


Once someone from one culture sees something that exists, they know it's possible to do, and will return to their own culture with that knowledge.

Well, sure. But we're still talking about "once", so we don't have any problem explaining why the Federation hasn't started doing magic on its own (you can shift it up to "why haven't they encountered other magic users yet", but "we found this new and different form of Weird Space ****" is like 50% of stories about the Federation). And even when you do get that contact, stuff only transfers if there's a sufficient level of baseline knowledge. Europeans started making their own hammocks, but (AFAIK) Native Americans didn't start manufacturing their own firearms.


You will literally blow up a game setting over time if you don't put some sort of restrictions, not just on travel, but also on "what works where".

I am much more concerned over blowing up a game right now when I tell the players "by the way, those characters you lovingly crafted work differently now in arbitrary ways". A game that has been running for 40 years is an extreme outlier, and if those are the guys a decision makes work harder, I am totally comfortable making them do some extra work for the greater good.


kitchen sinks are terrible settings.

I am begging people to just not play D&D. The core Monster Manual has things from like four different mythologies, and that's without counting "Lovecraftian" as one or squinting real hard at where those element-flavored Giants are coming from. You can have a game that has a really narrowly-defined set of things in it. That game is not D&D, and D&D does not need to make any particular sacrifices to facilitate you having an easier time running it on the same rules engine as the rest of D&D.


It's like, er... can't you just play a human, or a elf, or a dwarf. And you know, just a normal human, elf, or dwarf? Just once?

Why do you care so much how they have fun? Are they being actively disruptive because they choose to play a Warforged or a Dryad? Do they try to force you to play a Gensai instead of a Human?


That actually *should* be something like 99% of all PC backgrounds (with parent profession and chosen class varying of course). Yet, oddly, its closer to 1%.

No it shouldn't! Characters should be the specific cool things players are interested in. Go crack open a fantasy novel sometime. How many of those guys are "just a regular dude with nothing going on who decided to go on an adventure"?


VtM would feel very different than, say, a VtM/Exalted crossover with the Exalt showing up in the modern world.

But is that because the Exalt's being angsty superhumans is somehow conceptually incompatible with the way VtM vampires are angsty superhumans, or just because Exalt's power level blows VtM's (and, to be fair, most games) out of the water? If I show up in a 3rd level Eberron game with a 20th level character from Dragonlance, the problematic part of what I'm doing is "20th level", not "Dragonlance".

[False God]

Hah! Yeah. I've run into players who absolutely refuse to play anything that isn't some variation of construct, or some other "weird" thing (usually in some obscure setting resource book). And yeah, it's almost always for some specific racial feature advantage that they think is essential and just absolutely can't live without. It's like, er... can't you just play a human, or a elf, or a dwarf. And you know, just a normal human, elf, or dwarf? Just once?

It always feels like I'm the oddball if I play a pickup table/online/whatever and I'm listening to everyone describe all these bizarro characters in the party, and my side of the conversation goes something like "Oh. My characters a human fighter. Yup. Nope. He's just a farmer's kid. Got bored working the fields. Nope. He's from right outside of <town we're starting from>. Er... Nope. He's not an orphan with potential to be the long lost heir to <wherever>. Um... No. He doesn't have half <something else> blood that gives him special powers. Nope. No divine calling/destiny involved. Just a normal guy who's decided to try adventuring for a living instead of farming. Just a fighter. Yes. A normal fighter. You know, right out of the book. What's wrong with that?". It's like I've grown two heads or something.

That actually *should* be something like 99% of all PC backgrounds (with parent profession and chosen class varying of course). Yet, oddly, its closer to 1%.

And it's not terribly difficult to add a little spice to an otherwise normal background by either using a race that most people don't normally associate with "normal" lives (such as some form of planetouched) or add a twist to the "farmer background" that they loved growing crops so much they went to live in the woods and became a druid. No murdered parents, no orphan looking for revenge, heck, you can even be the half-vampire secret love-child of the Black King but other than that your days are spent like any other person in town.

Like cooking, I think a lot of people forget that simplicity and the base ingredients themselves can make for an excellent meal, and often resort to overseasoning and overcomplicating the meal in some misguided attempt at "totally super unique".

[NichG]

But is that because the Exalt's being angsty superhumans is somehow conceptually incompatible with the way VtM vampires are angsty superhumans, or just because Exalt's power level blows VtM's (and, to be fair, most games) out of the water? If I show up in a 3rd level Eberron game with a 20th level character from Dragonlance, the problematic part of what I'm doing is "20th level", not "Dragonlance".

Well again, and I am kind of getting irritated in having to repeat it so much: just because something is different does not mean that it is a problem. It is only a problem if the difference moves you in a direction you don't want to go in.

What does adding Exalted to VtM do? Well, lots of things - you're worried about the armageddon and critical existence failure of the setting? The Exalt is cosmologically a lot closer to that sort of thing than even a second or third generation vampire, and those concerns are going to be closer to the surface and more relevant and addressable via the Exalt's presence. But okay, lets say its an Exalt who just likes having superpowers - the fact that the primary pressures that shaped them are missing from the modern world is going to change the experience of play. And the fact that the pressures that do exist for vampires are different - the need to feed, social pressures surrounding the masquerade, relationships with vampire generational hierarchy, etc - means that you're adding an element to the game that is simply not under the same forces as everyone else. Without saying 'this is good' or 'this is bad', again, 'this is different'. Different dynamic. Some things get easier, others get harder.

If I wanted to run WoD: Against the Apocalypse'? Bring on the exalt! They'd help de-emphasize the usual petty politics aspects and pull the focus more naturally towards epic 'actually we can determine the fate of the world' thinking. The WoD kitchen sink I played in ended up being 'lets help the Wyrd beat down the Weaver and the Wyrm', with a party of mixed, even multi-type supernaturals. Those things worked well together. It was utterly different than the sort of stuff the dedicated local Vampire LARP got up to though.

[Telok]

VtM has, entirely on its own, a whole menagerie of obscure bloodlines that tend to make a giant mess of a campaign if allowed into play and not handled carefully. If some player tries to

We never had that issue when the weird bloodlines showed up. Tho in all fairness we did play like most people, using it for dark supers style stuff rath than angst or politics. Then again it was still early-ish edition and we were pretty rough & loose with stuff back then, the mid 90s being what they were.

Did get to do the AD&D/Gamma World cross though. Great fun. Nuke reactor control electronics don't hold up to the Heat Metal spell very well. Brought shotguns back with us and had great fun until the ammo ran out. "Bigger barrels are bigger booms! Dibs on the double barrel one!"

[Anymage]

Um… given the whole “multiverse” and “there are no X native to this world, there’s probably shouldn’t be countermeasures to X in the world without X. If your world doesn’t have Dragons, but does have something that explicitly interacts with my half-Dragon whose father was from another universe, that’d better be a major Plot point in my character understanding their strange skin condition / learning disability.

And it likely opens the multiverse up as “a thing” that the party can care about now.

If the other players - including the DM, who has to do more work if things go spontaneously sideways - aren't enthused about a multiverse, one player trying to make it a thing is just that much extra hassle.

Similarly, I'll just say that I've rarely seen a player who insisted that the locals shouldn't be prepared against them turn around and play similarly clueless about local threats. I may be paranoid that this is just someone trying to establish information asymmetry, but I'm paranoid due to experiences.


VtM would feel very different than, say, a VtM/Exalted crossover with the Exalt showing up in the modern world.

Whether its a problem or not depends on what people are trying to achieve.

Even aside from vampire/exalt, just vampire/werewolf was an easy thing to throw together (they are mechanically compatible) while also being a thematic minefield. When one player character can not only be active while another is in mortal peril if they step outside, but can also enter a whole parallel world entirely, you do risk a major threat to party cohesion. This being a very good case where it helps to have a session zero, and to enforce consensus decisions if need be.


Iam much more concerned over blowing up a game right now when I tell the players "by the way, those characters you lovingly crafted work differently now in arbitrary ways". A game that has been running for 40 years is an extreme outlier, and if those are the guys a decision makes work harder, I am totally comfortable making them do some extra work for the greater good.

This right here is the problem. Your lovingly crafted character is entirely meaningless without context, and trying to force them into any proximate campaign sounds like those old stories about someone wanting to join a new group with their existing character. You're going to get some friction trying to squeeze them in. Discuss the character you want ahead of time, and ideally how they can naturally fit into the world, and you'll be much more likely to get something that can work constructively with what everybody else wants.

[Quertus]

Yeah that's all fine, though if 'rooftop gardens, duh' resolves the situation then I also messed up with setting up the scenario.

I said resource instead of food specifically to suggest also that it doesn't have to be food. If creating food is easy, maybe I should instead have made it an afterlife running out of space. Or a living dream where the dreamer's attention is shifting and causality has become a measured resource.

I can get the question asked if I understand why the magic system made it meaningless and change my plans to ask a version that would actually be meaningful to those characters. But if I don't understand that interaction it's likely that what I'm running will flop.



You aren't guaranteed to get it asked even with buy in. You can make bad choices about how you go about asking where, sure, the players might humor you and go through the motions but it won't change that the game sucked.

That's again why I don't use 'tell the story'. Because succeeding in getting the story told doesn't mean it will have impact or be enjoyed. Better to fail to tell the story but keep the impact than vice versa.

In general I would say you should never try to tell a story, as GM or player, you should only try to create experiences and in turn experience things (for both roles). But that gets to my own philosophy rather than the things I think every table should be aware of.

If you make a good “town under siege” scenario, you may not get “finite food” answered, but that doesn’t mean that people will remember “the game was bad” - quite the opposite, usually.

Then you can move on to your “hell is full” scenario… which the PCs might also subvert. And likely have a great game in the process.


D&D is somewhere in the middle with certain settings, like FR, tolerant of all sorts of bizarre diversity, extraplanar exiles, and weird origins, while others like Dragonlance or Ravenloft are considerably more constrained.

I thought part of the… if not “point”, at least “lore” of Ravenloft was that it “eats” pieces of many worlds, and is inherently a crossover setting. No?

[NichG]

If you make a good “town under siege” scenario, you may not get “finite food” answered, but that doesn’t mean that people will remember “the game was bad” - quite the opposite, usually.

Then you can move on to your “hell is full” scenario… which the PCs might also subvert. And likely have a great game in the process.


Well again, its not about preventing players from subverting things. That's about actions and outcomes, which I've now said, what, three times? Is not the point.

It's like the difference in feel between 'Hm, tricky, but I think I can solve that!' and "Why haven't these idiots solved that on their own already when its so easy to fix?" Like all the adults in Harry Potter being conspicuously incompetent.

If something is nonsensical and players are legitimately trying to engage, it'll be more like "Um, I guess this is a thing we could intervene in, but why should we care? Actually do we even want to do anything anymore?"

It's very much related to, for example, knowing when and how to end a campaign. If you just run 'whatever the players feel like doing today' until everyone runs out of gas, you get this sort of unsatisfying tail-off. Instead you have to start to end things when people are still excited and driven.

[Mechalich]

I thought part of the… if not “point”, at least “lore” of Ravenloft was that it “eats” pieces of many worlds, and is inherently a crossover setting. No?

The Dark Powers were remarkably selective about what they ate, and the result was that the Demiplane of Dread was significantly less diverse than garden-variety D&D in terms of the sorts of things it permitted to be present. Humanoid diversity, in particular, was much, much lower. Additionally, by being functionally cut off from the rest of the multiverse, the Demiplane forbid the presence of essentially all extraplanar monsters and it's truly amazing how much the MM shrinks if you go through and systematically eliminate all the Outsiders. The setting was also simply physically small, with most of the individual realms being functionally equivalent in size to small HRE micro-states (the entire setting is roughly the size of modern Germany). That makes it impossible for there to be anyone from 'strange faraway lands' because no such lands existed.

[Satinavian]

Hah! Yeah. I've run into players who absolutely refuse to play anything that isn't some variation of construct, or some other "weird" thing (usually in some obscure setting resource book). And yeah, it's almost always for some specific racial feature advantage that they think is essential and just absolutely can't live without. It's like, er... can't you just play a human, or a elf, or a dwarf. And you know, just a normal human, elf, or dwarf? Just once?
Probably because they already did it once. Or twice or likely even more often. Why should they do it again and again when they have long explored those options and lost interest ?

I have no problem with people who prefer to play something different and exotic. It is really understandable. And the more often settings have overlapping standard stuff (mostly medieval humans) and only differ in their fringe and exotic options, the more people who find the standard stuff stale, use exclusively the finge and exotic options.

However, playing something exotic that is an established part of the setting is very different and much more acceptable than wanting to play something that does not exist in the setting (yet). The more fleshed out the setting is, the more inappropriate is the latter desire.

[Satinavian]

This is all just pretty much modern D&D problems right? Because fer Paranoia, Champions, Traveller, Starfinder, DtD40k7e, AD&D, Call of Cthulhu, Rifts, VtM, etc., for 30+ years I've never seen weirdo characters from another dimension being a problem. Either the game engine & setting & adventures are fine with it or the GM drops a "nope" that's perfectly understandable & reasonable.
Yes, it it pretty much a D&D problem.

But mostly because the latter part, that "nope" is seen as reasonable and often even as default (except maybe DtD40k7e which might have a kitchen sink default).
Most games don't give you the expectation that you can port characters from whereever and they also don't make it mechanically easy. And players know that and rarely ask for it.

The most common thing i see in other systems is "I want to play a character like/inspired by X" and the DM saying "Sure, let's see how we get this to work" (or even the player being able to realize his vision in the game framework just fine anyway). But those are only similar characters, they never are supposed to be the original. Any of the baggage that doesn't fit the seting is cut off or replaced.



But D&D wants not only to have DMs introducing their very own settings for their campaigns, it also wants all those settings to be barely different and interlinked. It really doesn't want custom settings to feel important or meaningfull. And that leads to players who don't spare any consideration for setting compatibility and are surprised when a DM has different ideas.

[Mechalich]

However, playing something exotic that is an established part of the setting is very different and much more acceptable than wanting to play something that does not exist in the setting (yet). The more fleshed out the setting is, the more inappropriate is the latter desire.

Well, only if the setting is actually well-designed. There are plenty of settings that include things that a both a. entirely canonical and b. horribly disruptive when brought to a game. This is especially common in licensed settings that were not originally intended to be games, but is found in game-first settings too. Badly designed official fluff and crunch is everywhere and it is perfectly possible for someone's homebrew idea to work be both better mechanically balanced and make more sense according to the norms and themes of a setting than a huge chunk of the stuff that's actually in published books. This is especially true of 'shovelware' type gaming output that is produced by poorly paid freelancers who are engaged in limited coordination with the overall design team and that exists primarily get produce moving out the door rather than fulfill any sort of design purpose. This sort of content is common to late-cycle material in popular games where at some point the main team moves on to designing the new edition and oversight lapses (this seems to happen to D&D like clockwork) or in scavenged games that represent an IP acquired a much smaller publisher than the original one without the ability to conduct the quality control necessary for such a large project (Onyx Path is notorious for this sort of thing but is hardly alone).

In many ways I find bad and/or insufficiently tested official material to be more problematic than homebrew because homebrew demands are easily rejected while a player who says 'but it's in book X' may be completely unaware of how problematic any given element is likely to be and therefore extremely difficult to appease in a tactful manner (and that's in the case where the GM is actually aware of how problematic the element is liable to become rather than simply being blindsided halfway through the campaign, which is regrettably common in big game systems with many rules).

[Quertus]

The Dark Powers were remarkably selective about what they ate, and the result was that the Demiplane of Dread was significantly less diverse than garden-variety D&D in terms of the sorts of things it permitted to be present. Humanoid diversity, in particular, was much, much lower. Additionally, by being functionally cut off from the rest of the multiverse, the Demiplane forbid the presence of essentially all extraplanar monsters and it's truly amazing how much the MM shrinks if you go through and systematically eliminate all the Outsiders. The setting was also simply physically small, with most of the individual realms being functionally equivalent in size to small HRE micro-states (the entire setting is roughly the size of modern Germany). That makes it impossible for there to be anyone from 'strange faraway lands' because no such lands existed.

Rephrase: Today, Ravenloft has no... Elan, say. But wouldn't it match the "physics" of Ravenloft for, tomorrow, the mists to grab an Elan, and, thus, for a new PC to be an Elan, newly-arrived in Ravenloft?

Isn't "There aren't any X in Ravenloft" kinda... antithetical to the mechanics of Ravenloft - at least for values of X that Ravenloft doesn't "intentionally" avoid (Outsiders?)?

(Also, as this isn't the 3e or even 5e forum, IIRC, in 2e Ravenloft, Outsiders could be summoned to the demiplane of dread... they just didn't return home afterwards. So, assuming I'm not just misremembering, Ravenloft should actually have an abnormally high concentration of outsiders.)

[Satinavian]

Rephrase: Today, Ravenloft has no... Elan, say. But wouldn't it match the "physics" of Ravenloft for, tomorrow, the mists to grab an Elan, and, thus, for a new PC to be an Elan, newly-arrived in Ravenloft?
If Ravenloft is a setting in the D&D multiverse where the mists grab people to trap and torture them, then yes.

If Ravenlost is a setting of cheesy classical horror fun, where normal people are faced with horrible, unnerving and spooky things like witches, vampires and werewolves, then no, the exotic races are not welcome and the mists are very selective.


I have never personally run Ravenloft. But it is a setting where i probably would be pretty open about any balanced D&D character entering. But i am not very invested in recreating the intended atmosphere.

[RandomPeasant]

And the fact that the pressures that do exist for vampires are different - the need to feed, social pressures surrounding the masquerade, relationships with vampire generational hierarchy, etc - means that you're adding an element to the game that is simply not under the same forces as everyone else.

But that's true of werewolves too (except the Masquerade bit), which quite explicitly exist in the same setting as vampires do.


If the other players - including the DM, who has to do more work if things go spontaneously sideways - aren't enthused about a multiverse, one player trying to make it a thing is just that much extra hassle.

The player who says "I would like to play this weird thing from this weird setting" is not trying to "make the multiverse a thing". They are trying to make a specific element a thing, and the multiverse is very explicitly a reaction to minimize the blast radius of that. It is explicitly a way to say "no, the rest of these guys are not going to show up" and stop worrying about it.


Similarly, I'll just say that I've rarely seen a player who insisted that the locals shouldn't be prepared against them turn around and play similarly clueless about local threats.

How often have you seen players effectively play clueless voluntarily?


When one player character can not only be active while another is in mortal peril if they step outside

The way VtM handled vampire weaknesses was a problem for VtM. It certainly made crossovers even harder, but they ramped up the vampire weaknesses far enough that they made just playing vampires really awkward (and it hit they real hard when they tried to do old-timey games because of how specific they were).


Your lovingly crafted character is entirely meaningless without context,

That depends entirely on what the parts of the character you are invested in are.


Discuss the character you want ahead of time, and ideally how they can naturally fit into the world, and you'll be much more likely to get something that can work constructively with what everybody else wants.

Sure. But you'll note this is much closer to "let players play what they want" than "you can exclude whatever stuff you want freely as DM".


The Dark Powers were remarkably selective about what they ate

Except, you know, the PCs, the eating of whom is the whole thing that a Ravenclaw campaign is supposed to be about. What the Dark Powers do is explain how your weirdo party of a plant guy, a robot guy, a demon ghost, and an elf can all show up and have the same adventure in gothic land.


Yes, it it pretty much a D&D problem.

It's the opposite of a "D&D problem". It's a problem people have with D&D, but D&D is very much intended to be a kitchen sink setting where you can encounter all kinds of weird crap and that's fine. The Monster Manual (at least the 3e one I have easily to hand) has angels, sphinxes, centaurs, naga, genies, and lammasu. The strongest through line there is that "none of those are from New World mythology", but that might just be because I don't recognize those influences. D&D has as many types of fish person in its core rules than Shadowrun has major types of metahuman (and that's without counting implicit sorts of fish person, like were-dolphins or awakened sharks).

[Telok]

. This is especially true of 'shovelware' type gaming output that is produced by poorly paid freelancers who are engaged in limited coordination with the overall design team and that exists primarily get produce moving out the door

Diablo d20 FTW! That crap made for a great Lets Read thread but, fooof, would not want to try to play that jank straight.

Heh, pun-pun, coffee-lock, and no-save forcecage+damage zone are all official wotc product results. Much more potential for screwing up a canned adventure than any edgelord cross-dimensional import that ends up mechanically as a decently meta-played armored wizard with a healing spell. The people are the problems, a sloppy rules/settings game just makes it easier.

[Anymage]

How often have you seen players effectively play clueless voluntarily?

That was specifically in response to the idea of a player requesting that the rest of the world not being prepared for their character's shtick, because their character is a newcomer from elsewhere in the multiverse. The general case of player knowledge/character knowledge divide is a separate topic, but it's relevant when someone wants to play an outsider and doubly so when they insist that the world be unprepared for their outsider shenanigans.


That depends entirely on what the parts of the character you are invested in are.

If my character concept is a god-blooded epic hero out of myth and the rest of the group wants to play a gritty E6 game, that's going to be a tonal mismatch. Similarly if I want to play a character based on Rick Sanchez without understanding the differences between a primary protagonist and a member of an ensemble.

Ultimately it boils down to D&D being a team game and trying to make it easier for everybody else - including the DM - instead of just bringing your individually dreamed up character and expecting to be catered to.


Sure. But you'll note this is much closer to "let players play what they want" than "you can exclude whatever stuff you want freely as DM".

This is about acknowledging that it takes work to make a character integrate with both a setting and a campaign world, and realizing that it's a big ask to dump all that at the DM's feet. If a player is willing to put forth the effort to integrate their character with the rest of the party, the theme of the campaign, and find a plausible way to integrate them into the setting, I'm more than happy to meet them in the middle.

[NichG]

But that's true of werewolves too (except the Masquerade bit), which quite explicitly exist in the same setting as vampires do.

And you don't think a game with mixed vampires and werewolves in the player group would feel different than an all-vampire or all-werewolf group? Or for that matter, a game about internal vampire politics as opposed to a vampires vs werewolves game?

[icefractal]

In all of these posts I have not argued 'you should not permit multiverse characters '. I've only argued 'yes, there being a multiverse changes things about campaign focus, understand that before you include it'

Somehow 'it makes a difference' is getting translated to 'you don't want to let players play what they want'.I think it's because in the OP you refer to the idea of a non-Rifts-style multiverse very negatively:

The mixed, "restricted multiverse" model gets neither side. You get the forced similarity of a single shared cosmology, but all the value of the weird-and-wacky variation is lost. Instead you just have the intrusion of incongruous elements (hey look, there's a walking robot man in my classically-medieval setting!) at random intervals. All of the downsides (as a DM/player), none of the upsides. While guaranteeing bland, homogenous "lore" (because it has to fit any possible setting).It doesn't really read is "understand that before you include it", it reads as "don't include it, unless you want Rifts".


Also, kind of a nitpick, but -
I have never been in a D&D game that could accurately be described as "classically-medieval". Nor have I seen any first-party D&D material that would support that. There is a (third party) supplement called "Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe" that might do such, but I haven't yet read it.

And I'm not just talking about magic and monsters - every aspect, from technology to society to religion to culture, is an anachronistic jumble of stuff.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think it's because in the OP you refer to the idea of a non-Rifts-style multiverse very negatively:
It doesn't really read is "understand that before you include it", it reads as "don't include it, unless you want Rifts".


Also, kind of a nitpick, but -
I have never been in a D&D game that could accurately be described as "classically-medieval". Nor have I seen any first-party D&D material that would support that. There is a (third party) supplement called "Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe" that might do such, but I haven't yet read it.

And I'm not just talking about magic and monsters - every aspect, from technology to society to religion to culture, is an anachronistic jumble of stuff.

Note that the OP was by me, not the person you're responding to.

And while I don't actually play in a "classically medieval" setting and most D&D settings aren't such... That doesn't change that if you were and someone hypothetically did bring in such a thing, it would be incongruous in a breaking way.

I, personally, find the published settings for D&D to be unusable as incoherent jumble of mismatched ideas. And adding a restricted multiverse doesn't make them better--in fact it just highlights the issue, making it impossible to ignore like you might have been able to otherwise. In my opinion.

[AceOfFools]

The thing about the restricted multiverse of DnD is that you have to consider the audience.

DnD is, for a massive selection of TTRPG players, baby’s first TTRPG. I built my first world for it when I was 12ish, and it was awful. For those young players, and for something like a large majority of players who are more interested in playing make believe with their friends, all settings are little more than a backdrop for the next adventure.

The restricted multiverse is about making “include weird things” as easy as possible for those for whom dealing with realistic/compelling worldbuilding is either or both of the most difficult or least rewarding part of the game for them. It’s goal is to be as easy/fun for new, inexperienced, and/or uninterested GMs.

One can argue that cohesive, compelling worldbuilding is better (my preferences certainly align with that—for campaigns at least). But I think it’s fair to assume players who want that can largely figure out how to do it. After all, these are the people by definition who deeply invested/passionate about worldbuilding.

But the thing is, as player who prefers compelling setting to which characters are invested, an easily accessible starting point is in my interest. Easier onboarding for new players means more new players, and more people getting invested in derivative works—from RPGs I enjoy more than DnD, which often do have tighter focus, to fun art, to pick up games I could join, to silly DnD webcomics.

This might be the opposite of a reason for why any given TTRPG player might want it, but it’s the reason I’m glad it exists.

Also, I sometimes my group does one shots with wildly different themes (“airship pirates”, “spec ops,” “let’s do an ecoterrorism”), and we all prefer not to worry about a setting we all know we’re only going to use once, and there’s limítate opportunity to express investment in a setting, even if we’d enjoy it.

[Pauly]

The restricted multiverse is a something tacked on to the end of D&D. Just like sailing ships or siege combat. If you actually want these types of things in your games you are better off seeking a game where they are part of the core design. However D&D includes them as options for players who want to play D&D but still do some cool interesting stuff not covered in the main rules.

[gbaji]

I am much more concerned over blowing up a game right now when I tell the players "by the way, those characters you lovingly crafted work differently now in arbitrary ways". A game that has been running for 40 years is an extreme outlier, and if those are the guys a decision makes work harder, I am totally comfortable making them do some extra work for the greater good.

I'm not sure how "lovingly crafted" a character design is though. I guess maybe I have a different perspective, since in most of the games I play, it's the stuff that happens *after* you start playing a character that generates most of the character's personality and history, not the stuff you wrote before introducing it. I'm much more in favor of "give a character very little, very basic background, then play and develop from there" style of play.

So yeah, I'm more considering the mechanical impact of introducing various "oddball" character races, abilities, whatever into my game, and that has nothing at all to do with how much the player is invested in said character. If anything, the player should be far more invested in characters that already exist in the setting, and how they "fit" into that setting, so anything that causes imbalance can be a problem.



Why do you care so much how they have fun? Are they being actively disruptive because they choose to play a Warforged or a Dryad? Do they try to force you to play a Gensai instead of a Human?

It's an observation. I think many players (often younger players) substitute "unusual backstory/race/class/whatever" in places of "interesting personality". When I play a game and someone plays a Warforged, you know what happens? They're the same generic "I'm a warforged, so I do this, and behave that way" character that the last 20 people I ran into who decided to play Warforged characters were. It's generic. They think by picking a class/race combo, they're defining a character. Most often, they really aren't though.

My observation was that if you don't focus on the class/race aspects, you can instead focus on actual personality questions. You've removed the crutch and now can create an actual unique character. Dunno. Just an observation I've made over time. Obviously, it's player dependent. Some players are great at creating personalities no matter what/who they play. A heck of a lot of players, unfortunately, just aren't. And they tend to replace that with "different" class/race combos. And yeah, while I don't begrudge them that, I do honestly believe that you should crawl before you walk, and walk before you run. Maybe start with something basic and build on that first.



No it shouldn't! Characters should be the specific cool things players are interested in. Go crack open a fantasy novel sometime. How many of those guys are "just a regular dude with nothing going on who decided to go on an adventure"?

Uh. Go read fantasy prior to say the early/mid 90s when D&D based novels (FR and DL spring directly to mind) began to appear. This is literally a D&D led phenomenon. Read anything published prior to that and it was almost entirely human characters in various situations, with Tolkien being almost the exception with dwarfs and elves. And yeah, it's an amazingly common trope for the story to be "unassuming farm boy discovers larger destiny". I'm not at all a fan of that trope (Yeah, I'm totally looking at you Belgariad, Magician series, and Wheel of time), but to suggest that this doesn't exist (hello Hobbits!) is somewhat silly. Heck, where did Ged from Wizard of Eathsea come from? Oh yeah. Just a regular guy living peacefully among his village until events propel him into the story. It's a super common story telling technique.

And frankly, my least favorite trope of all is the variation where said common person turns out to be the long lost heir to <whatever> with a mighty destiny involved. I'm far more interested (for example) in the characters that traveled with Garion in Belgariad (the blacksmith and the thief characters). Just normal folks, who developed skills and became adventurers who are significant to the story. Setting aside Edding's inability to leave them that way, *that's* what I want my players to be. The concept of "normal'" people from "normal" backgrounds, who set out to become great adventurers by just, you know, doing it. I find those to be the most interesting character types, specifically because they aren't depending on a crutch to build the character. They just are.

I don't have an issue with players choosing to play "unusual" characters. I just find that often that's *all* there is to the character development, and find it amusing just how many players think they are being "special and unique" by doing basically the exact same thing everyone else does.




Like cooking, I think a lot of people forget that simplicity and the base ingredients themselves can make for an excellent meal, and often resort to overseasoning and overcomplicating the meal in some misguided attempt at "totally super unique".

Yup. I find that the best characters start out simple and basic, and are built on from there. You might be surprised just how interesting and unexpected a character may develop if you don't start out "trying" to make it a certain way from day one. And yeah, I think a lot of players are robbing themselves of that experience in some cases. Nothing wrong with trying something "weird" from time to time. I've done it myself. But it should be the occasional thing. I've literally run into players who play something "weird" every single time. No exceptions. Eh. Not for me.


Ultimately it boils down to D&D being a team game and trying to make it easier for everybody else - including the DM - instead of just bringing your individually dreamed up character and expecting to be catered to.

And honestly, my personal preferences aside, this is what it boils down to for me. If a player comes to me with an interesting concept for a character and they've spent the time thinking about how this may fit into the game (ie: done the research) odds are I'll allow it. Heck. I'll work the character past/introduction into the game somehow. But IME this is a rare thing, and most often when players want to do this, it's not with an eye towards "how can I fit this interesting idea into the existing game", but "I think this characters unique powers/abilities will give me an edge in the existing game", which often leads to said character causing problems for game/setting balance.

Maybe I've become a bit cynical over time, but that has been my experience. Sure. Occasionally, there is just the player who has a cool/interesting idea and just hasn't thought through the implications, but as the GM, I have to do so. And unless it's just something that already exists with a new skin, it's often going to require quite a bit of work. And yeah, there is a remarkably high percentage of the "cool/interesting" ideas that just coincidentally happen to involve some special abilities/powers/whatever that will provide a remarkable advantage in the setting itself. Say I've created a spirit world heavy world, and someone wants to introduce a character race that has some innate spirit combat capabilities. What a coincidence! Or the setting has a heavy presence of <whatever> as the main bad guy footsolders, and a player will just happen to ask to introduce a character with a race that has some amazing advantages against those bad guys (maybe the bad guys are vulnerable to sonics, and this race uses powerful echo location or something). I'm sure it's just a coincidence that in addition to being able to move around in the dark better, it'll also allow him to stun the bulk of the bad guys as a natural racial ability.

Seen lots of stuff like that over time. I've rarely ever seen a player come to me with an "unusual/unique" character idea that actually represents a disadvantage (to the character) in the current setting. Like I don't think it's ever happened. If the main bad guys use a special metal in their weapons, how many times has anyone come to the GM with a new race concept where "vulnerable to that metal" is part of the block? Never, right? You'll get an endless list of variations of races with "skin armor that blocks <special metal>" though. Bad guys have flaming weapons, you'll get character concepts that are resistant/immune to fire damage, not ones that are especially flammable and take extra damage to fire, right?

Again. Call me a cynic, but IME these things are almost always about trying to gain a mechanical advantage in the game setting and very little about "roleplaying something different".



This is about acknowledging that it takes work to make a character integrate with both a setting and a campaign world, and realizing that it's a big ask to dump all that at the DM's feet. If a player is willing to put forth the effort to integrate their character with the rest of the party, the theme of the campaign, and find a plausible way to integrate them into the setting, I'm more than happy to meet them in the middle.


Yup. And if they do come up with something that "works", I'm all for it. Adds to the flavor of the setting. Sadly, in many long years of running RPGs I've just so rarely seen that actually happen. Most players are looking at their character and not much beyond making the best character possible (and why blame them for this?). Very few are looking at the overall setting and how they can make that "the best setting possible". It's just a very different mind set and point of view.

[Telok]

Yup. I find that the best characters start out simple and basic, and are built on from there. You might be surprised just how interesting and unexpected a character may develop if you don't start out "trying" to...

My experience is it depends on the player and the game. What I see is most players in most current d&d/knockoffs that have simple & basic characters never "grow" or "develop" at all*. They're too busy just keeping their numbers up and trying to stay basically relevant in game to do much of anything other than seeking the next bonus to keep up the Red Queen's Race of cr & level appropriate.

Its the ones (the players) that have zero worries about the character being a lol-random suck & fail comic relief clown who will do stuff outside of keeping up with surviving the next fight. Sometimes its because they're running a character with skills & powers that let them try a variety of noncombat stuff with a real chance of success, and sometimes they are a lol-random clown character. But often it seems the fear of repeated or inevitable failures without any real control keeps the players locked into only doing what the character is mechanically good at and striving to boost that to a reliably effective level.

Other times its the game or GM that lets or makes players produce characters that are more than just one or two trick ponies struggling to keep up with the monsters. There I'll more often likely see some character growth or change that isn't just numbers going up. Of course sometimes its the GM rumming an adventure path or module that basically kills any chance for characters to have meaningful development because they're always on the move and the npcs betray, never get seen again, or die like pathetic mooks. Really, can you develop characters when everything is a transient cardboard cut out, sack of hp to kill, or fellow orphan murder hobo addict lusting for the next hit of xploot?

* Totally not counting the "that npc wasn't a polite floor mat that did everything i wanted so now they must die" crap that tends to happen nearly every game from these sorts of guys. Thats not character development, its just being pissy murder-hobo at an npc. Again. Because they're that sort of player.

[icefractal]

I haven't really seen a correlation between having a "standard" human character and the character being deep.

