When Do Limited Options Become Stifling?

[Quertus]

For me, it's pretty simple: whenever a GM talks about limiting things, I start mentally printing their "Idiot" sign, and work to uncover just what kind of idiot they are. Historically, there's 1 answer they can give that will invalidate the idiot sign: if they give an answer purely based around the experience for the character. Like, "This is a survival-based game, and I therefore want you all to create highly-competent survivors (Rangers, Druids, Robots, Undead, Robots with built-in Replicators, whatever)", or "I therefore want you all to create highly-inept survivors (unskilled Fighters, Academia Mages, city-boy nobles, helpless princesses, whatever)". If the focus is on the feel and the fun, if the GM demonstrates that they actually understand the concept of having fun and put that first, then that's fine.

Similarly, "this module is for X characters, from level Y to Z" is theoretically the type of bound designed to ensure a certain type of experience; if the GM can have a conversation about the type of experience changing those numbers will have, and whether they believe that such changes will be a good experience for the group, and are focused on the concept of a good experience, that's fine.

EDIT: "Bob is afraid of spiders, so no spider-themed characters or abilities" is obviously also very much an appropriately enjoyment-themed limitation. And there's doubtless many other sub-categories to "for fun".

Any other response I've seen, I've responded with an attempt to educate the GM on how that's an inferior PoV, or otherwise attempted to up their game, before applying their corresponding failure tag to their profile.

So, for me, any restriction that is dumb and reduces the enjoyment ceiling of the game is too much, and is a sign of what kind of failure as a GM the individual making those restrictions is. On the flip side, any number of restrictions that are made for the purpose of improving the game (and are, you know, actually good at what they set out to do) are fine, at least so long as everyone can come up with an acceptable character under those restrictions. If someone in the group can't enjoy playing a high-competence survivor, for example, then that's a bad restriction for that group, rather than a sign of a true failure on the part of the GM.

EDIT: In case it wasn't clear, there are 1 or 2 possible reasons to restrict things that I haven't encountered IRL, that I probably could accept as reasonable, especially if (depending on the specifics) the GM could accept a reasonable alternative, or was able to give good reasons surrounding their decision. But, for every restriction my senile mind can remember encountering at an actual table, I can sort them pretty well into "for a fun experience" and "skill issue".

[Leon]

Really depends on how limited and to how much it fits with what the game/ expectation of the game is to be.
Generally some limits are good to have as kitchen sink games can often get too bogged down with options particularly if its an expansive system.

[Tanarii]

When the restrictions will make it hard to effectively play the game using that system.

Or

When the table agrees they're too stifling. Assuming the table came together before the decisions were being made. (E.g. a group of friends gathering to play as opposed to players deciding to join an open table game with predefined rules.)

[Telok]

Always and Never.

"Always" because even if you don't put any additional restriction, the base rules can already feel stifling. That's one of the reasons why peoples push for homebrew content and rule of cool.

"Never" because with the appropriate GMing style, you could give pre-generated characters (with pre-planned level ups) and still have enough room for creativity in how the characters are played.

Excellent answer.

To me it's as soon as I'm saying "meh, nothing interesting so... what do?". Which could be as simple as the system making it bad to do anything but spam your main attack (or enforced attack sequence) in combat and flip yes/no coins for everything else. It could be a terrible GM railroad where success or failure is certain and all paths lead to the same place. It could be just a character class that stops doing anything at a certain point, which itself can depend on the roleplay of the character (like d&d 5e celestial warlock run as mostly support / debuff / heals hits 12th level and sees the rest of the class being generic blaster caster or generic edgelord anti-hero dark powers).

Interesting choices are fun for me. Lol-random dice ruling the game or just having only one decent option 90% of the time isn't fun.

[catagent101]

Yeah, to go along with everyone else, it depends on the context and what the motives for it are there's no hard and fast red line. In my case I generally find more limited creative environments interesting so I don't have a problem with it on a basic level (tho it depends on the system of course).

[gbaji]

In very broad terms, when I write an adventure, I first pick a game system, and then a game setting. And there will be restrictions, but it will always be based on those two things. If the players are going to be starting characters in TownA, in KingdomB, on ContinentC, then they're going to have to pick from stuff available in that town, or at least that kingdom. Over time, as the scope of the game expands they may be given additional options, but I'm actually pretty darn firm on "no outside stuff" in a game setting. You pick from what would reasonably actually be living in the area the game is playing in. No "My character is a dimensional traveller who appears there one day" kind of nonsense will play very far with me.

Within that specific setting, however, there's a ton of different "roles" that can be played. But yeah, pretty firm restrictions on races and often classes available.

Alternatively, a player can show up with the expectation that a game will allow them to play a specific pet character they already have in their head. They won't commit if the game does not allow sufficient fidelity to their pregame ideas.

And this is specifically the kind of player for whom my rules exist. I've just run into too many players who first come up with a character concept and then look for a game to play it in. Or they have their one "favorite character" and play a variation of it in every single game. I don't consider said restrictions stiffling. I consider the players inability to be flexible with their charcter concepts stiffling.

If the players have enough creative space, in actual play, to keep them entertained, then they don't need many options in character creation. If the DM railroads the players, and runs DMPCs to handle every story beat, then character creation is all they have left and will probably rebel at restrictions to what they can make. It's the same reason why players tend to turn murder hobo, they have no other buttons to push.

And this is the key IMO. If you make the adventure itself interesting, with lots of stuff to do and figure out and obstacles/opponents to overcome, the exact character classes/races/whatever really don't matter much. I've found that players who start out thinking that they will only have "fun" if they get to play some oddball character concept with some unique/strange powers/abilities, once they actually play for a while, discover that "country bumpkin heads to the big city and gets pulled into adventuring" actually is a heck of a lot of fun. And they discover that the gains and changes along the way are what matters the most, not what they wrote up prior to playing the character for even one session.

Character creation should be a starting point, not the defining story arc for the characters life. I actually prefer for players to be as basic as possible with their characters. Just enough to explain who they are, why they have the skills/class/whatever they are, what motivates them to go on the adventure in the first place, etc. What happens during play is what should grow and build the character. Starting out with specific expectations is a recipe for disappointment. Starting out with very basic stuff, is like a blank canvas on which you paint your character over the course of playing. Which I think is a much much better approach.

There's no hard and fast rule.
A short campaign where everyone's an elvish fighter could be fine.
The pitch "You're out drinking to celebrate having graduated fighter collage when stuff happens".

Yup. One of my fellow GMs literally ran an adventure where the kick off was "folks hung over from the after party from the storm gods holy day ceremony hear about sometihng and decide (perhaps in a still somewhat drunken stupor) to go investigate". Every single character had to be races local to the area *and* had to be followers of just two deities that would be participating in said holy day ceremonies. It worked out extremely well. Even when most of the adventure ended up being underground.

Players should be able to create unique personalities for their characters beyond mere class/race (or even deity worshipped) criteria.

• How much is designing your character (rather than playing it) an important part of your game?*
• How long is it running? Limitations on shorter games should usually be more acceptable
• How experienced are the players? Very new players might be better off with limited options. Very experienced players will usually be able to make any given set of limitations work; Like in an Iron Chef competition, the limitations are part of the fun, not an impediment. But there's a middle a
  rea where not being able to create the character you want will be annoying.

Yup. The first is key IMO. I think too many players spend too much time "designing" their charcters, complete with long complicated history and motivations and planned story arc they want the GM to create for them.

If the GM is creating a very broad framework and then using the character's the players create for inspiration, that works great. I've played in games like that and had a lot of fun. But players should also respect (and frankly appreciate) when a GM has actually pre-written the setting, including plot hooks, and scenario possibilties, prior to day one, and invite you to play in this setting. And yeah, some players might consider that stiffling.

Honestly, I consider that to be their loss. I've played in and enjoyed both types of games. Intentionally limiting yourself to only one style of play to "enjoy" seems self limiting IMO.

There's a game called Pendragon where there's only one class. Congratulations, you're a knight! You ride a horse, you have mail armor, you use a lance and you have the choice of a sword, axe, mace or flail as your other weapon. Do the math and there's about 4 efficient arrangements of stats (from memory)

Yup. Played Pendragon back in the day. What's interesting is that the lack of huge variation in the characters themselves stat and weapon wise, actually made for a great deal of variation in terms of personality. That game also had virtues/vices IIRC (not even sure if that's what they were called), which further defined the characters personalities. It was really really focused on actual roleplaying. Combat/skill resolution was actually a pretty minor component to the game. It was all about talking to various NPCs, figuring out what was going on, and how everyone "fit" in, making decisions about what you were going to do, who you would support/oppose and otherwise playing out some very knight like decision making.

And yeah. It very much lent itself to things like "I know this is probably a bad idea, but it's what my character would do here, so....". And the system really rewarded players for playing within the personality definitions of the characters far more than how well they rolled the dice.

For me, it's pretty simple: whenever a GM talks about limiting things, I start mentally printing their "Idiot" sign, and work to uncover just what kind of idiot they are. Historically, there's 1 answer they can give that will invalidate the idiot sign: if they give an answer purely based around the experience for the character. Like, "This is a survival-based game, and I therefore want you all to create highly-competent survivors (Rangers, Druids, Robots, Undead, Robots with built-in Replicators, whatever)", or "I therefore want you all to create highly-inept survivors (unskilled Fighters, Academia Mages, city-boy nobles, helpless princesses, whatever)". If the focus is on the feel and the fun, if the GM demonstrates that they actually understand the concept of having fun and put that first, then that's fine.

Similarly, "this module is for X characters, from level Y to Z" is theoretically the type of bound designed to ensure a certain type of experience; if the GM can have a conversation about the type of experience changing those numbers will have, and whether they believe that such changes will be a good experience for the group, and are focused on the concept of a good experience, that's fine.

EDIT: "Bob is afraid of spiders, so no spider-themed characters or abilities" is obviously also very much an appropriately enjoyment-themed limitation. And there's doubtless many other sub-categories to "for fun".

