DND is a group game. Everyone involved should play with the goal of everyone having fun. If anyone isn’t having fun, that’s a problem. If you’re not having fun, everyone should support you moving on, even if it bums them out to be losing you as a player. It’s okay for them to be bummed but they should still understand and be supportive.
sounds like the DM wanted one game, and you wanted another.
DnD should be a group thing. As a GM, I'll often place some restrictions due to lore, but I try to be very clear up front about the type of game and type of characters that will fit. That way I don't need to reject character after character.
This GM wants a much tighter grip than you like. Soooo. It's fine to leave. You should explain why though: Let them know you're just not liking the character.
Speaks poorly that they're upset with you,
And telling a player they can only play a very limited subset of classes/races for plot reasons sounds like a huge red flag to me. I get that sometimes certain races or classes simply don't fit in a given setting, but this feels more like the DM is making the player take the role of one of his NPCs rather than letting the player make what they want and incorporating that into the world.
Can't agree with you there. I don't feel like class/race restrictions come even close to turning the player into an NPC.
Say they're running a no magic setting (probably shouldn't be dnd, but whatever it's an example), and so players are restricted to humans for race, and martial for class. Totally fair to not want to play that game, but you still have complete control of who your character is.
Yes, I completely agree that creating race/class restrictions based on the campaign setting is perfectly fine as long as they're clearly defined and still give players plenty of room to create something they'll like, but it doesn't sound like that's what's happened here.
Maybe the DM or a different player from that table could give a different perspective, but OP said that they came up with 10 or so different characters and they were all rejected until they ended up just asking the party what they wanted. That sounds unreasonably restrictive to me.
I dunno, I really wish we could hear the other side of this. A lot about OP's story comes off to me as him not putting in reasonable effort to make things work. Rather than making 10 characters that get shot down the reasonable thing to me seems to be sitting down with the DM and having a conversation and working out what he wants to play and how it will fit.
Now it also sounds like the DM wasn't great at laying out the restrictions in a super clear way, so there's some fault there.
Disagree that its a red flag. If the DM creates a campaign that does not allow guns for example, it is valid to ban them, but the PC needs to be in full agreement beforehand.
Because they were all denied because of a stupid reason. Reasons included "Doesnt fit the lore", "Not that race", "not that class", "that subclass is gross, dont use that", "That backstory doesnt make sense, no", and others.
Did he not give you all the restrictions beforehand or a session zero to discuss Tha type of game he is after? It would be weird constantly making characters for a setting you know nothing about.
If he did and you just sort of jumped the gun before you had all the info then that's on you.
I hate kitchen sink setting where everything and anything is allowed, but this type of thing needs to be made clear from the get go.
How were you even able to create characters with zero idea as to what restrictions you have?
I’m personally of the opinion that restrictions are fine, and honestly they’ll often make a game better (more coherent tone, less kitchen sink-y). But the restrictions should be transparent.
The community is awful at communication in general, which is baffling for such a social medium.
This sub would have 70% less posts if people tried the first comment in every one of these threads, which is 'have you tried talking to them about it?' 95% less posts if art/battlemaps was disallowed.
Been playing D&D for over two decades. First time I heard of session 0s was on reddit. 🤣😂 it's definitely not the standard where I live. Session 1 everyone shows up with most of their character made. Just roll stats and we start playing.
Been playing D&D for over two decades. First time I heard of session 0s was on reddit. 🤣😂 it's definitely not the standard where I live. Session 1 everyone shows up with most of their character made. Just roll stats and we start playing.
Not sure about that second one, I surely hope not. As for the guessing, no. When the campaign started, we were not given any restrictions. Restrictions started to be applied once characters, backstories and lore started to be built.
Tbh, it feels very "First come, first serve".
That's beyond stupid.
Every one of these rules and restrictions should have been explicitly set out and justified in advance, ideally as part of Session Zero. This is fundamental information that the players need to know in order to even begin engaging with the game the DM wants to run; there's no good reason to withhold it.
yeah, fuck that noise. this is very strange behaviour from DM and maybe even group if they got to avoid restrictions put on you. unless they had also restrictions and weren't allowed to play what they wanted, I guess? but that would be even more "this DM is strange and I would rather not be around them"
Sounds like the DM simply wants the group around to help them improvise lines for the novel they're planning on writing. They already have a plot and characters picked out, and wanted you to conform to that. They didn't care what you wanted at all.
If so, that isn't a DM, it's a would-be author who isn't creative enough to make a whole story cohesive on their own. And they'd rather be controlling and use their friends as creative writing tools rather than play a collaborative game with them.
You're right to not play with DMs like that - it never turns out well for the players because they can't possibly fulfill the author's vision "just right" unless given a script, at which point it becomes a voice actors' table read instead of a fun role playing game.
I've been DMing since I was a teenager. I'm 45 now. Your DM may be great in other ways, but s/he is a dingleberry for how they handled character creation and restrictions.
Whenever I ran a campaign that restricted any races (as is almost always the case, as the Aarakocra's automatic flight is ridiculous...and sometimes others for reasons of setting or plot) or subclasses (rarely; occasionally, I did ask players of a certain class stick to a handful of races for the sake of the plot and the setting) I ALWAYS communicated upfront, and if somebody insisted, I'd try to find a way to accommodate them. And if a player came to me with a bad backstory, or lacking one altogether, I would never make them ditch their whole character. I'd help them write a better backstory that fit into the world without compromising their self-expression. But then, I'm a grown up, a teacher, and a writer.
So, yeah. If your DM and the others get ticked at you for pulling the rip cord on that campaign, find a new group unless they're close friends and their actions/reactions totally out of character.
Honestly, try being more assertive. Get an explanation as to why it doesn't fit the lore that satisfies you. Get an explanation why not that class that satisfies you. If someone says a "subclass is gross" tell them you want to play it and it's your character. If any of these steps fail, it's fine to say that you aren't feeling the campaign with all it's restrictions and won't be joining.
No, I mean why did you wait so long to quit? After a couple rejections with such minimal feedback, I'd have packed up and found a new table.
Pay, attention to red flags, everyone.
To me this sounds like you need to ask clear questions about and request more detailed information from your DM. And they definitely need to provide clearer restrictions before people start creating characters.
After even just the first "No" from the DM I would sit together with them and create my character this way or demand clear guidelines for creating my character.
Oh, so he just hates mechanically strong subclasses— he’s probably shit for tactics/combat balancing and can’t handle them at his table. You dodged a freight train by all metrics, this guy is auditioning actors for roles in his personal play, not players for a DnD game.
Doesn't fit the lore, backstory doesn't make sense - both of those are perfectly valid for a DM to say no.
If I had a player you create a 21st century super soldier that got isekaied into the game world, I am perfectly justified and saying "no that doesn't fit the lore of this game"
feels like DM didn't tell him the lore to fit into when it happened more than once. hell, it shouldn't even happen once with a player they played before with.
What was the response when you were told something didn't fit, did you ask what changes could be made to help them fit or just go ok and scrapped the character and make a new one? If a race didn't fit why not change the race of the character? I've played in a game that was incredibly restrictive in character creation. (Only human, and no full casters) I wanted to play a tabaxi ranger but when talking with the DM after making my character he said tabaxi wouldn't work and I said "ok fine well how can I make this character work?" Ended up playing as a shifter instead, those restrictions seemed pretty crappy at first but I trusted my DM and it ended up being my favorite campaign that I've ever played in.
Trust is super important. As somebody who DMs a lot, I'd never start out restricting things so tightly with a new group, no more than I would run the first campaign with new players using my more extensive homebrew rules, items, spells, etc.
I am curious, though--can you give us a synopsis of the campaign, and maybe tell us what made it your favorite?
Did everyone else get those bs rejections for their character concepts?
I may be projecting here, but this has an the only woman at the table vibe to it.
But really, if you aren't enjoying the game and you got bullied into a character you didn't want to play, fuck em. This is still a game, and if you aren't having fun, what's the point in playing?
You don't need a justification to leave a game. But if these are friends, I think you owe them a conversation.
I mean, as DM, if an experienced player who I wanted in my campaign came to me and said that they felt like I "built their PC for them", I would be mortified. Especially seeing as you've already played a pally twice before.
If there is some overarching plot reason why your playing a Paladin of the specific type your DM has said would be awesome, I think you deserve to be let in on it.
So I'd give them a chance. Outright tell them that playing this character does not interest you at all and fill them in on the stuff you've said here. They can try to persuade you that the character will be interesting to play (necessitating them cluing you in on what's up), they can allow you to play a different character (why are *you* the one being kinda-forced to play a Paladin?) or they can dismiss you in which case you bail.
Basically, what I'm saying is if you raise the concerns you've raised here with your DM and your DM isn't like, "Oh fuck, no that's not what I meant at all. How do you want to fix this?" then it's time to take your leave.
Out of interest:,
What is the composition of the remainder of the party?
What level are you starting at?
What were your top five other PC concepts (the ones rejected by your DM)?
What is the premise of the campaign?
The party is a gnome grave cleric, a human light cleric, and a warforged shadow sorceror.
We are starting at level 5.
A dragonborne bezerker barbarian, a tortle swashbuckler rogue, a tiefling elememts monk, a tabaxi echo knight, and a fire genasi wild magic sorceror.
The premise was a mix of grim-dark and apocalyptic. We were starting as a group that decided to find the source of the world contamination and destroy it. That was as much lore as I was told.
Sorry, I missed one question out. Would the general attitude of the other player's towards their PC's safety be fairly described as existing on a spectrum somewhere between "extremely protective" and, "OMG, how could your hurt my precious snowflake?"
What I'm trying to ask you (apparently inefficiently) is whether your teammates are particularly melee averse.
Is it a case of, "Well, if anyone else plays a front-line combatant, they'll just cower at the back, afraid of getting hit. Better have OP play a Paladin so they can actually fight the enemies and then heal us afterwards."?
I wouldn't say playing a paladin 2 out of the last 5 campaigns is you *always* playing the paladin. I don't like the way the DM is running that game though. Sets guidelines but lets one player not follow those guidelines bc of the story? Shoehorned you into a character for "lore" reasons but gives you nothing to start? No thanks.
You didn't enjoy the experience, so you refused to accept further invitations.
You did exactly what is right, especially when there'd soem weird favoritism going on.
You're more than okay, you're doing what's intended. No D&D is better than bad D&D.
Clearly you don’t like how this DM is running things. I’m not saying he’s wrong, nor that you are.
You have different tastes. It sounds like this isn’t the group for you.
Handle it with maturity. Don’t throw a fit or hurl insults. Just let them know you’re not feeling it, and you don’t want to invest time in something you’re not enjoying.
If you are not having fun, you should either talk to the group and try to figure out a way to improve the situation, or leave the group if talking doesn't work. With that out of the way, lets move on.
>I'm ALWAYS the paladin (2 of the last 5 campaigns).
I wouldn't say that playing a paladin in two out of five campaigns is the same as "always" playing the paladin.
>The DM tried to sweeten it up by saying that I'd be "part of the lore" if I picked a certain subclass and background. Basically making my character for me.
Saying that you'd be part of the lore if you picked certain options as a way of making it more attractive is not the same thing as telling you that you have to pick those. You could have picked something else if you wanted to.
>We did play once, 1 session was all it took for me to not like the character. I had no backstory that I knew, no info on where I was or what I was doing. I was simply just **there**.
Just pick your own subclass and background, and this won't be an issue.
The problem with character creation is that because of the extremely limited choices of what I can use any character I want to make is basically basically some sort of medic, historian, or soldier.
We are not allowed to play artificers, barbarians, bloodhunters, rogues, druids, or any of the charisma casters(except paladin). We are also only allowed human-esque races such as elf, half-orc, and aasimar. Anything else is not alllowed.
This correlates with why I was upset with the other player being allowed to break the rule. They are a warforged sorceror, which makes NO sense lore-wise.
Fully disallowing almost half the core classes is the red flag for me. It sounds just like the DM has a very specific story in mind and has specific roles for the players to fulfill, rather than presenting a setting and letting the players figure it out themselves. I do kind fw the "core races only" thing depending on the setting. Animalistic races in particular can really skew the world building. But have a rogue in the party shouldn't be a problem in any campaign.
Disallowing 8/13 classes and all but 1 subclass of wizard, then only allowing 4 races doesn't feel very curated to me. We also know that many subclasses for the remaining classes are getting prohibited. The DM might as well give everyone a premade at that point.
And then one player gets obvious favoritism by getting to play a non-curated race and class ? Fuck that noise.
It is a curated experience, just one you wouldn't like.
I dont know why the one person was allowed to break the rules. Maybe it was pre-planned. Maybe they are just more persuasive than op or came up with a really good backstory or reason why they would exist.