Are there plenty of people whose concept is just "Look at me, I'm half robot and half demon!" Yes. There are also plenty of people whose concept is just "I'm a barbarian, I smash stuff", or "I'm the holy cleric, I hate undead" and those aren't really any deeper.

[RandomPeasant]

If my character concept is a god-blooded epic hero out of myth and the rest of the group wants to play a gritty E6 game, that's going to be a tonal mismatch.

Sure, but that's got absolutely nothing to do with the "restricted multiverse" concept. A 20th level Fighter is an inappropriate character for an E6 game, but that's because he is 20th level. Whether he's warforged or a gensai or a merfolk or whatever the hell has nothing to do with it. Imagine you've got a 1st level game set in Lorwyn (a world where there are no humans) starting up, and a player has two character concepts they want to play: a 1st level Human Fighter who arrived in Lorwyn by *mumble mumble* and a 20th level Faerie Wizard with a detailed backstory explaining exactly what they've been doing with a bunch of Lorwyn-specific stuff for the past fifty years. Which of those characters is more likely to be disruptive to your game?


This is about acknowledging that it takes work to make a character integrate with both a setting and a campaign world, and realizing that it's a big ask to dump all that at the DM's feet.

And that ask is made smaller when you can just point to the restricted multiverse for why none of the other weird dudes who are weird in whatever way your dude is weird have showed up before.


And you don't think a game with mixed vampires and werewolves in the player group would feel different than an all-vampire or all-werewolf group? Or for that matter, a game about internal vampire politics as opposed to a vampires vs werewolves game?

An all-Tremere game looks different from one with a whole mix of vampires. I do not think it is inherently harder to make a game with vampires and werewolfs work than it is to make one with different kinds of vampires work, and to the degree that it is in VtM it is a result of world-building decisions that are bad even for the all-vampire game.


If anything, the player should be far more invested in characters that already exist in the setting, and how they "fit" into that setting, so anything that causes imbalance can be a problem.

It seems to me that you are asking players to come to the table with a deep investment in your setting, but are completely uninterested in making a corresponding investment in their characters. This strikes me as unfair, and broadly hypocritical.


They think by picking a class/race combo, they're defining a character. Most often, they really aren't though.

And you think forcing them to pick a race/class combo they are less interested in will make them roleplay more? The way to get people to roleplay is to meet them where they are, not to force them to do the thing you think is correct. If someone is a new player and you are an experienced DM, it is incumbent on you to pick up the bulk of the effort of making stuff work, because you're better at this than they are.


This is literally a D&D led phenomenon. Read anything published prior to that and it was almost entirely human characters in various situations, with Tolkien being almost the exception with dwarfs and elves.

"This is a D&D led trope with the exception of it showing up in the foundational work of fantasy as a genre".

So, uh, try again maybe?


And yeah, it's an amazingly common trope for the story to be "unassuming farm boy discovers larger destiny". I'm not at all a fan of that trope (Yeah, I'm totally looking at you Belgariad, Magician series, and Wheel of time), but to suggest that this doesn't exist (hello Hobbits!) is somewhat silly.

I'm not claiming it doesn't exist. But the notion that it should be "most characters" simply because it happens to appeal to you personally is the exact same impulse as the guy who wants to play a warforged in your precisely-crafted "no warforged allowed" world. People want different things. Playing a TTRPG means finding a compromise to accommodate them, not demanding that everyone play the way you want. "You can play a warforged, but don't expect them to be common" is exactly that sort of compromise. "Everyone is a human from around here" is not.


Call me a cynic, but IME these things are almost always about trying to gain a mechanical advantage in the game setting and very little about "roleplaying something different".

That's just the Stormwind Fallacy. People are allowed to like things for mechanical reasons. We don't put stats for elves in the book solely so that people who enjoy elves entirely for fluffy and non-mechanical reasons won't blow up the game when they ask what their character actually does.


I, personally, find the published settings for D&D to be unusable as incoherent jumble of mismatched ideas.

It sounds like you just don't like D&D. Seriously, go read a Monster Manual some time. There is not some deeply coherent through-line there, it's a bunch of random stuff that ranges from "the writers though it would be cool" to "accrued pieces of D&D brand identity" to "random monsters from random mythology".

[Fiery Diamond]

I'm not sure how "lovingly crafted" a character design is though. I guess maybe I have a different perspective, since in most of the games I play, it's the stuff that happens *after* you start playing a character that generates most of the character's personality and history, not the stuff you wrote before introducing it. I'm much more in favor of "give a character very little, very basic background, then play and develop from there" style of play.

So yeah, I'm more considering the mechanical impact of introducing various "oddball" character races, abilities, whatever into my game, and that has nothing at all to do with how much the player is invested in said character. If anything, the player should be far more invested in characters that already exist in the setting, and how they "fit" into that setting, so anything that causes imbalance can be a problem.




It's an observation. I think many players (often younger players) substitute "unusual backstory/race/class/whatever" in places of "interesting personality". When I play a game and someone plays a Warforged, you know what happens? They're the same generic "I'm a warforged, so I do this, and behave that way" character that the last 20 people I ran into who decided to play Warforged characters were. It's generic. They think by picking a class/race combo, they're defining a character. Most often, they really aren't though.

My observation was that if you don't focus on the class/race aspects, you can instead focus on actual personality questions. You've removed the crutch and now can create an actual unique character. Dunno. Just an observation I've made over time. Obviously, it's player dependent. Some players are great at creating personalities no matter what/who they play. A heck of a lot of players, unfortunately, just aren't. And they tend to replace that with "different" class/race combos. And yeah, while I don't begrudge them that, I do honestly believe that you should crawl before you walk, and walk before you run. Maybe start with something basic and build on that first.




Uh. Go read fantasy prior to say the early/mid 90s when D&D based novels (FR and DL spring directly to mind) began to appear. This is literally a D&D led phenomenon. Read anything published prior to that and it was almost entirely human characters in various situations, with Tolkien being almost the exception with dwarfs and elves. And yeah, it's an amazingly common trope for the story to be "unassuming farm boy discovers larger destiny". I'm not at all a fan of that trope (Yeah, I'm totally looking at you Belgariad, Magician series, and Wheel of time), but to suggest that this doesn't exist (hello Hobbits!) is somewhat silly. Heck, where did Ged from Wizard of Eathsea come from? Oh yeah. Just a regular guy living peacefully among his village until events propel him into the story. It's a super common story telling technique.

And frankly, my least favorite trope of all is the variation where said common person turns out to be the long lost heir to <whatever> with a mighty destiny involved. I'm far more interested (for example) in the characters that traveled with Garion in Belgariad (the blacksmith and the thief characters). Just normal folks, who developed skills and became adventurers who are significant to the story. Setting aside Edding's inability to leave them that way, *that's* what I want my players to be. The concept of "normal'" people from "normal" backgrounds, who set out to become great adventurers by just, you know, doing it. I find those to be the most interesting character types, specifically because they aren't depending on a crutch to build the character. They just are.

I don't have an issue with players choosing to play "unusual" characters. I just find that often that's *all* there is to the character development, and find it amusing just how many players think they are being "special and unique" by doing basically the exact same thing everyone else does.





Yup. I find that the best characters start out simple and basic, and are built on from there. You might be surprised just how interesting and unexpected a character may develop if you don't start out "trying" to make it a certain way from day one. And yeah, I think a lot of players are robbing themselves of that experience in some cases. Nothing wrong with trying something "weird" from time to time. I've done it myself. But it should be the occasional thing. I've literally run into players who play something "weird" every single time. No exceptions. Eh. Not for me.



And honestly, my personal preferences aside, this is what it boils down to for me. If a player comes to me with an interesting concept for a character and they've spent the time thinking about how this may fit into the game (ie: done the research) odds are I'll allow it. Heck. I'll work the character past/introduction into the game somehow. But IME this is a rare thing, and most often when players want to do this, it's not with an eye towards "how can I fit this interesting idea into the existing game", but "I think this characters unique powers/abilities will give me an edge in the existing game", which often leads to said character causing problems for game/setting balance.

Maybe I've become a bit cynical over time, but that has been my experience. Sure. Occasionally, there is just the player who has a cool/interesting idea and just hasn't thought through the implications, but as the GM, I have to do so. And unless it's just something that already exists with a new skin, it's often going to require quite a bit of work. And yeah, there is a remarkably high percentage of the "cool/interesting" ideas that just coincidentally happen to involve some special abilities/powers/whatever that will provide a remarkable advantage in the setting itself. Say I've created a spirit world heavy world, and someone wants to introduce a character race that has some innate spirit combat capabilities. What a coincidence! Or the setting has a heavy presence of <whatever> as the main bad guy footsolders, and a player will just happen to ask to introduce a character with a race that has some amazing advantages against those bad guys (maybe the bad guys are vulnerable to sonics, and this race uses powerful echo location or something). I'm sure it's just a coincidence that in addition to being able to move around in the dark better, it'll also allow him to stun the bulk of the bad guys as a natural racial ability.

Seen lots of stuff like that over time. I've rarely ever seen a player come to me with an "unusual/unique" character idea that actually represents a disadvantage (to the character) in the current setting. Like I don't think it's ever happened. If the main bad guys use a special metal in their weapons, how many times has anyone come to the GM with a new race concept where "vulnerable to that metal" is part of the block? Never, right? You'll get an endless list of variations of races with "skin armor that blocks <special metal>" though. Bad guys have flaming weapons, you'll get character concepts that are resistant/immune to fire damage, not ones that are especially flammable and take extra damage to fire, right?

Again. Call me a cynic, but IME these things are almost always about trying to gain a mechanical advantage in the game setting and very little about "roleplaying something different".





Yup. And if they do come up with something that "works", I'm all for it. Adds to the flavor of the setting. Sadly, in many long years of running RPGs I've just so rarely seen that actually happen. Most players are looking at their character and not much beyond making the best character possible (and why blame them for this?). Very few are looking at the overall setting and how they can make that "the best setting possible". It's just a very different mind set and point of view.

I feel it's worth pointing out that you are coming from a stance where the setting comes first, and then you add the characters to it (and that the characters come in as more or less blank slates that develop during play) and acting as if this is somehow the default way of doing things. You... do know that the exact opposite is also possible, right? That the players can come up with detailed characters with backstory and personality fully formed and the DM takes that and makes the setting to fit? That's totally a thing, and is no less valid. I would venture a guess that most games fit neither extreme but involve a bit of give and take between character and setting when things are created. Literally every game I've ever run or played in has been somewhere in the middle.

[Psyren]

It's an observation. I think many players (often younger players) substitute "unusual backstory/race/class/whatever" in places of "interesting personality". When I play a game and someone plays a Warforged, you know what happens? They're the same generic "I'm a warforged, so I do this, and behave that way" character that the last 20 people I ran into who decided to play Warforged characters were. It's generic. They think by picking a class/race combo, they're defining a character. Most often, they really aren't though.

My observation was that if you don't focus on the class/race aspects, you can instead focus on actual personality questions. You've removed the crutch and now can create an actual unique character. Dunno. Just an observation I've made over time. Obviously, it's player dependent. Some players are great at creating personalities no matter what/who they play. A heck of a lot of players, unfortunately, just aren't. And they tend to replace that with "different" class/race combos. And yeah, while I don't begrudge them that, I do honestly believe that you should crawl before you walk, and walk before you run. Maybe start with something basic and build on that first.

That's a player issue, not a setting/multiverse issue. You can be a "generic/boring Warforged" with no meaningful ideals/bonds/flaws just as easily in Eberron as you could in Faerun. Restricting races for that reason doesn't solve the underlying issue, that the player needs motivation and personality regardless of their origin.

Also, there's nothing inherently bad about playing into type. Durkon is as standard a dwarf as you can imagine in most respects, but he is still a compelling character largely because of how he reacts to the absurd or atypical scenarios around him. Not every character needs to be an societal black sheep or pariah compared to their racial peers.

[Mechalich]

I feel it's worth pointing out that you are coming from a stance where the setting comes first, and then you add the characters to it (and that the characters come in as more or less blank slates that develop during play) and acting as if this is somehow the default way of doing things. You... do know that the exact opposite is also possible, right? That the players can come up with detailed characters with backstory and personality fully formed and the DM takes that and makes the setting to fit? That's totally a thing, and is no less valid. I would venture a guess that most games fit neither extreme but involve a bit of give and take between character and setting when things are created. Literally every game I've ever run or played in has been somewhere in the middle.

Except you can't actually do that. If you have 3-5 people generate characters based on whatever fits their fancy what you'll actually have is 3-5 different games proposed. Most games come with a pre-defined setting already (VtM, Star Wars, L5R, etc.) or expectations that the GM will tailor the system and selectively utilize rules to produce a setting for play (GURPs, FATE, etc.). D&D, as usual, is a special case that tries to have it both ways. What it actually has is a tightly bounded implied setting that governs the range of things that can be included in game. This can be easily seen through alternative settings that modify the game rules and thereby no longer accept the presence of characters built using the standard implications, like Dark Sun.

'Restricting' the multiverse, by the way, can be a method of creating a bounded space. For example, having many worlds but they're all quasi-medieval fantasy worlds in technological stasis, just in some of them the sky is purple and the water is red. This sort of thing is actually reasonably common in Wuxia Cultivation stories, where the protagonist might visit a 'demon realm' or a 'heavenly realm' or an 'undersea realm' but somehow still encounters nothing but vaguely Daoist-derived martial artists no matter what.

[Fiery Diamond]

Except you can't actually do that. If you have 3-5 people generate characters based on whatever fits their fancy what you'll actually have is 3-5 different games proposed. Most games come with a pre-defined setting already (VtM, Star Wars, L5R, etc.) or expectations that the GM will tailor the system and selectively utilize rules to produce a setting for play (GURPs, FATE, etc.). D&D, as usual, is a special case that tries to have it both ways. What it actually has is a tightly bounded implied setting that governs the range of things that can be included in game. This can be easily seen through alternative settings that modify the game rules and thereby no longer accept the presence of characters built using the standard implications, like Dark Sun.

'Restricting' the multiverse, by the way, can be a method of creating a bounded space. For example, having many worlds but they're all quasi-medieval fantasy worlds in technological stasis, just in some of them the sky is purple and the water is red. This sort of thing is actually reasonably common in Wuxia Cultivation stories, where the protagonist might visit a 'demon realm' or a 'heavenly realm' or an 'undersea realm' but somehow still encounters nothing but vaguely Daoist-derived martial artists no matter what.

Actually, no. An "implied setting" is not a setting, and it need not be bound by anything other than the ruleset. The DM saying "I'd like to have a game using this ruleset that involves [lists themes they want to include], please come up with characters and backgrounds while consulting one another to ensure they are mutually compatible and I'll build the setting details around that" is 100% possible, and is 100% an example of what I said.

[False God]

Actually, no. An "implied setting" is not a setting, and it need not be bound by anything other than the ruleset. The DM saying "I'd like to have a game using this ruleset that involves [lists themes they want to include], please come up with characters and backgrounds while consulting one another to ensure they are mutually compatible and I'll build the setting details around that" is 100% possible, and is 100% an example of what I said.

Well yes, but it is hugely labor intensive and I quite frankly can't think of a single game where I've seen it happen. Sure, I've seen DMs be flexible, I've seen kitchen sink games, I've seen "anything goes" multiverse games, but I can't really say I've ever seen a DM say something like "I want to run something gritty and western, work that out yourselves and I'll build on what you give me."

Also, I feel like "suggesting some themes" and asking your players to ensure their characters are mutually compatible is no different from having a world built and requesting the players build within it but with extra (and therefore unnecessary) steps.

[gbaji]

It seems to me that you are asking players to come to the table with a deep investment in your setting, but are completely uninterested in making a corresponding investment in their characters. This strikes me as unfair, and broadly hypocritical.

If I've made the setting first, then yes, that's a quite reasonable expectation for me to make. And I'm not "uninterested" in making a corresponding investment in their characters. That's a massive false dilemma. There's a huge range in there where players can pick from a list of races that actually exist already in the setting I've created and still manage to create a character that "fits" into the setting, where I will also work with them to build a backstory (if they want) to provide all the rationale, motivation, etc needed to start that character off in the setting.

What's unreasonable is if I say "We're going to play a game in setting X, with <list of races> available to play, and <list of religions> available, here's your starting area, here's what's there, what's available, what guilds exist, trades, potential backgrounds, etc and a player comes to me and insists on playing none of the above and wants to justify it as "well, he's a <traveler/whatever> from another world/area/whatever, and expect me to wedge this character into the setting. Now, as I've already stated, if it's reasonable I'll absolutely allow a one-off oddball character. But (as I've also already said), I expect the player had better done some homework in terms of how this character will realistically fit into the setting. And yes, as I (also) stated before, my experience is that it's rare for players to actually do this. But yeah, if/when they do, I'll allow it.



And you think forcing them to pick a race/class combo they are less interested in will make them roleplay more? The way to get people to roleplay is to meet them where they are, not to force them to do the thing you think is correct. If someone is a new player and you are an experienced DM, it is incumbent on you to pick up the bulk of the effort of making stuff work, because you're better at this than they are.

I'm not forcing them to do anything. First off, this is not the D&D only forum section. I play primarily in a game system that does not have classes or levels, so the only real issue here is race (and racial stats/abilities). And yeah, that I'm going to limit based on what's in the area the setting is in. Again, I'll allow other stuff if it makes sense and can be rationally explained. But I'm not restricting the players. They can play anything that could reasonably be in the setting.

When I do play D&D though, I also tend to think folks should strive to play within the setting. It's really somewhat of a D&D specific problem precisely because D&D has a zillion source books each of which adds some new races and classes, some of which mesh pretty well with a "standard" set, but others are extremely specific to the source they were written in and the setting that source was intended for. So yeah, you do have to be careful allowing such things into a setting that's not designed for them.

There's plenty to play. Deliberately picking something else really smacks of the player not respecting the game setting or the rest of the table.




"This is a D&D led trope with the exception of it showing up in the foundational work of fantasy as a genre".


So, uh, try again maybe?

Uh... I specifically mentioned "normal" humans, elves, and dwarves earlier. Which, after a couple telephone game type responses, gets us here. I'm more broadly speaking in terms of "things that exist in the setting being played", and more specifically pointing out that not every character has to be some weird thing "from a far off land", in order to be played. You can play a character that's literally from "the next village over", and that might just work better for most players. What races that makes available are largely irrelevant to me.



I'm not claiming it doesn't exist. But the notion that it should be "most characters" simply because it happens to appeal to you personally is the exact same impulse as the guy who wants to play a warforged in your precisely-crafted "no warforged allowed" world. People want different things. Playing a TTRPG means finding a compromise to accommodate them, not demanding that everyone play the way you want. "You can play a warforged, but don't expect them to be common" is exactly that sort of compromise. "Everyone is a human from around here" is not.

I didn't say that though. I did provide that in my example, but if it makes you feel better, replace "human" with "folks who live in the area". That could be the humans living nearby, or the elves from the nearby forest, or the dwarves from up in the mountains, or the trolls from the other nearby mountains, or <insert whatever other stuff the GM has put on the map in the setting>. And again, my broader point is the tendency to substitute "strange race/class/backstory" for "roleplaying".


That's just the Stormwind Fallacy. People are allowed to like things for mechanical reasons. We don't put stats for elves in the book solely so that people who enjoy elves entirely for fluffy and non-mechanical reasons won't blow up the game when they ask what their character actually does.

First off, there wouldn't be a need for the fallacy if there weren't enough people who do play that way to create the perception/stereotype. It's only fallacious if you assume one cannot exist without the other. I specifically stated that it was player specific and that some players can roleplay excellently no matter what they are playing, and others cannot. My observation is the tendency for the latter group to gravitate to playing "strange unusual character types" as a substitute (or not even bothering to try, and just going for mechanical advantage). That doesn't mean that everyone who plays a strange/unusual character is a bad role player, nor that everyone who plays a "generic in-setting" character is a good role player.

What I am saying is that players who do have (let's be polite here) "low roleplaying skills" would be better served *not* rushing to the strange/unusual characters, since this tends to become a crutch to developing RP skills. And yes, the same can be said of someone who plays the "grrr smash" barbarian, or the "holy man" cleric, or whatever. But my experience is that when there is less "filler" on the table (by nature of mechanical character descriptions), the player is more likely to develop their own, often much more "natural" personality for the character they are playing. It's honestly one of the reasons I prefer to play in games that don't have character classes. That's one less thing that's actually written on your character sheet that you might decide defines your character and might lead you to RP based solely on that one thing. "Barbarian" should be a culture, not a class. Just saying.



Actually, no. An "implied setting" is not a setting, and it need not be bound by anything other than the ruleset. The DM saying "I'd like to have a game using this ruleset that involves [lists themes they want to include], please come up with characters and backgrounds while consulting one another to ensure they are mutually compatible and I'll build the setting details around that" is 100% possible, and is 100% an example of what I said.

It's possible, I suppose. But I suspect that the setting that results (in many cases) will be a mash up as a result. Don't get me wrong, if I'm just playing a one-shot or something, I don't really care what people play. But I'm also probably not doing much more for the "setting" than creating the adventure I'm running. Then I'm done. If I'm going to the trouble to create an actual real setting? I'm creating it. The players play in it.

Just not sure why this is a problem. If we decide to play a paranoia game, I'm going to expect them to play normal paranoia troubleshooters. If one of them wants to play an alien who's crash landed into Alpha Complex, I'm going to give that one a hard no. Well. Unless I decide to incorporate it into the scenario, of course. But that falls into the "one shot" thing I spoke of earlier. Same deal with a Shadowrun game. You want to play your alchemist from <some other game> in there? Er no.

Again, having said that, if I've included multiple dimensions/planes in my setting (and I have), that's still a pretty large number of "possible things" that can be played. The player has to come to me and sell me on how the thing he wants to play will fit in though, not the other way around. And yeah, the player has to think through how this character will not just fit in as an introduction, but as a continuing PC in the game. As I stated earlier, one of the things I do in my setting is create different "rules" for different dimensions. Magic works differently depending on where you are. Tech works differently as well. You want to play a wild west gunslinger in the main high-fantasy setting? Sure thing. But due to <insert technobabble about constants of physics> your gunpowder just doesn't light in this world. Maybe you could talk to some dwarves and find a replacement (for a modest fee since their blasting powder is proprietary alchemy in this world)? You want your priest of <whatever> to show up and be playable? Great. Except your deity doesn't actually have a following in this world, and has no power, so your divine magic will be limited use. Maybe, if you spend a few decades, you might be able to convince people to convert and build a temple (assuming the gods that do exist here don't just send hordes of followers to kill you off to prevent just that from happening).

And yeah, I've allowed "odd" characters. Various shapeshifters, variants of elves/dwarves/dragonkind/whatever. Heck. We once had two sentient chippendale chairs join the game as playable characters (there was more to it than that, obviously). But again, I expect the player to meet me at least halfway on stuff like this, so that I can fit the character idea into the game. I don't think that's an unreasonable ask. And yeah if what the player is asking for is just obviously going to break the setting? I'm going to say no. Because at the end of the day, the enjoyment of the entire table trumps the wants of one player. If you can't figure out how to find a character concept and personality that you can enjoy playing without leaping to the absurd, that's somewhat on you.

[gbaji]

Well yes, but it is hugely labor intensive and I quite frankly can't think of a single game where I've seen it happen. Sure, I've seen DMs be flexible, I've seen kitchen sink games, I've seen "anything goes" multiverse games, but I can't really say I've ever seen a DM say something like "I want to run something gritty and western, work that out yourselves and I'll build on what you give me."

Yup. I've also played "kitchen sink" games (and they can be fun as heck). But those are the "one offs" I play, when I'm not really taking the whole thing at all seriously and we're all just messing around and having fun. I agree that it'll be an exercise in insanity to bother with setting a theme, but then leaving the character options completely open. To me, the "theme" includes within it silly things like "the kind of characters that can be played". I mean, I suspect that most of us assume that the sorts of NPCs that you might encounter will be specific and aligned with the theme of a game setting, so one would assume the kinds of PCs to be played should be as well.

Otherwise, there is no actual theme.


Also, I feel like "suggesting some themes" and asking your players to ensure their characters are mutually compatible is no different from having a world built and requesting the players build within it but with extra (and therefore unnecessary) steps.

Was going to make this point as well. To me, it's far better to just say "these are class/race/level/whatever available to play at startup in this setting" and be up front and open with your players. Pushing the need to work out character details to the players may seem like you're increasing agency, but not really. Now, instead of one GM providing consistent rules to everyone, you're going to have 5 or 6 GMs all trying to tell the others what to do. And, assuming you as the GM do have some sort of ultimate "final call" on the outcome, it can end up being a bit passive aggressive. You can play anything you want, but if I don't agree, I'll deny it? Better to just set expectations up front IMO.

Again, assuming that "theme" actually means anything at all here. And if not, and anything the players come up with is actually ok, why bother with coming up with a theme? Just wait for the characters to do their thing, let them all play whatever they want, and then cobble something together afterwards. Again. That can be great fun (I've done that many times, in fact), but that's not what I would ever actually call a "setting".

[Psyren]

If I've made the setting first, then yes, that's a quite reasonable expectation for me to make. And I'm not "uninterested" in making a corresponding investment in their characters. That's a massive false dilemma. There's a huge range in there where players can pick from a list of races that actually exist already in the setting I've created and still manage to create a character that "fits" into the setting, where I will also work with them to build a backstory (if they want) to provide all the rationale, motivation, etc needed to start that character off in the setting.

What's unreasonable is if I say "We're going to play a game in setting X, with <list of races> available to play, and <list of religions> available, here's your starting area, here's what's there, what's available, what guilds exist, trades, potential backgrounds, etc and a player comes to me and insists on playing none of the above and wants to justify it as "well, he's a <traveler/whatever> from another world/area/whatever, and expect me to wedge this character into the setting. Now, as I've already stated, if it's reasonable I'll absolutely allow a one-off oddball character. But (as I've also already said), I expect the player had better done some homework in terms of how this character will realistically fit into the setting. And yes, as I (also) stated before, my experience is that it's rare for players to actually do this. But yeah, if/when they do, I'll allow it.

All that is fine, but then surely you start to see how WotC is trying to make both your lives easier by establishing the presence of a multiverse. You've just established that you're in fact open to considering a nonstandard character for your setting/game provided the player can explain how they fit into the world - and for their settings at least, WotC is trying to broadly enable that.

The new Dragonlance book that came out recently for instance includes the following sidebar:


PEOPLE FROM BEYOND

Peoples who aren’t native to the world still might find their way to Krynn. It’s possible to find individual members—or even small enclaves—of folk like dragonborn, halflings, tieflings, or any other race in Ansalon. Perhaps such individuals stepped through a portal and found themselves on Krynn, or traded with one of Krynn’s great empires before the Cataclysm. Use such possibilities to play characters of any race you please in your adventures across Krynn.

The "stepped through a portal" option is the perhaps-too-obvious avenue, but in the underlined portion WotC also established a much more interesting alternative - one that could have a nonstandard race character actually grow up in Krynn and absorb its recent history, yet still be a relative unknown to most of the inhabitants. Pre-Cataclysm Dragonlance had some extremely powerful magic societies/empires running around, so it's not too farfetched to allow that they were the ones to bring some of the mentioned "enclaves" of nonstandard races through to Krynn, for trade or servitude or other reasons, and some of them surviving through the Cataclysm to have descendants is not unreasonable.


TL;DR no one is saying you can't restrict your setting, but WotC inserting justifications to relax race restrictions on theirs is reasonable, and can even be narratively engaging.

[False God]

Yup. I've also played "kitchen sink" games (and they can be fun as heck). But those are the "one offs" I play, when I'm not really taking the whole thing at all seriously and we're all just messing around and having fun. I agree that it'll be an exercise in insanity to bother with setting a theme, but then leaving the character options completely open. To me, the "theme" includes within it silly things like "the kind of characters that can be played". I mean, I suspect that most of us assume that the sorts of NPCs that you might encounter will be specific and aligned with the theme of a game setting, so one would assume the kinds of PCs to be played should be as well.

Otherwise, there is no actual theme.

Was going to make this point as well. To me, it's far better to just say "these are class/race/level/whatever available to play at startup in this setting" and be up front and open with your players. Pushing the need to work out character details to the players may seem like you're increasing agency, but not really. Now, instead of one GM providing consistent rules to everyone, you're going to have 5 or 6 GMs all trying to tell the others what to do. And, assuming you as the GM do have some sort of ultimate "final call" on the outcome, it can end up being a bit passive aggressive. You can play anything you want, but if I don't agree, I'll deny it? Better to just set expectations up front IMO.

Again, assuming that "theme" actually means anything at all here. And if not, and anything the players come up with is actually ok, why bother with coming up with a theme? Just wait for the characters to do their thing, let them all play whatever they want, and then cobble something together afterwards. Again. That can be great fun (I've done that many times, in fact), but that's not what I would ever actually call a "setting".

Overall I generally feel that most of the arguments of "Letting players come to the table with whatever." or "...whatever within a range." are more examples of unpreparedness, or a general disinterest in DMing. Most DMs I've met (for better or worse) have a certain thing they want to run. Be it horror, soap, beer-and-pretzels, their own personal world, a specific established universe. DMs I've encountered who don't tend to really not be much fun (strongly IMO) because they really don't seem very invested in what they're running.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Overall I generally feel that most of the arguments of "Letting players come to the table with whatever." or "...whatever within a range." are more examples of unpreparedness, or a general disinterest in DMing. Most DMs I've met (for better or worse) have a certain thing they want to run. Be it horror, soap, beer-and-pretzels, their own personal world, a specific established universe. DMs I've encountered who don't tend to really not be much fun (strongly IMO) because they really don't seem very invested in what they're running.

For me, that's completely true. Well, rather the reverse--if I'm not invested in the setting, I'm not really interested in playing or (especially) DMing. And "yeah, figure it out, whatever" doesn't get me interested. It's a sure sign that the setting will be cardboard thin or worse, made to order. I want lived-in settings. Ones that have the fingerprints of other groups, of other minds. And especially I need metaphysics--more than just a "well, whatever's in the books" or worse a "you tell me" explanation for things. Reasons why everything is as it is. And that doesn't come easy or cheap--it requires dedicated thought that can't be whipped up in a couple weeks.

[Fiery Diamond]

"Or worse: Made to Order."

Oh, the horror!

You realize that some people like that, right? I certainly hope you realize your preferences aren't universal.

And to the people saying my example of "character first, setting after" is an extreme... well, duh. I even called it that myself. My point is that "setting first, character after" is just as much an extreme and you need to recognize that and stop acting like it's somehow the default or superior. As I said, all games I've been involved in have been in the middle ground.

As a DM, I am heavily an Improv DM. I start by creating the setting in its broad strokes: the cosmology, the geography, the nations. Then I decide what sorts of themes I'm interested in. Then the players create the characters. Then I build setting details around the characters and their backgrounds. Then I come up with the starting situation and initial hooks, as well as any important large-scale ongoing events, like political situations and whatnot. And then the remaining details and specific events get made as the game goes along based on the decisions the players make. This is NOT AN UNUSUAL WAY TO DO THINGS. It's not inherently inferior to doing in depth worldbuilding and creating all your settlements and so on before the game starts. And in my experience, it's not less common, either.

Also, PhoenixPhyre, you realize that it's also not just the things you hate that others may like but also the things you like that others may hate, right? Your desire to have a setting with the touch of other groups? That's something I find abhorrent as a player. If the setting wasn't made for the specific campaign, count me out.


Edit: For what it's worth, I actually have no dog in the Restricted Multiverse fight. I have no problem with it, but it's not really my cup of tea, either. It just annoys me (probably more than it should) when people act like their experiences and preferences are somehow the default when they run counter to my own.

[Psyren]

Overall I generally feel that most of the arguments of "Letting players come to the table with whatever." or "...whatever within a range." are more examples of unpreparedness, or a general disinterest in DMing. Most DMs I've met (for better or worse) have a certain thing they want to run. Be it horror, soap, beer-and-pretzels, their own personal world, a specific established universe. DMs I've encountered who don't tend to really not be much fun (strongly IMO) because they really don't seem very invested in what they're running.

{Scrubbed}

[PhoenixPhyre]

"Or worse: Made to Order."

Oh, the horror!

You realize that some people like that, right? I certainly hope you realize your preferences aren't universal.

And to the people saying my example of "character first, setting after" is an extreme... well, duh. I even called it that myself. My point is that "setting first, character after" is just as much an extreme and you need to recognize that and stop acting like it's somehow the default or superior. As I said, all games I've been involved in have been in the middle ground.

As a DM, I am heavily an Improv DM. I start by creating the setting in its broad strokes: the cosmology, the geography, the nations. Then I decide what sorts of themes I'm interested in. Then the players create the characters. Then I build setting details around the characters and their backgrounds. Then I come up with the starting situation and initial hooks, as well as any important large-scale ongoing events, like political situations and whatnot. And then the remaining details and specific events get made as the game goes along based on the decisions the players make. This is NOT AN UNUSUAL WAY TO DO THINGS. It's not inherently inferior to doing in depth worldbuilding and creating all your settlements and so on before the game starts. And in my experience, it's not less common, either.

Also, PhoenixPhyre, you realize that it's also not just the things you hate that others may like but also the things you like that others may hate, right? Your desire to have a setting with the touch of other groups? That's something I find abhorrent as a player. If the setting wasn't made for the specific campaign, count me out.


Edit: For what it's worth, I actually have no dog in the Restricted Multiverse fight. I have no problem with it, but it's not really my cup of tea, either. It just annoys me (probably more than it should) when people act like their experiences and preferences are somehow the default when they run counter to my own.

Did I not explicitly say that those were my preferences? All of that is FOR ME. personally. You may do what you like and more power to you.

[Witty Username]

So the advantages of a "restricted multiverse" from a DM and storytelling perspective. Which if I understand the meaning, a setting of multiple worlds with a set of unified mechanics that creates some familiarity with root expectations (good, evil, magic, races having some common names or forms, etc.) and a means to travel between them. With the added stipulation that the plot expectation is to be in one world primarily, but an affordance made that travel may become a option at some point.