None of those are criteria I've ever used for placing limitations or requirements on player character creation choices. I mean, I suppose if a player has some specific phobia or something I'll avoid that thing, but that's not really relevant to limiting character choices in a game though. Again. To me, the most rational reason to limit those choices is based on the setting and "what should reasonably be there in the first place".

Then again, I tend to pay in my own custom made settings, and not some published worldbook. And yeah, I do that specifically because I don't want someone showing up with some obscure thing that I have no clue what it is or where it came from and them pointing to some source out there on the interwebs that added this class/race into the published setting and so it's allowed or something. If that's stiffling, so be it.

And only in very broad terms do I put out "suggestions" for specific skills/abilities relevant to the scenario I'm going to run. And it's usually more of a "you guys are going to be hunting down some folks thorugh the wilderness, so someone should have a decent tracking skill, maybe cartography for reading/making maps, etc". But that's about it. And only if there's some reason why they would know this ahead of time (they're picking from a stable of characters to go on the adventure). If I'm starting something "new". I start them off "new". The characters will learn the skills/abilities they need along the way. If someone starts out with something useful, great. It's never a requirement though.

I tend to expect the characters to "grow into" the setting over time. And they will be presented with opportunities to learn new and useful things that will help them along the way. In skills based games, this means access to new skills, or items/whatever that will help them. In class based, it means opportunities to pick different classes to take levels in which maybe weren't available when they started. They discover that they are spending a lot of time tracking things through the wilderness, so someone decides to take some levels in ranger along the way. They spend some time in a city with an arcane guild, and one of them decides to take levels in spellcasting there. Find a city with a well stocked library? Someone can spend time there reading the old dusty books and scrolls (benefits varrying depending on the game system).

So, for me, any restriction that is dumb and reduces the enjoyment ceiling of the game is too much, and is a sign of what kind of failure as a GM the individual making those restrictions is. On the flip side, any number of restrictions that are made for the purpose of improving the game (and are, you know, actually good at what they set out to do) are fine, at least so long as everyone can come up with an acceptable character under those restrictions. If someone in the group can't enjoy playing a high-competence survivor, for example, then that's a bad restriction for that group, rather than a sign of a true failure on the part of the GM.

Those are incredibly subjective concepts though. What is "dumb and reduces the enjoyment ceiling of the game"? What is "for the purpose of improving the game"? I think that all GMs, when they create any restrictions in their games, do so believing it's for good/positive reasons.

I also think this is highly dependent on the player though. I had a player who decided to play a very effete, well dressed, snooty, merchant type character in a game where they were basically slogging through the wilderness. His trading and bargaining skills came in handy on a couple of occasions when they had to "negotiate with savages" and whatnot along the way, but that was about it. But he had a total blast roleplaying his character, constantly complaining about the conditions, sleeping outdoors, no decent food, horrible bathroom conditions, etc. And yeah. Along the way, his character had to learn some new skills and abilities. He had to learn how to fight effectively (And I think he totally mastered the "hide behind someone big and whack someone with my stick when they aren't looking" attack).

Sometimes the most "fun" is had when playing a character that isn't designed for the adventure. So I never require that. I only restrict chacters based on class/race that is available in the region. What specifics you pick, and whether those are super applicable to the exact events that will occur? Not a consideration (for the most part). I just never assume that the most "fun" is had by always having the most effective character for the situation at hand.

[Quertus]

they're going to have to pick from stuff available in that town, or at least that kingdom

I only restrict chacters based on class/race that is available in the region.

You're running a game set in Waterdeep? I'm playing a Thayan spy. Not from the same town or kingdom, makes perfect sense.

You're running a game set in Metropolis? I'm playing Not!J'onn. Not from the same town or kingdom, makes perfect sense.

You're running a game set in Essen? I'm playing a wandering Elf (and I wasn't the only one), or a Norskin trader. Not from the same town or kingdom, makes perfect sense.

I don't know about the settings you run, but IME there's not only perfectly plausible reasons for elements outside your restricted set to be present, but usually the GM (or content creator, if different) has already placed those elements in the starting area anyway.

Which brings us to why you set that limitation. Was this bad limitation the result of a faulty Simulationist concern, where you just weren't able to see how unreasonable that limitation was? Or was there some other reason? Let's explore that reason, to see if it was as poorly thought through as such a hypothetical Simulationist concern would be, or if you actually have good reasons designed to improve the fun of the game.

I had a player who decided to play a very effete, well dressed, snooty, merchant type character in a game where they were basically slogging through the wilderness.

Sometimes the most "fun" is had when playing a character that isn't designed for the adventure.

Strongly agree. You're clearly ahead of most GMs I've encountered in that regard. Which means you should already have some idea what dumb restrictions, and restrictions that unnecessarily lower the ceiling on fun might look like, no? If you had unnecessarily restricted your player from playing that character, they might well have had less fun. That's it. That's my point. You already get what I'm saying. I'm counting the number of vectors in which the GM is placing unnecessary restrictions on character selection, potentially reducing the ceiling for enjoyment of the game. (And evaluating why they're doing so, what their blind spots are, and giving a name to my pain, but that's just extra.)

[Satinavian]

In very broad terms, when I write an adventure, I first pick a game system, and then a game setting. And there will be restrictions, but it will always be based on those two things. If the players are going to be starting characters in TownA, in KingdomB, on ContinentC, then they're going to have to pick from stuff available in that town, or at least that kingdom.

The general idea is not bad.

However, i have seen a lot of GMs make the starting area as bog standard and boringly generic as possible. Usually so that new players don't have to read anything about the setting and to be able to gradually introduce all the interesting and fun stuff later and get some reaction out of it.

Limiting option to setting appropriate not just generally but to a specific region is fine... but only if you can catch the players interest with that specific region and the people living there. Otherise it is too restrictive.

once they actually play for a while, discover that "country bumpkin heads to the big city and gets pulled into adventuring" actually is a heck of a lot of fun.

Maybe once. Or twice. But i have played enough country bumbkins to last the rest of my life and would only choose such a character for a very specific theme group and when i am in the mood for it.

Character creation should be a starting point, not the defining story arc for the characters life. I actually prefer for players to be as basic as possible with their characters. Just enough to explain who they are, why they have the skills/class/whatever they are, what motivates them to go on the adventure in the first place, etc. What happens during play is what should grow and build the character. Starting out with specific expectations is a recipe for disappointment. Starting out with very basic stuff, is like a blank canvas on which you paint your character over the course of playing. Which I think is a much much better approach.

For this i prefer something inbetween. I don't like new characters to be basically white sheets. I want to know who they are from the first minute of play. However i don't like planned out storyarcs or set in stone development. Even a well defined character can change and the future is unknown.

But that is connected to something i have learned the hard way : If i put a long term plan and motivation in my backstory than that is usually something that tells the GM something about motivation and hooks the character takes. It is usually not meant as "this should be an achievable goal/playable experince". But that needs to be clearly communicated.

I tend to expect the characters to "grow into" the setting over time.

Honestly, that sounds not appealing.

If i play a character who is from the setting, than i want to play a character who knows the setting because they lived their whole life in it. "Growing into/discovering" the setting is something for outsider characters. And the cop out of "all the characters are totally uneducated and from somewhere extremely remote"... just no.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If i play a character who is from the setting, than i want to play a character who knows the setting because they lived their whole life in it. "Growing into/discovering" the setting is something for outsider characters. And the cop out of "all the characters are totally uneducated and from somewhere extremely remote"... just no.

My personal preference as a DM--

1. I want characters who are embedded in the setting. Doesn't necessarily have to be that small region (the setting is set so adventurers are drawn from a much wider sub-continent-size region), but they should not be aliens from somewhere else. Characters from outside the main play area (the sub-continent) need approval and workup so I know how much they'd know.
2. I want characters who know stuff. I try to be very generous with "here's what your character would just know by having lived here for X period", but there are limits. So "utterly ignorant country bumpkin" or "alien from somewhere else" aren't my favorite characters to run for, because the only sane option is "you know nothing, any INT check that isn't just figuring it out on the fly automatically fails because you can't have the knowledge base". And that sucks.
3. I want characters who have
a) defined personalities
b) reasons to be adventuring
c) exposed plot eye-bolts.
d) and ideally some mysteries. Questions they want answered about themselves.

What's a plot eye-bolt? It's the complement of a plot hook. It's a place where the player has said "I'm totally ok with you grabbing on to this chunk of my backstory and will accept hooks based on it." What I want is players to affirmatively opt in to give me handles. Hermetically-sealed backstories are great...but don't really expose any surface for me to touch. These could be a flaw, a mystery, a family back home that you're willing to let me meddle with, relationships, bonds, ideals, etc. Just something the world can grab on to that you're fine with me fiddling with. I need something here. "I want to get rich" is ok as a starter, but tends to peter out fairly fast as a motivation.

I also love mysteries in backstories, open questions that the player trusts me to develop and bring out over the course of the campaign. I've had things ranging from "I don't really know who I am except <a few things>" to "I have these markings on my arm and want to find out what they mean" to "I know I went crazy for 3 years and want to find out why and what I did". And smaller things about families, relationships, etc. It's just more ways to tie the narrative into the characters and world. I don't require these, but enjoy them.

I also appreciate small-scale, cooperative worldbuilding. Things like families, villages, customs, etc. I love when players want to collaborate with me on them. But I don't require it.

[Rynjin]

If i play a character who is from the setting, than i want to play a character who knows the setting because they lived their whole life in it. "Growing into/discovering" the setting is something for outsider characters. And the cop out of "all the characters are totally uneducated and from somewhere extremely remote"... just no.

Yeah. I typically give a lot of "benefits" to specific characters from specific regions. What may be a DC 15 Kn. Local check to a wanderer from Varisia may be common knowledge to someone form Irrisen, and vice versa.

Even in homebrew settings I encourage players to just...make up their hometown, and sometimes even broader stuff (country, rough culture, etc.) and roll with it. It's more fun that way if the storytelling is collaborative and the player is super invested in not just their character and who they are, but how that character interacts with other characters, locations, events, etc.