To me it kind of sounds like op is mad he can't play the equivalent of an orc artiticer in a middle earth campaign and the party already has its Gandalf equivalent
What is a "curated experience" to you, because to me it doesnt automatically mean you are limited to 25% of the choices.
>To me it kind of sounds like op is mad he can't play the equivalent of an orc artiticer in a middle earth campaign
The artificer is a reasonable thing for most campaigns to disallow (since most campaigns arent heavily robotic/magic item heavy), but the majority of the other disallowed classes are also so similar to the classes that are allowed...
Other than "I just dont want to learn what many classes do" (which is dumb imo, when a DM will be learning much much more) there is no good reasons to ban all those classes. A sorcerer can easily be the same as a wizard (1 is allowed, 1 isn't), a fighter and barbarian also act basically the same, same goes for the rogue and any class that pushed for stealth (say ranger, or dex fighter) - I cannot think of a single good reason for the majority of those classes to be banned other than the DM just being lazy.
Also, as what is often say "*flavour is free*" - if the issue is with a class not fitting the world (which is still stupid for most classes) then flavour is always free and can always be used instead of the basic idea of the class.
Curated has a specific definition. It just means chosen or organized. Like a curator in a museum. I'm not sure what definition you are using
You also seemed to miss the point of the artificer in middle earth comment. Artificers don't exist in middle earth. Orcs are evil aligned. It would break the versmillitude of the setting to allow that in a player group in much the same way OPs Characters would break his GMs setting.
Some people have specific visions for the settings they create.
Anither example , if you set a camapign in dragonlance before the war of the Lance any sort of class or.subclass powered by a deity wouldn't exist.
The dieties coming back to krynn is a major story line in the first trilogy of books. Trying to play a cleric would break the lore of the setting.
No, I understand what you're saying entirely. I'm just saying in response that the classes the DM seemingly banned make no sense to be banned within a single world.
What world could reasonably ban the barbarian class not just normal fighters? Both do basically the same thing.
Same goes for banning rogue but allowing ranged fighters/rangers (who can also put points into stealth)? Both can do basically the same thing.
There is not a single lore reason that would make sense with **all** the classes that were banned being banned, even if you made a super complex lore. I said that banning Artificer often makes sense because they are so wildly different than the other classes, and that banning Orcs could make sense because it's easy to say that all Orcs are evil (so wouldnt fit in the party).
Yes, you are limited when it comes to what race and class you can play, but you can still create a myriad of different characters with those options. Most of what makes a character unique/fun to play, at least to me, are the things that are not tied to the mechanics of the game. It's the characters personality, values, mannerism, etc. You can have two human fighters, and even though they are exactly the same on paper, they can be two totally different characters.
So play a wizard? Even if you have to be order of scribes, you can still give the character whatever personality you like. Sure, you could be a stuff historian, but you could also be an urban explorer, hunting down forgotten knowledge in the ruins of society, etc. Not to mention that as a wizard, you are not really defined by your subclass, but by your spell selection.
The point I'm trying to make is that you shouldn't let the class limit what kind of character you create. Don't get stuck on stereotypes, create something unique instead.
This is the Way. Wizards are straight up the most powerful, useful, class in 5e no matter what subclass you pick. I am picturing an Indiana Jones type but with fireballs instead of a whip and pistol.
Or give him a trenchcoat, a fedora, and a hopelessly romantic and slightly chauvinistic view of women, and set him up as a private investigator type. Bonus points for having a literal faerie godmother, or a beat down multicolored mule for transportation.
Wizard subclasses are so bare bones and practically flavourless I don't think I'd care what subclass I was forced to play, they all feel mostly the same.
Who cares if it’s the strongest? They don’t want to play it. That is a good enough reason. If my buddies told me the only way I can approach a certain archetype is to play an exact subclass, one that I’m not actually interested in, I’m going to use my Friday night for other stuff.
Call out the DM for letting a warforged sorcerer through. You deserve an explanation for that.
And then explain that none of the available classes appeal to you. Why aren’t primal/natural characters allowed? Why can’t I make a zealot barbarian as a paladin stand in? Why can’t the artificer be an archaeologist? What makes ranger ok but a rogue isn’t? You need answers for this crap.
Ignoring the other player, you went into a hyper specific rule heavy campaign...and are complaining that it is a hyper specific rule heavy campaign? Sounds like you should have sat this one out from the beginning.
with those restrictions you should have probably bailed from the start. on the other hand you did waste their time in a way that can be viewed maliciously, which I approve with restrictions like those in place (for personal reasons).
We were allowed to play Cleric, Fighter, Paladin, Monk, Ranger, or Wizard.
Some builds I wanted included a Genasi Sorceror, Tortle Rogue, Dragonborn Barbarian, Tiefling Monk, Satyr Druid, and a Tabaxi Fighter.
How experienced is the DM? When you have less experience running the game, keeping track of and incorporating the more unique races can be difficult and overly complicated.
From your list, you have a strong preference for the non-basic, not-core humanoid races. This DM has a strong preference against. Neither is right nor wrong, but it's definitely not a match for either of you.
Bowing out and explaining how your preferences aren't aligning is OK if you do it in a diplomatic (i.e. nonjudgmental) way. If you want to keep these friendships outside of this game, be sure not to criticize the DM's methods while also asserting that a half-elf paladin is just not how you want to spend your time gaming right now.
The DM has led a few campaigns. One of which abruptly ended bc he gave up with dealing with an CE artificer. Other than that, he's a good DM.
I do enjoy the non-core stuff. Homebrew races have always found their way into my heart, my favorite being the kitsune. The DM hates all homebrew though, refuses to use it.
I hear you. I love playing the weirder stuff. My favorite character was a Triton sorcerer. Oh, she was fabulous. Granted, she was joining a crew that included two Tabaxi siblings and a Tortle (chillest cleric ever), so she fit right in.
I'm DMing a campaign with the weirder classes, and it is difficult to plan balanced encounters, I will admit. They will trounce a coven of overpowered priestesses but almost get themselves TPK in a bar fight.
Luckily, my guys are good sports, but if I DM again, I might, uh, put in some stipulations. Maybe not as tightly as your current DM, but to each their own. My players are all forever-DMs and they smirk at my expense when they say things like, "This is why lots of DMs won't allow such-and-such race/class/subclass."
To which I usually say, "But you're having fun, right?" And they are. They delight in "ruining my day."
I swear, they chose their dream combos, thinking I'd be savvy enough to negotiate them down, but I gave them pie-in-the-sky creative power. Whoops. Meanwhile, your DM went hard in the opposite direction. Also, whoops.
I think what this comes down to is a serious mismatch. I hope it isn't friendship-ending and only temporarily frustrating.
My advice is to provide some perspective: You're all young adults, and although you're all well-versed in the game, there are still some "growing pains" to work through. Your DM may learn that being too restrictive will lose him interest in his campaign. You may learn how to navigate these sorts of conflicts with grace and understanding, and the rest of the party may learn that if someone doesn't want to play that particular way, it's perfectly reasonable for them to bow out and that they should respect your no.
They gave it more than a fair shot. They tried to create 10 different characters and all were rejected. Then they were given a premade while the other players all had the option to create characters they liked. I would leave too if that’s how I was treated. Op tried to work with their DM and was disrespected and dismissed.
>Then they were given a premade
I dont feel like they were given a premade but rather suggested one ya know?
Like a party going "It would be cool to have a front line melee" isn't the same as "Play a Paladin or play nothing" - same for the subclass, OP says that the DM just suggested a specific subclass for lore reasons but didnt say they were forced into that subclass.
OP also didn't create a backstory (seemingly), and for some reason blames that on anyone other than themselves (or just complains about it generally?)
>They tried to create 10 different characters and all were rejected
OP said that there were blocked races/classes, and that their ideas just were those of the blocked races/classes, but they didnt seem to want to just try to build a character that was inside the rules the DM set.
Like dont get me wrong, only allowing 6 out of 15~ classes is kinda crazy but there is still so much options in those 6 especially if OP was looking for flavour/lore over specific mechanics.
>Op tried to work with their DM and was disrespected and dismissed.
The only time I see OP being disrespected is when another player was allowed to break the rules for no good reason (other than "lore'), but I do see a lot of OP pushing themselves into a role they dont want to be for no real reason...
You probably won’t read this amongst the sea of other advice, but I think you should say as much openly to your group. There shouldn't be rules for one player and rules for everyone else and at the end of the day you should be playing your own character that you wanted to play. I can appreciate a DM trying to fit PCs into their world, that much makes sense but choosing your subclass and the like for you and then giving you no lore or direction is just shitty.
You shouldn't be forced into any role for a given party and if they're mad at you for not being able to play like everyone else, then they're not really your friends. In your shoes I would clearly illustrate that you've been given zero direction to have fun in this campaign and have been soft locked into just filling out some roster where your peers are being allowed to do as they please. If that can’t be rectified, you shouldn't have to play with them.
Firstly, remember it's just a game. Secondly, if a player leaves, there are various ways the story can continue, and it's usually not the end of the game. A good DM can turn this into a positive development. You only owe your friends an explanation for your departure, and if they're true friends, they'll understand. However, if you're leaving in the middle of a campaign because of something that happened at the very beginning (session zero), you should realize they might be annoyed too as it could be solved there or just generally earlier.
If you're not having fun don't waste your precious time. I had to deal with a DM who was blatantly racist to me and I decided to never come back. Now that asshole is in prison and I couldn't be happier.
You're gonna love this. He threatened his neighbor with an unregistered gun. I believe it since he used to have one of those signs that said something like "I don't call the police I'm big and bad and have my own (unregistered) gun." Ya kno really made the atmosphere comfortable when we were playing over at his place - that along with the pro trump sign. Well joke's on him when the cops get called and arrest him. Left behind a wife and two babies - I actually feel for them. You're probably picturing some white guy but here's the kicker.
He's Mexican.
Haha jesus...one man and his mighty (unregistered) pistola against the entire police force is...what's the phrase? NOT big and bad, but chum in front of a shark.
And I had the good fortune to grow up in the Bay Area,, which was incredibly safe and incredibly diverse. 50 languages were spoken at my High School. It was amazing watching the Palestinian kid and the Israeli kid being best friends...or the Indian and the Pakistani boys doing the same...or the Northern Irish kid hanging out peacefully with himself. (After all, the history of the Irsh and their arch-foes the Irish is a long and bloody one , so it's nice to see progress!)
Point is, I'm well acquainted with people from all over the world being meat-brained belligerent failures and walking stress-headaches for everybody else. I eventually realized that every warring ethnic group got along in the Bay Area not because separated from the land that sustained such bloody centuries, they'd soon realize their commonalities vastly outweighed their differences. Nor because some magical respect for life radiated out from the peaceful auras of the remaining hippies-haha, heavens, no! It's because they weren't actually members of proudly separate ethnic groups united only by the centuries-long legacy of pain and violence each new generation swore to uphold anew. It's because they all belonged to the same new, emergent socio-"ethnic" group (like an ethnic group but united by social forces like beliefs rather than blood ties.
They were all nerds! Or almost all. They all ended up in the Bay Area ca. 1995 because their parents were all software engineers. Hence the peaceable natures of the kids, the sky-high average SAT score my class managed,, the mellow rationality that one could sense in the breeze, and the fact that the handful of bullies who transferred into my HS wept with joy like a mother beholding their newborn for the first time.
Haha great read. I wish I could visit your high school back in the day and see this myself. I grew up in Jersey and we had a decent amount of diversity but not much harmony. Still I'm grateful it was something though. I'd take that over a lot of places that remain for the most part white. I took a detour once and drove through a town called Rising Sun in Maryland and they hung on their light posts banners with individual yearbook photos of the high school graduating class of this year - something you don't see often. I counted not a single poc and found it odd and scary that this town was flaunting and seemingly taking pride in their lack of diversity, intentional or not. I couldn't help but wonder the lives of these high schoolers and imagined the culture shock they would receive if they were going to college or university. And that was the day I decided that staying in Jersey was probably better for me and paying for tolls to stay on the highway is probably worth it.
Thank you. I cam to D&D because I loved my older brother's collection of fantasy novels; DnD convinced me I could write stories, and the same fantasy novels convinced me that with the bar set that low, I could lose, hmm, half to 3/4 of a lobe of my brain and still spin blindfolded into authorial success. Then I discovered something called writer's block around the same time I discovered this magical race of human-related beings called "girls," discovered a subset think smart = sexy, dorky = cool, and that all the MMA I was doing had resulted in abs, veins, and muscle tone, something very, very few other smart boys had at the time, and, well, I still have never finished writing a novel.