My first line of thinking is it allows for a few plot structures, if they are ones want:
The Incursion - your party is from one setting, and that is the setting the adventure is taking place, but you have an antagonistic force from beyond that scope. This can be useful for a change in mood or tension as this usually is a significant change in scope but also a way for the party to experience a sense of chaos.
The Strangers - the setting in play, and the setting the party is from are different. For some, this reduces interest in the setting, but I have found that isn't really the case. It does give an outlet for a DM to construct mystery in a way that couldn't normally be put into the game. Some people really like learning a setting as they play, and a plot that the are an arrival of some sort means this will be a much more active process as they try to make even basic interactions. Also it can allow for archetypes of play that would otherwise very difficult, like a lawful good character in Dark Sun, for example.
The Great Journey - An adventure that is specifically traveling to another setting and back, this is essentially a bit of both, The incursion in reverse, it means allowing to include as a plot some things that the initial setting couldn't support but you don't need to go into the problem of making the whole game from scratch again

"True Multiverses" as described, worlds with nothing in commonality, can do similar things but comes with problems:
The False Promise - The settings can be traveled between, but the differences invalidate the reason for interest
The Floodgate Opened - The setting possibilities become uncontrollable, as players and the DM simply don't have the ability to set and maintain assumptions

Restrictions on what settings are possible within a multi-verse helps to reign in these problems, Take for example possible incursion plots:
Warforged imperialism - say you take a faction from Eberron like the worshipers of the Lord of Blades, and toss them at the Forgotten Realms. This will change the tone of an ongoing game and possibly be a means to introduce some new magic items, but won't necessarily shatter the setting
Compare this to The Sorcerer-King's hoard, the same plot structure but defiler mages from Athas as the invading force, this will mean, defilement magic is now a thing in your setting, and it will be a dessert hellscape after a bit
Or defilement magic doesn't work that way in FR, and we have defeated the purpose of the exercise in the first place.

And both of these still feel to me in the realm of 'restricted' multiverse stuff, we haven't actually hit real setting breaking nonsense yet.

[Anymage]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Two huge flaws right here.

First, the idea that you paid for the book means that I should let you use what's in it is pure bunk. Maybe the new book is atrociously balanced and I want nothing to do with it. Maybe the new book is thematically at odds with the campaign's setting. Maybe I just don't have the money to buy every new release or the time to read them all to check for mechanical or thematic consistency. You're free to do whatever you like with your shiny new book, but the rest of the table is not obligated to go along with it just because you paid money.

Second, I've heard lots of people tell me about what a good DM can do/should do. You're free to hold yourself to whatever standards you like when you're behind the screen, and you're also free to decide who you do or do not want to play under. If you want me to DM for you, though, you have to accept that I have my strengths and my weaknesses. If you want to play in PhoenixPhyre's game where narrative and logical consistency are important to him, he's not wrong to ask you to play something that narratively and logically fits. Insisting that people aren't fit to DM unless they meet your arbitrary bars - including things like "has the free time and disposable income to keep up on everything WotC has published" - is a good way to make it harder to play your freshly created character because you've discouraged lots of potential DMs from even trying.

[icefractal]

Thinking about it, when I run I'm usually open to things existing in the world that I didn't specifically plan, but less so to things that change the entire cosmology.

So for example, being a Warforged in Dark Sun. Could a single Warforged exist? Yes, easily.
Somebody tried to build a smarter construct and this is what happened, or perhaps it was a natural occurrence, or something else, there are a variety of ways.

Could an entire city of Warforged exist? Well ... possibly. That's more of an ask than the single instance, IMO. But it's not like it would ruin things either.

Could Eberron exist in the campaign and sometimes people go to or from it? Probably not, that sounds like a whole different campaign.

So maybe this is part of the disconnect? I'm thinking of characters like this as fairly easy to integrate unless your setting is so fully mapped out it has no unexplored corners, but other people are thinking of it as forcibly introducing entire other settings as canon for the campaign?

[Mastikator]

"Or worse: Made to Order."

Oh, the horror!

You realize that some people like that, right? I certainly hope you realize your preferences aren't universal.

And to the people saying my example of "character first, setting after" is an extreme... well, duh. I even called it that myself. My point is that "setting first, character after" is just as much an extreme and you need to recognize that and stop acting like it's somehow the default or superior. As I said, all games I've been involved in have been in the middle ground.

As a DM, I am heavily an Improv DM. I start by creating the setting in its broad strokes: the cosmology, the geography, the nations. Then I decide what sorts of themes I'm interested in. Then the players create the characters. Then I build setting details around the characters and their backgrounds. Then I come up with the starting situation and initial hooks, as well as any important large-scale ongoing events, like political situations and whatnot. And then the remaining details and specific events get made as the game goes along based on the decisions the players make. This is NOT AN UNUSUAL WAY TO DO THINGS. It's not inherently inferior to doing in depth worldbuilding and creating all your settlements and so on before the game starts. And in my experience, it's not less common, either.

Also, PhoenixPhyre, you realize that it's also not just the things you hate that others may like but also the things you like that others may hate, right? Your desire to have a setting with the touch of other groups? That's something I find abhorrent as a player. If the setting wasn't made for the specific campaign, count me out.


Edit: For what it's worth, I actually have no dog in the Restricted Multiverse fight. I have no problem with it, but it's not really my cup of tea, either. It just annoys me (probably more than it should) when people act like their experiences and preferences are somehow the default when they run counter to my own.
I am a DM too and I also don't run a restricted multiverse, I run Eberron with the rings of Siberys intact, any race outside of Eberron is restricted (though races from the other planes are allowed, for example shadar kai from Mabar or eladrin from Thelanis). I am well aware that many tables run homebrew settings (in fact I play in one).

I think what OP is getting at (and he'll have to forgive me if I misrepresent him) is that the source books are encouraging a restricted multiverse, whether you or others choose to play in one is kinda irrelevant, the problem is that the source books are encouraging you to play in the same fantasy setting. You and many others are resisting that encouragement, but it's still not good that the DMG don't tell you how to make a cosmology but instead just tell you what the other planes are. The end result is that many tables- even tables that run homebrew, end up running forgotten realms with different geography. You may have different names of towns and different famous NPCs but dwarves still live in mountains, elves live in the forest, halflings are jolly, gnomes are santa's little helpers, orcs and goblins exist only to be killed by players, etc. It's always the same.

Let me ask you this. How are your standard races different from forgotten realms? Do the elves not live in the forest? Do dwarves live above ground? Are your halflings jolly? Do your orcs do anything interesting beyond serve as cannon fodder?

[False God]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

{Scrubbed}

[PhoenixPhyre]

I am a DM too and I also don't run a restricted multiverse, I run Eberron with the rings of Siberys intact, any race outside of Eberron is restricted (though races from the other planes are allowed, for example shadar kai from Mabar or eladrin from Thelanis). I am well aware that many tables run homebrew settings (in fact I play in one).

I think what OP is getting at (and he'll have to forgive me if I misrepresent him) is that the source books are encouraging a restricted multiverse, whether you or others choose to play in one is kinda irrelevant, the problem is that the source books are encouraging you to play in the same fantasy setting. You and many others are resisting that encouragement, but it's still not good that the DMG don't tell you how to make a cosmology but instead just tell you what the other planes are. The end result is that many tables- even tables that run homebrew, end up running forgotten realms with different geography. You may have different names of towns and different famous NPCs but dwarves still live in mountains, elves live in the forest, halflings are jolly, gnomes are santa's little helpers, orcs and goblins exist only to be killed by players, etc. It's always the same.

Let me ask you this. How are your standard races different from forgotten realms? Do the elves not live in the forest? Do dwarves live above ground? Are your halflings jolly? Do your orcs do anything interesting beyond serve as cannon fodder?

That's pretty much my main concern about multiverses, yes. My personal preferences about setting structure are separate.




As a DM, I am heavily an Improv DM. I start by creating the setting in its broad strokes: the cosmology, the geography, the nations. Then I decide what sorts of themes I'm interested in. Then the players create the characters. Then I build setting details around the characters and their backgrounds. Then I come up with the starting situation and initial hooks, as well as any important large-scale ongoing events, like political situations and whatnot. And then the remaining details and specific events get made as the game goes along based on the decisions the players make. This is NOT AN UNUSUAL WAY TO DO THINGS. It's not inherently inferior to doing in depth worldbuilding and creating all your settlements and so on before the game starts. And in my experience, it's not less common, either.


Now with a bit more time to respond to details--

This isn't actually far from what I did, just...in the past. I certainly don't do all the worldbuilding ahead of time. The only difference is that I don't create the macrosetting for each campaign. Generally, each campaign is set in an area (either time or space) that other groups haven't touched. The effects of those other groups are still around--my current group has, in the background, the fall of one of the gods at the start of that in-fiction year (in which a previous party was heavily implicated) and if they go to a certain mountain...wait...ok, there never was a mountain there :smallbiggrin:. And those other characters exist as NPCs, but they never feature more than as cameo appearances.

But I see a huge difference between the following sequences:

1. Create a campaign idea and setting to match, including setting invariants.
2. Solicit characters with those invariants, themes, etc in mind
3. Play

And

1. Solicit characters without any but the vaguest theme (ok folks, we're doing a western)
2. Create the campaign idea and setting to match, trying to reconcile all the disparate character elements
3. Play

The first is something I can (personally) tolerate--it's not my favorite, but at that point it's within the acceptable margins. And I'd say it and "build a setting, use it for multiple campaigns" are kinda tied for commonality. The second, which is something I associate heavily with PbtA-style games[1] as well as more narrative games, is something I strongly dislike because it leads to disposable settings. Which, in my experience, is one major driver for disruptive behavior--I don't have to deal with murder hobos and other "trash the place" players because they're tied in with the world and the persistence of the world is a major draw to my games. In a setting that's designed to be disposable, there's no such binding to the setting. It's designed to get trashed.

[1] although those do have more system-level thematic binding, so that's mostly "the group builds the setting at session 0". But I still dislike the DM saying "ok, tell me how <major place> is" or "tell me why <big boss> is the big boss." Because it breaks, for me, exploration. I, as a player, know all the mysteries. There's nothing to be revealed. Which means the world doesn't feel like it could be real--it feels like it's a stage backdrop with every piece placed to support the characters and the story. No (or fewer) odd-ball pieces there just because that's how things worked out in times past.

I do repeat that this is all my personal preference. Not some "objective rule".

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: can everyone in this thread please take a deep breath and dial back the hostility two full notches? If you can't engage in this discussion both in good faith and with the assumption of good faith on all other parties, it's probably best not to engage at all.

[KorvinStarmast]

But I see a huge difference between the following sequences:

1. Create a campaign idea and setting to match, including setting invariants.
2. Solicit characters with those invariants, themes, etc in mind
3. Play Roughly how it goes for me. the Players need a little info before they head off to Chargen.


1. Solicit characters without any but the vaguest theme (ok folks, we're doing a western)
2. Create the campaign idea and setting to match, trying to reconcile all the disparate character elements
3. Play It can be done; but as a player I like to know a little about the setting ahead of time because I want to make my character fit into the world. As you know, I ask DMs a lot of questions, and I am a huge advocate of chargen is a cooperative effort between DM and Player because it benefits both if the character fits the world.
Not all of my players put that much effort into it, which saddens me, but most of the current crop do.

[icefractal]

I'm down for collaborative world-building, but I wouldn't do it as a by-product of char-gen - rather, I'd suggest a Session 0 where we decide on the setting / campaign style, discuss character concepts, then go and make characters based on that (not a fan of "chargen at the table" personally).

Although that said, it's not something that should be expected of a GM; more often IME the GM has at least a big chunk of the setting and campaign focus already decided, and that's fine. Saying "I'll bring lasagna to the potluck" doesn't mean you've agreed to cook any and all possible foods.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It can be done; but as a player I like to know a little about the setting ahead of time because I want to make my character fit into the world. As you know, I ask DMs a lot of questions, and I am a huge advocate of chargen is a cooperative effort between DM and Player because it benefits both if the character fits the world.
Not all of my players put that much effort into it, which saddens me, but most of the current crop do.

The way I've seen it described is that when the players ask "what about X", the DM answers with "how do you want it to be", throwing most of the responsibility for that initial worldbuilding/scene setting onto the players. And I don't personally enjoy that as a player OR a DM.

[Psyren]

You and many others are resisting that encouragement, but it's still not good that the DMG don't tell you how to make a cosmology but instead just tell you what the other planes are. The end result is that many tables- even tables that run homebrew, end up running forgotten realms with different geography. You may have different names of towns and different famous NPCs but dwarves still live in mountains, elves live in the forest, halflings are jolly, gnomes are santa's little helpers, orcs and goblins exist only to be killed by players, etc. It's always the same.

Let me ask you this. How are your standard races different from forgotten realms? Do the elves not live in the forest? Do dwarves live above ground? Are your halflings jolly? Do your orcs do anything interesting beyond serve as cannon fodder?

Am I missing something? The DMG doesn't have anything about racial attitudes at all, whether they are jolly halflings, santa gnomes, traditionalist dwarves or any other such trope. It neither sets up nor subverts such stereotypes, nor is it supposed to.

It does provide info on the default D&D planar cosmology (Great Wheel), sure, but it also provides several alternative examples. It does exactly what it should be doing, providing just enough to spark your imagination. The only really big mistake is that it puts that stuff up front in Chapter 2, while relegating the far more universally necessary/helpful How To Run The Game stuff all the way back in Chapter 8 of all places.

What D&D is supposed to do, in terms of encouraging you to play settings other than Forgotten Realms.... is to publish settings other than Forgotten Realms. And they are doing that.

[False God]

I'm down for collaborative world-building, but I wouldn't do it as a by-product of char-gen - rather, I'd suggest a Session 0 where we decide on the setting / campaign style, discuss character concepts, then go and make characters based on that (not a fan of "chargen at the table" personally).

Although that said, it's not something that should be expected of a GM; more often IME the GM has at least a big chunk of the setting and campaign focus already decided, and that's fine. Saying "I'll bring lasagna to the potluck" doesn't mean you've agreed to cook any and all possible foods.

I agree with this. And if we can't settle on a cohesive campaign concept in Session Zero, IME things are looking grim for running a game at all.

[Fiery Diamond]

Let me ask you this. How are your standard races different from forgotten realms? Do the elves not live in the forest? Do dwarves live above ground? Are your halflings jolly? Do your orcs do anything interesting beyond serve as cannon fodder?

Admission first: I've only ever played/run 3.5 and PF 1e, so there's a lot of stuff I don't know about the official settings, including Forgotten Realms. I've never actually played or run a campaign that used one of the official settings, nor have I read any of the setting-specific books. So... other than the stuff shown in the PHB or DMG... I'm not even really influenced directly by it. But to answer the specific questions...

1) Sure. They also live in cities that have nothing to do with the forest. Usually, it's "if it's a settlement deep in the forest, it's likely to be elves, but there are just as many if not more elves that don't live in the forest." Also, D&D isn't the only source material (let alone Forgotten Realms specifically) for elves living in the forest.

2) Sure they do. In fact, I can't remember a single campaign I ran where dwarves lived primarily below ground. I usually have their heartland be in the mountains, but not under the mountains.

3) I'm not super found of halflings, to be honest. Too much overlap with gnomes. I don't always have them, but when I do... no, I don't have them be particularly jolly as a whole.

4) Of course. They're typically still enemies, but that's because they tend to be warlike. They're not just cannon fodder; they're people, with all the potential complexity that implies.



That's pretty much my main concern about multiverses, yes. My personal preferences about setting structure are separate.



Now with a bit more time to respond to details--

This isn't actually far from what I did, just...in the past. I certainly don't do all the worldbuilding ahead of time. The only difference is that I don't create the macrosetting for each campaign. Generally, each campaign is set in an area (either time or space) that other groups haven't touched. The effects of those other groups are still around--my current group has, in the background, the fall of one of the gods at the start of that in-fiction year (in which a previous party was heavily implicated) and if they go to a certain mountain...wait...ok, there never was a mountain there :smallbiggrin:. And those other characters exist as NPCs, but they never feature more than as cameo appearances.

But I see a huge difference between the following sequences:

1. Create a campaign idea and setting to match, including setting invariants.
2. Solicit characters with those invariants, themes, etc in mind
3. Play

And

1. Solicit characters without any but the vaguest theme (ok folks, we're doing a western)
2. Create the campaign idea and setting to match, trying to reconcile all the disparate character elements
3. Play

The first is something I can (personally) tolerate--it's not my favorite, but at that point it's within the acceptable margins. And I'd say it and "build a setting, use it for multiple campaigns" are kinda tied for commonality. The second, which is something I associate heavily with PbtA-style games[1] as well as more narrative games, is something I strongly dislike because it leads to disposable settings. Which, in my experience, is one major driver for disruptive behavior--I don't have to deal with murder hobos and other "trash the place" players because they're tied in with the world and the persistence of the world is a major draw to my games. In a setting that's designed to be disposable, there's no such binding to the setting. It's designed to get trashed.

[1] although those do have more system-level thematic binding, so that's mostly "the group builds the setting at session 0". But I still dislike the DM saying "ok, tell me how <major place> is" or "tell me why <big boss> is the big boss." Because it breaks, for me, exploration. I, as a player, know all the mysteries. There's nothing to be revealed. Which means the world doesn't feel like it could be real--it feels like it's a stage backdrop with every piece placed to support the characters and the story. No (or fewer) odd-ball pieces there just because that's how things worked out in times past.

I do repeat that this is all my personal preference. Not some "objective rule".

I see a difference between those two approaches as well... and while I certainly would find the second one unappealing to me personally, it does exist, and I would also find your "setting that exists for multiple campaigns over multiple groups" unappealing to me personally as well.

As for player attachment and being tied to the world... I can't speak for others, but for me personally... I'd be much more attached if some of the setting details were influenced by my character background than if I was simply forced to create a character to slot into a fully developed setting with less control on my part, so your argument that it would go the opposite direction is completely baffling to me. I'd actually have less attachment to a world that had already been "used" by other gamers. The "persistence" of the world is irrelevant to me.

Of course, you and I come from very different mindsets about PCs, I suspect. For me, the game is about the characters. The setting only has any value insofar as the characters are able to interact with it. I feel this way both as a player and a DM. Just as you don't like more narratively-focused games (or so I gather), I find the exalting of setting as a DM to be nothing more than navel-gazing, and as a player if I can't affect the stuff that's happening independent of my character by deciding to interact with it, I will quickly lose interest in the game and respect for the DM. "The world is bigger than the PCs" should only be physically. Sure, things can happen in the background. But if the players decide that background activity looks interesting, it shouldn't matter how large-scale that background activity is, they should be able to be a driving force for change within it if they try.

As for "trash the place" players... well, that's a player problem, not a setting problem, and they'd soon find themselves kicked from any game I ran.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I see a difference between those two approaches as well... and while I certainly would find the second one unappealing to me personally, it does exist, and I would also find your "setting that exists for multiple campaigns over multiple groups" unappealing to me personally as well.

As for player attachment and being tied to the world... I can't speak for others, but for me personally... I'd be much more attached if some of the setting details were influenced by my character background than if I was simply forced to create a character to slot into a fully developed setting with less control on my part, so your argument that it would go the opposite direction is completely baffling to me. I'd actually have less attachment to a world that had already been "used" by other gamers. The "persistence" of the world is irrelevant to me.

Of course, you and I come from very different mindsets about PCs, I suspect. For me, the game is about the characters. The setting only has any value insofar as the characters are able to interact with it. I feel this way both as a player and a DM. Just as you don't like more narratively-focused games (or so I gather), I find the exalting of setting as a DM to be nothing more than navel-gazing, and as a player if I can't affect the stuff that's happening independent of my character by deciding to interact with it, I will quickly lose interest in the game and respect for the DM. "The world is bigger than the PCs" should only be physically. Sure, things can happen in the background. But if the players decide that background activity looks interesting, it shouldn't matter how large-scale that background activity is, they should be able to be a driving force for change within it if they try.

As for "trash the place" players... well, that's a player problem, not a setting problem, and they'd soon find themselves kicked from any game I ran.

I think I'm not communicating very well. The players have tons of room to interact. A world is a very big place--most of it isn't fleshed out at all until someone decides to ask what's over there. That doesn't mean they dictate what's there or can override existing established facts. "Able to interact" =/= has total control.

For example, I had a character in a previous campaign who wanted to be a hexblade warlock who (in character) didn't know who his patron was and had amnesia. After discussion (pre-campaign and during the campaign), we decided that having him be tied to the setting's equivalent of Death (something I had penciled in as existing, but didn't have any idea about) and a race that had been touched on very lightly but were still mostly a mystery (the setting's equivalent of the shadar kai, but very different both thematically and origin-wise). From that, over the course of the campaign, came a large clarification to the metaphysics of the setting. Now, in future campaigns, those exact facts are fixed. But there are still tons of unknowns and mysteries to be decided on.

Another character in my current campaign wanted to play-test a homebrew dragon-rider class. They provided substantial backing as to orders/organizational structure (in collaboration with me) and those parts have mattered significantly. Another character wanted to play a "time wizard" who was infatuated with an entity known as the Archon of Time (personification of the concept of causality). The Archon had come up in a past campaign, but hadn't been humanized, and the nature of time was still indeterminate. His arc in the campaign has solidified a lot of those ideas.

I love when players OOC ask about things or suggest stuff. In fact, most of my creativity comes from that kind of interaction. As such, the setting is as much the players' as it is mine, with a legacy now of many groups, most of whom touched small bits (because most campaigns were part of a school club that focused on levels 1-8-ish) with a few big things.

And just because something's a player problem doesn't mean that the setting can't do a lot to reduce that tendency. I've had players that I played with in other games who were very free to trash those other settings because they didn't respect them at all, while they were good and tied into mine because I put so much time and effort into tying them in and letting them feel that their actions had real weight and consequence. Settings that are designed to get thrown away after the game stops can't really have true lasting consequences--once the game is over, the consequences all go away. Whereas a living world has consequences (good and bad) that extend beyond the campaign. So players tend to think (in my experience) more about what legacy they want to leave for other groups. Which could be their same group of players, just in a future campaign.

[Anymage]

As for "trash the place" players... well, that's a player problem, not a setting problem, and they'd soon find themselves kicked from any game I ran.

I think the issue is less about players wanting to break stuff just to watch the world burn, and more about the fact that there's a natural tendency to see the setting as just a backdrop for your characters to do cool stuff in. The more often that setting consistency is given a back seat to just keeping the game running (in whatever form that takes), the more likely that the players will see it as - and treat it as - nothing more than a set.

Which no shade to beer and pretzels gaming, sometimes that's exactly what you're looking for. If someone wants a different tone, however, it's worth being aware how even minor things can help set players' expectations one way or another.

[KorvinStarmast]

The way I've seen it described is that when the players ask "what about X", the DM answers with "how do you want it to be", throwing most of the responsibility for that initial worldbuilding/scene setting onto the players. And I don't personally enjoy that as a player OR a DM. It really depends on the individuals involved, IME.
Sometimes it works, and sometimes it creates dissonance rather than internal consistency.

[gbaji]

The way I've seen it described is that when the players ask "what about X", the DM answers with "how do you want it to be", throwing most of the responsibility for that initial worldbuilding/scene setting onto the players. And I don't personally enjoy that as a player OR a DM.

Yeah. Not a fan of that either. I kinda view that as the GM more or less winging it. IMO, the players are responsible for running their characters. If the PCs want to influence the setting, they should take actions designed to influence the setting. It's the PCs who are in the game, not the players. Obviously, this does not at all preclude a player coming up to me with a neat idea and me deciding to incorporate it into my game (perhaps with a bit of a twist, just to keep things interesting). But the GM actually asking the players who the bad guy is and what they are doing, and why? Eh... Why bother with a GM?

We could literally just have a table of players, each playing their own character and taking turns injecting plot points into the adventure, pulling stuff out of source books, and then playing it out. It's a valid way to play, but it's what you do when you don't have a GM willing to run the game. That's the fallback for a GM who's not writing the world. When I play, I expect the GM to do this, not me. Heck. It's why I play. I get enough of coming up with cool ideas, plots, and stories when running my game. I want to sit back, relax, and let someone else drive for a while. It's so much more relaxing when I know that all I have to show up with on game night is my characters and dice.


As for player attachment and being tied to the world... I can't speak for others, but for me personally... I'd be much more attached if some of the setting details were influenced by my character background than if I was simply forced to create a character to slot into a fully developed setting with less control on my part, so your argument that it would go the opposite direction is completely baffling to me. I'd actually have less attachment to a world that had already been "used" by other gamers. The "persistence" of the world is irrelevant to me.

Sure. That's what I referred to earlier as a "one shot" game. Nothing at all wrong with that. But I'll suggest that there's a direct relationship between how much actual "setting" is being created for a game, and the degree of "persistence" that game setting has. I have run games like you describe, but there's also not more than what's actually needed to run the game. And yeah, in that kind of very limited setting, I'm going to allow pretty much anything, because the setting doesn't have to exist once this set of PCs are done running in it.


Of course, you and I come from very different mindsets about PCs, I suspect. For me, the game is about the characters. The setting only has any value insofar as the characters are able to interact with it. I feel this way both as a player and a DM. Just as you don't like more narratively-focused games (or so I gather), I find the exalting of setting as a DM to be nothing more than navel-gazing, and as a player if I can't affect the stuff that's happening independent of my character by deciding to interact with it, I will quickly lose interest in the game and respect for the DM. "The world is bigger than the PCs" should only be physically. Sure, things can happen in the background. But if the players decide that background activity looks interesting, it shouldn't matter how large-scale that background activity is, they should be able to be a driving force for change within it if they try.

Have you ever actually played in a larger persistent game setting?

I just think that worlds feel more "real" when the PCs are just a small part of it. And no, I'm not speaking of geography here. The idea that other things are happening all the time, all over the place, even when the PCs are not at all involved, is what makes a setting "real". Otherwise, it's just a backdrop for whatever the PCs are doing at the moment. Again, that's fine for a short one-shot kind of game, but I'd find that extremely boring pretty quickly.

If the only things of significance that happen in a game settings are the things the PCs do, then the things they PCs do aren't actually significant.


For example, I had a character in a previous campaign who wanted to be a hexblade warlock who (in character) didn't know who his patron was and had amnesia. After discussion (pre-campaign and during the campaign), we decided that having him be tied to the setting's equivalent of Death (something I had penciled in as existing, but didn't have any idea about) and a race that had been touched on very lightly but were still mostly a mystery (the setting's equivalent of the shadar kai, but very different both thematically and origin-wise). From that, over the course of the campaign, came a large clarification to the metaphysics of the setting. Now, in future campaigns, those exact facts are fixed. But there are still tons of unknowns and mysteries to be decided on.

Another character in my current campaign wanted to play-test a homebrew dragon-rider class. They provided substantial backing as to orders/organizational structure (in collaboration with me) and those parts have mattered significantly. Another character wanted to play a "time wizard" who was infatuated with an entity known as the Archon of Time (personification of the concept of causality). The Archon had come up in a past campaign, but hadn't been humanized, and the nature of time was still indeterminate. His arc in the campaign has solidified a lot of those ideas.

Pretty similar here. I create the setting, but obviously, I can't detail every single thing in it (there's not enough time). if a player comes to me and says "My character is an assassin working for the local thieves guild and <insert other drama here>", that's great. I probably had an idea that there was some organization managing crime in the area, and this is a great opportunity for me to develop that to support the character. But if details the player comes up with actually contradict something I've already written/established, I'll be forced to either adjust my setting, or ask the player to adjust their character. So, if the same player says his character worships <deity X>, but I've already established the local underworld is run by followers of <different thief appropriate deity>, that's going to create a problem (in my game setting, there's 3 or so deities that are appropriate for thief type characters to worship, and they don't tend to get along and don't tend to share territory). Depending on how mature my development for the thieves guild is, I'll ask the player to make adjustments. Maybe he changes his deity, or he's from another area instead, and this creates different drama because he'd be seen as an encroacher on the local turf maybe (or maybe he's a foreigner hired for a specific job and that's why he's here?).

Point being that there are a ton of ways to fit any character concept into an existing game. And if it's at all possible, I'll make it work.

Player wants to run an alchemist character in the local setting? Great. However, I'll point out that the kingdom the PCs are in is a bit off the main trade routes, so rarer alchemy supplies are hard to get, and there's not much there. But hey, he could make it rich if he's successful or something. Point being that the character has to fit into the setting, not the other way around. I wont change the kingdom to make it the center of a trade hub just to make the PC concept work better. What I will do is allow the PC to try to figure out ways to get materials to practice his craft, and if those are good ideas, they'll work. Let the players actually play in the setting. It works.

There is a heck of a lot of leeway for "fitting" characters in though. It's not like I list off 5 character types that can be played, and anything outside that is just outright banned. If a player wants to play a character from a distant land, or even different world, if it's at all possible to fit them in, I'll do it. I just make sure the player is aware of any issues or complications that may arise. Then, as I mentioned above, they play this out in the setting.


I love when players OOC ask about things or suggest stuff. In fact, most of my creativity comes from that kind of interaction. As such, the setting is as much the players' as it is mine, with a legacy now of many groups, most of whom touched small bits (because most campaigns were part of a school club that focused on levels 1-8-ish) with a few big things.

Yup. When/if a player comes up with a really cool idea, I will find a way to introduce it. But always with a mind towards how said thing will actually "fit" into the existing stuff that's already there. I have one player in particular who is always coming up with "out there" ideas. And sometimes, it's more of a "nah, that's not going to work", but every once in a while, it'll create a spark that's like "huh. Yeah. That could work!". And that's always great. It's not about hard firm rules, but more about creating boundaries way out at the edges and making sure things stay within those.

[Mastikator]

Am I missing something? The DMG doesn't have anything about racial attitudes at all, whether they are jolly halflings, santa gnomes, traditionalist dwarves or any other such trope. It neither sets up nor subverts such stereotypes, nor is it supposed to.

It does provide info on the default D&D planar cosmology (Great Wheel), sure, but it also provides several alternative examples. It does exactly what it should be doing, providing just enough to spark your imagination. The only really big mistake is that it puts that stuff up front in Chapter 2, while relegating the far more universally necessary/helpful How To Run The Game stuff all the way back in Chapter 8 of all places.

What D&D is supposed to do, in terms of encouraging you to play settings other than Forgotten Realms.... is to publish settings other than Forgotten Realms. And they are doing that.

The PHB has the racial attitudes. The DMG has the cosmology.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Pretty similar here. I create the setting, but obviously, I can't detail every single thing in it (there's not enough time). if a player comes to me and says "My character is an assassin working for the local thieves guild and <insert other drama here>", that's great. I probably had an idea that there was some organization managing crime in the area, and this is a great opportunity for me to develop that to support the character. But if details the player comes up with actually contradict something I've already written/established, I'll be forced to either adjust my setting, or ask the player to adjust their character. So, if the same player says his character worships <deity X>, but I've already established the local underworld is run by followers of <different thief appropriate deity>, that's going to create a problem (in my game setting, there's 3 or so deities that are appropriate for thief type characters to worship, and they don't tend to get along and don't tend to share territory). Depending on how mature my development for the thieves guild is, I'll ask the player to make adjustments. Maybe he changes his deity, or he's from another area instead, and this creates different drama because he'd be seen as an encroacher on the local turf maybe (or maybe he's a foreigner hired for a specific job and that's why he's here?).

Point being that there are a ton of ways to fit any character concept into an existing game. And if it's at all possible, I'll make it work.

Player wants to run an alchemist character in the local setting? Great. However, I'll point out that the kingdom the PCs are in is a bit off the main trade routes, so rarer alchemy supplies are hard to get, and there's not much there. But hey, he could make it rich if he's successful or something. Point being that the character has to fit into the setting, not the other way around. I wont change the kingdom to make it the center of a trade hub just to make the PC concept work better. What I will do is allow the PC to try to figure out ways to get materials to practice his craft, and if those are good ideas, they'll work. Let the players actually play in the setting. It works.

There is a heck of a lot of leeway for "fitting" characters in though. It's not like I list off 5 character types that can be played, and anything outside that is just outright banned. If a player wants to play a character from a distant land, or even different world, if it's at all possible to fit them in, I'll do it. I just make sure the player is aware of any issues or complications that may arise. Then, as I mentioned above, they play this out in the setting.



Yup. When/if a player comes up with a really cool idea, I will find a way to introduce it. But always with a mind towards how said thing will actually "fit" into the existing stuff that's already there. I have one player in particular who is always coming up with "out there" ideas. And sometimes, it's more of a "nah, that's not going to work", but every once in a while, it'll create a spark that's like "huh. Yeah. That could work!". And that's always great. It's not about hard firm rules, but more about creating boundaries way out at the edges and making sure things stay within those.

Agreed. There are setting invariants. Those are the things that cannot, will not change. For example, one invariant for me is "no immortal characters." Because, for setting reasons, immortality is a trap option and makes one unsuitable to be a PC (long involved discussion). Or "there are only 16 true gods that can grant cleric spells, here they are." There's a crap ton of ascendants and you can absolutely come up with more, but you ain't getting cleric spells from any of them. The races that exist and are playable is an invariant, because the origins of those races is tightly bound into the setting. So no Custom Lineage or other such things. And no playable gnomes (they exist, but just aren't available for various reasons). And you can't play a book drow--those don't exist. There are dark-skinned elves who live underground, but they're radically different in origins, culture, aesthetics, and traits. Etc. I white-list sources and maintain a large player-facing wiki of information.

On the other hand, there's a crap ton of stuff I haven't written and would love you to collaborate on me about. A couple of my favorite sessions were one-on-one with players (the others couldn't make it for scheduling reasons) where we narratively talked through their backstory in detail. As it turns out, two of the players decided they were from the same small village and that fed into the reasons that they were adventuring. And, incidentally, decided why the village ended up getting destroyed before they left (due to time-travel shenanigans on the part of the BBEG who was trying to smack them down before they could become an issue, not realizing that he was running afoul of the Archon of Time, who hadn't become that yet. Time travel weird things =)). So now there's this (ruined, in current time) village out there.

Another character wanted to make a cleric of the goddess of hearth and family, a noted pacifist. And wanted to make someone in the vein of the WH40K Inquisition (wildly xenophobic, etc). So I had to figure out how that worked--that led to the idea that, in that setting, who you worship and who you get spells from may not be the same. The god of practical jokes was impersonating the goddess of hearth and home and granting power to this order of nutcases because he found it funny. And that's led to other issues with gods trying to undercut other gods for various reasons of divine politics. That character also led to the foundation of my "origin of the races"--I'd had the vague idea that goblins were degenerate humans. But to tweak his character's nose, I wrote a document in-world from a researcher who postulated that it was the other way around--that humans were artificially-mutated goblins. And then I realized that that shift made tons of sense and answered lots of other questions, so it became canon. Filling in a gap that I thought had been filled.

[Psyren]

The PHB has the racial attitudes. The DMG has the cosmology.