[Satinavian]

@PhoenixPhyre
Yes, that would overlap pretty strongly with my preferrences. Both for characters to play and to run for.

Too bad we disagree about system and setting preferrences and live presumably far away from each other and don't share a native language.

[gbaji]

You're running a game set in Waterdeep? I'm playing a Thayan spy. Not from the same town or kingdom, makes perfect sense.

You're running a game set in Metropolis? I'm playing Not!J'onn. Not from the same town or kingdom, makes perfect sense.

You're running a game set in Essen? I'm playing a wandering Elf (and I wasn't the only one), or a Norskin trader. Not from the same town or kingdom, makes perfect sense.

I don't know about the settings you run, but IME there's not only perfectly plausible reasons for elements outside your restricted set to be present, but usually the GM (or content creator, if different) has already placed those elements in the starting area anyway.

Yes.That's the point. I place those other things in there. There may not be a Thaya, much less be spying on where you are. Or there may be other areas, and you could be from them, but only if it's been defined previously as part of the setting. The limitations are not arbitrary is the point I'm making.

Which brings us to why you set that limitation. Was this bad limitation the result of a faulty Simulationist concern, where you just weren't able to see how unreasonable that limitation was? Or was there some other reason? Let's explore that reason, to see if it was as poorly thought through as such a hypothetical Simulationist concern would be, or if you actually have good reasons designed to improve the fun of the game.

I'm trying to describe a process here. If I'm starting a new game in a new setting, there may not be much defined yet. Maybe a kingdom with a few towns/cities, and maybe a few nearby kingdoms and some very broad descriptions of their relationship to the one the players will be starting in and playing in.

I've been doing this for a very long time. One of the things I've learned is that for player groups to work, their characters have to have a reason they are working together (even if just for this one adventure). While having a whole group full of people from "other places", each with their own agenda, can be interesting to play out, it usually results in a ton of conflict over time. Which often results in unhappy players. Also, while players often want to play these sorts of "spy from nearby kingdom", "stranger from far away looking for <something>", and "alien species lost in a shipwrek on our shores" sorts of things, I find that they often end up as one trick poney type characters, and the setting itself has to constantly adjust itself to "fit in" the character (instead of the other way around).

As the campaign moves on, I absolutely allow for more "interesting" origins. But by then, the players themselves have a greater understanding of what is there and how everything fits together. So they will better know how to actuall play a "spy from nearby kingdom", or whatever, while actually having real reasons for interacting positively with the other PCs *and* they will actually enjoy it more.

Day one? First adventure in a new setting? Yeah. I'm going to restrict the options to "stuff that actually lives in the area". It's not really about the character limitations, but the players at this point. I'm trying to introduce an area of a world to the players. It's far far far easier to do that first and *then* over time introduce more exotic elements. It will make the setting feel like a real place and not just a mish mash of things that make no sense. And yes. I've found that players actually enjoy that far more and that said enjoyment would have been reduced if a zillion "outside elements" were allowed in on day one.

Strongly agree. You're clearly ahead of most GMs I've encountered in that regard. Which means you should already have some idea what dumb restrictions, and restrictions that unnecessarily lower the ceiling on fun might look like, no? If you had unnecessarily restricted your player from playing that character, they might well have had less fun. That's it. That's my point. You already get what I'm saying. I'm counting the number of vectors in which the GM is placing unnecessary restrictions on character selection, potentially reducing the ceiling for enjoyment of the game. (And evaluating why they're doing so, what their blind spots are, and giving a name to my pain, but that's just extra.)

I know what I consider "dumb restrictions". I'm not sure what you do though. Hence why I asked the questions.

The general idea is not bad.

However, i have seen a lot of GMs make the starting area as bog standard and boringly generic as possible. Usually so that new players don't have to read anything about the setting and to be able to gradually introduce all the interesting and fun stuff later and get some reaction out of it.

Sure. Depends on the setting itself though. I tend to play highish fantasy game settings most often (done many others though). But I also build my settings with an eye towards rationality and stability. I try to create real seeming places and people. Which yeah, means that most things are "boring/normal" things. Towns are just towns. With people. Most of whom are farming, or raising animals, or building stuff, or providing other goods/services in said town.

I think there is a tendency for some GMs to go for the strange/exotic right out of the gate. I think that's a mistake. I mean, you can start out the campaign set in a city on the ruins of a crashed ancient spaceship, with alien tech everywhere and strange random things going on. And an order of powerful wizards there. And powerful priests. And shamans. And psionics. And thieves guild. And construct characters. And robot/cyborg people. And Elves. And Trolls. And <insert every possible thing here>. And I've done stuff like that. Believe it or not players get bored faster with that. Largely because the setting itself become a mess of <everything> and ironically that feels even more generic then if it was more restricted.

Limiting option to setting appropriate not just generally but to a specific region is fine... but only if you can catch the players interest with that specific region and the people living there. Otherise it is too restrictive.
Maybe once. Or twice. But i have played enough country bumbkins to last the rest of my life and would only choose such a character for a very specific theme group and when i am in the mood for it.

Was just an example. I think many GMs offset poorly written adventures with an "exciting" setting. I go the other direction. The setting is pretty normal. The exciting stuff is in the stories and plots involved in the adventures the characters are going to engage in. I guess the point here is that if the setting is "bog standard fantasy/medieval setting" and the characters explore and learn new/different things, become more skilled/powerful over time, and find powerful items/magic/whatever, then the PCs feel "heroic". They can both see how far they have come, but also understand why their characters are "special".

If the setting is so chock full of "strange/exoctic beings/things", then they're just one more in a world full of such things. Sometimes, as a GM, I'm going for that (I'm looking at you Shadowrun/Cyberpunk/etc). But a lot of the time? The players want to feel that their characters are "special". If you give them that via strange/exotic starting characters on day one, then it's hard to rationalize why this is actually strange or exotic, right? If the very first town you ever played in had a troll/cyborg, and an alien garthmog from planetX, and an elf princess with "wild magic", and a alchemist who can turn stuff into gold at will, and an ancient sentient construct war machine, and a half dragon half human with psionic abilities, then where do you go from there? You've literally created a "kitchen sink" setting here. So nothing feels "special" from that point on.

For this i prefer something inbetween. I don't like new characters to be basically white sheets. I want to know who they are from the first minute of play. However i don't like planned out storyarcs or set in stone development. Even a well defined character can change and the future is unknown.

Absolutely. Everything I'm talking about is about growth. In the characters. In the setting. And in the players themselves as they learn more about the "world' they are playing in.

But that is connected to something i have learned the hard way : If i put a long term plan and motivation in my backstory than that is usually something that tells the GM something about motivation and hooks the character takes. It is usually not meant as "this should be an achievable goal/playable experince". But that needs to be clearly communicated.

I don't usually start a new setting with a huge plot and plan. I start small. I may have some ideas for hooks and things going on around the starting area, but that's about it. I allow the world to grow organically over time. I try to find a balance between "interesting things to do, and things going on" and "I'm trappped to a story I wrote prior to day one that I'm not finding interesting and neither are my players".

Honestly, that sounds not appealing.

In what way? When I say that characters "grow into the setting", I mean that they aren't going to start out on day one as world changing powers running amok. They're going to be relatively low powered, having minimal effect on the world around them. They "grow" over time in power and influence. If you start out at the top, there isn't anywhere to go with the setting and characters, and people lose interest. If they start out small, then over time they find new/bigger/badder things in the world and are now powerful enough to handle them.

When those same players find themselve now handling opponents and threats they would have just died to at the beginning, they will feel a heck of a lot more satisfaction with their victories then if you'd handed them that stuff on day one.

If i play a character who is from the setting, than i want to play a character who knows the setting because they lived their whole life in it. "Growing into/discovering" the setting is something for outsider characters. And the cop out of "all the characters are totally uneducated and from somewhere extremely remote"... just no.

Ok. I think you misunderstood me. Your character will be fully aware of the town they grew up in. And the people there. And the kingdom that town is part of. And some information about neighboring kingdoms. They will know what people live in the area. The history. What wars have occurred. What temples are there. Some info about the politics of the area. But they wont know anything about what's going on 1000 miles away up the coastline on the continent they are on. Or what's on another continent across the sea. Or what's 1000 miles on the other side of the continent they are on either. They wont know that there's an ancient tomb in the desert 500 miles away over the mountains, and have never even heard of said desert either. They don't know anything about who lives elsewhere.

That's what I mean by "growing into" the campaign. As their adventures take them to distant lands, or over those mountains, or across the sea to that other continent, they will learn what is there. And along the way, they will encounter strange/exotic things. They will gain power/levels/whatever.

And here's the funny thing. I don't know any of that stuff on day one either. I haven't written it yet. When I decide that as part of some adventure they'll travel to <some island nation> I'll detail that island nation, and they'll expore it and deal with whatever the adventure it about. Same deal when they have a reason to travel across the mountains, and maybe explore that desert, and maybe have to find the whatsit in the ancient tomb. But those are adventures for later on, when they have more power and capability and their scope has expanded. Today? They're dealing with the local plots and schemes. The evil baron over there. The bandits in the hills. Maybe there are orcs or whatever periodically threatening the border areas. Maybe there's something bigger behind them causing this. Maybe there's some smugglers doing evil things. Maybe there's a cult of blood magic users causing problems. Maybe they find some clues that lead them into other things. And yeah, over time, they will discover greater connections between some of these things and other things, that will take them farther and farther away from their home town as they "outgrow" the local stuff and become more regional, then perhaps more global.

Again. Starting there on day one of a setting provides no real room for growth. Well, or you have to immediately jump to interdimensional aliens, and introducing strange rulebreaking stuff just to make things "interesting". I find that's a recipe for a rapid end to a campaign.

[Satinavian]

Sure. Depends on the setting itself though. I tend to play highish fantasy game settings most often (done many others though). But I also build my settings with an eye towards rationality and stability. I try to create real seeming places and people. Which yeah, means that most things are "boring/normal" things. Towns are just towns. With people. Most of whom are farming, or raising animals, or building stuff, or providing other goods/services in said town.