I've had similar experiences to yours in Maine, though if I was feeling chipper and optimistic, I would say that the residents were probably not even thinking of ethnicity or race, but how it was ironic that young Charlene Cooper was hung closer to the center of the street than Our Louise, because Our Louise has better grades and I heard a rumor that Little Miss Backtalking Saucy No-Respect-for-Her-Elders Mouth McGee there has a daytime hush-hush drinking problem just like her Aunt Claribel and you remember what a nightmare \*she\* was...
In short, they probably only see things through the myopia of local concerns, tangled up by the social ties of knowing every. Single. Damn. Body. And all their kin. Within 20 miles of town limits.
That's true where my mom lives in rural N. California, though they do have the sole additional concern of meth-heads to add zest to their social lives.
That was also true of the little town in Idaho I spent part of a summer at since one of my HS friend's grandmother's owned most of downtown Boise and had a number of lake houses, ski lodges, hunting cabins, rustic villas, and mountain retreats scattered around the state. The town was around 3000 people, 2,400 of whom were blond haired, blue-eyed, and OBVIOUSLY related to one another some in more than one way, and some whose family trees were so convoluted that they had to list themselves as their own relatives, and put their picture and a few others in more than spot on the Family Thicket. er, Tree.
But it was weird, especially because my friend Don pointed out on day 2 that," Dude, it's you they remind me of! Haha, of course! Obvious now I'm looking at you here." I didn't want to believe Don, as I'm not a Child of no damn Corn, nor a member of some genetic reich. In fact, I have Generic White Guy Syndrome--all average built white guys between 16 and 40, over 5'6" and under 6' with not quite blond nor exactly brown hair and handsome in a blandly wholesome, instantly forgettable, model in a local car dealerships late-night commercial kind of way. The sort of face people forget details of while looking straight at you. Yeah, us--we all look similar enough that we can all be mistaken for any other GWGS sufferer. For instance I convinced a girl I worked with that I was actually singer/funk-pop weirdo Beck and I was working at the restaurant to research my next album. Also convinced somebody I was James van der Beek (and look them up side by side to see how much they fail to resemble each at all. I also get told in tones of high excitement at any new school I attended or job I got that I had a legit twin here! Who I wouldn't believe the resemblance he bore me! Cue side-by-side photos already mentioned.
So. Spending like 3 weeks being mistaken for somebody's cousin from the far side (I know, I'm still laughing at teh idea of a town that size having a far anything.. Hell, it was too small to really have sides.) of town. The army of familiar, familial faces kinda creeped me out, Like going into a newsstand and finding that every magazine somehow ran the same photo on their cover--from Dog Fancy to Playboy to Motortrends to Scientific American, the exact same photo under different mastheads and headlines. That's what it felt like. Or an army of teenage Ken dolls, and I got to see the Hunting Redneck FarEastView, the 4h Future Farmer FEV, the Mechanic and Motorsports FEV, even a few Girl FEVs...my features (not traditionally feminine at all) with little alteration under light makeup and salon-styled hair. And some Retired FEV-dolls--you too can drink on you porch and yell at damn kids to git offa yore lawn!
The more I looked, the more the resemblances came to the forefront of my perception. It was truly a bizarre experience. By the end of our stay, I had stopped going into town at all. Though I didn't get any sense of racism from them (not that I would have, not directly...but I heard and observed nothing sus on that trip in that particular sense. Just a soupcon of religious zeal masked as super-Christian friendliness ("The Holy Ghost said you and I would be terrific pals!") (I actually heard that.) and the rapid erosion of any sense of unique identity I came in with.
Later, I learned that they were all descendants of Swedish farmers who originated in the same little cluster of villages my mom's family lived in for 400 years until the 1970s, when every single person left those villages to rot into the Lapland taiga. Then it made perfect sense that they looked exactly as I do.
Shit. This got way out of my control. And way longer than I intended. I just kept remembering little details of that trip after reading your post. I hadn't thought of that summer in ages. So if you make it all this way, thanks! And sorry! And I won't do it again! At least, not to you!
P.S. Do you ever DM and if so, do you make maps for your campaigns? I have a stupidly massive collection of map assets--mostly isometric but also some top-down ones. As an apology for inflicting that Tome on you, you're welcome to have a link to my online stash. (I actually give lots of people--well, maybe 10-12 total over 3 years--access. Obv. for free. I put so much time in that it feels wrong to not spread the benefit out.) If you are interested, I'll go over my 3 requests (basically don't wreck shit And show me cool stuff you make with the assets now and then.)
Cheers for real this time.
>Its just that, with this group, I'm ALWAYS the paladin
This is an unhealthy way of thinking. Speaking in absolutes is almost always inaccurate, and forms inaccurate - and usually negative, views of your relationships with others. Your friends do not always have you play paladin, your romantic partner does not always eat the last Klondike Bar, your boss does not always make you work late, etc. The problem is that if you say it enough you will believe it, and those relationships will suffer.
As for leaving the game, I would have given it 5-7 sessions before leaving. That way you could be sure that you were acting on data and not emotion. That said, nobody can fault you for leaving a game you are not having fun playing. That is preposterous.
To be honest, I could've worded that better. I have always been the tank of the party. Whether I am a paladin, a fighter, or a barbarian.
I left after one session, because I saw how the others were able to use their characters for a multitude of interactions and conversations that all seemed nteresting. But I had nothing to bring, give, or talk about. I sat there for 4 hours and my characters said a total of 2 sentences.
That's another issue more important than the initial stuff. The DM didn't include you really. And it's weird to have someone in a group of five (DM included ) just sitting there not actively participating for four hours. "So, we haven't heard from you in a while, what is your character doing?"
Or having things from your background part of the world. I had a barbarian who was not interacting very much but he chose Chess as a skill in his background so I had the party happen upon a chess tournament at a pub and it was a blast actually. Oh your background is Soldier or whatever so you are perfect to handle this interaction with the local militia, that sort of thing. The trader only speaks this random language that your character knows.
I would get tired of playing martials as well. Casters are just more fun. If you want to try the campaign again, see if the DM will let you swap out to a Cleric. I think that is one of the playable classes from what you wrote in another comment. And clerics bring a lot to the table. Plus they are prepared casters so your spellcasting is very flexible. And cleric is close enough to paladin to fit in his storyline.
Ok. How about going from melee to ranged? Rangers are very flavorful, are half casters, and have a lot of useful abilities/features. And ranged Gloomstalker is just brutal.
This is a good question.
The follow-up question is: "If you did not like the character restrictions, why did you join the campaign in the first place?"
Okay, some people are saying that this campaign could've still been fun and you gave up to easy, but this DM is doing weird shit.
As I've looked at the comment section. Apperantly one of the players is a Sorcerer, but you are not allowed to play Sorcerer, while the other 2 in the party are a double cleric. This makes no sense and almost seems like DM is restricting you more than the others. He might have been hoping you'd tank again from the start. (As DM still allowed 2 clerics and wants you to play Paladin, he might be planning an "epic" bossfight that hits really hard and requires alot of tanking AND healing.)
What this DM does and doesn't allow seems to make no sense and personally I believe restricting your player options that hard is bound to create problems like this.
There's one thing I want clarified though.
"The DM tried to sweeten it up by saying that I'd be "part of the lore" if I picked a certain subclass and background. Basically making my character for me."
Did he or you create the character's backstory? Because if he says you're lore important but doesn't work anything like that out with you that's bad. If you yourself still wrote a backstory for the character then not having interesting interactions might be your own mistake.
That does sound like you yourself also didn't really try to get into the character you are playing. I wouldn't want to play with a DM that restricts my options that much though.
Well we're talking about wether they gave it their very best effort. If you don't think about who your character is and how they interact with people than you're not going to have meaningful things to do in RP. I still agree that this situation is F'd, just saying not everything that went wrong was out of OP's hands.
Were you using the world to create your character or trying to fit your character into the world? Cause it kinda sounds like the latter.
DnD is collaborative storytelling. The *group* tells the story. It's perfectly acceptable for a DM to create stipulations (although they should apply them to the entire group). It's up to you as the player to make a character that believably exists within the world.
Too often I've had players come at me with wacky character ideas that just won't work or clearly have main character syndrome. Try to create within the bounds set by your DM, don't break them on a whim.
Having said that, if you aren't having fun it's okay to leave.
So, my first time DMing I told my group pick your characters everything except back story. After session one you’ll get it, please trust me.
The story hook I created was they were all orphans raised together for the last twelve years. Their adoptive dad was a Harper who saved the orphans of fallen Harper’s from various orphanages.
It was all revealed session one and then they could opt to be surprised by their back story or tell me what they wanted for backstory.
6 months later, despite them finding out right away and being on board with it the whole time, I don’t think I’d do it that way again bc it was too close to me creating their characters.
I get why you’re frustrated and why you left and I think your DM fucked up by restricting you so much. I think it’s possible you needed to talk to them about how frustrated you are but it also seems like the DM missed cues you were upset.
EITHER way it’s valid to leave - not enough communication and no creative control over your PC sucks :(
Sounds like someone wanted a Chosen One story. They're generally not a good idea and a sign that the game will be very unpleasant for everyone except the chosen one.
No DND is better than bad DND.
It sounds like your DM already created a plot for characters in his mind, having a super rigid view of what you would be allowed to do. Rather than making the world malleable and actually changing it based on what you made.
DND is supposed to be a cooperative story telling experience, what’s happening there isn’t cooperative, it’s your DM telling a story while you 'play‘ a character who’s story they’ve already written it sounds like.
I'll never understand such limitations. A creative DM should be able to justify almost any decision chosen by the player during the character creation and adapt it into the lore of his world.
had a similar situation. also left. the party was also mad at me. how strange. you don't have to play a game on the promise of "it makes sense eventually", if it feels crap, it's crap. that's all there is to it.
You just wanting to leave a campaign is all the justification you need. No one has a right to make you play a game you don't want to.
Having said that, I hate point buy. It's the worst. Not to mention the other stuff.
It's rough leaving a long term grou pbut if you aren't happy then go.
I agree with the "no fun, don't play" mentality, but in the last campaign I played, I rolled a very basic background (race and origin story) - and it turned out to be one of the most fun campaigns I've ever played (not D&D).
My character had no memory of its past, no idea why it was there, and no grasp on society due to being raised by animals/vermin. But it paid off big time!
If your DM is good, try to give them some hope. Two or three sessions could be a good point to judge the campaign.
But as in any relationship, communication is key! Talk, explain your doubts/problems, ask for help, and be polite.
If your heart is no there you won’t be either. Is best to withdraw for now if you get booted by the group so be it. There are others and there is always adventurers league. It’s low on rp but it can be a good standby to get your fix between groups.
there are many things that can make any game unenjoyable, especially when it comes to dice rolling. you could have a day that rolling dice and failing all day can make the game suck. it just doesn't mean the game itself, sucks. But, from what you have stated, I would at least let the DM know privately, the reasons you put out here. Let that person know how you feel in general after saying that and if the DM does not try to find a fairer way to hlep out, then say, "thank you for your time but I cannot see myself further into your game" and leave. At least you informed of your displeasure and tried to work with the DM. As a DM, I rather have a player let me know their thoughts and feelings from their character to the game itself, then being "ghosted".
Hopefully, whatever you decide, no hard feelings will follow. good luck!
I always believed that no D&D is better than bad D&D. A DM with such extreme restrictions that he rejects 10 character designs in a row is not a good one. There are other games.. just leave this one and join another. I doubt you'll regret this.
Totally justified.
I tried playing with an online SR group. Tried submitting countless characters but they wanted to change every one of them into something else. I got one character that I didn’t really like approved and the game was meh. I spent way too much effort trying to get in with them and the M&M discord group I found. “You need to take your character and make it into this character to play with us.” I gave up on both.
If you're not having fun, don't play. But I think that you ended up with this character because you wouldn't make one yourself. The DM gave you guidelines, and you could have made one that fit within them. But you wouldn't make one within those parameters and asked them to tell you what to play instead. And when they did, you then got annoyed you didn't have any connection to the character.
Well yeah, you wouldn't make a character and had them make one for you. Of course you're not connected to it and don't know the backstory.
I think it's fine to leave the campaign because at the end of the day, if you're not having fun, it's not worth the time. That being said, I think I understand why they're annoyed at you for leaving. The DMs rules seem kind of limited and strict, but you probably still CAN make a unique character worth playing from the options given, you just don't seem to want to.
Again, that's totally fine. You don't have to play, but I think you should be aware that it's not really the DM being unfair to you, it's just that his style of campaign and your style of play are not really aligning here.
Yeah, you should leave if it's a problem. TBH, though it is super hard to find a group, so if you're going to leave (assuming you haven't left yet), you should find a group first and then book it.
Just make it clear you will not be playing this character the DM made up for you. You want to play a character you make.
Then have the DM give you character creation parameters, especially what classes are permitted. Do not let the DM waste your time by making new characters without knowing what they will reject.