Well you're in luck, all signs point to the new PHB having much less prescriptivity in the "racial species attitude" department.

As for the DMG, again I posit it has the right level of cosmology presentation.

[Fiery Diamond]

Sure. That's what I referred to earlier as a "one shot" game. Nothing at all wrong with that. But I'll suggest that there's a direct relationship between how much actual "setting" is being created for a game, and the degree of "persistence" that game setting has. I have run games like you describe, but there's also not more than what's actually needed to run the game. And yeah, in that kind of very limited setting, I'm going to allow pretty much anything, because the setting doesn't have to exist once this set of PCs are done running in it.



Have you ever actually played in a larger persistent game setting?

I just think that worlds feel more "real" when the PCs are just a small part of it. And no, I'm not speaking of geography here. The idea that other things are happening all the time, all over the place, even when the PCs are not at all involved, is what makes a setting "real". Otherwise, it's just a backdrop for whatever the PCs are doing at the moment. Again, that's fine for a short one-shot kind of game, but I'd find that extremely boring pretty quickly.

If the only things of significance that happen in a game settings are the things the PCs do, then the things they PCs do aren't actually significant.

That's not how "one shot" is usually used. One shot is usually used to refer to a single (or very small number) session game. I'm talking year-long weekly games being done that way.

And, well, I kind of agree with you about most of the rest of what you said. That's why I said my perspective was different: I do not care about the setting outside the context of the game. This is true for games I run/play in; stories I write/read; movies/TV shows I watch; etc. Tolkein's Middle Earth world building beyond what shows up in the LotR and the Hobbit that exists just for the sake of creating a complex world? Yawn. Pointless. Do not care. Both as a creator and consumer, that's how I feel. In fact, I find a DM who actually values his world more than the game he's running in it to be someone I would never want to game with, because their values are counter to mine.

I don't agree with your last line, because what the PCS do is what defines "important." That's like saying a novel that only deals with the protagonist's interactions with his immediate surroundings that ignores the things that aren't his immediate surroundings makes the protagonist's story unimportant. Uh... no?

[Quertus]

Another character wanted to play a "time wizard" who was infatuated with an entity known as the Archon of Time (personification of the concept of causality). The Archon had come up in a past campaign, but hadn't been humanized, and the nature of time was still indeterminate. His arc in the campaign has solidified a lot of those ideas..

As long as we’re talking about things that we, personally, don’t like, I’ve gotta say, this definitely falls into the red flags of things I abhor. I’ve never had a GM who cared as much about their world as I did, never had a GM who could start the campaign with a detail undefined, and have it played with consistency through to the end. It’s just never worked.

So that’s another advantage of the restricted multiverse (you know, that thing we’re theoretically discussing): players who care more than the GM can have characters come from worlds with defined physics and history that is consistent and makes sense, rather than inconsistent, “seat of the pants”, “makes Dr. Who look positively well-thought-out by comparison” world building I associate with “play to find out” physics.

[Satinavian]

As long as we’re talking about things that we, personally, don’t like, I’ve gotta say, this definitely falls into the red flags of things I abhor. I’ve never had a GM who cared as much about their world as I did, never had a GM who could start the campaign with a detail undefined, and have it played with consistency through to the end. It’s just never worked.
Now that must be just incredibly bad luck as generally GMs tend to care more about the settings than average players. Personally i am not interested in playing with GMs who don't care about the setting.


So that’s another advantage of the restricted multiverse (you know, that thing we’re theoretically discussing): players who care more than the GM can have characters come from worlds with defined physics and history that is consistent and makes sense, rather than inconsistent, “seat of the pants”, “makes Dr. Who look positively well-thought-out by comparison” world building I associate with “play to find out” physics.Or even better : Play on those worlds in the first place. And have everyone make characters from there, not outsiders.There is no reason whatsover to craft new settings for each campaign.

Really, the work a good, detailed, carefully crafted setting needs is so big that no one does this and starts all over all the time for each new campaign.

[Mastikator]

Well you're in luck, all signs point to the new PHB having much less prescriptivity in the "racial species attitude" department.

As for the DMG, again I posit it has the right level of cosmology presentation.

I know, I am excited for D&D one and like the direction they're going. :smallsmile:

The DMG I think is missing something crucial: guidelines for making your own planes, just listing planes is not enough, in fact it's worse because it leads people to believe that the great wheel is the one true cosmology. Which it very much is not. You can have any planar cosmology at your table, you don't need avernus or mount celestia or beastlands or limbo or whatever. They should just be examples, but they're often treated as the only cosmology, the true cosmology, the cosmology to envelop all cosmologies.

[Quertus]

Now that must be just incredibly bad luck as generally GMs tend to care more about the settings than average players.

Or even better : Play on those worlds in the first place. And have everyone make characters from there, not outsiders.There is no reason whatsover to craft new settings for each campaign.

Really, the work a good, detailed, carefully crafted setting needs is so big that no one does this and starts all over all the time for each new campaign.

I’m not the average player. Besides, for any given metric X, if there are Y people sitting around the table, it’s not hard to estimate that the odds that the GM has the highest value of X is 1/Y, if X and Y are independent variables. So, yes, it’s bad luck that my player rolled high for my “cares” stat.

But the real question is, which is more likely to be consistent: a detail that is ironed out before the campaign begins, or one where the group is “playing to find out”? Simply put, “slowly uncovering the mystery” of how balanced 3e muggles vs casters are just isn’t the same experience as knowing how 3e balance works, and building accordingly. Or, more germane if less visceral, “playing to find out”, one could jump back in time to collect the infinity gems… then learn that time Travel creates branch realities… use the gems in your “home” reality… then travel to another reality… only to learn that the gems don’t work… because they only work in their “source” reality. Wait, what?

There are absolutely things you can play to find out. The mechanics/rules/physics of the game just aren’t among them. Not if you care about consistency.

[Satinavian]

I’m not the average player. Besides, for any given metric X, if there are Y people sitting around the table, it’s not hard to estimate that the odds that the GM has the highest value of X is 1/Y, if X and Y are independent variables. So, yes, it’s bad luck that my player rolled high for my “cares” stat.That is (mosty, with some additional assumptions) true. But we are not talking about a single table. We talking about you and the dozens upon dozens GMs you have encountered. It is in the same way quite unlikely that each one cared less about their very own world than you as one of the players. Especially as it is also unlikely that you care about each of those many worlds equally.

I don't say it is impossible or that you are wrong, but if you are right, your experiences are quite uncommon indeed. Lamentably so.


There are absolutely things you can play to find out. The mechanics/rules/physics of the game just aren’t among them. Not if you care about consistency.I am not a fan of "play to find out" either. But that is a very different topic.

[NichG]

I generally write a new game system and setting for each campaign I run. Takes about three months, and those campaigns generally last 1.5 to 2 years.

[gbaji]

That's not how "one shot" is usually used. One shot is usually used to refer to a single (or very small number) session game. I'm talking year-long weekly games being done that way.

Yeah. Terminology aside, I'm trying to discuss the differences in what you must do in a game setting based on whether you go into it knowing it'll only be played for this one set of characters through a single (or set) of adventures, or if you plan on it lasting beyond that, to run additional adventures, with different characters, perhaps in different areas of that same setting.

Regardless of what we call it, in the former setting you don't have to worry much about stability. You can absolutely introduce/allow pretty much anything because the setting doesn't have to survive it. It makes any discussion of different "types" of multiverse rules pretty academic IMO, since in the long run, it doesn't really matter (cause there is no long run). I'm merely pointing out that things you may not care about in a short term game really really matter to a long persistent setting.



Tolkein's Middle Earth world building beyond what shows up in the LotR and the Hobbit that exists just for the sake of creating a complex world? Yawn. Pointless. Do not care.

Which is ironic because that's exactly how Tolkien built his world. He was a attempting to duplicate classic myths in a "new/unique" setting, in order to study the interaction of culture, events, and language (really dry academic stuff). He wrote massive amounts of "setting" prior to ever putting pen to paper and writing The Hobbit (ok, he just narrated that to his son for fun initially). Point being that it's a good bet that the reason those stories are so classic and so memorable is precisely because Tolkien spent the time building his setting *first*, then once he did that, it was relatively easy to drop stories within that setting in various times and places.

I think you'd be surprised just how many of the best games/worlds/stories you enjoy started with the creator coming up with the setting first and then writing a story within it. So maybe don't just dismiss this so quickly.


I don't agree with your last line, because what the PCS do is what defines "important." That's like saying a novel that only deals with the protagonist's interactions with his immediate surroundings that ignores the things that aren't his immediate surroundings makes the protagonist's story unimportant. Uh... no?

It doesn't make the protagonists story unimportant, but it will make the novel feel one dimensional.

Also RPGs are not like novels. A novel has a single author. An RPG is more like collective storytelling. In a novel, the author decides what the protagonists and antagonists are going to do and can craft their actions and words to fit a tight story. You try to do that in an RPG, and we call that railroading. By creating a broad rich setting, then when your players decide to do something "off the rails" of the current story/adventure, you don't have to either make stuff up on the fly, or prevent them from doing so. The latter is railroading. The former will result in inconsistencies in your setting over time.

But we weren't talking about "important to the characters". That is circular. Of course what the PCs do is important to them. I was talking about significance. If your setting includes things that are happening external to the PCs then it will feel more real to them. KingdomA is involved in a trade dispute with KingdomB. That's happening whether it has any significance to the current adventure or not. There's a war going on "over there". Maybe I introduced that as part of the setting description. But even if the players never go "over there", and never get involved in that war, it's being fought, right? It will eventually be resolved. That's "significant". Maybe once that war ends, the PCs will start encountering more mercenaries (veterans of the war looking for work). Maybe there are other socio-political outcomes that do impact the PCs. Maybe not.

The point is that by having other things happening in the world around them, without them actually being involved directly in them, it creates "things" that the players may choose to become involved in later, or that affect them in small ways that make sense. Or that you the GM may choose to write something about later. Again, these are the kinds of things you do when you are creating a more persistent setting. It may not matter a bit to the PCs grinding through the "caverns of evil things" at the moment that Princess Buttercup just got married to Prince Charming, but if you, the GM, have determined that this has happened, you can also determine what other effects it may have on the setting and *that* in turn may have an impact on the PCs. If you only introduce things relevant to the current adventure, everything will be "small?".

And yeah. If I were to go more philosophical/meta on this, then if we aren't playing in a persistent setting, then nothing the PCs do is actually "significant". If we never play in it again, then nothing actually mattered beyond the players enjoying the game (which isn't bad at all, btw). But in terms of the actual "setting", it doesn't matter because the setting doesn't exist anymore, right? The characters don't exist anymore. Nothing they did had any relevance at all. Again, nothing wrong with this. I like playing short term games. But when I do play them, I'm not really interested in doing anything outside of the actual adventure we're running. I'm not building anything. I'm not going to go get married. I'm not going to worry about whether we accidentally destroyed that town. I'm not going to build relationships with anyone beyond what provides a tangible benefit to the current adventure. And I'm certainly not concerned about the long term sociological/technological/magical impact of introducing something from one universe in the setting into another.

Which loops us right back to "if you're not planning on playing this setting past the current adventure/campaign, then you can be as open or restricted in your multiverse rules as you want because it really doesn't matter". In that case, my only consideration as a GM is scenario balance and nothing more. Again, that's fine, but I think it sidesteps a huge portion of the very topic we're discussing.


So that’s another advantage of the restricted multiverse (you know, that thing we’re theoretically discussing): players who care more than the GM can have characters come from worlds with defined physics and history that is consistent and makes sense, rather than inconsistent, “seat of the pants”, “makes Dr. Who look positively well-thought-out by comparison” world building I associate with “play to find out” physics.

Why would the other world have better or more consistent physics and history than the primary world you're playing on? Are we talking just about game settings, or game systems? Or just rule variants between settings in the same system?

I'm pretty sure that a player who introduces a character from another universe with completely different rules defining the unique/special abilities/powers/whatever is going to create more problems for the game, not fewer.

Do you have an actual example of this? Cause I'm struggling to see it. Unless you're actually suggesting that the player should just dictate how his powers/abilities/items should work in the GMs setting? Which seems fraught with foolishness.

[Psyren]

I know, I am excited for D&D one and like the direction they're going. :smallsmile:

The DMG I think is missing something crucial: guidelines for making your own planes, just listing planes is not enough, in fact it's worse because it leads people to believe that the great wheel is the one true cosmology. Which it very much is not. You can have any planar cosmology at your table, you don't need avernus or mount celestia or beastlands or limbo or whatever. They should just be examples, but they're often treated as the only cosmology, the true cosmology, the cosmology to envelop all cosmologies.

I guess I *do* see them as examples. The DMG includes guidance around this specifically:


As described in the Player’s Handbook, the assumed D&D cosmology includes more than two dozen planes. For your campaign, you decide what planes to include, inspired by the standard planes, drawn from Earth’s myths, or created by your own imagination.

At minimum, most D&D campaigns require these elements:

A plane of origin for fiends
A plane of origin for celestials
A plane of origin for elementals
A place for deities, which might include any or all of the previous three
The place where mortal spirits go after death, which might include any or all of the first three
A way of getting from one plane to another
A way for spells and monsters that use the Astral Plane and the Ethereal Plane to function

Once you’ve decided on the planes you want to use in your campaign, putting them into a coherent cosmology is an optional step. Since the primary way of traveling from plane to plane, even using the Transitive Planes, is through magical portals that link planes together, the exact relationship of different planes to one another is largely a theoretical concern.

I'm struggling to think what more they needed to have included in a book aimed at people who are unlikely to be making up their own cosmologies from whole cloth anyway.

[Fiery Diamond]

Yeah. Terminology aside, I'm trying to discuss the differences in what you must do in a game setting based on whether you go into it knowing it'll only be played for this one set of characters through a single (or set) of adventures, or if you plan on it lasting beyond that, to run additional adventures, with different characters, perhaps in different areas of that same setting.

Regardless of what we call it, in the former setting you don't have to worry much about stability. You can absolutely introduce/allow pretty much anything because the setting doesn't have to survive it. It makes any discussion of different "types" of multiverse rules pretty academic IMO, since in the long run, it doesn't really matter (cause there is no long run). I'm merely pointing out that things you may not care about in a short term game really really matter to a long persistent setting.




Which is ironic because that's exactly how Tolkien built his world. He was a attempting to duplicate classic myths in a "new/unique" setting, in order to study the interaction of culture, events, and language (really dry academic stuff). He wrote massive amounts of "setting" prior to ever putting pen to paper and writing The Hobbit (ok, he just narrated that to his son for fun initially). Point being that it's a good bet that the reason those stories are so classic and so memorable is precisely because Tolkien spent the time building his setting *first*, then once he did that, it was relatively easy to drop stories within that setting in various times and places.

I think you'd be surprised just how many of the best games/worlds/stories you enjoy started with the creator coming up with the setting first and then writing a story within it. So maybe don't just dismiss this so quickly.



It doesn't make the protagonists story unimportant, but it will make the novel feel one dimensional.

Also RPGs are not like novels. A novel has a single author. An RPG is more like collective storytelling. In a novel, the author decides what the protagonists and antagonists are going to do and can craft their actions and words to fit a tight story. You try to do that in an RPG, and we call that railroading. By creating a broad rich setting, then when your players decide to do something "off the rails" of the current story/adventure, you don't have to either make stuff up on the fly, or prevent them from doing so. The latter is railroading. The former will result in inconsistencies in your setting over time.

But we weren't talking about "important to the characters". That is circular. Of course what the PCs do is important to them. I was talking about significance. If your setting includes things that are happening external to the PCs then it will feel more real to them. KingdomA is involved in a trade dispute with KingdomB. That's happening whether it has any significance to the current adventure or not. There's a war going on "over there". Maybe I introduced that as part of the setting description. But even if the players never go "over there", and never get involved in that war, it's being fought, right? It will eventually be resolved. That's "significant". Maybe once that war ends, the PCs will start encountering more mercenaries (veterans of the war looking for work). Maybe there are other socio-political outcomes that do impact the PCs. Maybe not.

The point is that by having other things happening in the world around them, without them actually being involved directly in them, it creates "things" that the players may choose to become involved in later, or that affect them in small ways that make sense. Or that you the GM may choose to write something about later. Again, these are the kinds of things you do when you are creating a more persistent setting. It may not matter a bit to the PCs grinding through the "caverns of evil things" at the moment that Princess Buttercup just got married to Prince Charming, but if you, the GM, have determined that this has happened, you can also determine what other effects it may have on the setting and *that* in turn may have an impact on the PCs. If you only introduce things relevant to the current adventure, everything will be "small?".

And yeah. If I were to go more philosophical/meta on this, then if we aren't playing in a persistent setting, then nothing the PCs do is actually "significant". If we never play in it again, then nothing actually mattered beyond the players enjoying the game (which isn't bad at all, btw). But in terms of the actual "setting", it doesn't matter because the setting doesn't exist anymore, right? The characters don't exist anymore. Nothing they did had any relevance at all. Again, nothing wrong with this. I like playing short term games. But when I do play them, I'm not really interested in doing anything outside of the actual adventure we're running. I'm not building anything. I'm not going to go get married. I'm not going to worry about whether we accidentally destroyed that town. I'm not going to build relationships with anyone beyond what provides a tangible benefit to the current adventure. And I'm certainly not concerned about the long term sociological/technological/magical impact of introducing something from one universe in the setting into another.

Which loops us right back to "if you're not planning on playing this setting past the current adventure/campaign, then you can be as open or restricted in your multiverse rules as you want because it really doesn't matter". In that case, my only consideration as a GM is scenario balance and nothing more. Again, that's fine, but I think it sidesteps a huge portion of the very topic we're discussing.

I would argue that "significant" in the sense you're defining it here doesn't exist, period, regardless of what you do with the setting. It's not a desirable goal, because it's a moot point - it doesn't exist. Your setting is just as unimportant to the grand scheme of things in the real world if it's super detailed and run across multiple play groups as it is if it's used for an actual one-shot. It's just a game setting. It has no significance. Just like the game itself has no significance. There are very few settings of any kind of story that have real-world significance by changing the course of real-world history (such as Tolkien's Middle Earth). Your game setting? No matter who you are, it's not one of them.

"Important to the players (including DM)" is literally the only benchmark besides "important to the PCs" for "importance." And I, as both a player and DM, find anything that doesn't directly impact the PCs to be "not important to me." There is no "important to the setting." There is no "setting is important by itself." Those are things which do not exist. "I, as DM, find this thing that affects the setting independent of whether it intersects with the players, to be important" is entirely a you thing falling under the umbrella of "important to the DM," not some sort of outside measure of importance. And I, as a player, would not want to game with a DM that felt that such things were more important than the PCs and their direct interactions, because I feel that's the hallmark of a self-important navel-gazing DM. My perspective: the game is about the PCs. Period.

I also disagree with your assessment about novels and one-dimensionality. You may feel that way, but it's certainly not any kind of general truth. If you find a problem with novels focusing solely on the main characters and their issues, that's a you problem, not a problem with the novels.

[Mastikator]

I guess I *do* see them as examples. The DMG includes guidance around this specifically:



I'm struggling to think what more they needed to have included in a book aimed at people who are unlikely to be making up their own cosmologies from whole cloth anyway.

Guidelines for planar drama (internal or intra-planar), like the blood war, or the war in shavarath, or the githzerai trying to tame limbo. Guidelines for themes associated with planes, a plane needs more than just "it's a home for fiends", what do they stand for and against, how should the planes relate to each other (if they do at all), guidelines for alignment relation to planes. Guidelines for the planes purpose and what they do.
Instead it gives page after page of "these are the planes of D&D". They don't tell you how to make your own, they tell you which ones to use. The end result is great wheel everywhere all the time. The only way to escape the great wheel is to escape D&D.

An example of a plane that I just now came up:

Sherizar - the plane of mystery and secrets
This plane is the home of mystery and secrets, the origin of creatures like Sphinxes, certain Yugoloth dedicated to knowledge and hags with the ability to peer into the future.
The geography of the plane is dominated by 7 (the most mysterious number) regions:
1) the desert of silence - no knowledge may ever leave this place, anything learned is forgotten, save for answers given by sand hags and sphinxes
2) the jungle of truth - this dense and nigh-intraversable jungle magically rearranges itself to prevent anyone from leaving, save for those who are honest with themselves. Populated by hags and fey creatures
3) the great lonely mountain - the mountain can only climbed alone, anyone who seeks to climb it with company will find the mountain goes on forever. Those who reach the top will find the great storm giant oracle
4) the bog of lies - populated by sign posts that only tell lies, those who can read between the lines can uncover the truth they seek in the bog. Populated by hags of course
5) the great library - all knowledge held by anyone on this plane is recorded in the books that populate these endless rows of bookshelves, yugoloths can help one find what they're looking for, for a price
6) the dark sky - the dark sky covers the entire sky of the plane, where it roams memory stealing demons that can strike anywhere on the plane, they are hostile to all
7) the eternal sea - anyone who dies with lies in their heart find themselves trapped on the oceanic floor, some of those are in such denial that they attack anyone on sight, others seek to be freed by confessing to the living

Not too bad if I may say so myself, honestly it feels more interesting than most of the planes found in the DMG and there's nothing in the DMG that could inspire me to make that up. No, I had to pull from nearly 20 years of TTRPG experience- something new DMs do not have access to. That's the important thing here: new DMs, they need help. It is not given to them.

[Quertus]

Why would the other world have better or more consistent physics and history than the primary world you're playing on? Are we talking just about game settings, or game systems? Or just rule variants between settings in the same system?

I'm pretty sure that a player who introduces a character from another universe with completely different rules defining the unique/special abilities/powers/whatever is going to create more problems for the game, not fewer.

Do you have an actual example of this? Cause I'm struggling to see it. Unless you're actually suggesting that the player should just dictate how his powers/abilities/items should work in the GMs setting? Which seems fraught with foolishness.

That first sentence is an excellent question. The rest, though, isn’t the direction I was going. So your call for an example is spot on. So let’s start with an example, to ground the conversation. As usual, my example will be lengthy and extreme, to drive home the direction I’m pointing.

Example, part 1 - Isekai‘d

So, imagine I decided to play myself, a programmer / gamer of Viking descent, with a hobbyist interest in psychology. We can all agree that the real world (TM) has more realistic, detailed physics than any RPG world, right?

Ok, let’s Isekai “me” into a campaign setting. Now I’m genre savvy, at least in the sense of comprehension of some of the basics of the root concept of an RPG. That’s my Super Power.

Once I get over my initial panic, I do some tests, and find that I seem to still be me: I have my clothes and basic form afaict; I have about the right lift capacity, about the right reflexes, about the right memory… what was I talking about? :smallwink:

I also don’t seem to have anything extra: my will doesn’t trigger anything new, nor do iconic motions or words seem to carry power.

Why would “I’ve been Isekai’d into an RPG” be my first thought? It wouldn’t. Not even my second thought. It’s just the most actionable, and most relevant to this conversation.

Performing some simple, repetitive tasks, I find that, the simplest, I don’t fail despite hundreds of attempts. I notice that all my rough estimates seem to exist in “5%” chunks.

Then, one of the tasks, I notice a sudden up-surge of 5% in my odds of success. Going back and checking, related actions seem about 5% more likely to succeed now. From this, I hypothesize
That this world runs on a d20-based skill system (complete with “don’t fail on a 1”);
The system is more point-buy / skill-based than level-based;
Experience can be earned and spent mid-session;
I am not the one spending my XP.


That last one is troubling. Is it my player, the GM, or the System that determines how I gain skills?

Thinking about my player, I realize that there’s an important skill I’d like to level if possible: breaking the 4th wall. I begin muttering to myself, breaking the 4th wall constantly as I talk to my player (and occasionally the GM), telling them what I’d like out of this existence, what skills I’d like to level vs what ones, even if I use, I’d prefer not to waste limited resources improving (*if* there’s resource limits, like XP, rather than pure skill-usage-based improvement, like… elder Elder Scrolls / CoC).

I don’t notice any more improvements before I tell my player/GM that, if this world has magic, I’d like to learn it / become a Wizard, if possible. To my shock, another voice joins the conversation.Example, part 2 - apprenticeship

“Is that what you want?”

Now, it may come as something of a surprise, but I’m actually accustomed to holding one-sided conversations, and to other people joining them, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. So I don’t just act like nothing’s strange. (Internally, I hypothesize that this is not a “comedy” game; or, if it is, the “themes” do not override roleplaying / “free will”).

“Hello?”

So I have my first encounter in a new world, and, if I haven’t before, I’m definitely mumbling about wanting to improve the “Sense Motive” equivalent ASAP. Actually, I’m doubtless mumbling it either way.

To speed things up, I’m introduced to someone who… can arrange for me to learn magic. Although I don’t completely trust them / this setup, I hypothesize that I’m in “backstory”, and I need to “level up” in order to “join the party”.

Sure enough, the two of us remain isolated, so that (I hypothesize) how long it takes me to level up isn’t able to be inconsistent with the timeframe of the rest of the party. My companion / mentor seems strangely pleased at the things I try not to pay attention to.

My mentor… is odd. Over time, I notice that they seem to only have one spell, that they cast at most once/day. Let’s call this spell “Miracle”.

They don’t teach me, so much as Miracle up Spell books for me to learn from, components/foci/targets for me to use, and, eventually (with some reluctance), a “familiar” that is best described as “10 lbs of Dream”.

It didn’t take much Sense Motive to realize that they are intentionally avoiding telling me much about the world. They admit early on that they don’t have purely altruistic motives in training me, but, much like if those motives were “they want me to stay alive” or “they want to be proud of me”, their motives will be better met and I’ll do better by them not explaining their motives yet.

Between “Miracle”, Spell books, and the spells I’m learning, I’m feeling a very “D&D derivative” vibe. So I convince my mentor to Miracle up a… “Steal Youth” spell, and a Ring of Spell Storing. I’m actually surprised how easily they go for it, and glad that, a little pain later (only a little, because my mentor is apparently younger than me), I’m in much better shape (or, at least, younger. Same thing.)

Years later, I’m definitely better than a 1st level (or even 3rd level) Wizard in any version of D&D I’m familiar with, yet there’s still no call to action. So I just keep on training… and experimenting with item creation.Example, part 3 - Call to Action

It’s been decades. I’ve developed my own spells, created my own items, and mastered magic that, while generally weaker, I figure is in some ways stronger than many 9th level D&D spells. I’m hoping I’ll be able to understand Time sometime soon.

I still haven’t gotten much out of my mentor, but I have figured out that they seem almost afraid of learning… anything. And almost similarly afraid of me learning… most things.

I have many hypothesis about that. My “best” one (the one that I think gets the most reaction out of my mentor) is the idea that, while one is free to grow as many skills as much as one wants, there’s a hidden “Luck” stat that is reduced once you pass some threshold.

Still, I’ve learned what I’m calling “Spellcraft”, and I think “Craft” is a single skill in this system (I think I can even write passable stories now (gasp!), although my only truly sentient companion refuses to read them). I’ve also learned what I thought was “Throwing”, but, upon eventually thinking to test it, appears to actually work on all ranged attacks I’ve tried. And I’m not sure if I’ve learned “Sense Motive”, or if my mentor is just “bluffing” that I can read them.

I know a lot more about the system, like that it doesn’t always work in increments of 5%. Best guess is, it’s a percentile system; while skills are always in 5% increments, situational modifiers come in as small as 1% increments. And I’m apparently mana-based, although my experiments are very inconclusive wrt costs / mana pool size. I suspect spells have variable costs, there are “soak rolls” to avoid “drain”, or some such. I really hate rigorous science. And I haven’t had any luck learning an “Autohypnosis” type skill. I do, however, have custom spells to collate data for me.

“Spellcraft” being the only thing my mentor approves of me learning (the only thing we have in common?), all our conversations that aren’t vacuous are about magic. But this is how I’ve learned that I’m not myself. Because I can’t… Learn. Not in the way I should.

If I don’t understand something (if I fail my Spellcraft roll), it doesn’t matter how many times my mentor goes over it, how much they dumb it down, I simply cannot get it. Period.

Worse, the same is true of math. Or coding. If I don’t get it right the first thing, I can test and find I get a different answer, but I’ll never get the right answer. Not until my skill improves. Which is why I have spells to boost my skills.

(And, yes, coding. My familiar has “leveled”, and can become a laptop. Or grow, but then it becomes less… changing.)

Having fallen into the routine, I’ve all but forgotten my original thoughts when my mentor tells me that it looks like it’s time.

Example, part 4 - Call to Action

I’ve seen what I’m calling “terrified” many times before, whenever I threatened to accidentally teach them something. This time, my mentor looks worried. “I’ve been waiting to fill you in until we’re…” a waggled hand indicates ambiguity, “Equals. So, before I tell you my motivation, you should know, I’m a Shapechanger. Don’t be alarmed.”

And “he” turns into a “she”.

“We’re the only people in the world. I need your help repopulating the planet.”

Well. That’s… not what I was expecting at all.

“Kidding!” Yeah, I’m still trapped in a surprise round. If I’m reading her right, she’s still nervous about telling me something, and that was supposed to be an ice-breaker, a joke to soften the truth? I don’t think you need much skill to see that I’m apprehensive.

“The truth is, I’m following… ‘prophesy’ is too strong a word. Divinations, perhaps? They led me to you, and now, we need to be on our way.” She casts her daily Miracle, and a portal opens to an unknown (unseeable) destination. I’m always more cautious after my mentor uses their 1/day ability, so that really doesn’t help my mood / concentration.

“This portal will lead us to [*Redacted*], where we have to meet up with someone who divinations say will [*Redacted*]. I don’t know much about them, but supposedly they - or one of their companions - will be riding a [*Redacted*].”

I think, caught in my state of shock, my expression finally catches up to how I feel about that statement. She gets really… still. “What did you just hear?”

I tell her. The color drains from her face. “The Enemy has found us. I think you’re still ignorant enough to fly under the radar, but I’m compromised, I can’t go with you. Remember our lessons, and good luck,” she tells me as she tries to hurry me through the portal. Fortunately, my familiar can gather my gear at Quickling speed while I physically stall my departure. That stalling amounts to about time to say, “but…” and emote my concern (which she hopefully takes as including “for her safety”, and not just “my having no clue what the mission is”) before I’m shoved through the portal, and find myself in a back alley of an unfamiliar city.

All that’s mostly just background, to provide context for my character getting a crash course in the local physics.

Example, part 5 - crash course

So, I’ve already spent decades in this world, learned a lot about the way the world works, gained mastery of magic equivalent to a nigh-epic D&D Wizard, so interacting with a new town should be easy, right?

Yeah, not so much.

I don’t have the equivalent of Knowledge: Local, so I don’t know where anything is. And, as we know, I can’t learn anything, either directly or from being told, so I can’t ask directions (or, rather, I can ask, but it doesn’t help). So I’m lost. Permanently. Unless I gain the skill. Which I don’t dare do, because “ignorance” is apparently the best/only defense against “The Enemy”, whatever that is.

I do still have my existent skill in things like math and logic, so I can design movement algorithms to attempt to traverse an unknown topography.

However, as it turns out, I also have a metric ton of bling, hastily grabbed rather than carefully stowed, a habit of talking to myself (often in 4th wall breaking ways), and a morphing familiar that can literally be glaring daggers at anyone who looks at me funny. I may not be able to navigate my way out of a wet paper bag, but I certainly do draw attention.

And I think I really have “maxed out my ranks” in Sense Motive, because I seem to know so much more about everyone’s intentions than I ever would have before I came here.

It doesn’t take long before a group in similar uniforms (at least I’m “allowed” to notice that) are cautiously approaching me, informing me that they’re some word I can’t learn, but I’m certain means “local law enforcement”, and asking me to explain my situation.

I tell them that I’m under the effects of a “Confundus” spell (which means nothing to them beyond “spell”), and ask if they can lead me to a place where I can sit down with a glass of water. They are happy to acquiesce.

I get the feeling that this world was built with the meme, “how much is a room for someone who can cast Fireball, and burn this inn to the ground” in mind. Apparently, I mumbled some of that out loud, and it made enough sense to them that they confirm it. I do my best to express my disdain for those who would so abuse their power, and to thank them for their assistance. Duty, obligation, and fear are still their biggest motivators, but “happy to help” did grow at least a little. At least they can tell that my appreciation is genuine.

Ultimately, they lead me to a tavern which both iconography and words identify as the Dancing Monkey, although it looks more like the Pide Piper, playing a clarinet as it dances.
Example, part 6 - starting in a tavern

Yes, I did intentionally invoke that trope.

Unfortunately, despite the size of the place, there’s no one here besides the barkeep, whom the local law enforcement seem quite happy to leave me with. I think Sense Motive is helping me again, because I register the barkeep as “Tireless”. Strange that that’s not under Perception or Heal - maybe my skill is broader than I thought.

“I’d like some water,” I tell the barkeep, “But I’m not sure if I’ve got any money.” He goes through the motions of obviously giving me a once-over, but it’s purely for my benefit. “On the house. As is room and board.” It’s like an infinitely recursive mirror, of “I can see that he can see that I can see that…” as we come to an understanding of just how happy to help he is, how that’s his calling, his purpose in life.

He helps me with a lot, answering lots of questions, most of which I can actually understand the answers to. Wizards are rare, casting is fully legal (some of the effects obviously aren’t, but it’s very permissive) and won’t inherently cause a panic, etc. He’s absolutely shocked at my accuracy at a range (apparently, it’s unheard-of among Wizards, and my level of skill is right impressive among something I can’t catch). And I know he knows I know he knows I didn’t understand.

As patrons begin filtering in, I test the patrons in various ways, with arm wrestling, tests of skill, games of memory. Obviously (for those familiar with RPGs), I’m testing for things like “bounded accuracy” or “4e skill challenges”. What I find is, I’m pretty sure, Narrativium. And that I have at least two flaws: I apparently wear my heart on my sleeve, and I lose every arm wrestling match.

Also, everyone here is perfectly comfortable with repeating themselves, or explaining things differently, even though it obviously has no possible benefit, and the practice couldn’t have evolved naturally on this world. I resist the urge to facepalm at the vestigial holdover from “my” world.

Eventually, the PCs - or, rather, the adventures, some of whom might be PCs - begin showing up. And… they’re often armed with tech (which I really should have expected, given that my familiar could become a laptop). Some of it, I can recognize (if I’m familiar with the concept); otherwise, it’s alien and unlearnable.

Eventually, I deduced which group must be the PCs. The biggest hint is that my read on them is very different from everyone else (I hypothesize I’m getting my Intel from the players rather than the GM, and that, being different people, they describe different things / describe things differently).