I think there is a tendency for some GMs to go for the strange/exotic right out of the gate. I think that's a mistake. I mean, you can start out the campaign set in a city on the ruins of a crashed ancient spaceship, with alien tech everywhere and strange random things going on. And an order of powerful wizards there. And powerful priests. And shamans. And psionics. And thieves guild. And construct characters. And robot/cyborg people. And Elves. And Trolls. And <insert every possible thing here>. And I've done stuff like that. Believe it or not players get bored faster with that. Largely because the setting itself become a mess of <everything> and ironically that feels even more generic then if it was more restricted.

You can easily make an exotic and somewhat different setting without going for kitchen sink or unbelievable.

For example i could easily imagine a campaign starting small in a town. But instead of being the bog standard quasi-medieval one it is a lizardmen town with a culture taking cues from bronce age mesopotamia and having heavy modifications to account for lizardmen biology. Maybe we even allow some other races like nagas. No humans in sight or even heard of, anywhere.
Now that would be something special with characters that are bound to be a bit different and probably remembered.

Was just an example. I think many GMs offset poorly written adventures with an "exciting" setting. I go the other direction. The setting is pretty normal. The exciting stuff is in the stories and plots involved in the adventures the characters are going to engage in. I guess the point here is that if the setting is "bog standard fantasy/medieval setting" and the characters explore and learn new/different things, become more skilled/powerful over time, and find powerful items/magic/whatever, then the PCs feel "heroic".

It doesn't feel "heroic", it feels as if as if the PCs are basically barred from everything that makes the setting interesting and might, at best, be allowed to look at it from afar, when the adventure allows.

I mean, i hate it already as a literature/movie tradition when utterly boring everymen types get dragged into exotic places to marvel at exotic things without really understanding them. Why would i want to have that in a tabletop-RPG ?


Not interested. I'd sooner play another Shadowrun campaign.

I don't usually start a new setting with a huge plot and plan. I start small. I may have some ideas for hooks and things going on around the starting area, but that's about it. I allow the world to grow organically over time. I try to find a balance between "interesting things to do, and things going on" and "I'm trappped to a story I wrote prior to day one that I'm not finding interesting and neither are my players".

So the interesting parts of the setting are not only hidden, when the game starts, they don't even exist yet ? Only the utterly forgettable stuff is there ? Count me out.

In what way? When I say that characters "grow into the setting", I mean that they aren't going to start out on day one as world changing powers running amok. They're going to be relatively low powered, having minimal effect on the world around them. They "grow" over time in power and influence. If you start out at the top, there isn't anywhere to go with the setting and characters, and people lose interest. If they start out small, then over time they find new/bigger/badder things in the world and are now powerful enough to handle them.

I want starting characters to actually be competent professionals. The kind of people who get asked to solve the kind of problems that make up the adventures. Not the kind of people who would better seek help themself.
That doesn't mean starting out with world shaking power. Honestly i prefer systems with less dramatic power increase than D&D offers. More powerful in the beginning, less powerful at the end of their career.

Ok. I think you misunderstood me. Your character will be fully aware of the town they grew up in. And the people there. And the kingdom that town is part of. And some information about neighboring kingdoms. They will know what people live in the area. The history. What wars have occurred. What temples are there. Some info about the politics of the area. But they wont know anything about what's going on 1000 miles away up the coastline on the continent they are on. Or what's on another continent across the sea. Or what's 1000 miles on the other side of the continent they are on either. They wont know that there's an ancient tomb in the desert 500 miles away over the mountains, and have never even heard of said desert either. They don't know anything about who lives elsewhere.

Sure. But then i don't make a PC group that is all from the same fleshed out area only to play 1000 miles up the coastland/on the other side of the continent. Unless it is explicitely an expedition campaign.

[Telok]

As a GM I'm cool with backstories that have hooks, hermetrically sealed backstories, excessive emo death & doom backstories, happiness & light backstories, etc. I'm happy to get anything that says the player thought about the character as a personality and looked at anything about the setting. I'm happy they aren't showing up with another damn tabula rasa stat block they don't even have a name for. I always put more stuff in the setting than just mechanics, I like PCs that are also more than just mechanics.

As a player I'm fine with limits. I had perfectly good fun in OD&D where elf & dwarf were classes and we rolled stats on 3d6 straight. I'm personally good with wide open options too. The only thing I throw fits about is game systems lying to me. Call of Cthulhu with everyone playing bums, young journalists, and first year university students? No problems. The system matches your character's description to the general skills & capabilities. A D&D-like where the PCs are all pimply teens with hand me down weapons & scavenged armor? Fine, I expect to get ganked by the first goblin we meet, but no worries.

A game that tells me the character is an veteran professional swordsman and makes the character about as dangerous as a dog? Something's wrong. And then some nameless bums for a filler fight at the tavern have higher attacks & damage? Yeah, no. Don't tell me my character is a veteran soldier, learned sage, or professional thief only to make me mechanically slightly better than random animals or no-skill nameless set dressing npcs and only have 50/50 chances to do stuff.

I don't mind limited meaningful options that make a real difference. But false options, irrelevant options, and those that don't match what gets said to what they do or mean. Those annoy me to no end.

[MrStabby]

The main thing for me is to be able to chose something I actually want to play. If that is chosen from a list of 4 things, then fine.
If it's chosen from a list of 100 things... that's also fine. Sometimes restrictions can help, but sometimes they hinder.

I play quite a bit of d&d 5e and find it restrictive. There are a lot of classes and options and thematically cool things that are just not good enough to be able to play at a table of optimisers. Though there are a hundred options it kind of feels like there might be about 4 options I might want to play in a restrictive game. Ban bards and wizards and then skills, rather than magic can solve more problems and classes like the rogue are attractive.

Or ban feats and magic items and then monks become something I would have fun playing. A lot of my ability to enjoy a class is context dependant - change the context and change the fun.

For many years the 5e Sorcerer got a lot of criticism - but it never seemed bad, just overshadowed by the wizard. I image a lot of the critics would be correspondingly happy with the sorcerer in the absence of a wizard class in a campaign.

Bans don't worry me if I understand why. I did a chunk of the Curse of Strahd campaign with paladins banned because the DM felt they were tok good in that setting. I can work with that kind of logic - it certainly would make barbarian, ranger, monk and fighter PCs look a bit sorry.

I have also had DMs Ban a lot of spells like divination spells for spoiling the plot/mystery of a campaign based around it.

I would generally take things on a case by case basis but would look favourably on a DM that had put the thought in to making their campaign work more smoothly and had set our expectations accordingly.

[Quertus]

"you know nothing, any INT check that isn't just figuring it out on the fly automatically fails because you can't have the knowledge base". And that sucks.

As an absent-minded genius, that kinda describes, you know, my life. I can figure out things on the fly, but don't walk into situations with any expectation of using my knowledge.

So what makes that bad, in your opinion? For me, it's just another day that ends in 'Y'.

[gbaji]

You can easily make an exotic and somewhat different setting without going for kitchen sink or unbelievable.

For example i could easily imagine a campaign starting small in a town. But instead of being the bog standard quasi-medieval one it is a lizardmen town with a culture taking cues from bronce age mesopotamia and having heavy modifications to account for lizardmen biology. Maybe we even allow some other races like nagas. No humans in sight or even heard of, anywhere.
Now that would be something special with characters that are bound to be a bit different and probably remembered.

When did I once mention "humans" in my earlier posts? I said that the race/class availbility will be based on the setting and "what is there". The town you start in, and the kingdom it's in, and the other kingdoms around them could very well be lizardman inhabited. Or elven. Or dwarven. Or trolls. Or <anything at all>. You are making assumptions that I did not actually state.

But in your example, you are also "limiting" the players to characters that are lizardmen, right? If someone want's to play a human, they can't. Because there are no humans in the area. What's strange is you call this "interesting", while my own statements, which had no mention of any specific race at all, are... not?

I also said nothing about culture. I said nothing about technological setting (aside from my preference for fantasy settings). Could be bronze age lizard men. Could be iron age humans. Could be elves with laser weapons. I never actually stated a specific limitation. Only that I create a setting, and flesh out "what is there", and the players are expected to actually play characters that fit into that setting. Nothing more.

It doesn't feel "heroic", it feels as if as if the PCs are basically barred from everything that makes the setting interesting and might, at best, be allowed to look at it from afar, when the adventure allows.

I'm struggling to understand how you got that from what I wrote.

I mean, i hate it already as a literature/movie tradition when utterly boring everymen types get dragged into exotic places to marvel at exotic things without really understanding them. Why would i want to have that in a tabletop-RPG ?

What made you think that all characters must be incompetant ignorant people? I didn't say that. I did mention the "country bumpkin" background, but that was just an example, intended to contrast something super exotic. There's a whole range of stuff in between. Said "country bumkin" could also be an expert tracker and hunter, who has trained with the local militia with his father and brothers for 10 years now, worships the local earth goddess and has picked up some useful spells, and is otherwise a quite competant character. Another could be an apprentice to the town scribe, and has learned quite a bit of interesting knowledge, perhaps worships the knowledge god, and has picked up some useful skills and magic. Another could be a veteran of the local military, just mustered out after 5 years of service, has fought in multiple scirmishes, brings tacitcal and intra-kingdom knowledge to the group. Yet another works at the local healers temple, and has useful skills and healing magic.

Why assume that "local" somehow means "incompetant"? What I generally will not allow on start up in a new campaign are folks who are "the best at what they do in the whole wide world". They're going to be "competant", and capable. But yeah, there will be others around who are better. But those people are the experts already employed doing stuff, and likely aren't going to run off to go adventureing. The best healers work full time at the healing temple. The best scribes have contracts with all the locals to write documents and whatnot for them. The best warriors are the ones who are still in the miltary, maybe hold high ranks, and are tied down by responsibilities.