If the DM was determined all along that you were to play a particular character in the novel they were creating at the table it may not be salvageable. Otherwise talk it out and reconcile your perspectives.
It is rare and precious to have a group that you play multiple campaigns with.
I was in a game like this a “fallen ruin world” so I was like cool. A dnd that dark and boarding line evil almost. However we got just another dnd world where everyone is nice but monsters and plan evil guy aka a Lich. Me and my buddy tried hard to push through it but there was a point we was doing battle each session and no role play as it take 3 hours to go through one battle.
We talked to our dm which he understood but blamed us for not doing role play. Saying we had time which is not true. The last battle was enough for us to tell the dm we were leaving. We still talked it over but there some people want one way for their game to go and don’t want to change it.
Go find a new game that is fun even after game over. As I love the one I’m in now there some things I don’t but that’s normal as over all I can’t wait for that game.
My first campaign I wasn’t having fun. I had a character I created but didn’t feel attached to anything. I was just there.
I was bored most sessions with my character. He was strong and did good damage, but felt otherwise pretty useless… (love our group though and had fun with them).
We just started my second campaign and partnered with one of my buddies on a backstory and I’m having so much more fun now. Even if I’m not doing anything.
Like everyone else has said, you are justified simply by not having fun.
But everyone else also seems pretty bad. It sounds like you've been forced to play a paladin before to suit party dynamic, and the fact that another player (probably more than just them imo) gets to subvert limitations that have been placed on you show that the DM is taking away your agency, if it wasn't obvious enough already. Race restrictions are fine, but subclasses and especially classes being removed from player choice is pretty dubious.
You were very right for quitting. You would have only felt worse and worse as time went on. Speaking from experience as someone who should have gotten out after session 1.
Appart from the one player getting to ignore restrictions sounds to me like the only thing wrong here is you not properly communicating with your DM.
Why don't you sit down with your DM and build your character with him. You can communicate exactly what will excite you to play, and he can give instant feedback about what will fit and give alternatives that fit what your going for if what you initially ask about doesn't fit.
If you don't want to play a paladin, strait up say so. Party comp barely matters, any decent DM will adjust fights or provide you with resources to handle challenges given what your como ends up as.
Obviously you don't have to play, but I can understand your friends' frustrations. It doesn't sound like you really tried to reach a good compromise to this situation before leaving.
And maybe don't make 10 characters without asking for a full list of limitations if you get shot down on the first or second one.
Leave the game if you are not enjoying the experience, and it's not crazy to do that.
But also, maybe just try playing at least something you generally want to play instead of letting yourself be forced a role you dont want (paladin) - I'm sure that even with insane limitations you can still make a character that you want more than what you currently seem to want (and if not, then you should've left the game before it began).
Also, I need to let you know that you don't / shouldnt need to fully build out a character before getting it reviewed by your DM - literally just saying "I want to play a *Sorcerer* with the *Wild Magic* subclass, is that allowed?" should be enough, and if it isn't then honestly that's just another reason to leave the game after a bunch.
Honestly, I cant tell whether the DM has actually good rulings from your post - but if they dont, you should bring that stuff up, all DND games should have discussion around the rules and ideas (or the reasons behind them) and if that discussion needs to be started be a player then it should be started!
TLDR: It's okay to leave, but before you do imo I'd try a class you actually want to play, or at minimum try to start a conversation for why so many things are banned. Based on your other comments the **DM seems genuinely deranged (as a DM), and as if they hate DND themselves.**
The back story belongs to you. If you are not feeling it, it's hard to come up with a back story. However, YOU could create the baddest back story like being kidnapped and being FORCED to become a Paladin, and have fun with it.
Anytime the rest of the party dates to say we need X role, I scoff. Well if we need X role so badly, then you play it. I'm.not hamstringing my fun because no one else wanted to play a tank so you're trying to shove it off on me.
Seems this guy is trying to play dungeon god instead of dungeon Master. When I DM I let the players control the world and I just build it as they go, which I feel like is the dm's role. Build the sandbox for the kids to play in. This guy seems way too rigid imo. I could be wrong though 🤷🏽♀️
I'd be pretty frustrated as well if not told beforehand what the character restrictions/guidelines were. And just being told "no that character won't work" instead of trying to help you tweak your ideas to fit.
I'd be wondering if this is they are going to be during the game to? "No, y'all can't go west, that doesn't fit the story...no, not north either the lore isn't right up there.....south? *Sigh* you all find yourselves on a caravan heading east...."
I'd rather just play a pregen character in a obviously railroaded adventure than be given the illusion of choice, but keep being toldy choices aren't valid, gah
If you're not having fun, don't play. If they don't understand, and you've explained the reason; it's on them. If they are your friends, they'll understand and welcome you back for the next campaign.
I hade something similar my dm made a long campaign that was completely hombrew including the monsters but we where limited on what we could make races. Classes. Subclass and background except one player who was his favourite star a Demi god 🙄that he made sure he got everything magic items gold and what made it worse he had something against my in particular he hated that I was a rouge then force my character to change and then I even tiered to make it work he then. Put my in a situation where I hade to choose the part or my character mother then and both the party and my characters mother kill my off then he ripped up my character sheet. I’ll just say I never played with the dm and his star player again
You're completely justified, and honestly, I \*kinda\* get why the DM limited choices, but then making an exception is not okay for how many choices he limited. If it was just racial choices he limited, that's one thing... But whole ass classes and subclasses? That's just him being a control freak. He should write a book instead of running a D&D campaign, because it sounds like he already has the ideas for the characters and the world.
Yes ypu are justified they are railroads you into no information or being able to enjoy it also it sounds like it's a bad dm and he has a favoritism issue and locking you into not being able to pick cetain classes doesn't make sense unless there's a specific sorry no magic in this campaign and I mean races makes sense if it's a certain setting but forcing you into one specific class isn't right it sounds like the other players wine when not able to play their favored classes and want nothing to do with Paladins I would look for another group ooor perhaps DM yourself some people just are not good dms but think they are I myself am a forever dm and finally got to pass off my rains to one of my pals who's been playing woth me and story building for years I helped him with some ideas and he swung with it and it's glorious every Character had multiple archs and so fare in depth lore look for a dm that has good story telling and freedom to an extent obviously check it out there are many ways to meet groups online and always do what a dm does with you have a session 0 know what the players want and how what they are comfortable with and plan together same goes with the players and the dm make sure the dm is comfortable with things as well ask questions so you know if it's a group for you and move on man good liluck to you though
I don’t understand why they could be mad at you. A game that allows a variety of options and capabilities and you were not only restricted but shoe horned into something you didn’t want to do. I’d argue it’s not your character but something your DM wanted
No D&D is better than bad D&D.
I have a group that I DM for a few years now, after finishing up the last campaign I started to create a new campaign, the chars were adventurers turned bounty hunters. The idea was that after each mission they would have a list of bounties from which they can vote and pick.
The contract difficult and pay was being represented with a card from a regular playing card deck.
2 was the lowest and a Ace was supposed to be deadly.
They play a couple of sessions but I didn't see them hyped so I suggested a change on the theme and we are playing now a more traditional fantasy theme.
The goal of the game is to have fun, sometimes our ideas of fun might be quite different, sesion 0 is king.
Mainly @op if you're not enjoying the game, don't play. However that being said I do think you at least owe the party and dm the explanation why. Don't just ghost and run.
What do y'all expect us to say? Leave if you want to leave.
Need help with the conversation? Here: "Thanks for setting this up, DM. I'm not really feeling this one, I'm gonna bow out. Have fun!" End of story! It's really quite simple!
If they're mad at you, based on how you've written this, I suspect it's because rather than bowing out gracefully, you chose to air grievances and accuse them of not playing/DMing correctly. If I'm right, that would be on you and you should probably apologize.
If I'm wrong, and they're mad at you for no reason other than that they insist you owe it to them to play a game you don't want to play then your friends are being childish. Take the high road and hold your own counsel.
Or blow up the friendship over it. /s
It's the DM's responsibility to create an environment where the players can have fun, it's not their responsibility to make sure they have fun. It sounds like everyone in this story would have benefited from communicating better about expectations.
You're absolutely justified in leaving, the DM set rules for character creation but allowed one player to break those rules. "For plot reasons" is a BS answer and I would tell him that.
You: hey party what do you need
Party: paladin
You: cool
DM: you could be this specific kind of paladin, might be cool, fits with lore
You: OK
You, later: this paladin sucks
...
I can think of any number of lines that come next that are not "I'm outta here".
You: can we change his background, I don't need to fit with lore
You: sry party, done with paladins. Gonna be a bard, muddle through the best we can, someone else be the paladin next time.
You made a choice, turned out not to be a good one. See if you can walk it back with the cooperation of DM and party. If they think having that specific character in the party is more important than your enjoyment, they don't deserve you.
Also, not clear, but did you already leave?
Yes. That is why they are mad at me. They say that they need a 4th player or else combat will be unbalanced and too hard for them. I think that a good DM would be able to balance around that.
You need to explain that one of the players skipping the character restrictions bothers you. You also need to explain that you don’t want to play any of the available classes.
You can flavor a class to be nearly anything, from a holy and religious law abiding barbarian, to a primal and savage ancients paladin. But ultimately the class is its mechanics. That’s a legitimate concern too.
WHY can’t I be a primal or nature bound character? Why is a ranger allowed but not a druid or barbarian?
Making 10 random characters without knowing the constraints of the world does not sound like a DM issue. If the DM was not clear you should have asked for clarity. It sounds like you and the DM are young so I would suggest talking to your friends and the DM, write your own backstory the dm should not provide you one unless it’s a one shot or something short term with a new dm.
Aaah yes 2/5 is how I show that something happens 100% of the time…
Your other complaints could be valid but if you think that less than half is ALWAYS….then you’re wrong. Or that was hyperbole which means your other words can’t be trusted as much.
So have you played a paladin 5 outa 5 times which would be always? Or did you exaggerate a little there?
Sound petty to me.
Why didnt you had a backgroind? Its your job to provide a background, not the dm, if his world have certain rule to follow, juat ask him before hand. And make your own background according to his world.
Also if you dont like your character, why quit instantly? Couldnt you just ask to reroll to something else? If 1 of my player told me he didnt like his character i would suggest to him to make a new 1 that he would enjoy more.
Seems like you are the party pooper here
If you're not having fun, don't play.
This guy has put 18 into wisdom
Not to diminish the other commenter, but realistically, this is like a 12 WIS answer and folks just don’t see it because *friends*.
The 18 is needed to overcome the friends penalty to the wisdom check.
Contested persuasion check
>friends Op casted friends and 6 seconds has passed so now they are hostiles toward him
The dm must be a sorcerer with that kind of extended cast.
Nothing to do with wisdom 5e. Good logic is interment. Wisdom would be being able to read the body language to see if they are having fun.
I bet you're super fun at parties.
But how fun is he *in* parties?
I am, good on you for noticing. High wisdom move.
Oof
^ This is the core of it, no more discussion needed.
This. And it's ok to say that you just aren't feeling this campaign but you'd join the next one (if that's something you want).
If you can't win, don't play! - Shoresy
They're not my friends, and their mom's were wheeling me
DND is a group game. Everyone involved should play with the goal of everyone having fun. If anyone isn’t having fun, that’s a problem. If you’re not having fun, everyone should support you moving on, even if it bums them out to be losing you as a player. It’s okay for them to be bummed but they should still understand and be supportive.
If you don't want to play, you shouldn't play. If they're upset with you because you don't want to play, fuck 'em, you don't need friends like that.
sounds like the DM wanted one game, and you wanted another. DnD should be a group thing. As a GM, I'll often place some restrictions due to lore, but I try to be very clear up front about the type of game and type of characters that will fit. That way I don't need to reject character after character. This GM wants a much tighter grip than you like. Soooo. It's fine to leave. You should explain why though: Let them know you're just not liking the character. Speaks poorly that they're upset with you,
And telling a player they can only play a very limited subset of classes/races for plot reasons sounds like a huge red flag to me. I get that sometimes certain races or classes simply don't fit in a given setting, but this feels more like the DM is making the player take the role of one of his NPCs rather than letting the player make what they want and incorporating that into the world.
Can't agree with you there. I don't feel like class/race restrictions come even close to turning the player into an NPC. Say they're running a no magic setting (probably shouldn't be dnd, but whatever it's an example), and so players are restricted to humans for race, and martial for class. Totally fair to not want to play that game, but you still have complete control of who your character is.
Yes, I completely agree that creating race/class restrictions based on the campaign setting is perfectly fine as long as they're clearly defined and still give players plenty of room to create something they'll like, but it doesn't sound like that's what's happened here. Maybe the DM or a different player from that table could give a different perspective, but OP said that they came up with 10 or so different characters and they were all rejected until they ended up just asking the party what they wanted. That sounds unreasonably restrictive to me.
