Do highly unique characters still get a bad rep; and: how to give them room to exist?

[CleverNickName]

I just have to note that sometimes no meaningful compromise is possible. The two pieces of rope don't have to meet in the middle.

My point is that they don't have to meet in the middle...but they do have to meet somewhere if those two people are going to share the same table.

 

[TiQuinn]

I dislike the addition of these races because it takes away their specialness, it becomes just another human with a forehead prosthetic. Afterall a PC Spawn of Asmodeus is kinda cool, but Tieflings become decidedly less cool when John the janitor is one, and theres a whole family of them living next door. Equally I'd much rather a player come up with a concept of being a Elf magically infused with elemental fire, than have an entire race of Genasi and I'm happy to have an experienced player be a juvenile half-dragon.

I also like unique Monsters (like Birthrights Awnshegh) and have even gone so far as replacing Half-Orcs and Half-elfs with Fey-tainted Humans

Okay but then when do you decide when to use them in a game, and which player gets to play one? It’s no different than when every player wanted to play a Drow, and eventually that faded. Players want to play cool stuff. DMs should give them cool stuff. By the way, this has shifted so much over the years. You’re okay with elves but once upon a time, DMs were saying demi-humans could only play certain classes and achieve a capped level because the game simply HAD to be human centric.

 

[Thomas Shey]

My point is that they don't have to meet in the middle...but they do have to meet somewhere if those two people are going to share the same table.

"Meet in the middle" is a term referring to the rope pieces being long enough they can make contact. So if they don't meet in the middle, they don't meet. In those cases where the concepts are just incompatible, as you say they either have to give up playing together or one or the other is going to have to abandon their priorities.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Hi there. I’m Dannyalcatraz, and I design oddball PCs. I’ve done it since early on in the hobby, all the way back to AD&D. Most of my D&D characters are within normal, expected boundaries, but there’s enough oddities to fill a sideshow circus.

Thanks to a Dragon Magazine article, I was the first in my group to play a Drow.he was a Druid/Rgr/MU, years before Drizzt stories hit the shelves.* After Savage Species was published for 2Ed, my next character was a white-furred Minotaur Ftr/MU.

My 3.X stable of played & unplayed PCs has a higher percentage of weird PCs than any other. Odds are good if you’ve seen one of my PC Brainstorming threads on ENWorld, it involved an unusual 3.X PC.

In 4Ed, I only got to play in one campaign, and I played a Dwarven Starlock/Psionicist with a taste for “jungle music” and some skill at capoeira. My unplayed PCs included a Dragonborn Paladin/Sorcerer/Warlock based on the scholar in The 13th Warrior and a 4Ed version of a 3.5 character who was a Warforged with a heritage linked to the infernal outer planes- essentially a living Lament Configuration combined with aspects of Hellboy.

None of this was done as a power grab. Indeed, several PCs were objectively underpowered. Nor was any of this about being “The Star” of the campaign. I just like exploring the fantastical when I’m playing in a FRPG.






* and FWIW, I’ve never read a word of any of them

 

[Jack Daniel]

Had she shown up and said, "Hey, I want to play a Dutch merchant who is stranded here" that might have been a pain in my butt.

Obviously. If you're playing L5R, the correct approach is to make a Vendel League merchant with no idea how they got to Rokugan or how to get back to Théah. :Þ

 

[Meech17]

I wish I knew what video it was.. I've watched them all too much recently, but Matt Colville talked a little about this.

He mentioned how it was always up to the player's attitude. For instance I think his example involved a warforged PC. His setting was such that a warforged character would be very out of place. However, the player comes up to him and says

"Hey Matt.. I have this character idea I'd like to run by you. I read over your handout and I realized that it may be strange, but I have this idea for a warforged cleric or whatever, and I think we could make it fit by playing off of X, Y, and Z elements of your setting."

He said that he'd be more than willing to bend some rules, and help meet that player in the middle, and find a way for them to have their character. Versus someone who came in, clearly hadn't bothered to read the handout, had no respect for the setting or the type of game the DM was trying to run. In that case he'd be much more likely to say no. Or perhaps allow it, but then not bother trying to hard to accommodate that character into lore/story elements of the game.

I think that is a fair outlook. It's not one I've had to employ but I think I'd opt for it if needed

 

[Swanosaurus]

"Hey Matt.. I have this character idea I'd like to run by you. I read over your handout and I realized that it may be strange, but I have this idea for a warforged cleric or whatever, and I think we could make it fit by playing off of X, Y, and Z elements of your setting."

Things like this are really cool because they show that the players actively and communicatively take part in world-building, and what more can you ask for as a GM?

 

[Distracted DM]

I wish I knew what video it was.. I've watched them all too much recently, but Matt Colville talked a little about this.

He mentioned how it was always up to the player's attitude. For instance I think his example involved a warforged PC. His setting was such that a warforged character would be very out of place. However, the player comes up to him and says

"Hey Matt.. I have this character idea I'd like to run by you. I read over your handout and I realized that it may be strange, but I have this idea for a warforged cleric or whatever, and I think we could make it fit by playing off of X, Y, and Z elements of your setting."

He said that he'd be more than willing to bend some rules, and help meet that player in the middle, and find a way for them to have their character. Versus someone who came in, clearly hadn't bothered to read the handout, had no respect for the setting or the type of game the DM was trying to run. In that case he'd be much more likely to say no. Or perhaps allow it, but then not bother trying to hard to accommodate that character into lore/story elements of the game.

I think that is a fair outlook. It's not one I've had to employ but I think I'd opt for it if needed

I think it's the same video that he references players making wolverine or bubblegum crisis characters... so it must either be the "Intro to Players/welcome to D&D" or the "types of players" video...

 

[CandyLaser]

What counts as "unique" changes over time. If I tell someone I'm starting a D&D campaign and provide no more information, I think that most players would come to the table with the very reasonable assumption that they can use the things in the book. When I started playing some 35 years ago with 2e, that meant dwarves, elves, gnomes, half-elfs, halflings, and humans. Supplements added a lot of options, to be sure, but they weren't part of the core. 3e expanded that, and 4e and 5e have continued the trend. Drow went from "not suitable for PCs" to "unique oddities like Drizzt" over the course of 2e, and are in the core in 5e. Tieflings were normal for Planescape in 2e and core in 4e and 5e. Certainly, DMs can restrict what's available at their tables, but having a player want to be a drow or tiefling in 5e is a different thing than wanting to be a drow in 2e.

 

[Richards]

Hi there. I’m Dannyalcatraz, and I design oddball PCs.

Assembled crowd at the Oddball PC Designers Anonymous meeting: "Hi, Dannyalcatraz!"

Johnathan