Character concepts do not have to be "exotic" to be competent, capable, and interesting. From just those few starting points, you can then flesh out a personality for each of these characters. What drives them? Why would they go off investigating something rather than leaving it to others? Why would they join up with these other folks in the first place? To me, that's what makes a game interesting. Not the list of weird powers and abilities you have wirtten on your character sheet.

So the interesting parts of the setting are not only hidden, when the game starts, they don't even exist yet ? Only the utterly forgettable stuff is there ? Count me out.

Trust me. There's nothing "forgettable" going on. If you have to use "faraway and exotic" as a crutch to make adventures interesting, then you are probably doing something wrong. Also, as I kinda pointed out before, the stuff that is "nearby" where the people start out and live and maybe even have family, will actually matter to them more. If they are just a transplanted stranger wandering along, there isn't much of a tie to make them actually care about what's going on in the setting.

So yeah. I like to start out characters in a single location and then have them gradually spread out from there. Works far better IMO. And no. I'm not detailing the entire world at the start. That's not a flaw at all. There's plenty to do nearby.

I want starting characters to actually be competent professionals. The kind of people who get asked to solve the kind of problems that make up the adventures. Not the kind of people who would better seek help themself.
That doesn't mean starting out with world shaking power. Honestly i prefer systems with less dramatic power increase than D&D offers. More powerful in the beginning, less powerful at the end of their career.

Already addressed this. You don't need "exotic" to have "competant". Again, I never said there were specific restrictions on things like magic available, skills available, etc. Only that the players will be expected to start out playing characters that fit into the area we are playing in. That area isn't just "featureless farms with no people skilled in anything, no temples, no magic, no knowledge of any kind". I literally never said that. These are fully fleshed out locations where people live. Lots of different people, with different interests and activities. Plenty of choices in terms of class/skills/magic/whatever to be had.

My point is that, having built that, if a player comes to me and says "I want to play <something totally alien to the environemt>". I'm going to say no. After we've played in this setting awhile, and I've maybe introduced some weird race that lives "over there", or some other things that justify someone playing such a thing? We can talk then. But on day one? First adventure? Nope.

Sure. But then i don't make a PC group that is all from the same fleshed out area only to play 1000 miles up the coastland/on the other side of the continent. Unless it is explicitely an expedition campaign.

Where did you get "only to play 1000 miles... <away>". I specifically stated that you start out playing in the area you start in. Over time, adventures may take the characters to distant lands. I'm honestly struggling to understand how you got that I'm having them create a limited set of characters "because you start in <small town full of nobodies>", and then instantly put them on a ship and drop them off in some distant area full of exotic things? That's not at all what I was trying to say.

Years later. After having explored and adventured in the nearby areas, they may run across some plot hook that leads them to some faraway land, where they will have other adventures, and encounter strange exotic things. But that's *not* going to happen on day one. Again. The setting and campaign grow over time as the players explore it. It gives them some sort of grounding in "where we came from", but allows them to grow out of that over time. Starting out <anywhere/nowhere>, short circuits this process, and I've found leaves the players more or less bored very quickly. There's no growth to be had if you start out with "everything exists wherever we go and is available to play".

[PhoenixPhyre]

As an absent-minded genius, that kinda describes, you know, my life. I can figure out things on the fly, but don't walk into situations with any expectation of using my knowledge.

So what makes that bad, in your opinion? For me, it's just another day that ends in 'Y'.

You have more knowledge than you think, because without a core set of knowledge you can't actually figure stuff out on the fly. Figuring stuff out on the fly relies on having a large knowledge base to interpolate/extrapolate from. Its why kids who "learn to read" without actually learning facts and context never actually learn to properly read--they're reading the words but bouncing off the surface.

Imagine if you asked "what do I see" and the DM answered in a language you don't speak or only used made-up words you'd never heard. IRL. That's how your character feels--they see things but have no idea what any of them mean (in the extreme case). In the less extreme case, any attempt to engage in social actions randomly runs the risk of you falling afoul of cultural conventions. Plus you can't read anyone, because you don't know how their culture acts. And you can't speak any of the languages, because the language here and the language there aren't the same. And you're not sure how many moons there are supposed to be, or whether that particular strain of grass is going to kill you if you step on it, or any number of other things.

At the game level, you're reduced to guessing blindly. Without information you can't make meaningful choices. And most of that information is stuff that any sane character who grew up in that area would know but you'd have no hope of knowing. DC Do Not Pass Go.

And you can't say "well, I'd pick it up fast"--it takes most people their entire childhood to get to that state. And even in the very similar cultures on Earth[1], people who are foreign to a culture still make stupid mistakes on a regular basis that a "native" wouldn't make.

Beyond that, as a DM I like giving information about the setting. And having players who want to know and who want to act in accordance with the setting's established nature. "I'm an alien outside observer" means you cut off most, if not all, of those accesses. You'll never (in the course of a game or even a lifetime of games) get beyond kindergarten level--there's just not enough time. And I want people who have reasons to have shortcut that process. Where I don't have to spell out everything and play the 20 questions game for basic concepts (like local religions, etc). Where I can just say "you'd know that..." and give the relevant information.

I've found that building characters that are embedded in the setting and have reasons to know things is critical to having long-running, well-meshing games. Every time I've had an "isekai"-like scenario (whether literally from outside the world or just out of their own context), that character and player have struggled to find reasons to be there and to interact. They're operating at a significant deficit from the starting line.

[1] compared to a world where you literally have 700 year old elves, 10k year old dragons, infinitely old beings of sentient evil and good, and 3' tall people and 9' tall people mixing around, Earth's differences in cultures are tame. We're all the same kind of person underneath and the variations are fairly small.

[Satinavian]

But in your example, you are also "limiting" the players to characters that are lizardmen, right? If someone want's to play a human, they can't. Because there are no humans in the area. What's strange is you call this "interesting", while my own statements, which had no mention of any specific race at all, are... not?

Well, yes. Are you remembering that i never said something about limiting selections being wrong ?

Trust me. There's nothing "forgettable" going on. If you have to use "faraway and exotic" as a crutch to make adventures interesting, then you are probably doing something wrong. Also, as I kinda pointed out before, the stuff that is "nearby" where the people start out and live and maybe even have family, will actually matter to them more. If they are just a transplanted stranger wandering along, there isn't much of a tie to make them actually care about what's going on in the setting.

So yeah. I like to start out characters in a single location and then have them gradually spread out from there. Works far better IMO. And no. I'm not detailing the entire world at the start. That's not a flaw at all. There's plenty to do nearby.

It all comes back down to "If start your campaign in a single location and limit the possible characters accordingly, you better make sure your players find the particular location and character options interesting." Otherwise that setup is too limiting.

[gbaji]

Well, yes. Are you remembering that i never said something about kimiting selections being wrong ?

I appologize if that's not what you meant. It sure seemed that way when you said this:

Now that would be something special with characters that are bound to be a bit different and probably remembered.

In reference to the exact same setting, just with lizardmen instead of humans.

And this:

It doesn't feel "heroic", it feels as if as if the PCs are basically barred from everything that makes the setting interesting and might, at best, be allowed to look at it from afar, when the adventure allows.

In response to me talking about starting settings "small" and growing them over time.

And this:

I mean, i hate it already as a literature/movie tradition when utterly boring everymen types get dragged into exotic places to marvel at exotic things without really understanding them. Why would i want to have that in a tabletop-RPG ?

In response to my suggestion that characters start out as more "normal" people who are part of a "normal" setting starting location and then explore and grow rather than starting out as worldly explorers or alien travellers or <insert other "outside" non-local thing here>.

And this:

So the interesting parts of the setting are not only hidden, when the game starts, they don't even exist yet ? Only the utterly forgettable stuff is there ?

In esponse to my statement that much of the world will then be explored over time as the characters gain in power and experience through the course of a campaign rather than starting out with this on day one.

To be fair, a lot of your responses were about the setting itself and not specifically the types of characters in the setting. But that was part of my point. When you have a setting starting point that allows "anything from anywhere" for character selections, you kinda have to make that starting setting include all of those things from day one. You have to explain why an elven traveler is in this town, despite not yet having decided where elves exist in your world maybe. Or where this alien dimensional traveler guy came from (and thereore that dimensional travel exists in your game setting). Or why there are sentient constructs walking around (and again, that they exist in this setting). Whereas if you start the setting detailing one area, with the surrounding towns/cities/kingdoms, with a set of different types of races, classees, guilds, temples, etc that are there, you may be "limiting choices" for the players, but they are logical choices based on the setting, and don't blow up the setting.

So yeah. I find these two things to be quite interconected.

It all comes back down to "If start your campaign in a single location and limit the possible characters accordingly, you better make sure your players find the particular location and character options interesting." Otherwise that setup is too limiting.

I agree. completely.

However, my follow up point is that it's a mistake to think that by including "exotic" things for the sake of including them, or just because the players want to, that this will mke things interesting. Your comment about basically swapping in lizard people for humans is a case in point. What makes things "interesting" in a game is the inteaction between characters (both player and non-player). The plots, schemes, twists and turns in stories, discovery, etc. Simply swapping one character template for another may seem interesting in the short term, but once the initial ("weee. I'm a <whatever> instead of human/elf/dwarf") wears off, the players will be bored. They quickly realize that there's nothing more "special" about being one lizardman in a world full of lizardmen, than being one human in a world full of humans.

Hence, why I said to focus on the adventures themselves as the thing that should be most interesting and not trying to just insert "exotic things" into the setting instead. The former will maintain the players interest for a lot longer than the latter. Of course, over time, as your campaign expands, you can introduce more exotic locations and creatures, and open up these opportunities to the players. But now those things really will feel "exotic and interesting" when played in a setting they already know and have become familiar with. And they will enjoy and appreciate it a lot more than if you'd allowed those things on day one.

[Satinavian]

In response to me talking about starting settings "small" and growing them over time.

Now that was more about "experience cool stuff as an outsider through discovery" vs "experience cool stuff as an insider". I generally do prefer the latter as it tends to have far more intimate interaction and exploration of ideas and concepts.