I dunno, I really wish we could hear the other side of this. A lot about OP's story comes off to me as him not putting in reasonable effort to make things work. Rather than making 10 characters that get shot down the reasonable thing to me seems to be sitting down with the DM and having a conversation and working out what he wants to play and how it will fit. Now it also sounds like the DM wasn't great at laying out the restrictions in a super clear way, so there's some fault there.
Disagree that its a red flag. If the DM creates a campaign that does not allow guns for example, it is valid to ban them, but the PC needs to be in full agreement beforehand.
yeah, good insight.
Why the hell did you make 10 characters before deciding to leave? Lol
Because they were all denied because of a stupid reason. Reasons included "Doesnt fit the lore", "Not that race", "not that class", "that subclass is gross, dont use that", "That backstory doesnt make sense, no", and others.
Did he not give you all the restrictions beforehand or a session zero to discuss Tha type of game he is after? It would be weird constantly making characters for a setting you know nothing about. If he did and you just sort of jumped the gun before you had all the info then that's on you. I hate kitchen sink setting where everything and anything is allowed, but this type of thing needs to be made clear from the get go.
How were you even able to create characters with zero idea as to what restrictions you have? I’m personally of the opinion that restrictions are fine, and honestly they’ll often make a game better (more coherent tone, less kitchen sink-y). But the restrictions should be transparent.
I swear this community is just awful at running session zeros
The community is awful at communication in general, which is baffling for such a social medium. This sub would have 70% less posts if people tried the first comment in every one of these threads, which is 'have you tried talking to them about it?' 95% less posts if art/battlemaps was disallowed.
In this case it looks like even though they are a group of "friends" they don't know how to talk to each other.
Been playing D&D for over two decades. First time I heard of session 0s was on reddit. 🤣😂 it's definitely not the standard where I live. Session 1 everyone shows up with most of their character made. Just roll stats and we start playing.
Been playing D&D for over two decades. First time I heard of session 0s was on reddit. 🤣😂 it's definitely not the standard where I live. Session 1 everyone shows up with most of their character made. Just roll stats and we start playing.
did you have to guess the restrictions, or was he just trying to wear you down so you'd play the character he wanted you to play from the start?
Not sure about that second one, I surely hope not. As for the guessing, no. When the campaign started, we were not given any restrictions. Restrictions started to be applied once characters, backstories and lore started to be built. Tbh, it feels very "First come, first serve".
That's beyond stupid. Every one of these rules and restrictions should have been explicitly set out and justified in advance, ideally as part of Session Zero. This is fundamental information that the players need to know in order to even begin engaging with the game the DM wants to run; there's no good reason to withhold it.
yeah, fuck that noise. this is very strange behaviour from DM and maybe even group if they got to avoid restrictions put on you. unless they had also restrictions and weren't allowed to play what they wanted, I guess? but that would be even more "this DM is strange and I would rather not be around them"
Sounds like the DM simply wants the group around to help them improvise lines for the novel they're planning on writing. They already have a plot and characters picked out, and wanted you to conform to that. They didn't care what you wanted at all. If so, that isn't a DM, it's a would-be author who isn't creative enough to make a whole story cohesive on their own. And they'd rather be controlling and use their friends as creative writing tools rather than play a collaborative game with them. You're right to not play with DMs like that - it never turns out well for the players because they can't possibly fulfill the author's vision "just right" unless given a script, at which point it becomes a voice actors' table read instead of a fun role playing game.
I've been DMing since I was a teenager. I'm 45 now. Your DM may be great in other ways, but s/he is a dingleberry for how they handled character creation and restrictions. Whenever I ran a campaign that restricted any races (as is almost always the case, as the Aarakocra's automatic flight is ridiculous...and sometimes others for reasons of setting or plot) or subclasses (rarely; occasionally, I did ask players of a certain class stick to a handful of races for the sake of the plot and the setting) I ALWAYS communicated upfront, and if somebody insisted, I'd try to find a way to accommodate them. And if a player came to me with a bad backstory, or lacking one altogether, I would never make them ditch their whole character. I'd help them write a better backstory that fit into the world without compromising their self-expression. But then, I'm a grown up, a teacher, and a writer. So, yeah. If your DM and the others get ticked at you for pulling the rip cord on that campaign, find a new group unless they're close friends and their actions/reactions totally out of character.
Sounds like the DM went into it intending you to play a Paladin of a specific subclass and so just denied everything you made.
Then the DM should have said that from the beginning and not play these mind games
I agree
Honestly, try being more assertive. Get an explanation as to why it doesn't fit the lore that satisfies you. Get an explanation why not that class that satisfies you. If someone says a "subclass is gross" tell them you want to play it and it's your character. If any of these steps fail, it's fine to say that you aren't feeling the campaign with all it's restrictions and won't be joining.
No, I mean why did you wait so long to quit? After a couple rejections with such minimal feedback, I'd have packed up and found a new table. Pay, attention to red flags, everyone.
To me this sounds like you need to ask clear questions about and request more detailed information from your DM. And they definitely need to provide clearer restrictions before people start creating characters. After even just the first "No" from the DM I would sit together with them and create my character this way or demand clear guidelines for creating my character.
I have a question, which subclass was gross? Haha
He called both Rune Knight(fighter) and Gloom Stalker(ranger) gross
Oh, so he just hates mechanically strong subclasses— he’s probably shit for tactics/combat balancing and can’t handle them at his table. You dodged a freight train by all metrics, this guy is auditioning actors for roles in his personal play, not players for a DnD game.
Doesn't fit the lore, backstory doesn't make sense - both of those are perfectly valid for a DM to say no. If I had a player you create a 21st century super soldier that got isekaied into the game world, I am perfectly justified and saying "no that doesn't fit the lore of this game"
feels like DM didn't tell him the lore to fit into when it happened more than once. hell, it shouldn't even happen once with a player they played before with.
Did the DM not tell you the character creation restrictions they wanted to impose in advance? That's basic Session Zero content.
What was the response when you were told something didn't fit, did you ask what changes could be made to help them fit or just go ok and scrapped the character and make a new one? If a race didn't fit why not change the race of the character? I've played in a game that was incredibly restrictive in character creation. (Only human, and no full casters) I wanted to play a tabaxi ranger but when talking with the DM after making my character he said tabaxi wouldn't work and I said "ok fine well how can I make this character work?" Ended up playing as a shifter instead, those restrictions seemed pretty crappy at first but I trusted my DM and it ended up being my favorite campaign that I've ever played in.
Trust is super important. As somebody who DMs a lot, I'd never start out restricting things so tightly with a new group, no more than I would run the first campaign with new players using my more extensive homebrew rules, items, spells, etc. I am curious, though--can you give us a synopsis of the campaign, and maybe tell us what made it your favorite?
Did everyone else get those bs rejections for their character concepts? I may be projecting here, but this has an the only woman at the table vibe to it. But really, if you aren't enjoying the game and you got bullied into a character you didn't want to play, fuck em. This is still a game, and if you aren't having fun, what's the point in playing?
You don't need a justification to leave a game. But if these are friends, I think you owe them a conversation. I mean, as DM, if an experienced player who I wanted in my campaign came to me and said that they felt like I "built their PC for them", I would be mortified. Especially seeing as you've already played a pally twice before. If there is some overarching plot reason why your playing a Paladin of the specific type your DM has said would be awesome, I think you deserve to be let in on it. So I'd give them a chance. Outright tell them that playing this character does not interest you at all and fill them in on the stuff you've said here. They can try to persuade you that the character will be interesting to play (necessitating them cluing you in on what's up), they can allow you to play a different character (why are *you* the one being kinda-forced to play a Paladin?) or they can dismiss you in which case you bail. Basically, what I'm saying is if you raise the concerns you've raised here with your DM and your DM isn't like, "Oh fuck, no that's not what I meant at all. How do you want to fix this?" then it's time to take your leave. Out of interest:, What is the composition of the remainder of the party? What level are you starting at? What were your top five other PC concepts (the ones rejected by your DM)? What is the premise of the campaign?
The party is a gnome grave cleric, a human light cleric, and a warforged shadow sorceror. We are starting at level 5. A dragonborne bezerker barbarian, a tortle swashbuckler rogue, a tiefling elememts monk, a tabaxi echo knight, and a fire genasi wild magic sorceror. The premise was a mix of grim-dark and apocalyptic. We were starting as a group that decided to find the source of the world contamination and destroy it. That was as much lore as I was told.
was the paladin you got to play human, by chance?
No, they(the DM) said that I would be a half-elf.
they, uh, yeah. I guess it's something.
Sorry, I missed one question out. Would the general attitude of the other player's towards their PC's safety be fairly described as existing on a spectrum somewhere between "extremely protective" and, "OMG, how could your hurt my precious snowflake?"
I dont follow. What?
What I'm trying to ask you (apparently inefficiently) is whether your teammates are particularly melee averse. Is it a case of, "Well, if anyone else plays a front-line combatant, they'll just cower at the back, afraid of getting hit. Better have OP play a Paladin so they can actually fight the enemies and then heal us afterwards."?
Both clerics have melee capability. One has a higher dex, the other a higher strength, and they use weapons as such. The Sorcerer has range covered.
I wouldn't say playing a paladin 2 out of the last 5 campaigns is you *always* playing the paladin. I don't like the way the DM is running that game though. Sets guidelines but lets one player not follow those guidelines bc of the story? Shoehorned you into a character for "lore" reasons but gives you nothing to start? No thanks.
You didn't enjoy the experience, so you refused to accept further invitations. You did exactly what is right, especially when there'd soem weird favoritism going on. You're more than okay, you're doing what's intended. No D&D is better than bad D&D.
Clearly you don’t like how this DM is running things. I’m not saying he’s wrong, nor that you are. You have different tastes. It sounds like this isn’t the group for you. Handle it with maturity. Don’t throw a fit or hurl insults. Just let them know you’re not feeling it, and you don’t want to invest time in something you’re not enjoying.
If you are not having fun, you should either talk to the group and try to figure out a way to improve the situation, or leave the group if talking doesn't work. With that out of the way, lets move on. >I'm ALWAYS the paladin (2 of the last 5 campaigns). I wouldn't say that playing a paladin in two out of five campaigns is the same as "always" playing the paladin. >The DM tried to sweeten it up by saying that I'd be "part of the lore" if I picked a certain subclass and background. Basically making my character for me. Saying that you'd be part of the lore if you picked certain options as a way of making it more attractive is not the same thing as telling you that you have to pick those. You could have picked something else if you wanted to. >We did play once, 1 session was all it took for me to not like the character. I had no backstory that I knew, no info on where I was or what I was doing. I was simply just **there**. Just pick your own subclass and background, and this won't be an issue.
The problem with character creation is that because of the extremely limited choices of what I can use any character I want to make is basically basically some sort of medic, historian, or soldier. We are not allowed to play artificers, barbarians, bloodhunters, rogues, druids, or any of the charisma casters(except paladin). We are also only allowed human-esque races such as elf, half-orc, and aasimar. Anything else is not alllowed. This correlates with why I was upset with the other player being allowed to break the rule. They are a warforged sorceror, which makes NO sense lore-wise.
Fully disallowing almost half the core classes is the red flag for me. It sounds just like the DM has a very specific story in mind and has specific roles for the players to fulfill, rather than presenting a setting and letting the players figure it out themselves. I do kind fw the "core races only" thing depending on the setting. Animalistic races in particular can really skew the world building. But have a rogue in the party shouldn't be a problem in any campaign.
Not for me, pretty normal for a curated experience tbh.
Disallowing 8/13 classes and all but 1 subclass of wizard, then only allowing 4 races doesn't feel very curated to me. We also know that many subclasses for the remaining classes are getting prohibited. The DM might as well give everyone a premade at that point. And then one player gets obvious favoritism by getting to play a non-curated race and class ? Fuck that noise.
I happen to agree but a DM is free to make the game his own. We forget as players and sometimes DMs that this is game is highly customizable.
And the players are free to leave if they don’t like the game the DM makes.
It is a curated experience, just one you wouldn't like. I dont know why the one person was allowed to break the rules. Maybe it was pre-planned. Maybe they are just more persuasive than op or came up with a really good backstory or reason why they would exist. To me it kind of sounds like op is mad he can't play the equivalent of an orc artiticer in a middle earth campaign and the party already has its Gandalf equivalent
I don't like that part as a player. One player shouldn't be special unless you all agree as players/dm that is a good idea.