When we go to approach one another, one of the PCs suddenly pulls the others into a huddle. I can tell that they’ve seen something concerning, and are confident that I cannot hear them at this range. Example, part 7 - rules and regulations

They seem really concerned about treatment of prisoners, and the use of torture to extract information. I’m really concerned about what Sense they have that they’re misinterpreting to think that those are important topics to discuss, and how they measure distance every time they back off into a huddle. But what we almost come to blows over isn’t anything I’d have expected: it’s when I offer to help.

Now, not a one of the NPCs has ever reacted when I offered to help them with something. Even my mentor, PC or NPC, reacted what I’ll call “normally”. But the PCs? Offer to help with even the simplest of tasks, like cleaning up spilt beer? I may as well have unsheathed a Vorpal Blade made of Balefire for as much as they looked like they wanted to roll initiative at my offer of assistance. My hypothesis is, it involves XP, or skill increases, or something. Whatever or is, they clam up tight when I ask about their reaction. My hypothesis is, that’s a “roleplaying” thing, to not talk about whatever it is they’re clearly reacting to but not taking about.

So I can only test the effects of “aid another” actions with the NPC patrons, and the results… tell me that this system doesn’t register / grant any benefit from assistance. Needless to say, there’s lots of huddled conversations from the PCs at my experiments and note-taking. But when I start pulling books out of thin air, they’re back to wanting to talk shop.

Turns out, they consider my storage magic really valuable. And they show me theirs: it’s a chest, which contains two even larger chests, one of which contains 4 more chests, one of which contains 3 chests and 2 bags, one of which…

I dimly remember an old video game that worked like that. Navigating those takes forever. Whereas I have the “combat healing” version of storage.

Also, there are two such “chests of chests” mounted on either side of a Harley.

Not the “exotic mount” I was expecting, but between that and the evidence of being PCs, I’m willing to believe that this is where I’m “supposed” to be.

So, what’s my point? That most any game world is going to have really dumb physics, and really bad roleplaying that doesn’t make sense given that physics (or given supposed ignorance thereof). And that GM’s (or, at least, GM’s I’ve had) do a worse job than the system when they override it “for realism”. And that I’d rather build and roleplay a consistent character from a world where the physics is better, than have a character whose personality and backstory don’t make sense given the world they supposedly grew up in.

[Satinavian]

So, what’s my point? That most any game world is going to have really dumb physics, and really bad roleplaying that doesn’t make sense given that physics (or given supposed ignorance thereof). And that GM’s (or, at least, GM’s I’ve had) do a worse job than the system when they override it “for realism”. And that I’d rather build and roleplay a consistent character from a world where the physics is better, than have a character whose personality and backstory don’t make sense given the world they supposedly grew up in.
So what is your point ? That you only want to play real world characters because all tabletop settings have subpar physics ? Or that you take the quirks of whatever game system is used as failing of the setting physics ?

Both have very little to do with the original argument, which was about transferring a character from one RPG setting to another. NOT from the real world. So you have to make an argument that the setting random players want to pull their characters from are more fleshed out than the setting the group is suppossed to use.

[Quertus]

So what is your point ? That you only want to play real world characters because all tabletop settings have subpar physics ? Or that you take the quirks of whatever game system is used as failing of the setting physics ?

Both have very little to do with the original argument, which was about transferring a character from one RPG setting to another. NOT from the real world. So you have to make an argument that the setting random players want to pull their characters from are more fleshed out than the setting the group is suppossed to use.

First, I’ve already preemptively answered the important part:



As usual, my example will be lengthy and extreme, to drive home the direction I’m pointing.

And “supposedly!Earth” is a part of most RPG settings, including, relevantly, D&D.

Second, I’m not arguing about random players.

Third, even if I was, different failings matter more to different people - they could choose the setting whose failings and successes work for them and their personal needs and suspension of disbelief.

Fourth, even if the quality is the same, the GM isn’t going to be ruining the source world with rulings, or invalidating the backstory with retcons, making it inherently better.

Sure, 20 sessions in, the GM can make a ruling that invalidates their entire campaign. Or they can be constantly changing their physics, to where anything could happen next, and there’s no point being invested in anything. But, by insulating the character and their backstory as much as possible from such madness, you maximize the ability to remain invested in the character, and in the parts of the world the GM hasn’t ruined yet.

Because, in the end, Exploration / Discovery is my greatest joy in an RPG. I’d love to explore the GM’s world, see all the cool stuff they’ve done. But most GM’s make doing so a struggle, whether because they prioritize other types of fun, or in the name of “realism”. And don’t get me started on, “I’ve got to change that, because, if it were true, everyone would be doing that already”.

[Satinavian]

First, I’ve already preemptively answered the important part:You were right that this was lengthy. But i answered the way i did because despite all thoise words this example utterly failed in explaining the direction you are going.


And “supposedly!Earth” is a part of most RPG settings, including, relevantly, D&D.Nope, it is not. Most RPG settings that are not Earth itself don't have Earth as part of their universe.

Second, I’m not arguing about random players.As seen from GMs you want to convince to include your old character when you are coming to their table, you are a random player.

Third, even if I was, different failings matter more to different people - they could choose the setting whose failings and successes work for them and their personal needs and suspension of disbelief.That is acceptable.

Fourth, even if the quality is the same, the GM isn’t going to be ruining the source world with rulings, or invalidating the backstory with retcons, making it inherently better.

Sure, 20 sessions in, the GM can make a ruling that invalidates their entire campaign. Or they can be constantly changing their physics, to where anything could happen next, and there’s no point being invested in anything. But, by insulating the character and their backstory as much as possible from such madness, you maximize the ability to remain invested in the character, and in the parts of the world the GM hasn’t ruined yet.
Nope. Once your home setting is part of the multiverse the GM uses, his rulings completely extend to every part of it as well. If you are not willing to accept that, forget porting your characters.
He can use your background NPCs, your home, even potentially retcon your history. Yes, those things should be done carefully. But it does not matter in this regard of your background comes from another world or not.


And don’t get me started on, “I’ve got to change that, because, if it were true, everyone would be doing that already”.That one is worthy of its own discussions.

[Quertus]

You were right that this was lengthy. But i answered the way i did because despite all thoise words this example utterly failed in explaining the direction you are going.

Did I? I think it’s pretty clearly pointed in a direction, but I’m biased that way. How about with this added line: if you can see what the world’s rules and physics look like from the PoV of someone from a realistic, consistent world like Earth, that should give you a feel for what the world looks like from the PoV of someone from another consistent world.

Hot about if I add the tags, #CharacterPerspective and #Roleplaying? Does it feel like it’s pointed in a direction yet?

If your answer is still “no”, maybe sit down with the people who have problems with Hit Points until their perspective feels natural, then apply that same level of rigor to every aspect of the game. (Note that I’m fine with HP, so you actually need less rigor than that to get to my PoV.)

Also, I really like the idea of people from a world with one implementation of HP getting used to a world with a different implementation thereof.


Nope, it is not. Most RPG settings that are not Earth itself don't have Earth as part of their universe.

Ah, I doubt there’s a master list of “every RPG ever created” to get a factual answer here. I admit, I meant more “in my experience” than “across all RPGs”. However, the more relevant bit was the relevance of supposedly!Earth canonically being connected to D&D.


Once your home setting is part of the multiverse the GM uses, his rulings completely extend to every part of it as well.

My character is from Earth. Please retcon that this is a post-scarcity world of peace and prosperity, filled with intelligent, caring, immortal beings.

I take it back - this is the best argument for a restricted multiverse. Never mind that it ruins the concept of a character from a world with one implementation of HP getting used to a world with a different implementation, GM’s, get on it with the retcon of Earth! :smallcool:

[Thrudd]

So what is your point ? That you only want to play real world characters because all tabletop settings have subpar physics ? Or that you take the quirks of whatever game system is used as failing of the setting physics ?


yes, Quertus is using "physics" to mean "the game mechanics" in these examples. According to these examples, if a game has mechanics or a GM who applies the rules in a way he doesn't like, he imagines that it is just the "weird physics" of the universe he's in. He insists that his character is actually the same character, with memories of every campaign past in every prior edition of D&D he's played, with all the same abilities, and that he can "break the fourth wall" and perceive the mechanics like distinct skills and which sort of dice are being rolled to determine things. I'm not sure where this comes from or why, but I'd guess it's the origin of many statements Quertus has made about "role playing" in general. Everything comes from the angle of him imagining how he could port his "signature" fourth-wall breaking AD&D character into the game- all abilities and memories intact - and be able to function the way he was able to under the DM and system of the original game. To him, this specific character seems to be everything, and his only concern is how well he can play as this specific character with the specific set of abilities he gained in the original system. The idea of just accepting a GM's chosen setting and game mechanics, playing a new character that originates in that setting and immersing in the fiction, treating the mechanics as a way to decide what happened in the fiction rather than physics, seems to be a hard sell.

If I were GM, and a player was constantly making digs at my rulings and criticizing the system we're using by making fourth-wall breaking in-character comments like "gee, the physics in this world are weird, nothing makes sense, it's not like the universe I came from" - I'd take that as the passive aggressive insult that it is and politely ask the player to knock it off. "I'm just role playing my character" is no excuse for this sort of thing.

[PhoenixPhyre]

yes, Quertus is using "physics" to mean "the game mechanics" in these examples. According to these examples, if a game has mechanics or a GM who applies the rules in a way he doesn't like, he imagines that it is just the "weird physics" of the universe he's in. He insists that his character is actually the same character, with memories of every campaign past in every prior edition of D&D he's played, with all the same abilities, and that he can "break the fourth wall" and perceive the mechanics like distinct skills and which sort of dice are being rolled to determine things. I'm not sure where this comes from or why, but I'd guess it's the origin of many statements Quertus has made about "role playing" in general. Everything comes from the angle of him imagining how he could port his "signature" fourth-wall breaking AD&D character into the game- all abilities and memories intact - and be able to function the way he was able to under the DM and system of the original game. To him, this specific character seems to be everything, and his only concern is how well he can play as this specific character with the specific set of abilities he gained in the original system. The idea of just accepting a GM's chosen setting and game mechanics, playing a new character that originates in that setting and immersing in the fiction, treating the mechanics as a way to decide what happened in the fiction rather than physics, seems to be a hard sell.

If I were GM, and a player was constantly making digs at my rulings and criticizing the system we're using by making fourth-wall breaking in-character comments like "gee, the physics in this world are weird, nothing makes sense, it's not like the universe I came from" - I'd take that as the passive aggressive insult that it is and politely ask the player to knock it off. "I'm just role playing my character" is no excuse for this sort of thing.

Yeah. I'll note that (as the OP), this particular academic wizard after-whom-the-account-is-named is a prime example of exactly what I dislike about restricted multiverses.

Consider what happens if a player wants to import a character from a different setting, one with different "physical laws" (either game mechanics or actual in-universe natural law).

True Multiverse: We have rules for that. Generally those involve converting the character from System A to System B. Or defining rules about how System A and System B interact. Not my favorite, but doable.

Isolated Settings: No. Not an option. This is my strong preference because it makes (IMO) for better settings with more internal consistency and more interesting, coherent narratives. But others may differ.

Restricted Multiverse: One of two options:
1. You can't have settings with different physical laws. Everyone must act exactly the same except cosmetically.
2. Characters have a right to come and choose whatever set of laws they want. Or the DM is being bad.

Both of those are odious beyond odium. Option 1 is breaking all settings on a Bed of Procrustes, limiting everyone to whatever the developers can come up with. And even the best of them are limited. And D&D specifically...I've yet to see a published setting that interested me. Eberron came close, until they filed off all the interesting parts when moving to the Multiverse Model of current 5e. FR, Greyhawk--they're just super bland and an inconsistent mishmash of things over the generations. Planescape? Heavens no. The Great Wheel is at the core of what I dislike about the Multiverse model. Plus the original leaned heavy into the "make up new words for things" model. Spelljammer? No. Just...no. If you want space adventures, play a space game. Don't poison other settings by stapling on this malignancy (ok, more like idiocy).

Option 2 is worse. It says that everything must bow to the most obnoxious player. You've got your +52 sword of brokenness from a previous campaign? Yup, either let them keep it or suffer the whining.

There's technically a 3rd option, where the player and the DM negotiate in detail every single little bit of the character and how it will work. But that's like hen's teeth, and often creates loopholes and jank because no one can predict all the needed details in advance.

Character migration can work...under very limited, very restricted circumstances. Even things like Organized Play get really screwed up incentives and suffer from power-gaming (in the bad sense of that, where it's generally munchkinry). And those are as locked down (rules wise) as it can reasonably get.

[NichG]

This must just be me, since everyone else including the OP seems to tacitly agree on this, but...

Character porting is, to me, among the least important things about the role of a multiverse in a setting cosmology. 'We should use X type of cosmology, so we can port our characters' or 'I don't like X type of cosmology, because people port their characters in such a way' seems like it misses 99% of what those choices can actually be used for.

(I also think this 'restricted multiverse' term doesn't sound like what OP seems to mean by it, if the only difference between 'restricted' and 'true' is whether different settings can have different physics. It now seems like the 'restricted' is supposed to mean 'settings are restricted', whereas I understood it originally as 'travel between settings is restricted'. But like, what exactly is 'restricting' you in this? And why formulate it that way in particular rather than, dunno, 'totally disjoint multiverse' vs 'multiverse with overarching metaphysics' vs 'fully integrated multiverse' or something like that)

I guess I'm saying this in the sense that, the most important aspects of a multiverse to me seem to be:

- How accessible are places with fundamentally different assumptions or natures to each-other? Not at all, somewhat, frequent?
- What are the tensions between what is true at different scales or levels of understanding/access? How do those different scales interact with one another?
- What arises from the way in which disjoint things become unified when you zoom out?

[Thrudd]

Yeah. I'll note that (as the OP), this particular academic wizard after-whom-the-account-is-named is a prime example of exactly what I dislike about restricted multiverses.

Consider what happens if a player wants to import a character from a different setting, one with different "physical laws" (either game mechanics or actual in-universe natural law).

True Multiverse: We have rules for that. Generally those involve converting the character from System A to System B. Or defining rules about how System A and System B interact. Not my favorite, but doable.

Isolated Settings: No. Not an option. This is my strong preference because it makes (IMO) for better settings with more internal consistency and more interesting, coherent narratives. But others may differ.

Restricted Multiverse: One of two options:
1. You can't have settings with different physical laws. Everyone must act exactly the same except cosmetically.
2. Characters have a right to come and choose whatever set of laws they want. Or the DM is being bad.

Both of those are odious beyond odium. Option 1 is breaking all settings on a Bed of Procrustes, limiting everyone to whatever the developers can come up with. And even the best of them are limited. And D&D specifically...I've yet to see a published setting that interested me. Eberron came close, until they filed off all the interesting parts when moving to the Multiverse Model of current 5e. FR, Greyhawk--they're just super bland and an inconsistent mishmash of things over the generations. Planescape? Heavens no. The Great Wheel is at the core of what I dislike about the Multiverse model. Plus the original leaned heavy into the "make up new words for things" model. Spelljammer? No. Just...no. If you want space adventures, play a space game. Don't poison other settings by stapling on this malignancy (ok, more like idiocy).

Option 2 is worse. It says that everything must bow to the most obnoxious player. You've got your +52 sword of brokenness from a previous campaign? Yup, either let them keep it or suffer the whining.

There's technically a 3rd option, where the player and the DM negotiate in detail every single little bit of the character and how it will work. But that's like hen's teeth, and often creates loopholes and jank because no one can predict all the needed details in advance.

Character migration can work...under very limited, very restricted circumstances. Even things like Organized Play get really screwed up incentives and suffer from power-gaming (in the bad sense of that, where it's generally munchkinry). And those are as locked down (rules wise) as it can reasonably get.

I agree, but aren't we really just talking about the D&D "kitchen sink" in general? This multiverse is just the current explanation for why the same system is used for all these different campaign settings, and make it possible for open table league play using any/all of the published material. What other games have such a setting, with so much content?

I am the same, I have always created my own settings and would curate and homebrew the options available for players if I were to run 5e, just as I did with 3e and AD&D. Is there anything to stop us doing that? I suppose there is a complaint that the more the game mechanics and spells get tied into this implied multiverse setting, the more work it is for us to adjust for our own settings. Also the factor of new players coming in, expecting D&D to be run "as published", and maybe getting upset that you're denying them playing the exact character they want. But I've felt that way about D&D pretty much forever- I don't feel conflicted about giving players restrictions on character options and changing how some spells work to match my setting, while also allowing some collaboration on including new elements that can be made cohesive with the rest of the setting.

Bringing characters from different campaign settings, let alone different game systems, is a hard "no" for me in pretty much any circumstance I can envision in any game I'd be running.

[Quertus]

yes, Quertus is using "physics" to mean "the game mechanics" in these examples. According to these examples, if a game has mechanics or a GM who applies the rules in a way he doesn't like, he imagines that it is just the "weird physics" of the universe he's in. He insists that his character is actually the same character, with memories of every campaign past in every prior edition of D&D he's played, with all the same abilities, and that he can "break the fourth wall" and perceive the mechanics like distinct skills and which sort of dice are being rolled to determine things. I'm not sure where this comes from or why, but I'd guess it's the origin of many statements Quertus has made about "role playing" in general. Everything comes from the angle of him imagining how he could port his "signature" fourth-wall breaking AD&D character into the game- all abilities and memories intact - and be able to function the way he was able to under the DM and system of the original game. To him, this specific character seems to be everything, and his only concern is how well he can play as this specific character with the specific set of abilities he gained in the original system. The idea of just accepting a GM's chosen setting and game mechanics, playing a new character that originates in that setting and immersing in the fiction, treating the mechanics as a way to decide what happened in the fiction rather than physics, seems to be a hard sell.

If I were GM, and a player was constantly making digs at my rulings and criticizing the system we're using by making fourth-wall breaking in-character comments like "gee, the physics in this world are weird, nothing makes sense, it's not like the universe I came from" - I'd take that as the passive aggressive insult that it is and politely ask the player to knock it off. "I'm just role playing my character" is no excuse for this sort of thing.

Sigh. Roleplaying is a dying art.

If *I* suddenly found myself Isekai’d into an RPG, I’d start making 4th-wall-breaking comments. Wouldn’t you?

Whereas my PCs are the opposite of 4th-wall-breaking, viewing their worlds as “real” (unless, for example, like in WoD Mage, the definition of “real” is subjective).

The point of talking about breaking the 4th wall was to make it easier for the reader to understand the concept of “things seeming strange to the character”.

I know most gamers tie their brains in knots, creating convoluted logic loops to ignore setting dissonance, or to “roleplay” things that frankly don’t make any sense in context. “Breaking the 4th wall” is intended to get the reader into the mindset of, “what if we don’t do that? What if we look at what’s actually there?”

It has nothing to do with “liking” or “not liking” the physics, it’s a question of whether the story of these events stands up to scrutiny, or is an incoherent pile of ****.

A good story needs good characters. It doesn’t really need much for setting (I just happen to enjoy Discovering and Exploring settings way more than most), but it does need for what setting is there to feel like a consistent, believable, lived-in world. When the GM can’t deliver that, it hurts the story. Often mortally so.

I’m really not saying anything revolutionary or groundbreaking here. I’m just taking basic story telling principles, and shoving them at people with all the charisma and narrative skill of Bakugo.

So, no, the example uses 4th-wall-breaking to highlight a systemic problem endemic to most games; namely, that GM’s IME rarely bother to comprehend the logical consequences of their inept rulings. That their world building is incoherent garbage, inconsiderate of their own creations, rather than a solid foundation upon which to build a cohesive, compelling, worthwhile story.

But that’s all just a rant to help point you in the right direction to understand what I mean when I say that not all worlds are equal, and, given the option, a player is much more likely to choose as their point of origin a world that makes sense to them, and makes sense (in their opinion) to have birthed the character concept they have in mind. As one advantage of the restricted multiverse.

(Also, how did you take my example, complete with the “I no longer seem to be myself” spiel, where Isekai’d character me realized he was no longer even capable of learning, and translate that into the idea that I expect my characters to have all the same abilities when they change worlds? Heck, given that you’ve brought up things from my post history outside this thread, how did you manage not to notice that I’m generally the one most likely to question whether characters’ abilities should change when they leave their home world? Everything I remember posting paints the exact opposite picture of me from the one you have presented, so I’m curious whether my senility has made me forget previous stances I’ve taken that make my beliefs seem as inconsistent as most GM’s rulings, or whether you’ll see something different if you adjust the perception filter. Which… “adjusting perception filters” is kinda what I’m advocating for in-game, too, come to think of it.)

[Satinavian]

Did I? I think it’s pretty clearly pointed in a direction, but I’m biased that way. How about with this added line: if you can see what the world’s rules and physics look like from the PoV of someone from a realistic, consistent world like Earth, that should give you a feel for what the world looks like from the PoV of someone from another consistent world.So you want your character to have no clue about setting or physics there and only wrong presumptions to play him fumbling around and having a harder time to understand the setting itself, correct ?


Hot about if I add the tags, #CharacterPerspective and #Roleplaying? Does it feel like it’s pointed in a direction yet?Nope, don't see any connection. Roleplaying and distinguising between character and player perspective are concepts that are valid regardless from where the character comes.

If your answer is still “no”, maybe sit down with the people who have problems with Hit Points until their perspective feels natural, then apply that same level of rigor to every aspect of the game. (Note that I’m fine with HP, so you actually need less rigor than that to get to my PoV.)I already pointed out that rules tend to be abstractions. If your character does look very closely, he won't find the rulebook rules because that is not really how the world works. Only very very roughly.

Ah, I doubt there’s a master list of “every RPG ever created” to get a factual answer here. I admit, I meant more “in my experience” than “across all RPGs”. However, the more relevant bit was the relevance of supposedly!Earth canonically being connected to D&D.I hardly ever play or played D&D, so it is not too relevant for me. But even for D&D, those "canonical connection to Earth" never has been a fact on any table i have been on. Certainly not for any custom setting and it was ignored/retconned/unknown even at the tables using official ones.

My character is from Earth. Please retcon that this is a post-scarcity world of peace and prosperity, filled with intelligent, caring, immortal beings.Sure, here you go : Your character is of post-scarcity Earth, a place of peace and prosperity, filled with intelligent, caring and immortal beings. Born and educated in the 45th century, he used most of his time for leasure activities and hobbis (fill in approprriate ones for your starting skills) until he got bored and volunteered for some transdimensional travel experiment. Something went wrong and now he is in... .

If you simultaniously want to be from a post-scracity place and not from a post scarcity place, that is on you.



Sigh. Roleplaying is a dying art.

If *I* suddenly found myself Isekai’d into an RPG, I’d start making 4th-wall-breaking comments. Wouldn’t you?No, i wouldn't. I might rethink my religion with this whole reborn stuff, though.
Fourth wall breaking only makes sense if there is an audience.

I know most gamers tie their brains in knots, creating convoluted logic loops to ignore setting dissonance, or to “roleplay” things that frankly don’t make any sense in context. “Breaking the 4th wall” is intended to get the reader into the mindset of, “what if we don’t do that? What if we look at what’s actually there?” Do you know what usually happens at any of my tables when such setting dissonance pops up ?

The players debate how to handle it. Never the characters. The dissonace gets resolved out of game, via a new houserule or some retcon or a gentlemens agreement to never interact with it. The PCs will never encounter a setting dissonance.



I’m really not saying anything revolutionary or groundbreaking here. I’m just taking basic story telling principles, and shoving them at people with all the charisma and narrative skill of Bakugo.

So, no, the example uses 4th-wall-breaking to highlight a systemic problem endemic to most games; namely, that GM’s IME rarely bother to comprehend the logical consequences of their inept rulings. That their world building is incoherent garbage, inconsiderate of their own creations, rather than a solid foundation upon which to build a cohesive, compelling, worthwhile story.Now that is just baseless badmouthing of GMs.

But that’s all just a rant to help point you in the right direction to understand what I mean when I say that not all worlds are equal, and, given the option, a player is much more likely to choose as their point of origin a world that makes sense to them, and makes sense (in their opinion) to have birthed the character concept they have in mind. As one advantage of the restricted multiverse.And other people at the table don't want any influences from that world hurting the setting the game takes actually place.

[JNAProductions]

Sigh. Roleplaying is a dying art.

It's not. Just because you value things that not everyone does and don't value things that others do doesn't mean roleplaying is dying out.

Also, given your insistence that 4E isn't an RPG, perhaps you might want to define what exactly you mean by roleplaying, since you might be using it in a controversial manner.

[Thrudd]

Sigh. Roleplaying is a dying art.

If *I* suddenly found myself Isekai’d into an RPG, I’d start making 4th-wall-breaking comments. Wouldn’t you?

Whereas my PCs are the opposite of 4th-wall-breaking, viewing their worlds as “real” (unless, for example, like in WoD Mage, the definition of “real” is subjective).

The point of talking about breaking the 4th wall was to make it easier for the reader to understand the concept of “things seeming strange to the character”.

I know most gamers tie their brains in knots, creating convoluted logic loops to ignore setting dissonance, or to “roleplay” things that frankly don’t make any sense in context. “Breaking the 4th wall” is intended to get the reader into the mindset of, “what if we don’t do that? What if we look at what’s actually there?”

It has nothing to do with “liking” or “not liking” the physics, it’s a question of whether the story of these events stands up to scrutiny, or is an incoherent pile of ****.

A good story needs good characters. It doesn’t really need much for setting (I just happen to enjoy Discovering and Exploring settings way more than most), but it does need for what setting is there to feel like a consistent, believable, lived-in world. When the GM can’t deliver that, it hurts the story. Often mortally so.

I’m really not saying anything revolutionary or groundbreaking here. I’m just taking basic story telling principles, and shoving them at people with all the charisma and narrative skill of Bakugo.

So, no, the example uses 4th-wall-breaking to highlight a systemic problem endemic to most games; namely, that GM’s IME rarely bother to comprehend the logical consequences of their inept rulings. That their world building is incoherent garbage, inconsiderate of their own creations, rather than a solid foundation upon which to build a cohesive, compelling, worthwhile story.

But that’s all just a rant to help point you in the right direction to understand what I mean when I say that not all worlds are equal, and, given the option, a player is much more likely to choose as their point of origin a world that makes sense to them, and makes sense (in their opinion) to have birthed the character concept they have in mind. As one advantage of the restricted multiverse.

(Also, how did you take my example, complete with the “I no longer seem to be myself” spiel, where Isekai’d character me realized he was no longer even capable of learning, and translate that into the idea that I expect my characters to have all the same abilities when they change worlds? Heck, given that you’ve brought up things from my post history outside this thread, how did you manage not to notice that I’m generally the one most likely to question whether characters’ abilities should change when they leave their home world? Everything I remember posting paints the exact opposite picture of me from the one you have presented, so I’m curious whether my senility has made me forget previous stances I’ve taken that make my beliefs seem as inconsistent as most GM’s rulings, or whether you’ll see something different if you adjust the perception filter. Which… “adjusting perception filters” is kinda what I’m advocating for in-game, too, come to think of it.)

I'd say calling something an "incoherent pile of garbage" is indication that you "don't like it"- but that's just semantics. I understand that you feel that your opinions on such things are more than just opinions - but it's possible that one person's "incoherent garbage" causes no distress at all for others, based on differing life experiences. Saying you dislike something isn't to imply that your opinion is without merit or reason.

So all your examples were a really convoluted way of saying that you find it hard to find good GMs using settings that are up to your standards, and you'd prefer to choose the setting for your character rather than leave it up to them. You feel that you can't make a character you want to play if you don't approve of the setting, in general. And when GMs make rulings that seem nonsensical to you or change their mind about something at some point in the campaign, it upsets you and makes it harder for you to take the game and your character seriously.

This is "endemic" to gaming, imo, because gaming is an entertainment hobby. Very few GMs have the time or wherewithal to create perfect settings, and even the game publishers rarely take this so seriously or think about it so thoroughly. And your standards for a "consistent, believable, lived-in world" sound like they are exceedingly high relative to the time investment most people are willing and able to make for these games. I mean, I'm pretty hard on world-building in fiction myself, but when it comes to playing RPGs, sometimes you just have to allow it to be a frivolous past time. Not every game can be a deep, compelling, worthwhile story. Sometimes you're just goofing off with your friends, having adventures and embracing the shorthand of easy genre conventions and stereotypes. Laugh at it when absurdity occurs. Most RPG characters exist for a few months or maybe a year, if you're lucky, in real-life time and then disappear, never to be looked at again. You need to be pretty lucky to find that one in a thousand GM who is great at running the game in a system you enjoy, has a great setting and world building ability, with a group that sticks with it long-term so you can really develop believable characters and "meaningful stories". Have you considered building your own world that has everything you want, homebrew, and then teach someone to run your system and setting so you can play characters you will be satisfied with?

[Psyren]

Guidelines for planar drama (internal or intra-planar), like the blood war, or the war in shavarath, or the githzerai trying to tame limbo.

Why? None of this is necessary for a cosmology, at best it's set dressing. You don't need a grand reason for fiends to want to fight each other beyond simply being different; hell, you don't need a reason for them to fight each other at all. And plenty of official settings have neither Gith nor Limbo.


Guidelines for themes associated with planes, a plane needs more than just "it's a home for fiends", what do they stand for and against, how should the planes relate to each other (if they do at all), guidelines for alignment relation to planes. Guidelines for the planes purpose and what they do.

But it doesn't. Alignment is entirely optional and doesn't have to be planar either (e.g. Fernia in Eberron is the plane of fire, but unlike the Great Wheel also contains both fiery fiends and celestials.) The best thing D&D can do is give you different examples for how they have arranged and aligned them in various official properties that can serve as a springboard.



Instead it gives page after page of "these are the planes of D&D". They don't tell you how to make your own, they tell you which ones to use. The end result is great wheel everywhere all the time. The only way to escape the great wheel is to escape D&D.

How can this be true when not even D&D itself uses Great Wheel everywhere? In fact, their most popular setting is FR, and even that doesn't use Great Wheel, it uses Great Tree and the Wall.

[Satinavian]

And goig back to Isekai.

Well, there are countless different kinds. But many would fit in one of those two categories :

- Reincarnated/transported into a (c)RPG setting :

Examples : Grimgar of fantasy and ash, Konosuba, Land of Leadale

Those have classes, skills, stats, xp etc. as things existing in the setting. They also tend to have the inhabitants aware of all these and most of them accessable (e.g. via appraisal-skill).
Yes, your newcomer can experiment with them and find things that look like game rules. And they can try to use them accordingly. But the characters generally are not better at understanding/abusing them than the inhabitants. If anything, they tend to be worse. The PCs might have an edge via the classical reincarnation boon or starting with some existing high level game character or so on. But their origin does them not uniquely suited for exploring/understanding the world beside possibly discovering things that others already know.

- Reincarnated/transported into a fantasy setting :

Examples : Vision of Escaflowne, Ascendance of a Bookworm, Twelve Kingdoms

Classes, skills, stats, xp etc. (generally) don't exist in the setting. A transported character might look for them as long as he wants and will never find them. Special reincarnation boons might still exist and the characters might see a lot of the world via power of plot, but their special outsider perspective also does not give them any special understanding (They might try to transfer nowledge though)


Now if the latter was not just TV but used for a tabletop, tabletop rules obviously would be used at the table. But they would still not exist in the game world and PCs would still not be able to find them.

[PhoenixPhyre]

This must just be me, since everyone else including the OP seems to tacitly agree on this, but...

Character porting is, to me, among the least important things about the role of a multiverse in a setting cosmology. 'We should use X type of cosmology, so we can port our characters' or 'I don't like X type of cosmology, because people port their characters in such a way' seems like it misses 99% of what those choices can actually be used for.

(I also think this 'restricted multiverse' term doesn't sound like what OP seems to mean by it, if the only difference between 'restricted' and 'true' is whether different settings can have different physics. It now seems like the 'restricted' is supposed to mean 'settings are restricted', whereas I understood it originally as 'travel between settings is restricted'. But like, what exactly is 'restricting' you in this? And why formulate it that way in particular rather than, dunno, 'totally disjoint multiverse' vs 'multiverse with overarching metaphysics' vs 'fully integrated multiverse' or something like that)

I guess I'm saying this in the sense that, the most important aspects of a multiverse to me seem to be:

- How accessible are places with fundamentally different assumptions or natures to each-other? Not at all, somewhat, frequent?
- What are the tensions between what is true at different scales or levels of understanding/access? How do those different scales interact with one another?
- What arises from the way in which disjoint things become unified when you zoom out?

Maybe "limited" may work better than "restricted"? The point is that two things are simultaneously true
a) there are other worlds[1] out there and contact between them is normalized even if it isn't normal (ie a regular thing)
b) AND campaigns only interact with these other worlds via cameos, drop-in/"far from home" characters or situations, or other irregular means instead of being a normal, expected part of the system and gameplay.

A means there's a lot of work that needs to be done to decide how and where they interact, and that imposes significant constraints on the worlds you can build. B means that, 99% of the time, the setting authors haven't done their homework because they don't have to. They just plunk down incongruous element X and handwave it away with "portals" or "freak occurrences." Not taking into account how that changes/restricts the underlying metaphysics.


I agree, but aren't we really just talking about the D&D "kitchen sink" in general? This multiverse is just the current explanation for why the same system is used for all these different campaign settings, and make it possible for open table league play using any/all of the published material. What other games have such a setting, with so much content?

I am the same, I have always created my own settings and would curate and homebrew the options available for players if I were to run 5e, just as I did with 3e and AD&D. Is there anything to stop us doing that? I suppose there is a complaint that the more the game mechanics and spells get tied into this implied multiverse setting, the more work it is for us to adjust for our own settings. Also the factor of new players coming in, expecting D&D to be run "as published", and maybe getting upset that you're denying them playing the exact character they want. But I've felt that way about D&D pretty much forever- I don't feel conflicted about giving players restrictions on character options and changing how some spells work to match my setting, while also allowing some collaboration on including new elements that can be made cohesive with the rest of the setting.

Bringing characters from different campaign settings, let alone different game systems, is a hard "no" for me in pretty much any circumstance I can envision in any game I'd be running.