So yeah. I find these two things to be quite interconected.

Well, i don't.

However, my follow up point is that it's a mistake to think that by including "exotic" things for the sake of including them, or just because the players want to, that this will mke things interesting.

A GM who thinks they know better than their players what their players really want is probably very wrong.

The plots, schemes, twists and turns in stories, discovery, etc. Simply swapping one character template for another may seem interesting in the short term, but once the initial ("weee. I'm a <whatever> instead of human/elf/dwarf") wears off, the players will be bored. They quickly realize that there's nothing more "special" about being one lizardman in a world full of lizardmen, than being one human in a world full of humans.

If you can't imagine a lizardmen group in a lizardmen dominated setting that is not medieval to play completely different to a medieval standard mostly human setup, it casts doubt on the ability to produce interesting settings and cultures.

Hence, why I said to focus on the adventures themselves as the thing that should be most interesting and not trying to just insert "exotic things" into the setting instead. The former will maintain the players interest for a lot longer than the latter. Of course, over time, as your campaign expands, you can introduce more exotic locations and creatures, and open up these opportunities to the players. But now those things really will feel "exotic and interesting" when played in a setting they already know and have become familiar with. And they will enjoy and appreciate it a lot more than if you'd allowed those things on day one.

Or you could just take an established setting that the players have the same familiarity with and unlock those options from the start.


I do see the appeal for theme groups of limited options. But i really don't see he appeal of gradually unlocking cool stuff during the campaign.

[kyoryu]

Never.

The vast majority of fiction we've read and consumed, the vast majority of characters we've loved, are plain jane humans, often with no special powers.

Of course, any player is welcome to not play in any game, and is completely justified in backing out of a game for any reason. The idea that there's some objective level of "proper" is kind of weird to me, yet is a common thread.

Restrictions (narrative or mechanical) can create different experiences. I don't see anything wrong with that, and even in a party of NG Human Fighters, you should still be able to have characters that are all very different people. But it's also valid to say "that's not an experience I care about".

[Quertus]

You have more knowledge than you think, because without a core set of knowledge you can't actually figure stuff out on the fly. Figuring stuff out on the fly relies on having a large knowledge base to interpolate/extrapolate from. Its why kids who "learn to read" without actually learning facts and context never actually learn to properly read--they're reading the words but bouncing off the surface.

Imagine if you asked "what do I see" and the DM answered in a language you don't speak or only used made-up words you'd never heard. IRL. That's how your character feels--they see things but have no idea what any of them mean (in the extreme case). In the less extreme case, any attempt to engage in social actions randomly runs the risk of you falling afoul of cultural conventions. Plus you can't read anyone, because you don't know how their culture acts. And you can't speak any of the languages, because the language here and the language there aren't the same. And you're not sure how many moons there are supposed to be, or whether that particular strain of grass is going to kill you if you step on it, or any number of other things.

At the game level, you're reduced to guessing blindly. Without information you can't make meaningful choices. And most of that information is stuff that any sane character who grew up in that area would know but you'd have no hope of knowing. DC Do Not Pass Go.

And you can't say "well, I'd pick it up fast"--it takes most people their entire childhood to get to that state. And even in the very similar cultures on Earth[1], people who are foreign to a culture still make stupid mistakes on a regular basis that a "native" wouldn't make.

Beyond that, as a DM I like giving information about the setting. And having players who want to know and who want to act in accordance with the setting's established nature. "I'm an alien outside observer" means you cut off most, if not all, of those accesses. You'll never (in the course of a game or even a lifetime of games) get beyond kindergarten level--there's just not enough time. And I want people who have reasons to have shortcut that process. Where I don't have to spell out everything and play the 20 questions game for basic concepts (like local religions, etc). Where I can just say "you'd know that..." and give the relevant information.

I've found that building characters that are embedded in the setting and have reasons to know things is critical to having long-running, well-meshing games. Every time I've had an "isekai"-like scenario (whether literally from outside the world or just out of their own context), that character and player have struggled to find reasons to be there and to interact. They're operating at a significant deficit from the starting line.

[1] compared to a world where you literally have 700 year old elves, 10k year old dragons, infinitely old beings of sentient evil and good, and 3' tall people and 9' tall people mixing around, Earth's differences in cultures are tame. We're all the same kind of person underneath and the variations are fairly small.

Hmmm… I’ve played the extreme of “no shared language”; it only worked due to the shared culture of the players at the table. Whereas walking into an online multiplayer game with no concept of the game and no ability to communicate with other players is a really rough learning experience.

Ignoring such extremes, if you share a language and a basic anatomy, like I do with many humans irl, I can listen to comments and observe things like the look of horror when I go to enter their house without taking off my shoes, and respond accordingly. Watching how others avoid the grass works when others are around, ****s to be you when you walk on the poison grass when no one is around, or when you lack wisdom and take the obvious path no one else is taking assuming they’re all idiots for not taking it (it’s a great way to find wet paint irl).

So, yes, there’s obviously a certain level of knowledge involved; I was talking about (my hatred for knowledge skills and) the difference between knowing the final solution and having to work up to it from basic principles.

So, for someone with actual intelligence, they’re not reduced to guessing blindly. With a shared language or similar biology, or even just the willingness to wait and observe, they can take their cues from others, and not just walk out into the busy street. Even if they maybe don’t get crosswalks, or that the “paths of safety” aren’t all active at the same time.

Without enough of a basic framework of understanding, I can see why you’d think it was terrible. If they cannot communicate, and don’t know enough to even begin to understand what’s going on (a caveman listening to a modem, or the poor AI watching that caveman and squawking on that modem at them not realizing that there’s any other way to communicate or that not all moving things are programmed to follow their instructions, for example), yeah, there’s nothing to work with.

You not wanting to spend time answering detailed Player questions about your setting details, or having them learn such things in character by trial and error, like how the natives know that the popping sound precedes a gout of flame in the fire swamps, is a valid preference, but it’s not universal, and it’s not one I share - I love watching or running PCs who move towards the source of the sound to investigate it. That’s not terrible, it’s maybe just not for you.

Yes, someone who doesn’t start at the conclusion will make mistakes, but they’ll also be likely to explore the setting more deeply, and to not be caught by the same blinders and assumptions as everyone else, because they had to actually evaluate why things are so. So it’s a merit and a flaw, so long as they have enough of a baseline to hang their observations and hypotheses on.

Or, you know, that’s my experience from computer games, RPGs, and irl.

But, yeah, I think I get your ideas, that too much of a disconnect to advance beyond kindergartener within the timeframe of a campaign is terrible, and even intelligent instigator might not be something you personally enjoy. Sound right?

[gbaji]

A GM who thinks they know better than their players what their players really want is probably very wrong.

All the time? I tend to agree. In some specific cases? Not so much. When you GM for a long enough time, one of the things you will realize is that it's quite common for what players say they want, and what players will actually enjoy playing, to be very very different. Eh... And this really does come down to degrees though. It's kinda like how a profesional chef knows better than the average customer what will actually make for good tasting food, but that doesn't mean that the chef can tell someone what their favorite food is.

So kinda like that. I can't tell this player right here "you will enjoy this. Or else!". But I can absolutely say that for a group of players, they will enjoy "these types of things" more than "those other types of things", more often and more consistently. And I can say with a high degree of certainty that the players who most want to play strange/exotic characters in every setting are also the first players to get bored. Now maybe these are just players with short attention spans and they'd have gotten bored anyway? But IME, what the players get bored with is the very "strange/exotic" characters they are playing. Once that new-character-smell wears off, they are itching to play something else different instead. Oddly, if you take the same players and actually require them to play a more "normal" character, where what makes the character "interesting" isn't some physical/racial/whatever trait, but some personality quirk, or association with things in the game, or whatnot, then the players actually focus on those things instesad, and because these are defined by their own imagination instead of a stat block they picked out of a book, they tend to be more invested in it and remain interested in the character longer.

Put it another way (and on a different axis). You're playing D&D. You start out the players at level 1. They play these characters for a long time and reach level 20. Lots of growth and change and experiences along the way, right? What if you just started the characters at level 20 instead? I mean, it's what the players were working towards anyway, right? So why "stiffle" them? Give them what they want! A level 20 character, right? Which one do you think they will play longer and be more interested and invested in? The one they progressed from level 1, right? Getting to that point is what makes it valuable.

If you can't imagine a lizardmen group in a lizardmen dominated setting that is not medieval to play completely different to a medieval standard mostly human setup, it casts doubt on the ability to produce interesting settings and cultures.

There is literally no culture of lizardmen you could come up with that I couldn't come up with the exact same thing for a culture of humans. Bronze age? Sure. Worship <insert deity here>? Sure. Eat sentient flesh? Sure. Complex social structure with strange rules/customs/whatever? Why not? The only difference is the race you are running here. That's it.

Aside maybe from the "ritutal regrowing of tails" or other purely physical trait differences, there's no actual difference that is based solely on it being lizardmen instead of humans, or dwarves, or elves, or well anything. That's not what makes the environment "interesting".

Or you could just take an established setting that the players have the same familiarity with and unlock those options from the start.

I was specifically talking about creating a new setting. Sure. If I'm playing in a published setting, I'll use whatever the setting includes as well. I tend to not do that because I actually find published settings 'stiffling'. I'm stuck with what was previously written, often by authors who did not well coordinate what they were writing, nor really think things through (or even care to do so past the suppliment/adventure they were writing at the moment). So no. Mostly hard pass. Unless I'm just really feelling lazy and bored I suppose.

I do see the appeal for theme groups of limited options. But i really don't see he appeal of gradually unlocking cool stuff during the campaign.

I'm not sure if you and I are thinking the same thing when you say "unlocking". To me, it's more about exploring the world. If they start in an area where there are no dwarves, and then years later, while adventuring, they encounter dwarves for the first time, now they know about dwarves and how they fit into this world. And sure. If, at some later point, someone asks "hey. Can I play a dwarf character from <place where dwarves are>? Maybe now that the PCs have encountered them, and opened up the secret passage of doom that was sealing off their underground city, some dwarves might want to travel to their lands and be emmisaries and learn their culture and whatnot. Or I'm part of a trade delegation. Or <something else>". And, if this makes sense, my answer will be "yes".