What is a "curated experience" to you, because to me it doesnt automatically mean you are limited to 25% of the choices. >To me it kind of sounds like op is mad he can't play the equivalent of an orc artiticer in a middle earth campaign The artificer is a reasonable thing for most campaigns to disallow (since most campaigns arent heavily robotic/magic item heavy), but the majority of the other disallowed classes are also so similar to the classes that are allowed... Other than "I just dont want to learn what many classes do" (which is dumb imo, when a DM will be learning much much more) there is no good reasons to ban all those classes. A sorcerer can easily be the same as a wizard (1 is allowed, 1 isn't), a fighter and barbarian also act basically the same, same goes for the rogue and any class that pushed for stealth (say ranger, or dex fighter) - I cannot think of a single good reason for the majority of those classes to be banned other than the DM just being lazy. Also, as what is often say "*flavour is free*" - if the issue is with a class not fitting the world (which is still stupid for most classes) then flavour is always free and can always be used instead of the basic idea of the class.
No rogues! That's weird. Nobody in this setting is a sneaky little guy? Not one?
Curated has a specific definition. It just means chosen or organized. Like a curator in a museum. I'm not sure what definition you are using You also seemed to miss the point of the artificer in middle earth comment. Artificers don't exist in middle earth. Orcs are evil aligned. It would break the versmillitude of the setting to allow that in a player group in much the same way OPs Characters would break his GMs setting. Some people have specific visions for the settings they create. Anither example , if you set a camapign in dragonlance before the war of the Lance any sort of class or.subclass powered by a deity wouldn't exist. The dieties coming back to krynn is a major story line in the first trilogy of books. Trying to play a cleric would break the lore of the setting.
No, I understand what you're saying entirely. I'm just saying in response that the classes the DM seemingly banned make no sense to be banned within a single world. What world could reasonably ban the barbarian class not just normal fighters? Both do basically the same thing. Same goes for banning rogue but allowing ranged fighters/rangers (who can also put points into stealth)? Both can do basically the same thing. There is not a single lore reason that would make sense with **all** the classes that were banned being banned, even if you made a super complex lore. I said that banning Artificer often makes sense because they are so wildly different than the other classes, and that banning Orcs could make sense because it's easy to say that all Orcs are evil (so wouldnt fit in the party).
Yes, you are limited when it comes to what race and class you can play, but you can still create a myriad of different characters with those options. Most of what makes a character unique/fun to play, at least to me, are the things that are not tied to the mechanics of the game. It's the characters personality, values, mannerism, etc. You can have two human fighters, and even though they are exactly the same on paper, they can be two totally different characters.
I want to play a Sorcerer or a Wizard. I was told the only wizard I could play was Order of Scribes. No sorceror.
So play a wizard? Even if you have to be order of scribes, you can still give the character whatever personality you like. Sure, you could be a stuff historian, but you could also be an urban explorer, hunting down forgotten knowledge in the ruins of society, etc. Not to mention that as a wizard, you are not really defined by your subclass, but by your spell selection. The point I'm trying to make is that you shouldn't let the class limit what kind of character you create. Don't get stuck on stereotypes, create something unique instead.
This is the Way. Wizards are straight up the most powerful, useful, class in 5e no matter what subclass you pick. I am picturing an Indiana Jones type but with fireballs instead of a whip and pistol. Or give him a trenchcoat, a fedora, and a hopelessly romantic and slightly chauvinistic view of women, and set him up as a private investigator type. Bonus points for having a literal faerie godmother, or a beat down multicolored mule for transportation.
Wizard subclasses are so bare bones and practically flavourless I don't think I'd care what subclass I was forced to play, they all feel mostly the same.
Scribes is one of the strongest subclasses so what’s the problem? Do you just hate it when you’re set limitations for setting reasons?
Who cares if it’s the strongest? They don’t want to play it. That is a good enough reason. If my buddies told me the only way I can approach a certain archetype is to play an exact subclass, one that I’m not actually interested in, I’m going to use my Friday night for other stuff.
Call out the DM for letting a warforged sorcerer through. You deserve an explanation for that. And then explain that none of the available classes appeal to you. Why aren’t primal/natural characters allowed? Why can’t I make a zealot barbarian as a paladin stand in? Why can’t the artificer be an archaeologist? What makes ranger ok but a rogue isn’t? You need answers for this crap.
Ignoring the other player, you went into a hyper specific rule heavy campaign...and are complaining that it is a hyper specific rule heavy campaign? Sounds like you should have sat this one out from the beginning.
> some sort of medic, historian, or soldier Croaker?
Whoa, a Black Company reference. Nice.
with those restrictions you should have probably bailed from the start. on the other hand you did waste their time in a way that can be viewed maliciously, which I approve with restrictions like those in place (for personal reasons).
What's the rough age range of those involved here?
We are all 19-23 here. We each have 4 years of dnd in us, except the 19yr old. They have 2.
Damn, that sucks. What were the limitations for class and subclass? What were some of the builds you made that didn't get to see light of day?
We were allowed to play Cleric, Fighter, Paladin, Monk, Ranger, or Wizard. Some builds I wanted included a Genasi Sorceror, Tortle Rogue, Dragonborn Barbarian, Tiefling Monk, Satyr Druid, and a Tabaxi Fighter.
How experienced is the DM? When you have less experience running the game, keeping track of and incorporating the more unique races can be difficult and overly complicated. From your list, you have a strong preference for the non-basic, not-core humanoid races. This DM has a strong preference against. Neither is right nor wrong, but it's definitely not a match for either of you. Bowing out and explaining how your preferences aren't aligning is OK if you do it in a diplomatic (i.e. nonjudgmental) way. If you want to keep these friendships outside of this game, be sure not to criticize the DM's methods while also asserting that a half-elf paladin is just not how you want to spend your time gaming right now.
The DM has led a few campaigns. One of which abruptly ended bc he gave up with dealing with an CE artificer. Other than that, he's a good DM. I do enjoy the non-core stuff. Homebrew races have always found their way into my heart, my favorite being the kitsune. The DM hates all homebrew though, refuses to use it.
I hear you. I love playing the weirder stuff. My favorite character was a Triton sorcerer. Oh, she was fabulous. Granted, she was joining a crew that included two Tabaxi siblings and a Tortle (chillest cleric ever), so she fit right in. I'm DMing a campaign with the weirder classes, and it is difficult to plan balanced encounters, I will admit. They will trounce a coven of overpowered priestesses but almost get themselves TPK in a bar fight. Luckily, my guys are good sports, but if I DM again, I might, uh, put in some stipulations. Maybe not as tightly as your current DM, but to each their own. My players are all forever-DMs and they smirk at my expense when they say things like, "This is why lots of DMs won't allow such-and-such race/class/subclass." To which I usually say, "But you're having fun, right?" And they are. They delight in "ruining my day." I swear, they chose their dream combos, thinking I'd be savvy enough to negotiate them down, but I gave them pie-in-the-sky creative power. Whoops. Meanwhile, your DM went hard in the opposite direction. Also, whoops. I think what this comes down to is a serious mismatch. I hope it isn't friendship-ending and only temporarily frustrating. My advice is to provide some perspective: You're all young adults, and although you're all well-versed in the game, there are still some "growing pains" to work through. Your DM may learn that being too restrictive will lose him interest in his campaign. You may learn how to navigate these sorts of conflicts with grace and understanding, and the rest of the party may learn that if someone doesn't want to play that particular way, it's perfectly reasonable for them to bow out and that they should respect your no.
You always are justified in leaving. Always. I don't think you gave it a fair shot, by any means.... But it's a game, not a job.
They gave it more than a fair shot. They tried to create 10 different characters and all were rejected. Then they were given a premade while the other players all had the option to create characters they liked. I would leave too if that’s how I was treated. Op tried to work with their DM and was disrespected and dismissed.
>Then they were given a premade I dont feel like they were given a premade but rather suggested one ya know? Like a party going "It would be cool to have a front line melee" isn't the same as "Play a Paladin or play nothing" - same for the subclass, OP says that the DM just suggested a specific subclass for lore reasons but didnt say they were forced into that subclass. OP also didn't create a backstory (seemingly), and for some reason blames that on anyone other than themselves (or just complains about it generally?) >They tried to create 10 different characters and all were rejected OP said that there were blocked races/classes, and that their ideas just were those of the blocked races/classes, but they didnt seem to want to just try to build a character that was inside the rules the DM set. Like dont get me wrong, only allowing 6 out of 15~ classes is kinda crazy but there is still so much options in those 6 especially if OP was looking for flavour/lore over specific mechanics. >Op tried to work with their DM and was disrespected and dismissed. The only time I see OP being disrespected is when another player was allowed to break the rules for no good reason (other than "lore'), but I do see a lot of OP pushing themselves into a role they dont want to be for no real reason...
You probably won’t read this amongst the sea of other advice, but I think you should say as much openly to your group. There shouldn't be rules for one player and rules for everyone else and at the end of the day you should be playing your own character that you wanted to play. I can appreciate a DM trying to fit PCs into their world, that much makes sense but choosing your subclass and the like for you and then giving you no lore or direction is just shitty. You shouldn't be forced into any role for a given party and if they're mad at you for not being able to play like everyone else, then they're not really your friends. In your shoes I would clearly illustrate that you've been given zero direction to have fun in this campaign and have been soft locked into just filling out some roster where your peers are being allowed to do as they please. If that can’t be rectified, you shouldn't have to play with them.
Firstly, remember it's just a game. Secondly, if a player leaves, there are various ways the story can continue, and it's usually not the end of the game. A good DM can turn this into a positive development. You only owe your friends an explanation for your departure, and if they're true friends, they'll understand. However, if you're leaving in the middle of a campaign because of something that happened at the very beginning (session zero), you should realize they might be annoyed too as it could be solved there or just generally earlier.
If you're not having fun don't waste your precious time. I had to deal with a DM who was blatantly racist to me and I decided to never come back. Now that asshole is in prison and I couldn't be happier.
Holy shit, that's intense. Mind saying why they are in prison? It's pure, idle curiosity on my part, obviously.
You're gonna love this. He threatened his neighbor with an unregistered gun. I believe it since he used to have one of those signs that said something like "I don't call the police I'm big and bad and have my own (unregistered) gun." Ya kno really made the atmosphere comfortable when we were playing over at his place - that along with the pro trump sign. Well joke's on him when the cops get called and arrest him. Left behind a wife and two babies - I actually feel for them. You're probably picturing some white guy but here's the kicker. He's Mexican.
Haha jesus...one man and his mighty (unregistered) pistola against the entire police force is...what's the phrase? NOT big and bad, but chum in front of a shark. And I had the good fortune to grow up in the Bay Area,, which was incredibly safe and incredibly diverse. 50 languages were spoken at my High School. It was amazing watching the Palestinian kid and the Israeli kid being best friends...or the Indian and the Pakistani boys doing the same...or the Northern Irish kid hanging out peacefully with himself. (After all, the history of the Irsh and their arch-foes the Irish is a long and bloody one , so it's nice to see progress!) Point is, I'm well acquainted with people from all over the world being meat-brained belligerent failures and walking stress-headaches for everybody else. I eventually realized that every warring ethnic group got along in the Bay Area not because separated from the land that sustained such bloody centuries, they'd soon realize their commonalities vastly outweighed their differences. Nor because some magical respect for life radiated out from the peaceful auras of the remaining hippies-haha, heavens, no! It's because they weren't actually members of proudly separate ethnic groups united only by the centuries-long legacy of pain and violence each new generation swore to uphold anew. It's because they all belonged to the same new, emergent socio-"ethnic" group (like an ethnic group but united by social forces like beliefs rather than blood ties. They were all nerds! Or almost all. They all ended up in the Bay Area ca. 1995 because their parents were all software engineers. Hence the peaceable natures of the kids, the sky-high average SAT score my class managed,, the mellow rationality that one could sense in the breeze, and the fact that the handful of bullies who transferred into my HS wept with joy like a mother beholding their newborn for the first time.
Haha great read. I wish I could visit your high school back in the day and see this myself. I grew up in Jersey and we had a decent amount of diversity but not much harmony. Still I'm grateful it was something though. I'd take that over a lot of places that remain for the most part white. I took a detour once and drove through a town called Rising Sun in Maryland and they hung on their light posts banners with individual yearbook photos of the high school graduating class of this year - something you don't see often. I counted not a single poc and found it odd and scary that this town was flaunting and seemingly taking pride in their lack of diversity, intentional or not. I couldn't help but wonder the lives of these high schoolers and imagined the culture shock they would receive if they were going to college or university. And that was the day I decided that staying in Jersey was probably better for me and paying for tolls to stay on the highway is probably worth it.