The more they regularize the Multiverse and write from that perspective, the more I have to fight the system to exclude it. If it were "here's a bunch of content, any of it may or may not exist in a given setting" (like 5e started with, including the DMG saying that the planes weren't really necessary as long as you had the requisite explanations for various effects), that'd be one thing. That'd be modular. But recent books are pushing it much more toward established fact. There are these particular planes, these particular gods, those particular other settings with those particular other people who did those particular other things. Races are all like this. Every single (adventuring) elf has traits XYZ, no matter where you are in the universe, and that's because they're all created by <that other guy> even if they call him different names. There must be an Underdark equivalent. If you develop a spell to make a nice comfortable force bubble, you'll also know that it's called Leomund's Tiny Hut and that a guy named Leomund in <other universe> invented it. This means that more and more pieces of lore and even "setting-agnostic" material is off-limits.

For example, my setting has
* very different planar structure. For one thing, the entire universe is only the size of the inner Solar System. Beyond that is only the Dark Beyond, a realm of thought and concept, not matter.
* No alignment, whatsoever. Not even for outsiders. Angels, devils, demons are differentiated by their role in the cosmic order and their source of energy, not how they approach things. And the devils frequently scan as "celestial" when acting on divine direction. And the gods aren't some intrinsic, cosmic force--they're effectively the PR face of the universal order.
* Wood elves and high elves (and dark elves and shadow elves and...) are all different lineages. Not variants of the same one. In fact, wood elves and high elves (in particular) often dislike each other for reasons stretching back a few millennia.
* Divine magic that isn't the oldest form of magic, it's the (second) newest.
* very different underlying physical laws, even if the surface is similar.
* very different racial origins and cultures. All the goblins are one race and have a tribe-level shared memory, for instance, and humans (and orcs) were artificially created from goblinoids way back in the day.

I can use early D&D 5.0 material almost as it is--I just have to scrub off a few markers. And there are very few expectations to unwrite. Newer material gets harder--the newest dragon book is basically only useful for stat blocks, because they forced this "One World" idea into all the lore and behaviors. And from what I've seen of the plans for OneD&D, that material will be utterly unusable.

[Psyren]

he point is that two things are simultaneously true
a) there are other worlds[1] out there and contact between them is normalized even if it isn't normal (ie a regular thing)
b) AND campaigns only interact with these other worlds via cameos, drop-in/"far from home" characters or situations, or other irregular means instead of being a normal, expected part of the system and gameplay.

A means there's a lot of work that needs to be done to decide how and where they interact, and that imposes significant constraints on the worlds you can build. B means that, 99% of the time, the setting authors haven't done their homework because they don't have to. They just plunk down incongruous element X and handwave it away with "portals" or "freak occurrences." Not taking into account how that changes/restricts the underlying metaphysics.

For (a) something being normalized at one point in the setting's history does not mean it has to be possible, much less probable, at the time you're running things. Again I point to the Krynn example - where they imply whatever multiversal planar contact brought nonstandard races there occurred prior to the Cataclysm, and is no longer accessible now; and even it was, it doesn't have to happen anywhere near the small slice of the planet where your campaign takes place. Similarly, in Ravenloft, the mists that bring interlopers in are entirely under your control, not the players.

For (b), I can't think of any D&D world where contact can only occur via "cameos" so this seems to be an invented problem.

[NichG]

Maybe "limited" may work better than "restricted"? The point is that two things are simultaneously true
a) there are other worlds[1] out there and contact between them is normalized even if it isn't normal (ie a regular thing)
b) AND campaigns only interact with these other worlds via cameos, drop-in/"far from home" characters or situations, or other irregular means instead of being a normal, expected part of the system and gameplay.

A means there's a lot of work that needs to be done to decide how and where they interact, and that imposes significant constraints on the worlds you can build. B means that, 99% of the time, the setting authors haven't done their homework because they don't have to. They just plunk down incongruous element X and handwave it away with "portals" or "freak occurrences." Not taking into account how that changes/restricts the underlying metaphysics.


That doesn't quite correspond to the constraints you were talking about a few posts ago. Like, there's no reason you couldn't have each world in that kind of multiverse have its own physics, and transport between them leads to conversion or adaptation.

Also the 'interaction only via cameos' seems to be more of a characteristic of the campaign than the setting. If contact exists and is normalized but not normal, there doesn't seem to be anything about the setting forbidding a campaign that is about pursuing that sort of transport as a thing.

Slayers for example is explicitly in a multiverse with four universes, each of which has wildly different physics, and transportation between them is extremely difficult but possible, and results in quite severe conversion of things. For example, the plotline of the third season of Slayers involves aliens fleeing their own sci-fi universe into that of the protagonists, having things that were spaceships convert by turning into swords and bows and things like that, and having the antagonist from their universe chase them into the protagonists' universe. But it's basically something they could only do using the death throes of their home world to provide the energy needed for transport. Is that a 'limited' or 'true' multiverse?

(Also, I think for this, it'd be better if we in general talk about 'how we would write one', because assuming incompetency to writers doing one thing but not another is just expressing a bias. If you're a lazy setting author, be a lazy setting author for both types and compare; if you're not a lazy setting author, assume both types will be done to the same level of care)

[PhoenixPhyre]

For (a) something being normalized at one point in the setting's history does not mean it has to be possible, much less probable, at the time you're running things. Again I point to the Krynn example - where they imply whatever multiversal planar contact brought nonstandard races there occurred prior to the Cataclysm, and is no longer accessible now; and even it was, it doesn't have to happen anywhere near the small slice of the planet where your campaign takes place. Similarly, in Ravenloft, the mists that bring interlopers in are entirely under your control, not the players.

For (b), I can't think of any D&D world where contact can only occur via "cameos" so this seems to be an invented problem.

except that for multiversal planar travel to have been enough to have any arbitrary race present in any particular campaign, it had to have been pervasive. Yet the rest of the world is utterly unchanged by that. That's what I meant by not doing the hard work--the existence of such pervasive travel should have changed the setting tremendously by its very nature. Yet...it had no effect other than "weird people who have no ties to the rest of the setting show up but aren't remarkable or interesting or have any cultural/metaphysical ties".

And I didn't say can only happen, merely does only happen


That doesn't quite correspond to the constraints you were talking about a few posts ago. Like, there's no reason you couldn't have each world in that kind of multiverse have its own physics, and transport between them leads to conversion or adaptation.

Also the 'interaction only via cameos' seems to be more of a characteristic of the campaign than the setting. If contact exists and is normalized but not normal, there doesn't seem to be anything about the setting forbidding a campaign that is about pursuing that sort of transport as a thing.

Slayers for example is explicitly in a multiverse with four universes, each of which has wildly different physics, and transportation between them is extremely difficult but possible, and results in quite severe conversion of things. For example, the plotline of the third season of Slayers involves aliens fleeing their own sci-fi universe into that of the protagonists, having things that were spaceships convert by turning into swords and bows and things like that, and having the antagonist from their universe chase them into the protagonists' universe. But it's basically something they could only do using the death throes of their home world to provide the energy needed for transport. Is that a 'limited' or 'true' multiverse?

(Also, I think for this, it'd be better if we in general talk about 'how we would write one', because assuming incompetency to writers doing one thing but not another is just expressing a bias. If you're a lazy setting author, be a lazy setting author for both types and compare; if you're not a lazy setting author, assume both types will be done to the same level of care)

If you had such worlds and defined the interactions, it'd be a true multiverse. Because the "no conversion or adaptation necessary" is kinda core to the whole limited part. The ability to just drop in a spaceship from X or a character from Y without adjusting either them or the universe to fit.

And it's mostly an implementation issue, not a possibility issue. Limited multiverses arise, from what I can tell, because the author for whatever reason (could be laziness, could be choice, doesn't matter) decides not to go all the way. They want to have the freedom-of-writing of an isolated setting (not worrying about interaction terms with other settings and not having to enumerate those interactions) with the expansiveness of a true multiverse. As a result, it's an awkward (to me) hybrid of the two. And frequently, the "multiverse" part is bolted on aftermarket, not a core piece of the setting.

The Slayers example is a true multiverse IMO--the authors did the work to deal with "how is <alien thing X> represented in <setting that doesn't allow for it>." Interactions happen with well-defined, consistent parameters. On the other hand, crossovers (official or fan fiction) often betray a "limited multiverse" mode of thinking--take the "would Star Trek or Star Wars win" debates--they're impossible to determine because the interactions aren't specified. Neither system works in the other's frame, so it's all entirely down to the free choice of how whoever's running this thing decides they can interact.

Same with things like "D&D wizard comes to real!Earth". It ends up doing justice to neither D&D nor reality.

What I'm saying is that they'd be better off, in every single case I've ever seen, going one way or the other. Pick a course and see it to the end, don't try to do both, half-way.

[NichG]

If you had such worlds and defined the interactions, it'd be a true multiverse. Because the "no conversion or adaptation necessary" is kinda core to the whole limited part. The ability to just drop in a spaceship from X or a character from Y without adjusting either them or the universe to fit.

And it's mostly an implementation issue, not a possibility issue. Limited multiverses arise, from what I can tell, because the author for whatever reason (could be laziness, could be choice, doesn't matter) decides not to go all the way. They want to have the freedom-of-writing of an isolated setting (not worrying about interaction terms with other settings and not having to enumerate those interactions) with the expansiveness of a true multiverse. As a result, it's an awkward (to me) hybrid of the two. And frequently, the "multiverse" part is bolted on aftermarket, not a core piece of the setting.

The Slayers example is a true multiverse IMO--the authors did the work to deal with "how is <alien thing X> represented in <setting that doesn't allow for it>." Interactions happen with well-defined, consistent parameters. On the other hand, crossovers (official or fan fiction) often betray a "limited multiverse" mode of thinking--take the "would Star Trek or Star Wars win" debates--they're impossible to determine because the interactions aren't specified. Neither system works in the other's frame, so it's all entirely down to the free choice of how whoever's running this thing decides they can interact.

Same with things like "D&D wizard comes to real!Earth". It ends up doing justice to neither D&D nor reality.

What I'm saying is that they'd be better off, in every single case I've ever seen, going one way or the other. Pick a course and see it to the end, don't try to do both, half-way.

I'm not sure this is really a separate category then, rather than just being a subjective call about how much the approach that a given author, GM, etc took towards something ends up feeling coherent or not.

Like, one view of the Slayers/Lost Universe thing is 'aha, unified cosmology, stuff makes sense'. Another view is that the author had two parallel stories they were working on and wanted to do a cameo because the one ended, so made a crossover arc. But when they thought about having spaceships descend on their high magic fantasy setting, they thought 'hm, that doesn't look good to me; I know, lightsabers are a thing where sci-fi and fantasy meet, lets just make the spaceships be lightsabers instead; oh and we had a sword of light thing in the fantasy story already, so lets say that was secretly one of these alien artifacts all along and there's our hook'.

Without being the author (or without the author actually saying what their thought process was), it feels like different people could make that call either way, based on their mood, how much a fan they were of the works in general, etc.

[Psyren]

And I didn't say can only happen, merely does only happen

I can't think of any of those either. Any examples?


except that for multiversal planar travel to have been enough to have any arbitrary race present in any particular campaign, it had to have been pervasive. Yet the rest of the world is utterly unchanged by that. That's what I meant by not doing the hard work--the existence of such pervasive travel should have changed the setting tremendously by its very nature. Yet...it had no effect other than "weird people who have no ties to the rest of the setting show up but aren't remarkable or interesting or have any cultural/metaphysical ties".

"Any" is not the same as "every." Dragonlance example:


DM: "During the Age of Might, magical empires such as Istar were capable of great magical feats, even reaching across the multiverse to other worlds to obtain unheard-of artifacts, spells, and even enclaves of exotic races - some of which may have even managed to survive the Cataclysm in remote areas.

Players: "Okay, makes sense. Which races came through and managed to survive the Cataclysm?"

DM: (smiling slyly) "Bob and Jill, which nonstandard races did you want to make characters from again?"
Essentially, you don't have to open the floodgates and say literally everything from Autognomes to Yuan-Ti can be found in Krynn. But you can say "It just so happens that Bob's Goliath and Jill's Eladrin were among the isolated pockets that survived to the current era. Here's what you two know about the world's history..."

And of course, nothing is forcing you to allow any nonstandard races, you can still say no if a player wants to be a Plasmoid - but WotC has done enough legwork to help playgroups who want to use the books they paid for and just want help with a pretext.

[Mastikator]

Why? None of this is necessary for a cosmology, at best it's set dressing. You don't need a grand reason for fiends to want to fight each other beyond simply being different; hell, you don't need a reason for them to fight each other at all. And plenty of official settings have neither Gith nor Limbo.

Bro if you don't think set dressing is necessary then that's really what we disagree about. I think set dressing is necessary. I think the DMG should tell you how to make set dressing for cosmology. I think we're at an impasse and will have to agree to disagree.

[Psyren]

Bro if you don't think set dressing is necessary then that's really what we disagree about. I think set dressing is necessary. I think the DMG should tell you how to make set dressing for cosmology. I think we're at an impasse and will have to agree to disagree.

And I'm glad it doesn't, so sure, agree to disagree it is. There's entirely too much chaff in that book as it stands, and not enough dev time spent on the DM gameplay chapter.

I feel as though what you're describing would be a better fit for a "Manual of the Planes" anyway.

[Mechalich]

Essentially, you don't have to open the floodgates and say literally everything from Autognomes to Yuan-Ti can be found in Krynn. But you can say "It just so happens that Bob's Goliath and Jill's Eladrin were among the isolated pockets that survived to the current era. Here's what you two know about the world's history..."


If you do this though, you have to make it clear that the players are running isolated rarities and that both their characters and the rest of the world will react accordingly. Note that accordingly, in a quasi-medieval setting, often means 'pitchforks and torches.'

In many ways this is often the core problem with this kind of thing. A lot of players want a double-standard weighted in their favor: they want to be able to play something that, in-setting, is weird, but they don't want their characters, in-setting, to be treated as weird.

[Telok]

In many ways this is often the core problem with this kind of thing. A lot of players want a double-standard weighted in their favor: they want to be able to play something that, in-setting, is weird, but they don't want their characters, in-setting, to be treated as weird.

Alternately, when/if I play something weird in a closer to faux-medieval setting, then I'm looking for the pitchforks & torches. I get disappointed when its treated as "human but dyed green hair" because the DM is all "oh its a once off planar blah blah blah" bull **** job.

But that's more for a game that says "all these creatures & classes are on the table" and has a setting where it says "spellcasters are rare & demons are kill-on-sight" yet pushes adventures & stuff saying a party of half-demon drunken chaos-magic necromancers & death cult priests as normal & won't raise eyebrows.

[Mastikator]

And I'm glad it doesn't, so sure, agree to disagree it is. There's entirely too much chaff in that book as it stands, and not enough dev time spent on the DM gameplay chapter.

I feel as though what you're describing would be a better fit for a "Manual of the Planes" anyway.

It's a part of world building, something a DM often has to do even if running an established setting. The DMG has an entire chapter called "Creating the multiverse" and then goes on to not deliver on that title and instead just spoon feeds the DM with example planes. Does the DMG explain the themes, design choices, purpose of these planes? No. That whole chapter could've gone into a Manual of the Planes book, but the DMG ought to have a guide world building.

The DMG should equip the DM with what they need to run a fully fledged homebrew setting. Those tools are often needed when running an established setting anyway.

If you want to run a planar campaign the DMG should've given you the tools to world build and campaign build that plane, be it fernia, beastlands, astral plane or something the DM invented.

Edit- I'll give you an example of why I think worldbuilding is a necessary part of DMing. I'm running a campaign set in Eberron during the last war, i.e before the day of mourning. The players are soldiers of breland. In their latest session they ran a heist mission to steal a McGuffin from the castle in Making. There's enough information in E:RftlW and the DMG to create Making from whole cloth.
However if I wanted to run a Decent into Limbo campaign there isn't. Not because the info on Limbo is scarce, that's fine. What's scarce is info on how to expand on Limbo so I can run a campaign there is. I probably could do it on account of my vast experience, but the DMG offers no help.

[Psyren]

If you do this though, you have to make it clear that the players are running isolated rarities and that both their characters and the rest of the world will react accordingly. Note that accordingly, in a quasi-medieval setting, often means 'pitchforks and torches.'

In many ways this is often the core problem with this kind of thing. A lot of players want a double-standard weighted in their favor: they want to be able to play something that, in-setting, is weird, but they don't want their characters, in-setting, to be treated as weird.

I think the "pitchforks and torches" response is vastly overdone and frankly one-dimensional (no pun intended). D&D worlds are quasi-medieval in broad aesthetic, sure - but ultimately they're still very magical worlds, even in eras of comparative magical decline. Even a peasant from those worlds reasonably wouldn't have to react the exact same way to the extranormal as a peasant in ours would. And that's putting aside the biggest difference between our medieval world and those of D&D which we can't even discuss in detail here, the relationship of common folk to the metaphysical.

Do I think literally every race ever printed should be allowed in every campaign under the sun? No - but I think you can broaden the offerings in most published settings beyond tradition with only a small number of true exclusions without breaking anything (both mechanically and narratively.) And furthermore, "you can play that, but I'm going to have every NPC you meet dive for the nearest pitchfork as soon as a gust of wind pushes your hood back" is just a roundabout way of banning something while pretending to be inclusive about it as far as I'm concerned.


Does the DMG explain the themes, design choices, purpose of these planes? No.

I see all of these things in my DMG :smallconfused: Maybe they don't elaborate on these to the level of detail you seem to want, but they're there.


The DMG should equip the DM with what they need to run a fully fledged homebrew setting. Those tools are often needed when running an established setting anyway.
...
Edit- I'll give you an example of why I think worldbuilding is a necessary part of DMing. I'm running a campaign set in Eberron during the last war, i.e before the day of mourning. The players are soldiers of breland. In their latest session they ran a heist mission to steal a McGuffin from the castle in Making. There's enough information in E:RftlW and the DMG to create Making from whole cloth.
However if I wanted to run a Decent into Limbo campaign there isn't. Not because the info on Limbo is scarce, that's fine. What's scarce is info on how to expand on Limbo so I can run a campaign there is. I probably could do it on account of my vast experience, but the DMG offers no help.

"Fully fledged?" I disagree, the DMG is more than bloated enough already. Even in your "good example" you acknowledge that you needed more than just the DMG itself to craft one part of one former city - and that's not even creating a country, much less a plane or a whole cosmology. That's fine.

[Mastikator]

"Fully fledged?" I disagree, the DMG is more than bloated enough already. Even in your "good example" you acknowledge that you needed more than just the DMG itself to craft one part of one former city - and that's not even creating a country, much less a plane or a whole cosmology. That's fine.

That was to make it consistent with the setting. Which tells me Making used to house the headquarters of House Phiarlan, had a stronghold for House Cannith, etc. I could've just made a generic town with a generic castle, to make it a major town in the kingdom of Cyre with all the Eberron-y stuff I wanted, the book E:rftlW provided (as it should, that's what it's for, I think it delivers).

It's not about creating the whole country, I don't really need to do that. But I do need to be able to do should the need arise. And I can. The DMG gives enough advice on how to make countries, the setting book gives enough info on how to make that country the ancient seat of the kingdom of Galifar. All is well.

So if I want to run a Decent into Hades, do I just do what I did with a prime material campaign? Why house it in Hades at all then? What's different with Hades from the prime material plane? Aren't the outer planes related to philosophy? If it's all the same then why bother?

[Psyren]

That was to make it consistent with the setting. Which tells me Making used to house the headquarters of House Phiarlan, had a stronghold for House Cannith, etc. I could've just made a generic town with a generic castle, to make it a major town in the kingdom of Cyre with all the Eberron-y stuff I wanted, the book E:rftlW provided (as it should, that's what it's for, I think it delivers).

I have no problem with campaign setting books delivering campaign setting information; I want WotC to make more of them in fact. But that's not the DMG's job. And for me at least, the DMG does give enough to build "generic castle in generic town" on its own.

Edit to your edit:



So if I want to run a Decent into Hades, do I just do what I did with a prime material campaign? Why house it in Hades at all then? What's different with Hades from the prime material plane? Aren't the outer planes related to philosophy? If it's all the same then why bother?

The DMG can't tell you what you want to get out of a "Descent into Hades" campaign. The word itself carries vastly different connotations depending on mythology, none of which I can discuss here, so all the DMG can really tell you is "here are some traits of the basic D&D version" - which it does.

[MoiMagnus]

And furthermore, "you can play that, but I'm going to have every NPC you meet dive for the nearest pitchfork as soon as a gust of wind pushes your hood back" is just a roundabout way of banning something while pretending to be inclusive about it as far as I'm concerned.

Yes. And it can be much worse than a ban if the remaining of the table is not into that kind of gameplay. The other players might not want to have to handle having a teammate being hunted at sight. And they'll either bend to the social pressure and reluctantly accept them as part of their team, or will start PvP at the first session, none of them being a good thing IMO.

Unless literally everyone around the table is ok with it, the GM should ban the backstory "I brutally murdered the king's daughter in plain sight last month so I'm a wanted criminal with my face everywhere." and similarly ban races that would yield a similar result.

[Satinavian]

Alternately, when/if I play something weird in a closer to faux-medieval setting, then I'm looking for the pitchforks & torches. I get disappointed when its treated as "human but dyed green hair" because the DM is all "oh its a once off planar blah blah blah" bull **** job.

But that's more for a game that says "all these creatures & classes are on the table" and has a setting where it says "spellcasters are rare & demons are kill-on-sight" yet pushes adventures & stuff saying a party of half-demon drunken chaos-magic necromancers & death cult priests as normal & won't raise eyebrows.

Well, it really should depend a lot on the setting. "Quasi medieval" is not exact enough. If it has regular incursions of randomly strange looking guys (fey heritage, cosmetic magic, pacts etc.), people who look strange in a slightly different way might not actually be recognized as new species.

Furthermore, the less interconnected the setting is, the sooner anything can be explained as being from a foreign land without people noticing something wrong. Especially when the character in question also has a heavy accent and is clothed in strange fashion.

And the more interconnected it is, the less exotic it becomes. In a metropolis at the meeting point of 5 intercontinental trade routes, no one will bat an eye for some strange hair or skin color.

The torches and pitchforks are mostly appropriate for if something matches/is similar to a known evil, not if it is just new.


But setting all that aside, there are even more things to consider for the appropriate reaction to some strange PC. Namely their companions. And their perceived social status. In a stratified society reactions will vary greatly on the latter. And again, garb and equipment will be a great hint.


But all official D&D settings are so horrible at being "quasi-medieval" that nothing of this really applies.

[Psyren]

Yes. And it can be much worse than a ban if the remaining of the table is not into that kind of gameplay. The other players might not want to have to handle having a teammate being hunted at sight. And they'll either bend to the social pressure and reluctantly accept them as part of their team, or will start PvP at the first session, none of them being a good thing IMO.

Unless literally everyone around the table is ok with it, the GM should ban the backstory "I brutally murdered the king's daughter in plain sight last month so I'm a wanted criminal with my face everywhere." and similarly ban races that would yield a similar result.

Hell, as the GM I would get bored with trying to make everyone you meet freak out too.

I'm not saying the player should expect a warm or even blase reception everywhere they go. People gawking or even acting aloof or unfriendly may be common. But angry mobs as the first resort is just a ban pretending not to be one.

Also, what Satinavian said.

[Mastikator]

I have no problem with campaign setting books delivering campaign setting information; I want WotC to make more of them in fact. But that's not the DMG's job. And for me at least, the DMG does give enough to build "generic castle in generic town" on its own.

Yes. I am happy about the non-planar world building in the DMG. I think it should be there, even if it makes the DMG bloated. I'd rather have a big book that gives me all the info I need and then some, than a smaller one that doesn't give me the info I need. That's not what I'm arguing about. I'm giving that example as an example of what the DMG does right, to contrast with what it does not right.


Edit to your edit:
The DMG can't tell you what you want to get out of a "Descent into Hades" campaign. The word itself carries vastly different connotations depending on mythology, none of which I can discuss here, so all the DMG can really tell you is "here are some traits of the basic D&D version" - which it does.

Forget Hades. It's just an example. Pick any plane in the DMG. How do I expand on that plane to make it work as a campaign setting. How do I make it different than just another prime material plane campaign setting? How do I write adventures set in a plane that is based on philosophy rather than natural physics? And if there's no difference, why bother setting a campaign (or side quest) in another plane?
It's not your job to answer these questions Psyren, it's the DMGs. If the DMG is going to write a whole lot of pages about the multiverse and a long list of planes then they should serve a purpose. Otherwise just remove the whole chapter from the book. Declare that planes don't need to matter. You could just say that fiends come from the bad deeds of people, celestials come from the good deeds of people, elementals are a fundamental part of the prime material plane and call it a day. If they don't matter, then they shouldn't exist.
And if they DO exist then I want the option to go there, the DMG should tell the DM how to write an adventure for another plane, and how to make that adventure feel like it's really in that plane. It's not an insurmountable task, I know how to do that. Someone wrote Decent into Avernus so they must know how to make a campaign set in another plane and make it feel like it's not just another prime material campaign.

Here's an example:

Any DM that has read the DMG and the MM could write Lost Mines of Phindelver, they have all the tools to invent that adventure. Any DM that has read the DMG and MM could not write Decent into <insert plane here>, not just with those books, and they should.

[Psyren]

Yes. I am happy about the non-planar world building in the DMG. I think it should be there, even if it makes the DMG bloated. I'd rather have a big book that gives me all the info I need and then some, than a smaller one that doesn't give me the info I need. That's not what I'm arguing about. I'm giving that example as an example of what the DMG does right, to contrast with what it does not right.

That it does not give you all the info you feel YOU need, does not mean it isn't doing it right.



Forget Hades. It's just an example. Pick any plane in the DMG. How do I expand on that plane to make it work as a campaign setting.

Why should the DMG specifically enable that? Do you really think the audience demanding to "make any outer plane a campaign setting" is that big, that that needs to be core? I don't.

[Telok]

Well, it really should depend a lot on the setting. "Quasi medieval" is not exact enough. If it has regular incursions of randomly strange looking guys (fey heritage, cosmetic magic, pacts etc.), people who look strange in a slightly different way might not actually be recognized as new species.

I'm not talking about "person with green hair" type critters being treated thay way. I'm talking about that it annoys me when every character is treated that way, and I find that more and more common in game books these days. Its just become widely expected that the player show up with anything in an official book and it gets treated like a person with their hair dyed a funny color.

If the official setting has a faux-medieval write up, says spellcasters/cyborgs/super mutants or whatever are rare & mistrusted, then the rest of the books & adventures push on the GM that having a PC party of all that plus weirder is normal and doesn't cause any issues. That's incoherent **** setting building and pushes DMs towards incoherent **** setting building. If a setting has demons that are human+bright red+horns & hooves+go on fireball arson rampages & eat humans... I'd bloody well expect a tiefling PC bright red+hooves & horns+casts fireball in public to get more reaction in some backwater town than "oh it's just another guy with bad sunburn".

Like the current D&D 5e Dragonlance stuff, it says you're just fine with a whole party of warforged, dragonborn, and tiefling clerics & warlocks right from day one. Nothing about those race/class combos does anything other than a minor generic 'you getz powah!' scene for clerics and a weak recruiting attempt for the warlocks. By the setting stuff a bunch of unknown rogue spellcasters, of outright either not-a-real-person or evil monster looks, should not be met with a yawn like it's any other band of travelers wandering into some minor backwater town on your normal Thursday. But that's what that book, and in similar most of the main line rpg books, are pushing. Incoherent **** setting building.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm not talking about "person with green hair" type critters being treated thay way. I'm talking about that it annoys me when every character is treated that way, and I find that more and more common in game books these days. Its just become widely expected that the player show up with anything in an official book and it gets treated like a person with their hair dyed a funny color.

If the official setting has a faux-medieval write up, says spellcasters/cyborgs/super mutants or whatever are rare & mistrusted, then the rest of the books & adventures push on the GM that having a PC party of all that plus weirder is normal and doesn't cause any issues. That's incoherent **** setting building and pushes DMs towards incoherent **** setting building. If a setting has demons that are human+bright red+horns & hooves+go on fireball arson rampages & eat humans... I'd bloody well expect a tiefling PC bright red+hooves & horns+casts fireball in public to get more reaction in some backwater town than "oh it's just another guy with bad sunburn".

Like the current D&D 5e Dragonlance stuff, it says you're just fine with a whole party of warforged, dragonborn, and tiefling clerics & warlocks right from day one. Nothing about those race/class combos does anything other than a minor generic 'you getz powah!' scene for clerics and a weak recruiting attempt for the warlocks. By the setting stuff a bunch of unknown rogue spellcasters, of outright either not-a-real-person or evil monster looks, should not be met with a yawn like it's any other band of travelers wandering into some minor backwater town on your normal Thursday. But that's what that book, and in similar most of the main line rpg books, are pushing. Incoherent **** setting building.

Exactly. Either those things are rare and should get reactions of some sort (which should cover the spectrum) or they're common and need to be built into the worldbuilding. The current "advice" (in scare quotes because it's basically "hey man, just...pick something") does neither--it just makes an incoherent mess. Which is fine if all you care about with a setting is that it's set dressing, a potemkin village of flat storefronts and paper NPCs to fill the gap between fights. But that's something I can't tolerate in a TTRPG or other work of fiction, personally. But seems more and more to be the preferred style. Lore? Internal consistency? Who cares, just go out and do your flashy superhero moves on monsters and save the world from threats that didn't make any sense in the first place.

[Psyren]

Like the current D&D 5e Dragonlance stuff, it says you're just fine with a whole party of warforged, dragonborn, and tiefling clerics & warlocks right from day one.

Where does it say this?



Nothing about those race/class combos does anything other than a minor generic 'you getz powah!' scene for clerics and a weak recruiting attempt for the warlocks. By the setting stuff a bunch of unknown rogue spellcasters, of outright either not-a-real-person or evil monster looks, should not be met with a yawn like it's any other band of travelers wandering into some minor backwater town on your normal Thursday.

Even if for some reason you allow a party with nonstandard/exotic races, there's a great deal of daylight between "meet with a yawn" and "pitchforks on sight." Race choice can matter without being a de facto ban.

[Satinavian]

I'm not talking about "person with green hair" type critters being treated thay way. I'm talking about that it annoys me when every character is treated that way, and I find that more and more common in game books these days. Its just become widely expected that the player show up with anything in an official book and it gets treated like a person with their hair dyed a funny color.

If the official setting has a faux-medieval write up, says spellcasters/cyborgs/super mutants or whatever are rare & mistrusted, then the rest of the books & adventures push on the GM that having a PC party of all that plus weirder is normal and doesn't cause any issues. That's incoherent **** setting building and pushes DMs towards incoherent **** setting building. If a setting has demons that are human+bright red+horns & hooves+go on fireball arson rampages & eat humans... I'd bloody well expect a tiefling PC bright red+hooves & horns+casts fireball in public to get more reaction in some backwater town than "oh it's just another guy with bad sunburn".
Does that really contradict anything i wrote ? No, it doesn't.
Hyperbole does not really help bringing your point across as the answer always should be nuanced and take the exact situation into account.


Personally i really would like to see more official settings without any humans, but that probably won't happen.

[icefractal]

What exactly are these realistic-medieval settings where non-humans are so rare as to cause pitchfork-wielding mobs on sight? Because that doesn't seem to describe any first-party published setting I've seen. Not that a GM couldn't have their own home setting, but at that point they're the one running it and can choose what characters to let in. And for that matter, in such a setting, the typical PC "heavily armed wanderers with no sworn allegiance" group isn't going to be trusted at all either.

I mean personally, for fantasy settings I prefer severely limited global communication - no internet equivalent. Which means that the vast majority of people in the setting don't have complete knowledge of what's "natural" in the world. Anyone from outside the local area is going to be potentially weird and distrusted, but a Shifter isn't necessarily going to stand out as "weirder" than a Dwarf - they're both strange humanoids you (a small-town cooper) have never seen before.

And in terms of response to that weirdness, I don't find torches and pitchforks realistic as a default reaction. Because most D&D villages would be wiped out if they followed that protocol. Most D&D settings are not safe places - they have powerful and dangerous beings roaming around that could massacre the average village if provoked. And some of those beings are (or can look) human, so really anyone unfamiliar is distrust-worthy, but also potentially very dangerous to fight. The more powerful settlements that could muster an army/militia capable of handling those beings are also more likely to have a sage who can tell the difference.

So TL;DR - xenophobia more likely manifests as caution and avoidance than it does mobbing up. And while an extreme appearance like "on fire and covered in spikes" will get a more extreme reaction, general "not being a human" usually only hits the usual "not from around here" level of distrust.

[PhoenixPhyre]

What exactly are these realistic-medieval settings where non-humans are so rare as to cause pitchfork-wielding mobs on sight? Because that doesn't seem to describe any first-party published setting I've seen. Not that a GM couldn't have their own home setting, but at that point they're the one running it and can choose what characters to let in. And for that matter, in such a setting, the typical PC "heavily armed wanderers with no sworn allegiance" group isn't going to be trusted at all either.

I mean personally, for fantasy settings I prefer severely limited global communication - no internet equivalent. Which means that the vast majority of people in the setting don't have complete knowledge of what's "natural" in the world. Anyone from outside the local area is going to be potentially weird and distrusted, but a Shifter isn't necessarily going to stand out as "weirder" than a Dwarf - they're both strange humanoids you (a small-town cooper) have never seen before.

And in terms of response to that weirdness, I don't find torches and pitchforks realistic as a default reaction. Because most D&D villages would be wiped out if they followed that protocol. Most D&D settings are not safe places - they have powerful and dangerous beings roaming around that could massacre the average village if provoked. And some of those beings are (or can look) human, so really anyone unfamiliar is distrust-worthy, but also potentially very dangerous to fight. The more powerful settlements that could muster an army/militia capable of handling those beings are also more likely to have a sage who can tell the difference.

So TL;DR - xenophobia more likely manifests as caution and avoidance than it does mobbing up. And while an extreme appearance like "on fire and covered in spikes" will get a more extreme reaction, general "not being a human" usually only hits the usual "not from around here" level of distrust.

Human or non-human isn't the issue. It's rare for that area that matters. If you're the only walking-metal-person-with-glowing-eyes that anyone's ever seen or heard of, you should get lots of reactions. Same if you're the only human anyone has seen in an area full of spiky flame-covered people. Those may span the spectrum, but should
a) be significant (not just "oh yeah, another weirdo")
b) and alter how people act toward you.