That's all I'm talking about here. But what's interesting is that I find that the players will be a ton more interested in actually playing a dwarf if they were introduced that way in the game over time, then if they'd been there on day one as a play option.

You enjoy dessert more if you only have it occasionally, and have to finish eating your dinner first, right? I know. Sounds very patronizing. But believe it or not, this is true and it does actually work. You hand out the coconut cream pies right off the bat, no one eats the more nurishing food. And pretty soon, they get sick of eating the pies too. You know, for a somewaht silly food related analogy I guess.

Never.

Don't know if I'd say never. I've spoken most about things people think will be stiffling, but I don't believe actually are. Um... But there are things you can do that will stiffle the players. And this is (to me anyway) more about creative personalities being blocked, or character choices/actions being blocked. Let the players play their characters. Make sure they know the setting and rules and whatnot, but make sure they have plenty of options as to how to actually play. And be good about allowing them to make their own choices, and playing out the responses to those choices in a fair and evenhanded way.

IMO, what stifles players more than anything else is when GMs force the PC choices to be what they want, or force outcomes no matter what the PCs do. That's something that players pick up on very very quickly, and really don't like. Like a lot.

My approach is to lay out "what is there", for the PCs. I then add in "what's going on", and even "what things happen" (which can act as hooks to adventures I have rumbling around in my head). What the players choose to do? That's 100% up to them. If they want to completely ignore every hook or plot I've put out there and go wandering around the wilderness? I can run that. Probably wont be as much interesting stuff out there, but there will be "something". There are no rails present, merely specific "things that are happening". If they want to engage with those things, then I provide the hooks and clues to do so. And I'd say that 99.9% of the time, that is what they will choose to do. But very very rarely will there ever be a "you must do this, or else!" situation (and those only with known characters in an established setting, where maybe there's some bad guy doing something directly to them for some reason maybe). But yeah. Those fall into "as the world grows, so do the characters" sort of things. Greater involvement in the setting goes both ways here.

Restrictions (narrative or mechanical) can create different experiences. I don't see anything wrong with that, and even in a party of NG Human Fighters, you should still be able to have characters that are all very different people. But it's also valid to say "that's not an experience I care about".

Abolutely. What may appear on paper as identical characters can be played out very very differently.

A good player should be able to take any character and make something interesting out of it. I guess part of this comes from playing in and running RPG tourneys back in the day. You would commonly be handed a character sheet. That's as "stiffling" as it can get in terms of character class/race/whatever choice, right? Yet, people managed to play those characters and had a great time doing so. It's what you do with the character that matters, not so much what's written on the sheet. At least in terms of "roleplaying" anyway.

EDIT: Additional thought. This is actually one of the reasons I'm not a huge fan at all of strict alignment systems (whether by system, or GM approach). IMO, this "stiffles" players more than anything else. In theory, it can be used just as a broad guideline to roleplaying and be a positive. But it can also be a tool used by the GM to basically tell the players how they should be playing their characters, even if the player wants to play that character differently. Taking even a bit to far and it basically prevents players from being creative or inventive with their characters. Taken to an extreme, you get GMs who use this to effectively railroad PCs down the tracks, or basically "take over" the characters and tell them that "because you're <alignment> that's what you would do here".

And I suppose a side bit (and another admittedly personal perception) is that players often choose to play strange/exotic race/class combos as an alternative to actual roleplaying (or maybe as a way to avoid GM fiat as to how they "should" play). As if they think that there's one "stereotypical" way to play a given race/class/alignment and thus that's all that is. So if they want to play something "different" they must change those things. I've just seen this mindset so many times, that I suspect it's one of the reasons why my (admittedly somewhat kneejerk) response to such requests will usually be "no". And also likely why I prefer not to include such things in game settings, at least until the players have settled in a bit (hey. I'm capable of self reflection here).

I should be able to hand 6 players 6 completely identical character sheets and have them play them all with no problems. A whole family of Zathras' basically. Each one slightly different, with slightly different pronunciations of their names, personalities, quirks, likes dislikes, etc. Over time, as the players play them, they should become quite distinct characters. The fact that they were all identical clones of eachother on day one should not make any difference. In fact, now I'm thinking I want to play this out sometime!

[Satinavian]

All the time? I tend to agree. In some specific cases? Not so much. When you GM for a long enough time, one of the things you will realize is that it's quite common for what players say they want, and what players will actually enjoy playing, to be very very different. Eh... And this really does come down to degrees though. It's kinda like how a profesional chef knows better than the average customer what will actually make for good tasting food, but that doesn't mean that the chef can tell someone what their favorite food is.

How does this chef example fit your point ? We are talking about players making their preferences well known. And when a customer says "I don't like X", then a chef won't make him X because he knows that X is known to taste good. A chef will instead assume that a customer knows their own taste and no culinary experience will be more accurate.

Now maybe these are just players with short attention spans and they'd have gotten bored anyway? But IME, what the players get bored with is the very "strange/exotic" characters they are playing. Once that new-character-smell wears off, they are itching to play something else different instead. Oddly, if you take the same players and actually require them to play a more "normal" character, where what makes the character "interesting" isn't some physical/racial/whatever trait, but some personality quirk, or association with things in the game, or whatnot, then the players actually focus on those things instesad, and because these are defined by their own imagination instead of a stat block they picked out of a book, they tend to be more invested in it and remain interested in the character longer.

That does not fit my experience. There are players who switch characters a lot. There are players with a short attention span. There are players who like exotic characters. But there is no noticable correlation between those groups.

Put it another way (and on a different axis). You're playing D&D. You start out the players at level 1. They play these characters for a long time and reach level 20. Lots of growth and change and experiences along the way, right? What if you just started the characters at level 20 instead? I mean, it's what the players were working towards anyway, right? So why "stiffle" them? Give them what they want! A level 20 character, right? Which one do you think they will play longer and be more interested and invested in? The one they progressed from level 1, right? Getting to that point is what makes it valuable.

But we are not talking about a lv 1 vs a lv 20 character. We are talking about a non exotic lv1 character (e.g. a human fighter) vs an exotic lv1 one (e.g. a grippli inquisitor). both are supposedly the same powerlevel and and will supposed growth and change along the way.

There is literally no culture of lizardmen you could come up with that I couldn't come up with the exact same thing for a culture of humans. Bronze age? Sure. Worship <insert deity here>? Sure. Eat sentient flesh? Sure. Complex social structure with strange rules/customs/whatever? Why not? The only difference is the race you are running here. That's it.

Aside maybe from the "ritutal regrowing of tails" or other purely physical trait differences, there's no actual difference that is based solely on it being lizardmen instead of humans, or dwarves, or elves, or well anything. That's not what makes the environment "interesting".

Of course physical traits are the cause of the difference. That is the whole point of playing other species. E.G. the last time i had an actual lizardmen culture in game, it had noticable differences in form of no family relations because females abandon their eggs and young lizards are only taken into society after surviving some years in the wild. This also meant no dynasties, no ancestors, no filial piety, no inheritance along family lines etc. Parents and children in any classical sense just did not exist. A small detail, but a tremendous impact on actual playing such a character. And that is only one of many points in which this culture was distinctively not human.

I was specifically talking about creating a new setting.

I personally don't create settings all that often. But when i do, i prefer to do it as a group affort, not as something a GM does alone.

I know. Sounds very patronizing. But believe it or not, this is true and it does actually work.

It does indeed sound very patronizing.

But more importantly i think it is wrong. People have limited free time to play games. It is best to make the best out of that time. If what the player wants to play is the coconut cream pie in the analogy, then the whole time between sessions where you are working and managing your life is the nourishing food. If even in the few hours you can scrape together once in a while to enjoy your hobby you get told to not enjoy it too much so that rare moments of getting what you enjoy don't lose their specialness, then i can find a better use for my time.

A good player should be able to take any character and make something interesting out of it. I guess part of this comes from playing in and running RPG tourneys back in the day. You would commonly be handed a character sheet. That's as "stiffling" as it can get in terms of character class/race/whatever choice, right? Yet, people managed to play those characters and had a great time doing so. It's what you do with the character that matters, not so much what's written on the sheet. At least in terms of "roleplaying" anyway.

A good player can play every character. Just like a DM can. But does this include finding enjoyment ? Not really. Enjoyment can't be forced and i have seen many characters being abandoned because the player didn't have fun with them. Yes, good players who were totally able to play them.
That is why people don't like being handed a character sheet and this hardly exists outside of conventions.

[gbaji]

How does this chef example fit your point ? We are talking about players making their preferences well known. And when a customer says "I don't like X", then a chef won't make him X because he knows that X is known to taste good. A chef will instead assume that a customer knows their own taste and no culinary experience will be more accurate.

The analogy is going to a restaurant with an executive chef who specializes in Mongolian/French fusion food, and then insisting on ordering a pizza. The chef sets the menu. The chef decides what the options are. Just as a GM createes the setting, and decides what is there, and therefore what options are available to play. If anything, the restaurant is more flexible, since said chef could whip up a pizza for someone if desired and it wont affect anyone else's dining experience. But inserting a race into a location in a setting that wasn't written in originally by the GM so as to satisfy one players desire, will effect the entire setting and therefore everyone else's experience of that setting.

But we are not talking about a lv 1 vs a lv 20 character. We are talking about a non exotic lv1 character (e.g. a human fighter) vs an exotic lv1 one (e.g. a grippli inquisitor). both are supposedly the same powerlevel and and will supposed growth and change along the way.

Sure. But then why would the player need to play that exotic race/class in a setting that doesn't natively contain that in the first place? There must be some reason for that want/need by the player. Something they feel they will be missing if they play something that the GM has already stated is available and native to the region. You figure out why players feel this need, and then figure out how to fill that need with other things in gameplay.