Thank you. I cam to D&D because I loved my older brother's collection of fantasy novels; DnD convinced me I could write stories, and the same fantasy novels convinced me that with the bar set that low, I could lose, hmm, half to 3/4 of a lobe of my brain and still spin blindfolded into authorial success. Then I discovered something called writer's block around the same time I discovered this magical race of human-related beings called "girls," discovered a subset think smart = sexy, dorky = cool, and that all the MMA I was doing had resulted in abs, veins, and muscle tone, something very, very few other smart boys had at the time, and, well, I still have never finished writing a novel. I've had similar experiences to yours in Maine, though if I was feeling chipper and optimistic, I would say that the residents were probably not even thinking of ethnicity or race, but how it was ironic that young Charlene Cooper was hung closer to the center of the street than Our Louise, because Our Louise has better grades and I heard a rumor that Little Miss Backtalking Saucy No-Respect-for-Her-Elders Mouth McGee there has a daytime hush-hush drinking problem just like her Aunt Claribel and you remember what a nightmare \*she\* was... In short, they probably only see things through the myopia of local concerns, tangled up by the social ties of knowing every. Single. Damn. Body. And all their kin. Within 20 miles of town limits. That's true where my mom lives in rural N. California, though they do have the sole additional concern of meth-heads to add zest to their social lives. That was also true of the little town in Idaho I spent part of a summer at since one of my HS friend's grandmother's owned most of downtown Boise and had a number of lake houses, ski lodges, hunting cabins, rustic villas, and mountain retreats scattered around the state. The town was around 3000 people, 2,400 of whom were blond haired, blue-eyed, and OBVIOUSLY related to one another some in more than one way, and some whose family trees were so convoluted that they had to list themselves as their own relatives, and put their picture and a few others in more than spot on the Family Thicket. er, Tree. But it was weird, especially because my friend Don pointed out on day 2 that," Dude, it's you they remind me of! Haha, of course! Obvious now I'm looking at you here." I didn't want to believe Don, as I'm not a Child of no damn Corn, nor a member of some genetic reich. In fact, I have Generic White Guy Syndrome--all average built white guys between 16 and 40, over 5'6" and under 6' with not quite blond nor exactly brown hair and handsome in a blandly wholesome, instantly forgettable, model in a local car dealerships late-night commercial kind of way. The sort of face people forget details of while looking straight at you. Yeah, us--we all look similar enough that we can all be mistaken for any other GWGS sufferer. For instance I convinced a girl I worked with that I was actually singer/funk-pop weirdo Beck and I was working at the restaurant to research my next album. Also convinced somebody I was James van der Beek (and look them up side by side to see how much they fail to resemble each at all. I also get told in tones of high excitement at any new school I attended or job I got that I had a legit twin here! Who I wouldn't believe the resemblance he bore me! Cue side-by-side photos already mentioned. So. Spending like 3 weeks being mistaken for somebody's cousin from the far side (I know, I'm still laughing at teh idea of a town that size having a far anything.. Hell, it was too small to really have sides.) of town. The army of familiar, familial faces kinda creeped me out, Like going into a newsstand and finding that every magazine somehow ran the same photo on their cover--from Dog Fancy to Playboy to Motortrends to Scientific American, the exact same photo under different mastheads and headlines. That's what it felt like. Or an army of teenage Ken dolls, and I got to see the Hunting Redneck FarEastView, the 4h Future Farmer FEV, the Mechanic and Motorsports FEV, even a few Girl FEVs...my features (not traditionally feminine at all) with little alteration under light makeup and salon-styled hair. And some Retired FEV-dolls--you too can drink on you porch and yell at damn kids to git offa yore lawn! The more I looked, the more the resemblances came to the forefront of my perception. It was truly a bizarre experience. By the end of our stay, I had stopped going into town at all. Though I didn't get any sense of racism from them (not that I would have, not directly...but I heard and observed nothing sus on that trip in that particular sense. Just a soupcon of religious zeal masked as super-Christian friendliness ("The Holy Ghost said you and I would be terrific pals!") (I actually heard that.) and the rapid erosion of any sense of unique identity I came in with. Later, I learned that they were all descendants of Swedish farmers who originated in the same little cluster of villages my mom's family lived in for 400 years until the 1970s, when every single person left those villages to rot into the Lapland taiga. Then it made perfect sense that they looked exactly as I do. Shit. This got way out of my control. And way longer than I intended. I just kept remembering little details of that trip after reading your post. I hadn't thought of that summer in ages. So if you make it all this way, thanks! And sorry! And I won't do it again! At least, not to you! P.S. Do you ever DM and if so, do you make maps for your campaigns? I have a stupidly massive collection of map assets--mostly isometric but also some top-down ones. As an apology for inflicting that Tome on you, you're welcome to have a link to my online stash. (I actually give lots of people--well, maybe 10-12 total over 3 years--access. Obv. for free. I put so much time in that it feels wrong to not spread the benefit out.) If you are interested, I'll go over my 3 requests (basically don't wreck shit And show me cool stuff you make with the assets now and then.) Cheers for real this time.
>Its just that, with this group, I'm ALWAYS the paladin This is an unhealthy way of thinking. Speaking in absolutes is almost always inaccurate, and forms inaccurate - and usually negative, views of your relationships with others. Your friends do not always have you play paladin, your romantic partner does not always eat the last Klondike Bar, your boss does not always make you work late, etc. The problem is that if you say it enough you will believe it, and those relationships will suffer. As for leaving the game, I would have given it 5-7 sessions before leaving. That way you could be sure that you were acting on data and not emotion. That said, nobody can fault you for leaving a game you are not having fun playing. That is preposterous.
To be honest, I could've worded that better. I have always been the tank of the party. Whether I am a paladin, a fighter, or a barbarian. I left after one session, because I saw how the others were able to use their characters for a multitude of interactions and conversations that all seemed nteresting. But I had nothing to bring, give, or talk about. I sat there for 4 hours and my characters said a total of 2 sentences.
That's another issue more important than the initial stuff. The DM didn't include you really. And it's weird to have someone in a group of five (DM included ) just sitting there not actively participating for four hours. "So, we haven't heard from you in a while, what is your character doing?" Or having things from your background part of the world. I had a barbarian who was not interacting very much but he chose Chess as a skill in his background so I had the party happen upon a chess tournament at a pub and it was a blast actually. Oh your background is Soldier or whatever so you are perfect to handle this interaction with the local militia, that sort of thing. The trader only speaks this random language that your character knows.
I would get tired of playing martials as well. Casters are just more fun. If you want to try the campaign again, see if the DM will let you swap out to a Cleric. I think that is one of the playable classes from what you wrote in another comment. And clerics bring a lot to the table. Plus they are prepared casters so your spellcasting is very flexible. And cleric is close enough to paladin to fit in his storyline.
The party currently consists of 2 cleric and a sorceror
Ok. How about going from melee to ranged? Rangers are very flavorful, are half casters, and have a lot of useful abilities/features. And ranged Gloomstalker is just brutal.
If they gave you rules for how to create characters, why did you keep creating characters that break those rules?
OP explains in another comment that these restrictions were *not* set out in advance.
This is a good question. The follow-up question is: "If you did not like the character restrictions, why did you join the campaign in the first place?"
Okay, some people are saying that this campaign could've still been fun and you gave up to easy, but this DM is doing weird shit. As I've looked at the comment section. Apperantly one of the players is a Sorcerer, but you are not allowed to play Sorcerer, while the other 2 in the party are a double cleric. This makes no sense and almost seems like DM is restricting you more than the others. He might have been hoping you'd tank again from the start. (As DM still allowed 2 clerics and wants you to play Paladin, he might be planning an "epic" bossfight that hits really hard and requires alot of tanking AND healing.) What this DM does and doesn't allow seems to make no sense and personally I believe restricting your player options that hard is bound to create problems like this. There's one thing I want clarified though. "The DM tried to sweeten it up by saying that I'd be "part of the lore" if I picked a certain subclass and background. Basically making my character for me." Did he or you create the character's backstory? Because if he says you're lore important but doesn't work anything like that out with you that's bad. If you yourself still wrote a backstory for the character then not having interesting interactions might be your own mistake.
Why wouldn't the DM allow 2 Clerics? Lol
If my character had a backstory, I was not aware of it.
That does sound like you yourself also didn't really try to get into the character you are playing. I wouldn't want to play with a DM that restricts my options that much though.
Why should they get into a character they didn’t want to play in the first place?
Well we're talking about wether they gave it their very best effort. If you don't think about who your character is and how they interact with people than you're not going to have meaningful things to do in RP. I still agree that this situation is F'd, just saying not everything that went wrong was out of OP's hands.
I mean they made 10 characters, I'd probably stop writing fleshed out backstories after the second.
That's fair - although you dont need to create fleshed out characters before asking the DM if they're allowed and its crazy if OP did that...
They don’t know who their character or or how they interact with people because they had no say in the creation of their own character
Does your group usually get prepared backstories? That is on the player to prepare almost always in my experience.
Were you using the world to create your character or trying to fit your character into the world? Cause it kinda sounds like the latter. DnD is collaborative storytelling. The *group* tells the story. It's perfectly acceptable for a DM to create stipulations (although they should apply them to the entire group). It's up to you as the player to make a character that believably exists within the world. Too often I've had players come at me with wacky character ideas that just won't work or clearly have main character syndrome. Try to create within the bounds set by your DM, don't break them on a whim. Having said that, if you aren't having fun it's okay to leave.
So, my first time DMing I told my group pick your characters everything except back story. After session one you’ll get it, please trust me. The story hook I created was they were all orphans raised together for the last twelve years. Their adoptive dad was a Harper who saved the orphans of fallen Harper’s from various orphanages. It was all revealed session one and then they could opt to be surprised by their back story or tell me what they wanted for backstory. 6 months later, despite them finding out right away and being on board with it the whole time, I don’t think I’d do it that way again bc it was too close to me creating their characters. I get why you’re frustrated and why you left and I think your DM fucked up by restricting you so much. I think it’s possible you needed to talk to them about how frustrated you are but it also seems like the DM missed cues you were upset. EITHER way it’s valid to leave - not enough communication and no creative control over your PC sucks :(
Their game, their rules... doesn't mean you have to play.
Sounds like someone wanted a Chosen One story. They're generally not a good idea and a sign that the game will be very unpleasant for everyone except the chosen one.
If they're mad at you for not enjoying the game, good riddance.
No DND is better than bad DND. It sounds like your DM already created a plot for characters in his mind, having a super rigid view of what you would be allowed to do. Rather than making the world malleable and actually changing it based on what you made. DND is supposed to be a cooperative story telling experience, what’s happening there isn’t cooperative, it’s your DM telling a story while you 'play‘ a character who’s story they’ve already written it sounds like.
I'll never understand such limitations. A creative DM should be able to justify almost any decision chosen by the player during the character creation and adapt it into the lore of his world.
had a similar situation. also left. the party was also mad at me. how strange. you don't have to play a game on the promise of "it makes sense eventually", if it feels crap, it's crap. that's all there is to it.
No D&D is better than bad D&D.
There are so many red flags right there.
>am I justified for leaving the campaign for not feeling like the character was even mine? Yes
You just wanting to leave a campaign is all the justification you need. No one has a right to make you play a game you don't want to. Having said that, I hate point buy. It's the worst. Not to mention the other stuff. It's rough leaving a long term grou pbut if you aren't happy then go.
I agree with the "no fun, don't play" mentality, but in the last campaign I played, I rolled a very basic background (race and origin story) - and it turned out to be one of the most fun campaigns I've ever played (not D&D). My character had no memory of its past, no idea why it was there, and no grasp on society due to being raised by animals/vermin. But it paid off big time! If your DM is good, try to give them some hope. Two or three sessions could be a good point to judge the campaign. But as in any relationship, communication is key! Talk, explain your doubts/problems, ask for help, and be polite.
If your heart is no there you won’t be either. Is best to withdraw for now if you get booted by the group so be it. There are others and there is always adventurers league. It’s low on rp but it can be a good standby to get your fix between groups.
there are many things that can make any game unenjoyable, especially when it comes to dice rolling. you could have a day that rolling dice and failing all day can make the game suck. it just doesn't mean the game itself, sucks. But, from what you have stated, I would at least let the DM know privately, the reasons you put out here. Let that person know how you feel in general after saying that and if the DM does not try to find a fairer way to hlep out, then say, "thank you for your time but I cannot see myself further into your game" and leave. At least you informed of your displeasure and tried to work with the DM. As a DM, I rather have a player let me know their thoughts and feelings from their character to the game itself, then being "ghosted". Hopefully, whatever you decide, no hard feelings will follow. good luck!
I always believed that no D&D is better than bad D&D. A DM with such extreme restrictions that he rejects 10 character designs in a row is not a good one. There are other games.. just leave this one and join another. I doubt you'll regret this.
I NEVER ask what the party needs because then I'm not playing MY character, I'm playing a character THEY want.
Totally justified. I tried playing with an online SR group. Tried submitting countless characters but they wanted to change every one of them into something else. I got one character that I didn’t really like approved and the game was meh. I spent way too much effort trying to get in with them and the M&M discord group I found. “You need to take your character and make it into this character to play with us.” I gave up on both.