The issue, for me, is that this inevitably warps the campaign. If you don't have NPCs react to it, you've made your setting (more) incoherent. If you do react to it enough to avoid that, then you're stuck with a very different campaign than you'd otherwise have. Now it's going to be at least significantly about "how people react to metal bob" instead of whatever the campaign concept was before. It's the same fundamental issue with Protagonist Syndrome and backstories like "I'm the special chosen one who everyone accepts as the Next Big Thing." It can work, but you have to get full buy in that the campaign will revolve around that one person and their weirdness at least to a significant degree. If that doesn't happen, it's on par with a campaign hijack attempt, a "look at me, let's talk all about me" attempt. Intended or not. Intended makes it worse, but unintended still has negative consequences that everyone has to deal with.

[Mastikator]

That it does not give you all the info you feel YOU need, does not mean it isn't doing it right.

Not sure I understand this argument. Am I uniquely unqualified to have an opinion on the DMG?



Why should the DMG specifically enable that? Do you really think the audience demanding to "make any outer plane a campaign setting" is that big, that that needs to be core? I don't.

Because it has a chapter on the multiverse. It should either enable the multiverse to be of use in a campaign- of actual use that is, or be removed. Just listing a bunch of planes is bloat.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Because it has a chapter on the multiverse. It should either enable the multiverse to be of use in a campaign- of actual use that is, or be removed. Just listing a bunch of planes is bloat.

Not to mention "multiverse" and "planes" are orthogonal to each other. The planes could very much part of one universe. And don't have to be connected to any other possible setting. In fact, it's that very "you can travel through the planes to all the other settings" part that causes the issues (for me). Because it demands that their planes and your planes be the same planes. Which removes 90% of the possible variation, because all the interesting variation involves different metaphysics. Which is foreclosed by "all the planes must be the same planes".

[Telok]

Does that really contradict anything i wrote ? No, it doesn't.
Hyperbole does not really help bringing your point across as the answer always should be nuanced and take the exact situation into account.


Personally i really would like to see more official settings without any humans, but that probably won't happen.

What you wrote that I quoted was "well it depends on the setting", and that I agree with. But you ought to note that I was after that talking about the crappy setting implementations you're seeing out of the major players these days (not all settings, but most at least). Starfinder or Spelljammer? Absolutely set up for an "anything goes" and generally handles it decently. Dragonlance? That's a setting where a dragonborn warlock unaffiliated with the wizard police factions absolutely should be either fled from (normal people) or killed on sight or at least serious hostility and mistrust (levelled warrior nobles & non-renegade casters). Instead there's apparently another blank "dm makes it all up" pass the buck sidebar and nothing is ever mentioned again.

So, no hyperbole. And as you say, you didn't contradict anything I said.

[Psyren]

@icefractal: correct.


Not sure I understand this argument. Am I uniquely unqualified to have an opinion on the DMG?

It wasn't phrased as an opinion so I wasn't sure.


Because it has a chapter on the multiverse. It should either enable the multiverse to be of use in a campaign- of actual use that is, or be removed. Just listing a bunch of planes is bloat.

Point; I don't think the definition of "Multiverse" they used back in 2014 quite matches the direction the game is going in today when it uses that term. That chapter might have been more accurately titled "Creating a Cosmology." But I see that as a pretty minor adjustment in the grand scheme of things.


Human or non-human isn't the issue. It's rare for that area that matters. If you're the only walking-metal-person-with-glowing-eyes that anyone's ever seen or heard of, you should get lots of reactions. Same if you're the only human anyone has seen in an area full of spiky flame-covered people. Those may span the spectrum, but should
a) be significant (not just "oh yeah, another weirdo")
b) and alter how people act toward you.

The issue, for me, is that this inevitably warps the campaign.

There is a middle ground between "allow every extreme" and "ban everything that might be considered rare."


Dragonlance? That's a setting where a dragonborn warlock unaffiliated with the wizard police factions absolutely should be either fled from (normal people) or killed on sight or at least serious hostility and mistrust (levelled warrior nobles & non-renegade casters). Instead there's apparently another blank "dm makes it all up" pass the buck sidebar and nothing is ever mentioned again.

Dragonborn might provoke a reaction at first glance, but they have a number of physical differences from Draconians - most notably the lack of wings and tails. Again, if you want to ban them do so, but WotC isn't wrong for saying "they could work as PCs here if your playgroup is interested, here's how."

[PhoenixPhyre]

There is a middle ground between "allow every extreme" and "ban everything that might be considered rare."


Yes, yes there is. But I've been consistently arguing for that middle ground. And against the one extreme that the developers are doing their darndest to push (everything goes, everything is included by default).

Personally, my own setting has...a crap ton of races. But I also have done the work to know how any given race will be seen in any given area, and it differs by race and area. And know which races don't exist at all in various areas. And which cultures of those races exist in which areas. And discuss that information extensively with the entire party at session 0. That's the required step that the devs aren't helping with (and are actively fighting against)--doing the actual worldbuilding. Not just saying "meh, doesn't matter, just shove them in so players can play whatever they want for their sacred 'character concept'".

[gbaji]

My character is from Earth. Please retcon that this is a post-scarcity world of peace and prosperity, filled with intelligent, caring, immortal beings.

I take it back - this is the best argument for a restricted multiverse. Never mind that it ruins the concept of a character from a world with one implementation of HP getting used to a world with a different implementation, GM’s, get on it with the retcon of Earth! :smallcool:

Ok. You took an extremely round about way of answering my question as to whether we were speaking of different game settings vs different game systems. You seem to be wanting to play another character from a different game system, but insist that the existing game system (that's the actual rules and game mechanics used to resolve things in the game) be changed/adjusted/whatever to conform to what you/your-character think is "more realistic".

Er. And your examples, while verbose, fail at one very important thing: You fail to describe the "game system" your character comes from, and which is "better" than the one in the world he finds himself in. You spend a ridiculous amount of time describing (in 4th wall breaking mode) the strangeness of the game system you find yourself in, and your steps in examining them. But what "rules" does the world you and/or your character come from use? It's all well and good to roleplay a 4th wall breaking self-aware PC in a game world (though not my personal preference at all), but your original statement was that the GM should somehow adopt the "physics" (which I will also interpret as "game rules") from your own world because they are "better", but that's a completely useless argument if you haven't bothered to actually define these "better game rules". It's not enough to say something isn't "good enough". You have to provide something that is "better". Eternally comparing what exists to an imaginary and undefined "perfection" is a recipe for silliness IMO.

And as a couple posters have stated, "roleplaying" your character is precisely about playing it as though it's a real living breathing person distinct from yourself and which "lives in" the world you are playing in. What you are describing isn't that.

Er. Additional side note. I challenge you to come up with any set of experiments you could devise to prove that you, the actual person reading this right now, do not also live in a D20 (or D100) game system. What experiments did your character perform to conclude that skills were resolved using a D20? You do get that, barring a card resolution method (with the cards reshuffled only after the deck has been exhausted, which isn't normal anyway) would you ever get skill outcome results that are always exactly "X in N". Attempt a skill you have the default "1" in, and it's not like every 20 attempts you succeed once. It's a statistical outcome, never going to be exactly 5%.

Your character would realistically have no clue that they were in a game, nor what "rules" defined it. It would feel "real" to them. That's kind of the point of roleplaying in the first place. You, the player know the rules. That's not the same thing (well, again, outside of the GM allowing for self aware characters like you describe, which is a pretty rare exception).


Nope, don't see any connection. Roleplaying and distinguising between character and player perspective are concepts that are valid regardless from where the character comes.
I already pointed out that rules tend to be abstractions. If your character does look very closely, he won't find the rulebook rules because that is not really how the world works. Only very very roughly.

This. 100x this. The assumption is that the game rules are abstractions to model a "real world". It's supposed to be and feel real to the character. That the player knows the rules is a separate issue.



No, i wouldn't. I might rethink my religion with this whole reborn stuff, though.
Fourth wall breaking only makes sense if there is an audience.
Do you know what usually happens at any of my tables when such setting dissonance pops up ?

The players debate how to handle it. Never the characters. The dissonace gets resolved out of game, via a new houserule or some retcon or a gentlemens agreement to never interact with it. The PCs will never encounter a setting dissonance.

Yup. When a game rule needs to be re-visited, the players and GM discuss it. The characters should never be aware of this, because they aren't aware that they're playing in a game, nor what the "rules" of that game are. They just know that "magic works this way", and "combat works this way", because that's "natural" to them.



What exactly are these realistic-medieval settings where non-humans are so rare as to cause pitchfork-wielding mobs on sight? Because that doesn't seem to describe any first-party published setting I've seen. Not that a GM couldn't have their own home setting, but at that point they're the one running it and can choose what characters to let in. And for that matter, in such a setting, the typical PC "heavily armed wanderers with no sworn allegiance" group isn't going to be trusted at all either.

I mean personally, for fantasy settings I prefer severely limited global communication - no internet equivalent. Which means that the vast majority of people in the setting don't have complete knowledge of what's "natural" in the world. Anyone from outside the local area is going to be potentially weird and distrusted, but a Shifter isn't necessarily going to stand out as "weirder" than a Dwarf - they're both strange humanoids you (a small-town cooper) have never seen before.

Yeah. I think there's been a lot of conversation about how to introduce "odd races/characters" into a setting. And, of course, it's going to be setting dependent, but I think that most can handle it just fine. Certainly in a setting where there isn't global communications and easy travel, most people will see a "strange person" entering their town, and have no specific additional reaction (or knowledge) as to whether this is a strange race of people from a distant land in the current universe/plane/dimension/whatever, or some other race/thing from a completely different universe. It's just "something we haven't seen in these parts before", and the age-old explanation of "he's from a distant land" works just fine.

Now, that doesn't preclude that this particular town is maybe xenophobic or something and is going to react poorly. But that might be just as true if your character was a dwarf in a land where dwarves don't live (but are readily playable in the setting), versus if it was a planar/dimension traveling Gith variant or something even more exotic.


I forgot to quote the bit, but someone posted earlier about different ways of handling multiverses. I think that, in most cases, if you're going to allow character porting at all (which is something I tend to push back on anyway), you actually port the character to the game system you are playing. Trying to do otherwise is going to be an exercise in failure and futility and will satisfy no one. But yeah, that means that the player has to accept that this version of his precious character will maybe perform differently than in a different game system. But that's the nature of playing in different game systems. Otherwise, what's the point?

It's also why I strongly recommend to players to just create something new and specific to the game system and setting. Doesn't preclude playing something "out there" (again, if it can be reasonably expressed in the game rules), but I have found that trying to comply with player desires to port over a character that exists already in a different game? Almost never ends well. I will have set myself up with endless arguments with the player where they insist their character "Is an expert at X", and I have to point out that "well, X in this game requires this skill here, and you didn't take that skill when you created your character". And then the whining begins.

New game. New setting. New characters. Easy rule. Works perfectly every single time. No drama.

[Psyren]

Yes, yes there is. But I've been consistently arguing for that middle ground. And against the one extreme that the developers are doing their darndest to push (everything goes, everything is included by default).

As i told you before, there is a subtle yet material difference between "everything" and "anything."

"Any" means each setting has a built in ripcord you can pull to allow XYZ, but pulling it is still entirely your choice, even on a case by case basis.

[PhoenixPhyre]

As i told you before, there is a subtle yet material difference between "everything" and "anything."

"Any" means each setting has a built in ripcord you can pull to allow XYZ, but pulling it is still entirely your choice, even on a case by case basis.

In principle yes, but the very strong default and expectation they're building is "it exists; if you don't want it to you have to rip it out individually and you shouldn't".

[Psyren]

In principle yes, but the very strong default and expectation they're building is "it exists; if you don't want it to you have to rip it out individually and you shouldn't".

"Some nonstandard races might exist, and you get to choose exactly which ones."

[Thrudd]

I agree that D&D's default implied setting (the 'kitchen sink' which includes everything they publish) is incoherent, but it's been that way for a long time. I'd have no more problem reigning in and homebrewing 5e than I have prior editions. I guess I dont feel the way things are going are all that different now than they ever were. If we already aren't using things as-published, why does it matter that we need to continue ignoring new things that we were never going to use anyway? Pick and choose the parts you want, as always, right?

Of course, my preference these days for D&D-like is OSR homebrew anyway. 5e's already had way too much stuff in it I'd want to brew out and change. So my opinion isn't too relevant lol.

[icefractal]

Personally, my own setting has...a crap ton of races. But I also have done the work to know how any given race will be seen in any given area, and it differs by race and area. And know which races don't exist at all in various areas. And which cultures of those races exist in which areas. And discuss that information extensively with the entire party at session 0. That's the required step that the devs aren't helping with (and are actively fighting against)--doing the actual worldbuilding. So, does this mean that your campaign premise is something like "pick characters that wouldn't be too unusual for [specific region]", rather than "pick characters from [setting]"?

Because that's fine, but that's below the granularity of a setting book. I'm not seeing how "optionally, you could include Changelings in your Forgotten Realms campaign" is any more disruptive to that than "those Gnomes who follow Gond and have technological gear exist, at all" for a campaign set in a specific region where that technology is entirely absent. Both of them would be "weird outsiders who attract attention".

Maybe I'm missing something though - I've been thinking of the "[race/class] in [setting]" sidebars which have existed since at least 3E, and have always been presented as "this is how it could work if the GM/players want to do so" rather than "this is a key part of the setting now". Is it substantially different in 5E? Are there, like, published Warforged NPCs in Dark Sun adventures now?

[Psyren]

Maybe I'm missing something though - I've been thinking of the "[race/class] in [setting]" sidebars which have existed since at least 3E, and have always been presented as "this is how it could work if the GM/players want to do so" rather than "this is a key part of the setting now". Is it substantially different in 5E? Are there, like, published Warforged NPCs in Dark Sun adventures now?

Well, there are no "Dark Sun adventures" yet (not officially anyway) - and Warforged don't exist outside Eberron either. AFAICT, the only races that they're suggesting might pop up across the multiverse are the ones in core, and in books labeled as being multiversal rather than specific to one setting.

[Witty Username]

Well, there are no "Dark Sun adventures" yet (not officially anyway) - and Warforged don't exist outside Eberron either. AFAICT, the only races that they're suggesting might pop up across the multiverse are the ones in core, and in books labeled as being multiversal rather than specific to one setting.

It actually bugs me alot that Warforged are Eberron specific, when they amount to a specific type of golem, but dragonborn have to be shoehorned into every setting because they are a 'Core' race.

But that is not a new complaint, that is more that 4e was very frustrating in terms of what I understood of setting design. And stuff like dragonborn is a holdover from that edition.

[Satinavian]

It actually bugs me alot that Warforged are Eberron specific, when they amount to a specific type of golem, but dragonborn have to be shoehorned into every setting because they are a 'Core' race.

But that is not a new complaint, that is more that 4e was very frustrating in terms of what I understood of setting design. And stuff like dragonborn is a holdover from that edition.Oh yes, i really disliked how dragonborn and (widespread) tieflings were introduced forcefully everywhere in 4E as well.

But as much of this thread shows, that didn't really stick. Seems like a lot of players ignore the 4E setting upheavals and have those core races still absent or rare.

[Telok]

Maybe I'm missing something though - I've been thinking of the "[race/class] in [setting]" sidebars which have existed since at least 3E, and have always been presented as "this is how it could work if the GM/players want to do so" rather than "this is a key part of the setting now". Is it substantially different in 5E? Are there, like, published Warforged NPCs in Dark Sun adventures now?

Well that's mostly just a D&D thing, it being written all kitchen sink while its settings really kinda aren't. But I've never heard anyone say positive stuff about them aside from a "at least they put in a fig leaf" comment. Most other games don't have the same issue, being either more adaptable & having real advice (Gurps/Hero) or they're more in tune with the setting (Starfinder/CoC).... Come to think, it may even just be a WotC thing. Had an AD&D group of dwarf cleric, halfling cleric, human rogue, immature brass dragon, and a young jann. I think we were slated for the Barrier Peaks not long before something RL-ish killed the game.

On Dark Sun: Someone mentioned to me recently that WotC isn't releasing settings any more. They're releasing an adventure in a setting with slightly more notes than the adventure needs, but not really enough to run a campaign in the setting without doing nearly all the world building yourself. Which is fine if you're an old hand at world building or adapting older materials, not so much for a 'pick up and play' or doing much anything beyond the prepackaged adventure. So if we see DS... eh, cut it. This isn't the D&D forum. Anyways, adventure plus part of a setting, it sounded pretty much on target to me from all the reviews of last few releases I've read.

[Mastikator]

It actually bugs me alot that Warforged are Eberron specific, when they amount to a specific type of golem, but dragonborn have to be shoehorned into every setting because they are a 'Core' race.

But that is not a new complaint, that is more that 4e was very frustrating in terms of what I understood of setting design. And stuff like dragonborn is a holdover from that edition.

Yeah dragonborn really shouldn't be core. They're pretty exotic and belong in MPMM. Technically dragonborn can exist in any setting that features dragons and the DM allows for Fizban's draconic rebirth, but still pretty exotic and rare. Same for ardling and tiefling. Yeet them out of the core.

[Satinavian]

I don't have something against dragonborn or such as a core race. They need not be exotic, it is perfectly fine for games making them quite common or the even the most populous race. The complains only go against the heavy handed retroactive inclusion into settings that never had them.

[icefractal]

Yeah dragonborn really shouldn't be core. They're pretty exotic and belong in MPMM. Technically dragonborn can exist in any setting that features dragons and the DM allows for Fizban's draconic rebirth, but still pretty exotic and rare. Same for ardling and tiefling. Yeet them out of the core.I guess this is a YMMV kind of thing - Tieflings never struck me as all that exotic. Demons and devils exist in pretty much every setting, as does the concept of half-fiends, and a lot of sword-n-sorcery stuff has people with demonic heritage. More widespread than Halflings (where do those even show up other than LotR?) IMO.

[awa]

I guess this is a YMMV kind of thing - Tieflings never struck me as all that exotic. Demons and devils exist in pretty much every setting, as does the concept of half-fiends, and a lot of sword-n-sorcery stuff has people with demonic heritage. More widespread than Halflings (where do those even show up other than LotR?) IMO.

I think the difference is that when haflings do show up they are common and represent large basically normal communities. When half-fiends or similar analogs show up they are explicitly rare and unusual. Often feared and hated but inherently other, whether deserved or not. They only seem more common because stories deal with exceptional things, because of that I dont actually mind them being in core just mention that their rare in most settings, they can fit in the space half orcs used to of being semi shunned outsiders. (also go back to second edition version where each tiefling looked different and it was possible to hide their mutations.)

[Psyren]

It actually bugs me alot that Warforged are Eberron specific, when they amount to a specific type of golem, but dragonborn have to be shoehorned into every setting because they are a 'Core' race.

But that is not a new complaint, that is more that 4e was very frustrating in terms of what I understood of setting design. And stuff like dragonborn is a holdover from that edition.

Given that dragons are in every setting (they're right in the name!), dragonborn being in every setting is not a big stretch.

Tieflings are slightly less universal but they're popular. I'm willing to bet they're right up there with elves now, if not ahead.

From a Doylist/branding point of view, both of these races are an easy way to distinguish D&D from Tolkien visually and thematically. We were guaranteed to get at leasst one of the two in the movie.


Well that's mostly just a D&D thing, it being written all kitchen sink while its settings really kinda aren't. But I've never heard anyone say positive stuff about them aside from a "at least they put in a fig leaf" comment. Most other games don't have the same issue, being either more adaptable & having real advice (Gurps/Hero) or they're more in tune with the setting (Starfinder/CoC).... Come to think, it may even just be a WotC thing. Had an AD&D group of dwarf cleric, halfling cleric, human rogue, immature brass dragon, and a young jann. I think we were slated for the Barrier Peaks not long before something RL-ish killed the game.

It's a WotC thing because they're one of the few companies with a portfolio of prominent settings stretching back years, perhaps the only one. Most other TTRPG companies focus on a single setting because they typically have a single creative team. Even Paizo has two at most, and they're really the same setting with a timeskip.


On Dark Sun: Someone mentioned to me recently that WotC isn't releasing settings any more. They're releasing an adventure in a setting with slightly more notes than the adventure needs, but not really enough to run a campaign in the setting without doing nearly all the world building yourself. Which is fine if you're an old hand at world building or adapting older materials, not so much for a 'pick up and play' or doing much anything beyond the prepackaged adventure. So if we see DS... eh, cut it. This isn't the D&D forum. Anyways, adventure plus part of a setting, it sounded pretty much on target to me from all the reviews of last few releases I've read.

On this much we agree, I want more actual campaign settings rather than just adventure paths with a character guide and notes in the margin. That doesn't really have anything to do with presence or absence of a restricted multiverse though.

[gbaji]

It's a WotC thing because they're one of the few companies with a portfolio of prominent settings stretching back years, perhaps the only one. Most other TTRPG companies focus on a single setting because they typically have a single creative team. Even Paizo has two at most, and they're really the same setting with a timeskip.

I think it's also a part of the nature of the way D&D works as a game system. A lot of the way skills, spells, abilities, feats, whatever are handled is somewhat "by exception" rather than "by rule". Many other game systems create a set of "meta-rules" first, usually some sort of point based relative value process that determines how each thing in the game system interacts with each other thing and then they create various things (skills, spells, powers, abilities, etc) and define them based on that existing structure.

While D&D has gotten a little better over time (and I hear 4e was probably the most so in this respect, but I never played it myself), it mostly has descriptive text to describe each spell/ability/feat/whatever instead. These often do include relational numbers for effects, but the numbers themselves are really somewhat arbitrary (if provided at all). There are no meta rules, for example that say "spells of level X have Y total "points" of effect, which can be spread out over categories A, B, C, or D" or anything similar. As a result, game balance can be obtained but only by comparing different spells/abilities/etc to others within a given set.

Which is fine, except enter the different settings concept, where that balance is really only designed with other things in the same setting in mind, and you get some problems. Doubly so when you add in setting specific stuff that maybe works in that setting based on some environmental assumptions within that setting, but that may not exist or work the same in another. Or abilities that you kinda have to squint at to figure out how they interact (descriptive text can be ambiguous). The result is that some race/class abilities can be super weak in some settings or super strong in others. Which makes putting them in different settings within the game problematic.

Other game systems (Hero and GURPS spring to mind, but there are others) are designed from the get go to be multi-setting, multi-themed, multi-anything consistent. They are "generic" (it's literally the "G" in GURPS) in that it's just a system in which you can define anything you want, using consistent rules. D&D scores extremely low on the "portability of settings, time periods, tech level, and theme" scale. Yet, ironically, it has the most different settings. Probably because you actually need a nearly completely different set of "new setting specific rules" for each and every setting, which is just not required in most other game systems.

The cynic in me might speculate that this is a "problem" that the designers have no incentive to fix, because it allows them to write (and sell) a huge number of settings books that customers will have to buy, and then buy again for each new edition of the rules as well. When you create a new "thing" (creature, item, spell, whatever) in most games you balance it to the entire game system and it can immediately and automatically "fit" into any setting you chose to create using that game system. Only in D&D do you have stuff that just doesn't mesh well across settings.

Just my opinion, of course. But I do find it somewhat amusing the sheer volume of discussions people have about how to put X into Y within the D&D system, when just about every other game it's as simple as "figure out the stats, plug in abilities/powers/spells/whatever it should have, and then go from there". Easy. And once done, it'll work no matter what setting you are playing in. Want to take that gunslinger and play her in a high fantasy game setting? Done. No adjustment needed. If you've already figured out how firearms "work" in your system, then it automatically "works" (and is balanced by relative effect) in a sword and sorcery setting as well. Want giant robots, rockets, and laser beams? Same deal. Because you only have to define a "new thing" once, and then it works everywhere you use the game system. Setting doesn't really matter.

To be fair though, the positive to this is that D&D is much easier to "play out of the box". Other game systems, because they are more broadly defined as systems, requires that the GM expend a lot more work filling in the "flavor" of the setting. There is a value to having the setting filled in for you.

[KorvinStarmast]

Yes, yes there is. But I've been consistently arguing for that middle ground. And against the one extreme that the developers are doing their darndest to push (everything goes, everything is included by default).

Personally, my own setting has...a crap ton of races. My only problem is that the races have names that fit your world, and I have to keep a cheat sheet to figure out what they are some times.

I agree that D&D's default implied setting (the 'kitchen sink' which includes everything they publish) is incoherent, but it's been that way for a long time. What default setting? FR? Yes, it's incoherent.

So, does this mean that your campaign premise is something like "pick characters that wouldn't be too unusual for [specific region]", rather than "pick characters from [setting]"? Having been in two campaigns, no. The party forms their characters as a group in conjunction with the DM so that each character fits into the world in a rational fashion. I find that a refreshing approach, far superior to the kitchen sink / shoehorn approach. Each of the PCs, with a singular exception that I won't further comment upon, feel like they belong in the world. In the current campaign we've got two basically play test PC classes: (one is a Phoenix Homebrew, the other is a 3rd party homebrew that Phoenix and I worked to tone down so that it better fits his world).
The boring characters are me (Paladin/Watcher) and a Chrono Wizard.

It actually bugs me alot that Warforged are Eberron specific It makes perfect sense to me. It's where they were invented.

Oh yes, i really disliked how dragonborn and (widespread) tieflings were introduced forcefully everywhere in 4E as well. My core objection to tiefling is the mandatory {censored} aesthetics. Having some fiendish blood line is one thing (see also aasmiar) but forcing the horns/tail crap is for me the deal breaker.

I don't have something against dragonborn or such as a core race. I don't care for them at all, but as I have a couple of players who like them I am not as against them as I am against tieflings, and dragons are as bad as humans in terms of they'll mate with pretty much anyone ... :smalltongue:

[Witty Username]

It makes perfect sense to me. It's where they were invented.

Er, my complaint is more mechanical, I recognize that say, a human sized golem with some properties of living things made in the Forgotten Realms, would probably not be recognized as a warforged and be invented as a weapon of the great war that ended 2 years ago. But the concept of the being is very portable (the art project of an archmage, or a relic of some high magic empire).
Warforged as a character work in basically any setting with powerful mages, that can make golems.

And this is more in contrast to races like dragonborn, which make some tenative sense if you take the half-dragon, or dragonblooded angle (not the route taken for FR, since as I understood they are space aliens with passing resemblance to dragons that got dropped on the setting in 4e, planetary collision or something if I remember right). But it requires more effort on setting assumptions.

It is just an observation that the 'Core' race is the weird one in this context, and the specific to the wrong setting, doesn’t actually grok that bad as an inclusion. It, at least to me, calls into question the whole idea of core races and setting specific races. Even ones that are hits for a specific setting, like warforged that fit beautifully into the astectics of Eberron, or Thri-kreen, that are a great tone setter for Dark Sun.

[Psyren]

Warforged aren't too hard to justify in Faerun:

One of Faerun's many (many) antiquated superpower empires was Raumathar, which used armies of constructs to conquer a great deal of the East (the part of Faerun which would eventually become Rashemen and Thay) as well as defend themselves from rival demonic empire Narfell. Towards the end of their long war, Raumathar and Narfell opened numerous portals during their battles, culminating in Narfell summoning a demon lord (Eltab) and Raumathar eventually summoning an avatar of Kossuth (god of fire) in response. Needless to say, this was a Bad Idea and both empires and their capital cities ended up almost completely wiped out.

Some portion of Raumathar's construct armies, in the midst of all that magical cataclysm and portal shenanigans, could easily gain sentience and be warped ahead to the present day - soldiers created for a war long past, abandoned by their creators, and ending up free-willed with not the faintest clue what to do with their new-found freedom... sounds familiar.

(Hat tip to forumite hamishspence, whose Realmslore vastly exceeds my own and originally planted the seeds for this.)

[KorvinStarmast]

It is just an observation that the 'Core' race is the weird one in this context, and the specific to the wrong setting, doesn’t actually grok that bad as an inclusion. If warforged are "core" you are in Eberron. If Dragonborn are in core, where 5e PHB has it, my initial rejection of the premise was the bad taste left in my mouth by Draconians (dragonlance) but I have over time adjusted my read on that. Given the ability of various dragons to change shape, the ability to mate with a variety of other living creatures makes for some interesting permutations.

I'd rather Genasi were core than a variety of other choices given the metaphysics-basis of earth/air/water/fire elemental planes and Djinns/Efreeti/Dao/Marids and how those genie type creatures interact with humans/humanoids).
But I am not on the creative team, so that isn't how it worked out.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It is just an observation that the 'Core' race is the weird one in this context, and the specific to the wrong setting, doesn’t actually grok that bad as an inclusion. It, at least to me, calls into question the whole idea of core races and setting specific races. Even ones that are hits for a specific setting, like warforged that fit beautifully into the astectics of Eberron, or Thri-kreen, that are a great tone setter for Dark Sun.

I'm an outlier, but I think that 'Core' races should be kept as utterly generic as possible, with big flags that these are generic and won't be found as such in very many settings. Basically "Human" (all-rounder), "Elf" (nimble dude), and "Dwarf" (tough dude). Maybe "Orc" (strong dude). The sorts of things that people would go "yeah, those are generic fantasy races". And they should be bland.

Anything more specific, and especially anything that implies culture, should be left to either
a) the DMG describing, in detail, with good (ie not the eladrin it presents) worked examples, how to build races that tie into your homebrew setting
b) specific setting books, with no expectation that these are found anywhere else.

Now a specific DM could choose to import <race A> from <setting A> into <setting B>. That's their call. But players in <stock published setting A> and <stock published setting B> shouldn't expect to have any substantial overlap in races. It may happen, but it also might happen that names are re-used to mean different things. A "high elf" in one setting might mean your standard pale skinned, nose-in-the-air magic-loving pointy-ear; in another it might mean a tiny guy who likes making "special" cookies and frequently has profound-seeming realizations and the munchies.

[Witty Username]

Now a specific DM could choose to import <race A> from <setting A> into <setting B>. That's their call. But players in <stock published setting A> and <stock published setting B> shouldn't expect to have any substantial overlap in races. It may happen, but it also might happen that names are re-used to mean different things. A "high elf" in one setting might mean your standard pale skinned, nose-in-the-air magic-loving pointy-ear; in another it might mean a tiny guy who likes making "special" cookies and frequently has profound-seeming realizations and the munchies.

While that is a fair expectation, it is useful to provide tools (narrative and mechanical) to accommodate imports.

Many of the books in 3.5 for example had advice sections for how to incorporate new content into different established settings,
Like for example, Complete Arcane had the class Seul Arcanamac (word may be mispelled), with references in the name, lore and mechanics tied specifically to Greyhawk, but included a section for how to incorporate the class into other settings.
The later books tended to inlcude sidebars for Eberron, Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms specifically, for how to incorporate particular things.

In this context, the restricted multiverse is a DM tool, that can serve this purpose. I personolly prefer the the more setting specific anchor points, like how in 3/.5 you were expected to rename spells to fit your character, let alone your setting, Bigby's crushing hand is Torm's crushing hand when cast by a cleric and whatnot, but it works for DMs to just have Dream of the Blue Veil, or a Spelljammer crashland be that anchor point.

On the player assumtion side, AL has got to trend towards either freeform, or no setting content (and Wotc isn’t in the buisness of printing stuff they want you to not use), so a catch all short hand to allow content that can apply to most settings, is the way. For us that don't play AL, no assumtions is probably the healthiest attitude, even stuff in the PHB shouldn't be scared, and just because the anchor points for DMs exist, they are inherently opt in. The DM decides whether they exist and too what extent. A sentence in the Eberron book to give the DM a way to use the regular D&D cosmology, is pretty easy to ignore without consequence.

[Quertus]

Word of warning: I have a fever. If anything doesn't make sense, if I seem to be doing some logic leaps, please be patient on my responses. Further, I invite others to explain if they see where I'm going, as, well, I don't trust I'll make any more sense until the fever passes.


Do you have an actual example of this?

So, I tried to make an example demonstrating the North Pole, to show people what "North" meant, and the responses seem to be about the snowflakes rather than about the direction. So let me try again.

Other Worlds

D&D - or, at least, the editions I've played recently, and thus that my senile mind can remember - has spells: discrete named packets of effects. Among those spells, it has Tensor's Floating Disk, Melf's Acid Arrow, Ottiluke's Resiliant Sphere, Evard's Black Tentacles, Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer, Tasha's Hideous Uncontrollable Laughter, all the way up to Mordenkainen's Disjunction - spells that were clearly made by someone(s) in particular. And that someone(s) in particular come from world(s) in particular. And that isn't here.

Any Wizard with 2 functional brain cells to rub together who knows about such spells should be able to deduce the existence of other worlds. Subsequently, when/if the party is introduced the concept of other worlds, if it blows the mind of the BDF who has never left his farm before the adventure starts, like it would a CoC character, the Wizard just pats them on the head, says, "yeah, of course there are other worlds", and moves on. Just like, when the BDF draws their sword, they pat the Cleric on the head, and say, "yeah, there's sharpened bits of metal that cut things that are used as weapons", and move on.

The existence of other worlds isn't some mind-blowing revelation, it's just the status quo - at least, for people in the position to be in the know about such things. It's like being from another planet in Star Wars, or from another town IRL - it's nothing unusual for most anyone who has knowingly made such a voyage of their own free will in those contexts

And the world building should represent this. Sure, your average farm boy might not understand the notion of other worlds, they might be driven as insane by evidence of "things not us" as surely as a Call of Cthulhu investigator, but, for those in the know, the world building should reflect this obvious fact in how they are roleplayed. Thus, the question of "if I add the #roleplay tag, does it make sense?".

Now, you might think, "what if we just remove all the 'named' spells, wouldn't that solve the 'multiverse' problem?". And, yes, that's the bare-bones minimum world building I expect from a GM, to indicate that they've at least considered the problem. But, by itself, it's a bad answer.

See, in a book or movie, there's usually a character (usually the protagonist) who serves as a "point of view" character. Generally, we are experiencing and exploring the world with them. There's dissonance when the PoV character takes as normal something that we find confusing, is confused by something we find obvious, takes as profound something we find pedestrian, etc. Done in moderation, it can be used to help set the tone, to help bring the reader/viewer into the world: Oh, they don't blink an eye at the existence of aliens; Oh, they've never heard of "voting" in this world before; Oh, aren't I smart, that I saw this thing that protagonist-kun didn't? And that's all fine and good.

The problem is, while removing "named effect packets" that are explicitly "named" means it makes sense that protagonist-kun PC-kun won't find it obvious that other worlds exist, the existence of all the other "named effect packets", like "Magic Missile" and "Fireball" mean that, to the player, there's this definite similarity between the fictional world PC-kun inhabits, and all these other worlds... and, at least for a player with my natural curiosity and love of Discovery, the question is, why? Why would there be all these similarities between supposedly disconnected worlds?