Of course physical traits are the cause of the difference. That is the whole point of playing other species. E.G. the last time i had an actual lizardmen culture in game, it had noticable differences in form of no family relations because females abandon their eggs and young lizards are only taken into society after surviving some years in the wild. This also meant no dynasties, no ancestors, no filial piety, no inheritance along family lines etc. Parents and children in any classical sense just did not exist. A small detail, but a tremendous impact on actual playing such a character. And that is only one of many points in which this culture was distinctively not human.

The Baraduinian culture treats family as a internally disruptive force, and clan/tribe is all. To this end, children are removed from their mothers at birth and raised by tribal appointed "child rearers", and taught to have loyalty to the tribe berfore all other things. At the age of 10, these children are required to undergo a series of trials to prove their fitness and loyalty. Those who pass are re-integrated into the tribe. Those who fail are outcast or killed. To even refer to someone by biological relation is taboo. All possessions are to be used for the good of the tribe, and upon death, passed out among those who need them the most, always with the good of the tribe in mind. As the Barauinian's grew into a large and more widespread culture, they adopted additional social tools to allow tribes to gradually merge into larger groups, form towns and kingdoms and now span a somewhat large empire, controlling a large section of the Northwestern continental landmass. Strangers are seen with suspicion, but those born as citizens are marked as such by the, now much more formalized, child rearers guild, and are treated with respect and as equals. <add more details about social, economics, trade, relations with outsiders, nearby nations, past conflicts, internal structures, crime, laws, etc>.

Done.

But more importantly i think it is wrong. People have limited free time to play games. It is best to make the best out of that time. If what the player wants to play is the coconut cream pie in the analogy, then the whole time between sessions where you are working and managing your life is the nourishing food. If even in the few hours you can scrape together once in a while to enjoy your hobby you get told to not enjoy it too much so that rare moments of getting what you enjoy don't lose their specialness, then i can find a better use for my time.

Eh. Then why bother rolling the dice? I can just hand the PCs loads of treasure for showing up, right? Yes. Reductio ad absurdum. I get it. My point is that somewhere along that range of "I'm making things impossibly difficult and annoying" to "I'm just going to hand you whatever you want" lies "fun". I tend towards "the players actually want there to be challenges to overcome in the game as part of their fun". I also tend towards "the players expect me to create a consistent and rational game world for them to play in, so that the choices and actions they take have meaning, and thus value to them". So yeah. This means that if I determine that <this list of things> is what is located somewhere, then that's what's there. Period. End of story.

There's a little bit of slippery slope potential to "player asks me to change game setting to include X", to "player asks me to change <other things he wants>". I mean, it's a far more significant change to my game setting to include <some random race>, than it is to say "the thieves guildmaster is really my first cousin and we're best buddies, so I should be able to get X", or "I'm the fourth cousin of the King, so I should get Y", or "I think that there should be ships delivering <some good they want> at port". One requires a significant re-write to the entire world. The others are minor details that don't really affect anything beyond themselves (but may have significant adventure relevance of course).

[KorvinStarmast]

It's fairly common that a GM will say 'no species A' or 'no class B' when listing available options for character creation.

You don't like the limits, you GM. Play that game that's offered or do something else with your free time.
Also: what Kyoryu said.
Also: I am on campaign 3 with Phoenix. His approach works very well.

[sithlordnergal]

It becomes stiffling the moment you're unable to effectively achieve whatever it is you're trying to build. And the key word here is "effectively".


So, I tend to focus on the mechanical build first, with backstory coming last. I'll focus on trying to optimize something mechanical with the build over personality or whatever. Like, say I want to make an optimized Dual Wielder. My go to build is a Goblin Fighter/Paladin/Sorcerer with the Dual Wielder feat, Two-Weapon Fighting, that rides a Medium mount, and dual wields Lances. It makes for a very effective Dual wielder, even if its a very silly mental image. Once I have that, i'll work to fit them into the world.

Now, you can add some limits in order to keep things less silly. For example, I don't have to play a Goblin, its just my preference cause I adore playing Goblins. Any small race will be effective with this build. I also don't have to mutliclass. A pure Paladin works, though you lose out on Two-Weapon Fighting and having more spell slots to Smite with. The only limit that harms the build's effectiveness is the multiclass ban, but even then I'm only losing out on a small amount of damage, and a few bonus spell slots.

However, I would not be able to make this build in a game that removed feats entirely, or restricted you to Medium sized races. The entire build falls apart if you can't take Dual Wielder, since it lets you use any one handed melee weapon, even if its not Light. And while a Medium sized race still, technically, works, the fact that I'd need a Large mount would make it effectively impossible to use inside of dungeons where a Large mount likely wouldn't fit. Without the feat I'd be stuck using Light Weapons, which is the exact opposite of effective and you may as well use a Great Sword instead. And with the Large mount I'd be stuck with a headache that's more trouble than its worth.

EDIT

The Baraduinian culture treats family as a internally disruptive force, and clan/tribe is all. To this end, children are removed from their mothers at birth and raised by tribal appointed "child rearers", and taught to have loyalty to the tribe berfore all other things. At the age of 10, these children are required to undergo a series of trials to prove their fitness and loyalty. Those who pass are re-integrated into the tribe. Those who fail are outcast or killed. To even refer to someone by biological relation is taboo. All possessions are to be used for the good of the tribe, and upon death, passed out among those who need them the most, always with the good of the tribe in mind. As the Barauinian's grew into a large and more widespread culture, they adopted additional social tools to allow tribes to gradually merge into larger groups, form towns and kingdoms and now span a somewhat large empire, controlling a large section of the Northwestern continental landmass. Strangers are seen with suspicion, but those born as citizens are marked as such by the, now much more formalized, child rearers guild, and are treated with respect and as equals. <add more details about social, economics, trade, relations with outsiders, nearby nations, past conflicts, internal structures, crime, laws, etc>.

Done.

I mean yeah, you can make a generic culture for anything. But lets be honest, a tribe of Lizardfolk that does that will inherently be more interesting than a tribe of Humans that do that because you don't see Lizardfolk in the everyday world. Where as I wouldn't be surprised to see that sort of idea taking hold as some sort of weird cult in the middle of America. One is an interesting tribe that helps to highlight the differences between Human and Lizardfolk culture and morality. The other would be a group that I ignore cause they're just another bunch of crazy Humans, and probably a cult that we'll fight later, about on the same level as an Elemental Cult.

[Satinavian]

The analogy is going to a restaurant with an executive chef who specializes in Mongolian/French fusion food, and then insisting on ordering a pizza. The chef sets the menu. The chef decides what the options are. Just as a GM createes the setting, and decides what is there, and therefore what options are available to play. If anything, the restaurant is more flexible, since said chef could whip up a pizza for someone if desired and it wont affect anyone else's dining experience. But inserting a race into a location in a setting that wasn't written in originally by the GM so as to satisfy one players desire, will effect the entire setting and therefore everyone else's experience of that setting.

Why would someone who doesn't like Mongolian/Frensh food go to a restaurant specializing in it ?
If a player does not find the setting interesting or the potential character options inspiring, they would be well advised to not play in it. Becsaue they most likely won't like it.

Sure. But then why would the player need to play that exotic race/class in a setting that doesn't natively contain that in the first place? There must be some reason for that want/need by the player. Something they feel they will be missing if they play something that the GM has already stated is available and native to the region. You figure out why players feel this need, and then figure out how to fill that need with other things in gameplay.

Sure, you try to find a compromise, some option the player has overlooked or was not aware of and that catches his interest. But the main problem is "none of the available options seems like something i would enjoy playing" and that is not really something that can be directly tackled without changing the available options. Sure, a GM might try a sales pitch to convince the player they would have fun but IME that rarely worls out.

Eh. Then why bother rolling the dice? I can just hand the PCs loads of treasure for showing up, right? Yes. Reductio ad absurdum. I get it. My point is that somewhere along that range of "I'm making things impossibly difficult and annoying" to "I'm just going to hand you whatever you want" lies "fun". I tend towards "the players actually want there to be challenges to overcome in the game as part of their fun". I also tend towards "the players expect me to create a consistent and rational game world for them to play in, so that the choices and actions they take have meaning, and thus value to them". So yeah. This means that if I determine that <this list of things> is what is located somewhere, then that's what's there. Period. End of story.

I have never in my whole life had players saying they just want to be handed over treasure for showing up.

I have had players tell me they want to have it easier, that they were in here only for personal drama between PCs, not for extrernal challenges.
I have had players tell me they want to have higher difficulty because they feel bored if they don't lose when they don't pull out all stops and use their abilities in highest synergy.
I even have had both in the same group which was kinda a challenge.

But i can't say i have ever had players tell me what they want and what is fun for them and me knowing it better then them.

There's a little bit of slippery slope potential to "player asks me to change game setting to include X", to "player asks me to change <other things he wants>". I mean, it's a far more significant change to my game setting to include <some random race>, than it is to say "the thieves guildmaster is really my first cousin and we're best buddies, so I should be able to get X", or "I'm the fourth cousin of the King, so I should get Y", or "I think that there should be ships delivering <some good they want> at port". One requires a significant re-write to the entire world. The others are minor details that don't really affect anything beyond themselves (but may have significant adventure relevance of course).

Well, yes.

I don't particular like rewriting a setting just to include a thing a player finds cool as well. If i have a player that really likes X, i will generally keep that in mind the next time i choose a system/setting, not rewrite the current one unless it would fit in pretty seamlessly.

But i do choose settings that have things my players like. Often after asking what my players like and have an open table discussion, especially with new members. And if i by some mistake turn up with something they don't want to play, then i shelf it and look for a better fit. I don't go "Well, just try to play those characters you are totally not interested in in a place you find dull, that will all change during play."

[Tanarii]

You don't like the limits, you GM. Play that game that's offered or do something else with your free time.

Or if you're okay with the systems, join D&D or Pathfinder official play. Then you can have your unique PC walk into a bar with an entire fantasy menagerie party.

Official play is ripe grounds for finding players for a homebrew open table living world campaign that actually has limits if you run them in the same game stores.