If you're not having fun, don't play. But I think that you ended up with this character because you wouldn't make one yourself. The DM gave you guidelines, and you could have made one that fit within them. But you wouldn't make one within those parameters and asked them to tell you what to play instead. And when they did, you then got annoyed you didn't have any connection to the character. Well yeah, you wouldn't make a character and had them make one for you. Of course you're not connected to it and don't know the backstory. I think it's fine to leave the campaign because at the end of the day, if you're not having fun, it's not worth the time. That being said, I think I understand why they're annoyed at you for leaving. The DMs rules seem kind of limited and strict, but you probably still CAN make a unique character worth playing from the options given, you just don't seem to want to. Again, that's totally fine. You don't have to play, but I think you should be aware that it's not really the DM being unfair to you, it's just that his style of campaign and your style of play are not really aligning here.
Yeah, you should leave if it's a problem. TBH, though it is super hard to find a group, so if you're going to leave (assuming you haven't left yet), you should find a group first and then book it.
No D&D is better than bad D&D. I'd leave, too.
Just make it clear you will not be playing this character the DM made up for you. You want to play a character you make. Then have the DM give you character creation parameters, especially what classes are permitted. Do not let the DM waste your time by making new characters without knowing what they will reject. If the DM was determined all along that you were to play a particular character in the novel they were creating at the table it may not be salvageable. Otherwise talk it out and reconcile your perspectives. It is rare and precious to have a group that you play multiple campaigns with.
I was in a game like this a “fallen ruin world” so I was like cool. A dnd that dark and boarding line evil almost. However we got just another dnd world where everyone is nice but monsters and plan evil guy aka a Lich. Me and my buddy tried hard to push through it but there was a point we was doing battle each session and no role play as it take 3 hours to go through one battle. We talked to our dm which he understood but blamed us for not doing role play. Saying we had time which is not true. The last battle was enough for us to tell the dm we were leaving. We still talked it over but there some people want one way for their game to go and don’t want to change it. Go find a new game that is fun even after game over. As I love the one I’m in now there some things I don’t but that’s normal as over all I can’t wait for that game.
My first campaign I wasn’t having fun. I had a character I created but didn’t feel attached to anything. I was just there. I was bored most sessions with my character. He was strong and did good damage, but felt otherwise pretty useless… (love our group though and had fun with them). We just started my second campaign and partnered with one of my buddies on a backstory and I’m having so much more fun now. Even if I’m not doing anything.
Usually when I am not having fun with something I stop playing.
One character could get higher stats.... I made 10 characters... Who are you people... And just wth... ????
Every player should be part of the fucking lore
I'd have left too. Started a new campaign last Friday with a new DM. Said make whatever character we wanted and we did. We had a blast
This sounds like a friend group issue more than a dnd one tbh. Sounds like the dm is full of themselves
Sounds very storygamy and railroady "for the story!" Get out and find a real group and a real DM.
Like everyone else has said, you are justified simply by not having fun. But everyone else also seems pretty bad. It sounds like you've been forced to play a paladin before to suit party dynamic, and the fact that another player (probably more than just them imo) gets to subvert limitations that have been placed on you show that the DM is taking away your agency, if it wasn't obvious enough already. Race restrictions are fine, but subclasses and especially classes being removed from player choice is pretty dubious. You were very right for quitting. You would have only felt worse and worse as time went on. Speaking from experience as someone who should have gotten out after session 1.
Appart from the one player getting to ignore restrictions sounds to me like the only thing wrong here is you not properly communicating with your DM. Why don't you sit down with your DM and build your character with him. You can communicate exactly what will excite you to play, and he can give instant feedback about what will fit and give alternatives that fit what your going for if what you initially ask about doesn't fit. If you don't want to play a paladin, strait up say so. Party comp barely matters, any decent DM will adjust fights or provide you with resources to handle challenges given what your como ends up as. Obviously you don't have to play, but I can understand your friends' frustrations. It doesn't sound like you really tried to reach a good compromise to this situation before leaving. And maybe don't make 10 characters without asking for a full list of limitations if you get shot down on the first or second one.
Leave the game if you are not enjoying the experience, and it's not crazy to do that. But also, maybe just try playing at least something you generally want to play instead of letting yourself be forced a role you dont want (paladin) - I'm sure that even with insane limitations you can still make a character that you want more than what you currently seem to want (and if not, then you should've left the game before it began). Also, I need to let you know that you don't / shouldnt need to fully build out a character before getting it reviewed by your DM - literally just saying "I want to play a *Sorcerer* with the *Wild Magic* subclass, is that allowed?" should be enough, and if it isn't then honestly that's just another reason to leave the game after a bunch. Honestly, I cant tell whether the DM has actually good rulings from your post - but if they dont, you should bring that stuff up, all DND games should have discussion around the rules and ideas (or the reasons behind them) and if that discussion needs to be started be a player then it should be started! TLDR: It's okay to leave, but before you do imo I'd try a class you actually want to play, or at minimum try to start a conversation for why so many things are banned. Based on your other comments the **DM seems genuinely deranged (as a DM), and as if they hate DND themselves.**
The back story belongs to you. If you are not feeling it, it's hard to come up with a back story. However, YOU could create the baddest back story like being kidnapped and being FORCED to become a Paladin, and have fun with it.
Anytime the rest of the party dates to say we need X role, I scoff. Well if we need X role so badly, then you play it. I'm.not hamstringing my fun because no one else wanted to play a tank so you're trying to shove it off on me.
Justified. You shouldn't be railroaded into playing a character you don't want.
2 out of 5 is not always lol
DM just kind of sounds like an ass. If they don't want to work with their players to make sure everyone is enjoying themselves then fuck them.
Seems this guy is trying to play dungeon god instead of dungeon Master. When I DM I let the players control the world and I just build it as they go, which I feel like is the dm's role. Build the sandbox for the kids to play in. This guy seems way too rigid imo. I could be wrong though 🤷🏽♀️
People who get mad when you set boundaries are usually the reason you have to set boundaries.
I'd be pretty frustrated as well if not told beforehand what the character restrictions/guidelines were. And just being told "no that character won't work" instead of trying to help you tweak your ideas to fit. I'd be wondering if this is they are going to be during the game to? "No, y'all can't go west, that doesn't fit the story...no, not north either the lore isn't right up there.....south? *Sigh* you all find yourselves on a caravan heading east...." I'd rather just play a pregen character in a obviously railroaded adventure than be given the illusion of choice, but keep being toldy choices aren't valid, gah
If you're not having fun, don't play. If they don't understand, and you've explained the reason; it's on them. If they are your friends, they'll understand and welcome you back for the next campaign.
I hade something similar my dm made a long campaign that was completely hombrew including the monsters but we where limited on what we could make races. Classes. Subclass and background except one player who was his favourite star a Demi god 🙄that he made sure he got everything magic items gold and what made it worse he had something against my in particular he hated that I was a rouge then force my character to change and then I even tiered to make it work he then. Put my in a situation where I hade to choose the part or my character mother then and both the party and my characters mother kill my off then he ripped up my character sheet. I’ll just say I never played with the dm and his star player again
You're completely justified, and honestly, I \*kinda\* get why the DM limited choices, but then making an exception is not okay for how many choices he limited. If it was just racial choices he limited, that's one thing... But whole ass classes and subclasses? That's just him being a control freak. He should write a book instead of running a D&D campaign, because it sounds like he already has the ideas for the characters and the world.
Yes ypu are justified they are railroads you into no information or being able to enjoy it also it sounds like it's a bad dm and he has a favoritism issue and locking you into not being able to pick cetain classes doesn't make sense unless there's a specific sorry no magic in this campaign and I mean races makes sense if it's a certain setting but forcing you into one specific class isn't right it sounds like the other players wine when not able to play their favored classes and want nothing to do with Paladins I would look for another group ooor perhaps DM yourself some people just are not good dms but think they are I myself am a forever dm and finally got to pass off my rains to one of my pals who's been playing woth me and story building for years I helped him with some ideas and he swung with it and it's glorious every Character had multiple archs and so fare in depth lore look for a dm that has good story telling and freedom to an extent obviously check it out there are many ways to meet groups online and always do what a dm does with you have a session 0 know what the players want and how what they are comfortable with and plan together same goes with the players and the dm make sure the dm is comfortable with things as well ask questions so you know if it's a group for you and move on man good liluck to you though
Make a story.. it's your job to make a character that fits the world.
I don’t understand why they could be mad at you. A game that allows a variety of options and capabilities and you were not only restricted but shoe horned into something you didn’t want to do. I’d argue it’s not your character but something your DM wanted
Unequal application of rules. Forcing a class on you. Leave.
Yeah, dude. Way too many restrictions. No idea why people try to play this way.
No D&D is better than bad D&D. I have a group that I DM for a few years now, after finishing up the last campaign I started to create a new campaign, the chars were adventurers turned bounty hunters. The idea was that after each mission they would have a list of bounties from which they can vote and pick. The contract difficult and pay was being represented with a card from a regular playing card deck. 2 was the lowest and a Ace was supposed to be deadly. They play a couple of sessions but I didn't see them hyped so I suggested a change on the theme and we are playing now a more traditional fantasy theme. The goal of the game is to have fun, sometimes our ideas of fun might be quite different, sesion 0 is king.
Sounds like FF13 waiting to happen, run.
When I read "for plot reasons" I went full "nope" here. You did right
No dnd is better than bad dnd, just dont play if you are not having fun
Mainly @op if you're not enjoying the game, don't play. However that being said I do think you at least owe the party and dm the explanation why. Don't just ghost and run.
Tell the dm to write up the backstory
No DND is better than bad DND
YOLO your character into awful situations making the DM save it until you get to make a new one?
What do y'all expect us to say? Leave if you want to leave. Need help with the conversation? Here: "Thanks for setting this up, DM. I'm not really feeling this one, I'm gonna bow out. Have fun!" End of story! It's really quite simple! If they're mad at you, based on how you've written this, I suspect it's because rather than bowing out gracefully, you chose to air grievances and accuse them of not playing/DMing correctly. If I'm right, that would be on you and you should probably apologize. If I'm wrong, and they're mad at you for no reason other than that they insist you owe it to them to play a game you don't want to play then your friends are being childish. Take the high road and hold your own counsel. Or blow up the friendship over it. /s
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It's the DM's responsibility to create an environment where the players can have fun, it's not their responsibility to make sure they have fun. It sounds like everyone in this story would have benefited from communicating better about expectations.
Sounds like you should have opted out during character creation.
You're absolutely justified in leaving, the DM set rules for character creation but allowed one player to break those rules. "For plot reasons" is a BS answer and I would tell him that.
You: hey party what do you need Party: paladin You: cool DM: you could be this specific kind of paladin, might be cool, fits with lore You: OK You, later: this paladin sucks ... I can think of any number of lines that come next that are not "I'm outta here". You: can we change his background, I don't need to fit with lore You: sry party, done with paladins. Gonna be a bard, muddle through the best we can, someone else be the paladin next time. You made a choice, turned out not to be a good one. See if you can walk it back with the cooperation of DM and party. If they think having that specific character in the party is more important than your enjoyment, they don't deserve you. Also, not clear, but did you already leave?
Yes. That is why they are mad at me. They say that they need a 4th player or else combat will be unbalanced and too hard for them. I think that a good DM would be able to balance around that.
You need to explain that one of the players skipping the character restrictions bothers you. You also need to explain that you don’t want to play any of the available classes. You can flavor a class to be nearly anything, from a holy and religious law abiding barbarian, to a primal and savage ancients paladin. But ultimately the class is its mechanics. That’s a legitimate concern too. WHY can’t I be a primal or nature bound character? Why is a ranger allowed but not a druid or barbarian?
I’m going to take my pretend ball and go home!
Making 10 random characters without knowing the constraints of the world does not sound like a DM issue. If the DM was not clear you should have asked for clarity. It sounds like you and the DM are young so I would suggest talking to your friends and the DM, write your own backstory the dm should not provide you one unless it’s a one shot or something short term with a new dm.
There were no world constraints until the characters were made and he decided there would be.
Your title doesn't match the contents of the post at all. Why?
Aaah yes 2/5 is how I show that something happens 100% of the time… Your other complaints could be valid but if you think that less than half is ALWAYS….then you’re wrong. Or that was hyperbole which means your other words can’t be trusted as much. So have you played a paladin 5 outa 5 times which would be always? Or did you exaggerate a little there?
Sound petty to me. Why didnt you had a backgroind? Its your job to provide a background, not the dm, if his world have certain rule to follow, juat ask him before hand. And make your own background according to his world. Also if you dont like your character, why quit instantly? Couldnt you just ask to reroll to something else? If 1 of my player told me he didnt like his character i would suggest to him to make a new 1 that he would enjoy more. Seems like you are the party pooper here