And it doesn't stop at spells: weapons, armor, animals, social structures, clothing styles, architecture, even character classes - it just doesn't make sense for two truly independent universes to have evolved so similarly. Even different cultures IRL evolved different dance moves, different clothing styles (#PompeyFan), different music instruments - why wouldn't a world with no connection to any other world do the same?

If you use the "restricted multiverse", you've answered that question of how they can be similar. If you do not use a multiverse, you've committed the narrative sin of presenting an obvious question that protagonist-kun will never be able to ask, let alone answer.

Now, sure, you can answer, "they were once connected, but aren't any more", but that just brings up questions of "why did we forget?". It would be like there being a broken anti-grav lifter sitting next to the pyramids, that we've all just conveniently ignored up until this point. It's shoddy world-building, any way you look at it, and makes you ask, "why not just keep the multiverse, and thereby allow the greatest possibility to say 'yes', rather than making extra work for all parties involved?".

Worlds of Yarn

Now, if you're like me, you've consumed media with multiple examples of worlds made of yarn. And these come in two basic varieties: worlds where visitors (ie, the protagonists) get converted to yarn, and worlds where they remain themselves. Both are perfectly reasonable, "logical" outcomes, that IME the narrator wastes precisely 0 words explaining, under the assumption that any reader/viewer/whatever with 2 functional brain cells will understand what is going on. And either of these two basic frameworks is perfectly valid to explain characters traveling between worlds in RPGs, as well: either their physics is converted to the physics of the new world, or it is not.

"Their physics is converted" is the easiest to understand, but the hardest to implement well, particularly cross-system (or any other time that, you know, the physics are actually different - do try to see the forest for the trees, the north for the snowflakes here - "different system" is simply "far north" for "physics actually differ"): how many XP in M&M is worth what level in RIFTS, what does a "Warlock" get converted to in 2e D&D, what does a stat X with value of Y convert to, etc. (Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness did this poorly, by saying it is hard to find food in "paint world", despite converting the characters to paint. Bad Michael Waldron. Bad Sam Raimi. Bad.)

"The physics is not converted" means that a Warlock still functions exactly as they always have, and the question is, what does that mean? Everything is evaluated based on micro-transactions. When Milo's spells ask for a "saving throw" in HPatN20, what do the objects in that world return?

And both of these methods are fine. They produce logically-consistent interactions between two sets of things that were not designed to interact. And you can often easily make in-character deductions about the various bits of world physics, like "huh. No matter how powerful they get, nobody here seems to get any better at resisting effects.". It's free Discovery, it inherently adds things worth thinking about to the world building.

But then you get to the "Kirito in Alfheim Online" problem: what happens to things that the new system doesn't recognize? The answer SAO used is that the items and abilities were gibberish. Yes, if I were Isekai'd into D&D Alfheim Online, I could still be holding a gun, but the system wouldn't have any ability to understand the mechanics of a gun. It recognizes it as a valid object, but not as valid/supported physics. The same could happen with the organ that empowers beings in... Aberrant / Trinity: yes, "human" is a supported pattern, but there are no mechanics to support this organ, so it becomes vestigial.

OTOH, the system could look at a "gun" and understand, "Oh, that's something of the class 'ranged weapon'", and convert it in accordance with its own 'ranged weapons' table, making it become a bow, or a blaster, or a plasma cannon. The system could look at a Wizard, Cleric, Psion, and sword-wielding Fighter classes, and say, "... you mean, 'Jedi'?".

So your Elf Wizard, Human Cleric and half-Orc Fighter could stay as they are, or they could become a Twi'lek Jedi, a Human Jedi, and a Wookiee Jedi. Then probably that last one throws an error, because the system doesn't accept Wookiee Jedi... or the conversion system could lack such error-correction, and they could be the first, ushering in a whole new era of Wookiee Jedi, because that's just cool, and something Star Wars sorely needs IMO.

A modern spy could go from having a hang glider, pistol, and "spy gear" to having a Pterodactyl, bow, and thieve's tools when a world converts them.

And it all just makes sense such that the author needn't waste time explaining to the reader/viewer. It's all either logical micro-conversions that greatly expand the realm of Discovery and cool interactions, or its macro-conversion that ties heavily into concepts like converting the "platonic ideal" of what a thing is (which "the platonic ideal" of a thing is my bread and butter).

However, then we have things like this:


For example, the plotline of the third season of Slayers involves aliens fleeing their own sci-fi universe into that of the protagonists, having things that were spaceships convert by turning into swords and bows and things like that,

... what? How in the name of the infinite gears of Mechanus does that make any sense?

"There exist other worlds"? Yawn. That's no revelation, anyone with 2 brain cells knows that already.

"Some of these other worlds have different mechanics, and we, as non-natives, may have difficulty or unforeseen interactions between our mechanics"? You've got my attention. Tell me more about this "snow"/"difficult terrain"/"old age"/"bacteria"/"mortality"/"matter" concept.

"Some of these other worlds have different mechanics, and we, as non-natives, get converted according to platonic ideal?" OK, sure. Old hat for me (as in, it's hard for me to not think in such terms), but doubtless new and interesting for my character.

"Some of these other worlds have different mechanics, and we, as non-natives, will get converted according to 'LOL Random', even though these worlds aren't the embodiment of Chaos that is (supposedly) Limbo"? Yeah, forget about whatever "campaign" or "plot threads" you thought that this game was about, this is far more important. This represents an inherent flaw, instability, or outright stupidity in the multiverse itself.

As I've said many times, the primary role of the GM is to be the interface between the world and the players, to be their eyes and ears, including error correction to notice and fix mismatched conceptualization of the world. As such, the ability to convert characters between worlds - to take concepts, and translate them to what makes sense in the world - is just a different application of the primary skill a GM should possess: the ability to convert ideas between worlds, and communicate that well, such that the players can understand and interact meaningfully with the world their characters inhabit.

For me, the GM's ability to understand the multiverse, and respond reasonably to conversion, is not unlike their audition, wherein I get some idea whether their world building and communication skills are up to snuff, whether there will be depth that is worth my time to Explore, or whether I'll be better off checking out, turning my brain off, and expecting the popcorn of a "beer and pretzels" game.

Now, let's look at a few of these "snowflakes"... in a later post. My fever is spiking.

[NichG]

... what? How in the name of the infinite gears of Mechanus does that make any sense?

"There exist other worlds"? Yawn. That's no revelation, anyone with 2 brain cells knows that already.

"Some of these other worlds have different mechanics, and we, as non-natives, may have difficulty or unforeseen interactions between our mechanics"? You've got my attention. Tell me more about this "snow"/"difficult terrain"/"old age"/"bacteria"/"mortality"/"matter" concept.

"Some of these other worlds have different mechanics, and we, as non-natives, get converted according to platonic ideal?" OK, sure. Old hat for me (as in, it's hard for me to not think in such terms), but doubtless new and interesting for my character.

"Some of these other worlds have different mechanics, and we, as non-natives, will get converted according to 'LOL Random', even though these worlds aren't the embodiment of Chaos that is (supposedly) Limbo"? Yeah, forget about whatever "campaign" or "plot threads" you thought that this game was about, this is far more important. This represents an inherent flaw, instability, or outright stupidity in the multiverse itself.

However weird you think peoples' imagination is, there are people whose imaginations are weirder yet. There are adaptations of Romeo and Juliet with machine guns and a helicopter too.

But I like this example in particular as a demonstration that having a measured, integrated cosmology incorporating multiple worlds with specific planned relationships between them etc etc is no protection against sudden LOL Random.

It's not whether you planned to have a multiverse carefully in advance or had it thrust upon you that will determine the coherence of things, its basically whether or not what's coherent to you resonates with what's coherent to the players.

[Satinavian]

D&D - or, at least, the editions I've played recently, and thus that my senile mind can remember - has spells: discrete named packets of effects. Among those spells, it has Tensor's Floating Disk, Melf's Acid Arrow, Ottiluke's Resiliant Sphere, Evard's Black Tentacles, Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer, Tasha's Hideous Uncontrollable Laughter, all the way up to Mordenkainen's Disjunction - spells that were clearly made by someone(s) in particular. And that someone(s) in particular come from world(s) in particular. And that isn't here.Most editions i have played also removed any referrences from whch world those individuals were. Likely so that people would just default to "ancient wizards from the campaign world". But is still kind of silly and i prefer the pathfinder treatment of those spells.

But yes, if you are playing a campaign world that does not know other worlds, all the spells people use would not come from those other worlds obviously. And the wizards would know that.


The problem is, while removing "named effect packets" that are explicitly "named" means it makes sense that protagonist-kun PC-kun won't find it obvious that other worlds exist, the existence of all the other "named effect packets", like "Magic Missile" and "Fireball" mean that, to the player, there's this definite similarity between the fictional world PC-kun inhabits, and all these other worlds... and, at least for a player with my natural curiosity and love of Discovery, the question is, why? Why would there be all these similarities between supposedly disconnected worlds?The only reason those similarities exist is that none of this is real, not the spells, not the player characters and all is imagined by the only world with humans. And those humans are lazy and use a lot of copy and paste.

Now, that is obviously not any kind of insight any player character should have. But that is a the problem : A character that doesnot know other worlds does not know of fireballs and magic missiles in other worlds to compare and question similarities. For him only the spells in his world exist.


And it doesn't stop at spells: weapons, armor, animals, social structures, clothing styles, architecture, even character classes - it just doesn't make sense for two truly independent universes to have evolved so similarly. Even different cultures IRL evolved different dance moves, different clothing styles (#PompeyFan), different music instruments - why wouldn't a world with no connection to any other world do the same?Again, that is only a problem if you actually link those worlds. Otherwise all of this exists just in the one setting and no where else.




"Some of these other worlds have different mechanics, and we, as non-natives, will get converted according to 'LOL Random', even though these worlds aren't the embodiment of Chaos that is (supposedly) Limbo"? Yeah, forget about whatever "campaign" or "plot threads" you thought that this game was about, this is far more important. This represents an inherent flaw, instability, or outright stupidity in the multiverse itself.

For me "other world exists that were completely unknown so far" is far more mindblowing than "travelling from/to such world is so difficult and unsafe that it transforms you at a fundamental level with no guarantee that your body, your abilities, or even your mind or memories stay intact or roughly the same. Even your very soul might be put through the wringer"

But sure, you could also go with "muliverse is flawed and stupid". But if you do, it would be far better to just not use it.

[Anymage]

Many of the books in 3.5 for example had advice sections for how to incorporate new content into different established settings,
Like for example, Complete Arcane had the class Seul Arcanamac (word may be mispelled), with references in the name, lore and mechanics tied specifically to Greyhawk, but included a section for how to incorporate the class into other settings.
The later books tended to inlcude sidebars for Eberron, Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms specifically, for how to incorporate particular things.

In this context, the restricted multiverse is a DM tool, that can serve this purpose. I personolly prefer the the more setting specific anchor points, like how in 3/.5 you were expected to rename spells to fit your character, let alone your setting, Bigby's crushing hand is Torm's crushing hand when cast by a cleric and whatnot, but it works for DMs to just have Dream of the Blue Veil, or a Spelljammer crashland be that anchor point.

Narratively speaking, there are three ways you can go with a character who isn't originally written into the setting books. They can be part of the world that the characters just haven't stumbled across yet, they can be aliens and treated as such, or they can be aliens and everybody just rolls with it. How someone answers this will impact the setting if they're narratively minded; the last either implies a supercosmopolitan setting or else comes across as very gamey, the second draws a lot of attention to the character and risks centering them due to the spotlight involved, while the first is tricky if you have something that should have been locally noticeable but hasn't until someone wants to make a PC. A secret society being secret until they approach a character because the player wants to join a PRC is one thing, a knightly order or a whole species staying unknown until a player wants to be one is another.

(Note that "they come from the same world, just a far away continent" can still count as alien. I'm reminded of this thing that was going around a while back (https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/comments/6nzhvd/technically_possible/). A samurai and a cowboy may have been contemporaries and the technology certainly existed at the time to get them into the same place, but a samurai in a western would very much be an oddity and I wouldn't feel wrong vetoing a samurai character if I were pitching a western game.)

[Quertus]

So, let's see if I can address a few of the individual "snowflakes" from my attempt to point out "far north".


So you want your character to have no clue about setting or physics there and only wrong presumptions to play him fumbling around and having a harder time to understand the setting itself, correct ?

Well, no, not exactly.

Doubtless, there are things written by individuals much more learned in cognitive sciences - and who aren't feverish - that will explain this better, but...

Eyes Filled with Wonder

Much like Santa in Rise of the Guardians says that his core is that sense of Wonder, there are those who claim that children view the world with Wonder, and that the entire point of Fantasy is to allow us to view the world with Wonder once more.

Now, I don't go that far, but I do believe that Wonder has value, and it is something that I desire and promote. Coming in ____ allows the character to really feel that sense of Wonder at the differences in the world, to really appreciate the world building (or, at least, the end results of the world building, which are decidedly not the same things) in a way that, if roleplayed correctly, a character ____ed in the setting would find a mundane part of the daily humdrum.

In short, a character who has never experienced snow can say "Wow, what's this?!" (or even deny its existence, per The King and I (or whatever it was called)), whereas someone who grew up in the North Pole should just take snow for granted.

A New Perspective

But it's not all just "bumbling around" or "having a harder time understanding the setting". By virtue of having that distance, of having to ask those questions and evaluate the setting detail from scratch, the character is actually more likely to walk away with a better understanding than the natives. Well, sort of. It's complicated.

On the one hand, a good sempai, a good teacher, learns from their students as much as they teach. Thus, simply by interacting with someone who questions the mundane, it gives the natives the opportunity for growth. The outsider might not themselves necessarily grow, but by their existence, they present the opportunity for growth.

And there is definitely the concept of "seeing the elephant", that 5 seconds of telling a child "fire is dangerous" just isn't the same as having an adult understanding of the full measure of those dangers. So being unfamiliar with the setting conceits can absolutely be a hindrance as much as a super power.

But the point remains, that a fresh set of eyes invokes the "reevaluate the problem" action, which is an incredibly powerful tool with which to ask, "why do we sacrifice someone in a lottery every year?", and to potentially come to a better answer than what everyone takes for granted as being correct, regardless of which individual(s) involved in the conversation actually come to the revised evaluation of the setting element.

Presumptions

And that, I think, is the key: that being an outsider is not intended as a source of biases, but, rather, of a removal of such biases. That an outsider can "see with eyes unclouded by hate", can see things for what they are, and come to conclusions that no one indoctrinated in the setting ever truly would.

Perhaps more to the point, it doesn't feel weird, from a roleplaying perspective, for an outsider to see something that, for someone brought up in the culture, would be an immersion-breaking moment for them to have such a thought. There's not this question of, "Why would someone who has grown up with Slavery as the norm suddenly oppose it?" or "Why would someone who has grown up with a Monarchy push for a Theocracy or Meritocracy or Anarchy?"

Although, yes, it is also just fun roleplaying to have someone whose presumptions and biases cloud their vision rather than their different perspective enabling a clearer view, but, from your post, I'm guessing you understood that half already, and only needed help seeing the flipside.


I'd say calling something an "incoherent pile of garbage" is indication that you "don't like it"- but that's just semantics. I understand that you feel that your opinions on such things are more than just opinions - but it's possible that one person's "incoherent garbage" causes no distress at all for others, based on differing life experiences. Saying you dislike something isn't to imply that your opinion is without merit or reason.

Ah, I'm not discussing it in terms of a matter of opinion. It's more a scientific measure of, "does this code compile?" Now, certainly, it's a subjective scientific measure, in that it is fair to say I'm asking, "based on what I, personally, know, do I know how this code won't compile", and someone with, say, a better understanding of, say, economic theory, might find some world building to be an "incoherent pile of garbage" when I am simply not capable of noticing the flaws.

This, I believe, I addressed in how, even if all worlds are of equal quality, the multiverse allows players to choose worlds that are good for their purposes - valuable because that value is subjective.

So, with my classic Bakugo tact, I can say that "all world building is trash", and that's almost certainly true, almost certainly all worlds will fail to 'compile into executable code" from an Omniscient PoV, the question is whether it does it in ways that the "audience" notices, and in ways that matter to the "audience".

Still, some world building is better than others - we are not in the case where all worlds are equal. So the phrase "the world building is trash" can be used 3 ways: 1) of course it is, all world building is trash; 2) it fails to compile into executable code with my personal compiler, and, thus, is trash to me; 3) the overall quality is worse than its contemporaries.

Understanding which of these uses is in play is important for knowing the extent to which something is opinion vs demonstrable fact, objective vs subjective, or the extent to which being subjective is the point.

And there's a lot of great ideas that I love, that sadly have poor execution. Doubtless you have experienced such with modern media, no?


This is "endemic" to gaming, imo, because gaming is an entertainment hobby. Very few GMs have the time or wherewithal to create perfect settings, and even the game publishers rarely take this so seriously or think about it so thoroughly. And your standards for a "consistent, believable, lived-in world" sound like they are exceedingly high relative to the time investment most people are willing and able to make for these games. I mean, I'm pretty hard on world-building in fiction myself, but when it comes to playing RPGs, sometimes you just have to allow it to be a frivolous past time. Not every game can be a deep, compelling, worthwhile story. Sometimes you're just goofing off with your friends, having adventures and embracing the shorthand of easy genre conventions and stereotypes. Laugh at it when absurdity occurs. Most RPG characters exist for a few months or maybe a year, if you're lucky, in real-life time and then disappear, never to be looked at again. You need to be pretty lucky to find that one in a thousand GM who is great at running the game in a system you enjoy, has a great setting and world building ability, with a group that sticks with it long-term so you can really develop believable characters and "meaningful stories".

You have done an excellent job of explaining how "I care more than most GMs" isn't something one should find odd. So Kudos on that.

Most GMs don't take world building seriously enough to be worth my time to think about; at most, I might be able to get a sense of wonder for the cool idea, before I'm forced to shut my brain down lest their implementation ruin the whole thing. It's... a suboptimal experience.

[Satinavian]

And that, I think, is the key: that being an outsider is not intended as a source of biases, but, rather, of a removal of such biases. That an outsider can "see with eyes unclouded by hate", can see things for what they are, and come to conclusions that no one indoctrinated in the setting ever truly would.

Perhaps more to the point, it doesn't feel weird, from a roleplaying perspective, for an outsider to see something that, for someone brought up in the culture, would be an immersion-breaking moment for them to have such a thought. There's not this question of, "Why would someone who has grown up with Slavery as the norm suddenly oppose it?" or "Why would someone who has grown up with a Monarchy push for a Theocracy or Meritocracy or Anarchy?"

Although, yes, it is also just fun roleplaying to have someone whose presumptions and biases cloud their vision rather than their different perspective enabling a clearer view, but, from your post, I'm guessing you understood that half already, and only needed help seeing the flipside.You can do most of it by "I am from a secluded village". You could do it even better and more selectively by "I lost my memory", if it is only about removing bias. There is just no need to open the floodgates of interworld travel just to get a new perspective.

The problems about worldhopping characters are never about what they lack. It is always about the baggage they carry with them. And that is a lot of baggage inclusing full other worlds.



Still, some world building is better than others - we are not in the case where all worlds are equal. So the phrase "the world building is trash" can be used 3 ways: 1) of course it is, all world building is trash; 2) it fails to compile into executable code with my personal compiler, and, thus, is trash to me; 3) the overall quality is worse than its contemporaries.

Understanding which of these uses is in play is important for knowing the extent to which something is opinion vs demonstrable fact, objective vs subjective, or the extent to which being subjective is the point.

And there's a lot of great ideas that I love, that sadly have poor execution. Doubtless you have experienced such with modern media, no?
Sure.

So consider the following statement :

"A wordbuilding that includes a multiverse is on average more trash than one that doesn't." I believe that is true.

[PhoenixPhyre]

You can do most of by "I am from a secluded village". You could do it even better and more selectively by "I lost my memory", if it is only about removing bias. There is just no need to open the floodgates of interworld travel just to get a new perspective.

The problems about worldhopping characters are never about what they lack. It is always about the baggage they carry with them. And that is a lot of baggae inclusing dull other worlds.

So consider the following statement :

"A wordbuilding that includes a multiverse is on average more trash than one that doesn't." I believe that is true.

I strongly agree with this entire post. Especially that last statement. In my personal experience, I have yet to find a fictional world that was better off for including a multiverse. And this goes exponentially more if that multiverse wasn't a core central premise from the get go. Tacking one on later is uniformly associated with decreased quality in my experience. And so far in this thread I've seen lots of theoretical arguments as to why it doesn't have to be...and an absolute paucity of examples of ones that were better off for it.

[Witty Username]

Star Trek would be an example, most of the worlds within it don't have the narrative staying power beyond an episode, but by being a sci fi, the worldbuilding becomes functional for the purpose.

[Mechalich]

I strongly agree with this entire post. Especially that last statement. In my personal experience, I have yet to find a fictional world that was better off for including a multiverse. And this goes exponentially more if that multiverse wasn't a core central premise from the get go. Tacking one on later is uniformly associated with decreased quality in my experience. And so far in this thread I've seen lots of theoretical arguments as to why it doesn't have to be...and an absolute paucity of examples of ones that were better off for it.

There are many stories whose entire premise is utterly dependent upon the existence of a multiverse, such as basically any story that is about 'dimensional travel' or 'extradimensional invaders' or 'horrifying otherworlds.' Now, admittedly a lot of these stories - which includes mainstream properties like Stranger Things - utilize a modified version of the real world as the base reality. This is a huge benefit in saving on the world-building burden.

After all, if a fictional world is part of a multiverse that means producing, at minimum, two worlds instead of one, and usually multiple worlds. This can easily overwhelm even a dedicated design team. Exalted, for example, has its base world Creation, but it also has Malfeas, the Underworld, Yu-Shan, and the Wyld, among others, all of which are full size worlds in their own right. Creation itself overwhelmed the ability of White-Wolf to detail to a useable level. Newsflash: planets are big! Most settings are roughly small continent size for a reason. Other dimensions, even though they were important to the lore, were simply too much.

In general, for world-building purposes, I think that a single base world plus one reflective realm - often the 'spirit world' or 'dream world' or 'after world' or something similar. Anything more than that quickly becomes overly cumbersome, both for the writer to produce and the audience to follow.

[gbaji]

Ok. Now I'm just lost here. Let me repack for a second.

I responded to this statement by you:


So that’s another advantage of the restricted multiverse (you know, that thing we’re theoretically discussing): players who care more than the GM can have characters come from worlds with defined physics and history that is consistent and makes sense, rather than inconsistent, “seat of the pants”, “makes Dr. Who look positively well-thought-out by comparison” world building I associate with “play to find out” physics.

With this question:


Do you have an actual example of this? Cause I'm struggling to see it. Unless you're actually suggesting that the player should just dictate how his powers/abilities/items should work in the GMs setting? Which seems fraught with foolishness.

You quoted that question above with this response:



So, I tried to make an example demonstrating the North Pole, to show people what "North" meant, and the responses seem to be about the snowflakes rather than about the direction. So let me try again.

Other Worlds

D&D - or, at least, the editions I've played recently, and thus that my senile mind can remember - has spells: discrete named packets of effects. Among those spells, it has Tensor's Floating Disk, Melf's Acid Arrow, Ottiluke's Resiliant Sphere, Evard's Black Tentacles, Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer, Tasha's Hideous Uncontrollable Laughter, all the way up to Mordenkainen's Disjunction - spells that were clearly made by someone(s) in particular. And that someone(s) in particular come from world(s) in particular. And that isn't here.

Any Wizard with 2 functional brain cells to rub together who knows about such spells should be able to deduce the existence of other worlds. Subsequently, when/if the party is introduced the concept of other worlds, if it blows the mind of the BDF who has never left his farm before the adventure starts, like it would a CoC character, the Wizard just pats them on the head, says, "yeah, of course there are other worlds", and moves on. Just like, when the BDF draws their sword, they pat the Cleric on the head, and say, "yeah, there's sharpened bits of metal that cut things that are used as weapons", and move on.

The existence of other worlds isn't some mind-blowing revelation, it's just the status quo - at least, for people in the position to be in the know about such things. It's like being from another planet in Star Wars, or from another town IRL - it's nothing unusual for most anyone who has knowingly made such a voyage of their own free will in those contexts

And the world building should represent this. Sure, your average farm boy might not understand the notion of other worlds, they might be driven as insane by evidence of "things not us" as surely as a Call of Cthulhu investigator, but, for those in the know, the world building should reflect this obvious fact in how they are roleplayed. Thus, the question of "if I add the #roleplay tag, does it make sense?".

Now, you might think, "what if we just remove all the 'named' spells, wouldn't that solve the 'multiverse' problem?". And, yes, that's the bare-bones minimum world building I expect from a GM, to indicate that they've at least considered the problem. But, by itself, it's a bad answer.

See, in a book or movie, there's usually a character (usually the protagonist) who serves as a "point of view" character. Generally, we are experiencing and exploring the world with them. There's dissonance when the PoV character takes as normal something that we find confusing, is confused by something we find obvious, takes as profound something we find pedestrian, etc. Done in moderation, it can be used to help set the tone, to help bring the reader/viewer into the world: Oh, they don't blink an eye at the existence of aliens; Oh, they've never heard of "voting" in this world before; Oh, aren't I smart, that I saw this thing that protagonist-kun didn't? And that's all fine and good.

The problem is, while removing "named effect packets" that are explicitly "named" means it makes sense that protagonist-kun PC-kun won't find it obvious that other worlds exist, the existence of all the other "named effect packets", like "Magic Missile" and "Fireball" mean that, to the player, there's this definite similarity between the fictional world PC-kun inhabits, and all these other worlds... and, at least for a player with my natural curiosity and love of Discovery, the question is, why? Why would there be all these similarities between supposedly disconnected worlds?

And it doesn't stop at spells: weapons, armor, animals, social structures, clothing styles, architecture, even character classes - it just doesn't make sense for two truly independent universes to have evolved so similarly. Even different cultures IRL evolved different dance moves, different clothing styles (#PompeyFan), different music instruments - why wouldn't a world with no connection to any other world do the same?

If you use the "restricted multiverse", you've answered that question of how they can be similar. If you do not use a multiverse, you've committed the narrative sin of presenting an obvious question that protagonist-kun will never be able to ask, let alone answer.

Now, sure, you can answer, "they were once connected, but aren't any more", but that just brings up questions of "why did we forget?". It would be like there being a broken anti-grav lifter sitting next to the pyramids, that we've all just conveniently ignored up until this point. It's shoddy world-building, any way you look at it, and makes you ask, "why not just keep the multiverse, and thereby allow the greatest possibility to say 'yes', rather than making extra work for all parties involved?".

Worlds of Yarn

Now, if you're like me, you've consumed media with multiple examples of worlds made of yarn. And these come in two basic varieties: worlds where visitors (ie, the protagonists) get converted to yarn, and worlds where they remain themselves. Both are perfectly reasonable, "logical" outcomes, that IME the narrator wastes precisely 0 words explaining, under the assumption that any reader/viewer/whatever with 2 functional brain cells will understand what is going on. And either of these two basic frameworks is perfectly valid to explain characters traveling between worlds in RPGs, as well: either their physics is converted to the physics of the new world, or it is not.

"Their physics is converted" is the easiest to understand, but the hardest to implement well, particularly cross-system (or any other time that, you know, the physics are actually different - do try to see the forest for the trees, the north for the snowflakes here - "different system" is simply "far north" for "physics actually differ"): how many XP in M&M is worth what level in RIFTS, what does a "Warlock" get converted to in 2e D&D, what does a stat X with value of Y convert to, etc. (Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness did this poorly, by saying it is hard to find food in "paint world", despite converting the characters to paint. Bad Michael Waldron. Bad Sam Raimi. Bad.)

"The physics is not converted" means that a Warlock still functions exactly as they always have, and the question is, what does that mean? Everything is evaluated based on micro-transactions. When Milo's spells ask for a "saving throw" in HPatN20, what do the objects in that world return?

And both of these methods are fine. They produce logically-consistent interactions between two sets of things that were not designed to interact. And you can often easily make in-character deductions about the various bits of world physics, like "huh. No matter how powerful they get, nobody here seems to get any better at resisting effects.". It's free Discovery, it inherently adds things worth thinking about to the world building.

But then you get to the "Kirito in Alfheim Online" problem: what happens to things that the new system doesn't recognize? The answer SAO used is that the items and abilities were gibberish. Yes, if I were Isekai'd into D&D Alfheim Online, I could still be holding a gun, but the system wouldn't have any ability to understand the mechanics of a gun. It recognizes it as a valid object, but not as valid/supported physics. The same could happen with the organ that empowers beings in... Aberrant / Trinity: yes, "human" is a supported pattern, but there are no mechanics to support this organ, so it becomes vestigial.

OTOH, the system could look at a "gun" and understand, "Oh, that's something of the class 'ranged weapon'", and convert it in accordance with its own 'ranged weapons' table, making it become a bow, or a blaster, or a plasma cannon. The system could look at a Wizard, Cleric, Psion, and sword-wielding Fighter classes, and say, "... you mean, 'Jedi'?".

So your Elf Wizard, Human Cleric and half-Orc Fighter could stay as they are, or they could become a Twi'lek Jedi, a Human Jedi, and a Wookiee Jedi. Then probably that last one throws an error, because the system doesn't accept Wookiee Jedi... or the conversion system could lack such error-correction, and they could be the first, ushering in a whole new era of Wookiee Jedi, because that's just cool, and something Star Wars sorely needs IMO.

A modern spy could go from having a hang glider, pistol, and "spy gear" to having a Pterodactyl, bow, and thieve's tools when a world converts them.

And it all just makes sense such that the author needn't waste time explaining to the reader/viewer. It's all either logical micro-conversions that greatly expand the realm of Discovery and cool interactions, or its macro-conversion that ties heavily into concepts like converting the "platonic ideal" of what a thing is (which "the platonic ideal" of a thing is my bread and butter).

There is a conspicous abense of a single example by you, of why we might assume that a world one character is "from" which the player wishes to play is somehow guided by a "physics" that is "better" than the world the player is actually playing in.

Look. It just seems like you're trying to make this far more complicated than it actually is. You have a starting point: The game you are playing. It has rules. In all probability, if we are playing a RPG, it has a setting in which the GM has set the game you are to play. This is really simple stuff here. Every RPG starts at this point.

If you want to play something that the GM hasn't already included in the setting, you simply express that thing within the rules of the game system you are using. Period. Done. If the other players notice that this is a character class/concept/whatever from some other game, that's fine. If you want to establish that these types of things are from some other world, then that world "exists" in the multiverse of your game setting. Done. Doesn't need to be overly complicated. The key point is that you have just one "game system" you are playing in. The setting is whatever you want it to be.

This is why I asked earlier if you were talking about game settings or game systems. Game settings are easy. Just expand them (or not) however you want. You want to add firearms to your bronze age setting? You can. And no, you don't have to convert them into exiisting things. The existing things in a game system are not "swords, axes, shields, etc". They are "damage", and "damage types", and "movement rules", and "magic rules" (if those exist), and "environmental rules", and "social/communication rules". Once you break down the rules of a game system to those basic things, anything can be "converted" to that rule system. A spaceship is just a large structure with walls and floors that have similar "rules" to define them as any other walls and floors. And they maybe move, which also follows movement rules that exist. And maybe they have some odd devices in them, that maybe allow for different things to be done, all of which still fit into and follow existing rules. A communications panel just works like a communications panel. Why is that difficult? Maybe some people might be mystified about a box that shows picture and voice from someone far away, and wonder what "magic" makes it work, but that doesn't matter in terms of playing it out in a game.

If we're talking game systems, that's a different ball of wax. Game systems have different rules, sometimes to describe the same (or similar) things. I would strongly recommend against attempting a multiverse game setting that crossed game systems. You can do it for short one shot sort of things, but it should not be a common occurance. Otherwise, every time the PCs travel from one world to another, you'll have to figure out how to rewrite them under a new rules system. That's tedious. Writing external things into one rule system works. Going the other way around does not.

And yeah. I'm still not sure at all what you are tallking about. Can you just write a clear explanation of what you are talking about? It seems like you have something to say, but I can't for the life of me noodle out what it is.

[KorvinStarmast]

"A wordbuilding that includes a multiverse is on average more trash than one that doesn't." I believe that is true. As do I. I find that for a D&D style of game, one world is enough. Granted, Planescape and Spelljammer, originally, opened some doors and even early D&D supplements and modules (Temple of the Frog from the Blackmoor supplement and Barrier Peaks adventure) hinted at 'other worlds' as does the various Cthulhu/Lovecraft style of influence on early D&D ... but it was left to the DM/Worldbuilder to add as much of that as was good for the game and world that they were running. Empire of the Petal Throne (1975/TSR) didn't have a multiverse per se, what it had was more or less a case of space travel gone badly wrong which left you with 'the world of Tekumel' which was more than enough for game play.

After all, if a fictional world is part of a multiverse that means producing, at minimum, two worlds instead of one, and usually multiple worlds. This can easily overwhelm even a dedicated design team. World building for one imaginary world is challenge enough.

In general, for world-building purposes, I think that a single base world plus one reflective realm - often the 'spirit world' or 'dream world' or 'after world' or something similar. Anything more than that quickly becomes overly cumbersome, both for the writer to produce and the audience to follow. That squares with my own experience.

[icefractal]

One thing that's come up here - I get the impression that "having a fully defined and known setting" is being considered as a key factor for the coherency of a campaign. While I see the appeal, I personally disagree.

It's simply not necessary for questions like "how many sapient species are there in existence?" to have a known answer, to either the GM or players. IRL, we don't know the answer to that question. Heck, we don't even know how many species of fish there are on earth! And I don't mean we don't precisely know, I mean we don't even know details about the majority of fish in the ocean (https://phys.org/news/2014-03-ninety-five-cent-world-fish-mesopelagic.html).

And you know what? That lack of certainty doesn't make our normal lives incoherent, and it doesn't make fiction set on real-life Earth incoherent. Consistency is great, and I want any "mystery boxes" that get hyped up to have real defined contents, but that doesn't mean every single detail of the setting needs to be defined and discoverable.

Nor does having such details defined ensure the game will be good or consistent. I've played campaigns where the GM had a detailed cosmology, pantheon, history of the world, listing of notable people, all that - but the actual events of the game were a mess of duct-tape and railroading.

And TBH, I don't usually have much desire to get "the big questions" answered in-game, because the GM is in fact another non-omniscient human, has no real answers, and at best the answers they do come up with will be semi-satisfying in the same way that ones I made up would be (meaning they resonate with my personal views, not that I'm inherently the best at imagining answers).