Quote from: Bren;866141If he won't do that than he should hang out with friends on a different day. Guys who refuse to engage with the premise because they don't like it or who are too lazy to go to the minimal effort necessary to engage with a simple premise (like Greek sea raiders) would better serve the needs of the group by skipping game night and showing up on movie night instead.

This.  Mother fucking this.

Don't be "that guy" who fucks up everybody else's fun.

Quote from: Batman;866103I find that a bit of a shame.

I don't.  Forty two years in this stupid hobby with hundreds of people across the continent and two nations has taught me that not sticking to your premise is second only to referee burnout as cause of death for games.  It's why people were telling Greg Stafford they wanted rules for Clerics and Thieves and Illusionists in PENDRAGON.  Had GS been an imbecile, PENDRAGON would have turned into yet another generic fantasy RPG, which we need not at all.

Fortunately, he's not stupid.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;866065And among a bunch of sea wolves, you're a "Special Snowflake" and the game becomes about you.

This is "failure to engage the concept" once again.

No, it doesn't.  It means the GM/DM has to do a bit of work WITH the player.  But if you're not willing to engage your players past presenting the world, then of course it's a conflict.

Roleplaying is the art of the Compromise, you give, you take.  And if either side cannot, or will not, then maybe you should go do something else.

I think there's a point both sides miss regarding the Baltic lordling and the Greek sea-wolves.

If you allow that one player to bring his Baltic lordling on the grounds that his presence can be explained away with not too much work, then if you want to be fair and consistent as a DM, you'll also have to allow the other guy's early Hibernian Celtic Anthropophage, because that too can be explained away with not too much work. And then the third player's Qin dinasty Chinese travelling mandarin, who can also be explained away with not too much work. And the Toltec fisherman who can also be explained away by getting singularly lucky in that massive storm. And at that point you have a campaign about Hellene sea-wolves where NOBODY in the damn party is actually a Hellene. Or a sea-wolf.

A real practical concern.

Quote from: Premier;866191I think there's a point both sides miss regarding the Baltic lordling and the Greek sea-wolves.

Some folks probably are missing your point. I suspect there are a few folks who aren't really very interested in playing in a campaign with a consistent premise. On the other hand, some of us are only too well aware of what happens when one allows the Baltic snowflake in play.

Quote from: Bren;866193Some folks probably are missing your point. I suspect there are a few folks who aren't really very interested in playing in a campaign with a consistent premise. On the other hand, some of us are only too well aware of what happens when one allows the Baltic snowflake in play.

No, you're biased because you decided that the 'snowflake' was out to 'ruin your game'.  Which might actually have been the intent, or simply didn't think it through, or simply wanted to play something against the grain, but was quite willing to STILL work with the party.

If you stipulate the 'rules' of your setting, and someone wants to go against them, ask why.  Always ask 'why?'.  Otherwise, you might seem to be a dick for shutting it down without thinking about it.

And like they say, 'Don't be a Dick'.

But then, I'm obviously the freak here because I both coddle my players and I want to work with them.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;866196No, you're biased because you decided that the 'snowflake' was out to 'ruin your game'.  Which might actually have been the intent, or simply didn't think it through, or simply wanted to play something against the grain, but was quite willing to STILL work with the party.

If you stipulate the 'rules' of your setting, and someone wants to go against them, ask why.  Always ask 'why?'.  Otherwise, you might seem to be a dick for shutting it down without thinking about it.

And like they say, 'Don't be a Dick'.

But then, I'm obviously the freak here because I both coddle my players and I want to work with them.

No you aren't a freak. You just don't understand who the dick is.

And the snowflake's motivation is irrelevant when the effect is to ruin the game that is on offer.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;866170No, it doesn't.  It means the GM/DM has to do a bit of work WITH the player.  But if you're not willing to engage your players past presenting the world, then of course it's a conflict.

Roleplaying is the art of the Compromise, you give, you take.  And if either side cannot, or will not, then maybe you should go do something else.

Compromise goes only so far. Every game has the baser requirement that the player buy into the premise and setting presented.

Every DM has to work around the group composition in some manner. But under the expectation that the PCs are fitting the setting in some way.

Example: Albedo: You can not play a cetacian or an insect or primate. you can not play a horse with hands. And especially not a human as none of those exist in the setting. Theres a pretty darn broad range to select from. WHY are you fixated on playing the one thing the game does not allow? Now if you want to play a musician on a touring warship. Then that can be possibly worked with as a musician can be created with the system and setting. I can even think of at least one reason why this musician is on the ship.

As for the Balt in Rome. If I had allowed for such an opening or it was described reasonably then Id allow it sans the retinue. Or with the retinue if it was BX for example. Within reason. But if Id presented the setting as focused on Roman seafaring action. Then I am more likely to say no to something that is far afield.

Quote from: Bren;866197No you aren't a freak. You just don't understand who the dick is.

And the snowflake's motivation is irrelevant when the effect is to ruin the game that is on offer.

Again, you're making an assumption here.  Are you so sure that every attempt is out to ruin your game?  And is your game is fragile that you can't accommodate odd request?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;866215Again, you're making an assumption here.  Are you so sure that every attempt is out to ruin your game?  And is your game is fragile that you can't accommodate odd request?

You keep collating two things. One is "the player is out to ruin your game", which is your strawman. The other is "the player wants to indulge his special snowflake-ness and doesn't give two shits whether your game is ruined in the process or not, which is the actual problem but you keep ignoring it as it undermines your point.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;866196No, you're biased because you decided that the 'snowflake' was out to 'ruin your game'.

From memory, I can't think of anyone who has said that the special snowflake's intention is to ruin the game, only that, in a game based on a specific premise, allowing characters who don't fit that premise is extremely likely to ruin the game, regardless of whether that is the intent or not.

Some games have the premise "this is a kitchen sink world where anything goes", but this is not the premise of all games.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;866196If you stipulate the 'rules' of your setting, and someone wants to go against them, ask why.

Your phrasing this as "rules" makes me wonder...  How would you react if you were running a game of RuneQuest (or some other system where the only function of armor is to reduce incoming damage from hits) and a player said that, because his leather armor is AC 8, it should reduce the chance to hit him by 10%?  Is "I want armor to work like it does in D&D, even though we're not playing D&D" just as much a subject for compromise as "I want to play an elf, even though we're playing in a historical setting where elves don't exist"?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;866215Again, you're making an assumption here.  Are you so sure that every attempt is out to ruin your game?  And is your game is fragile that you can't accommodate odd request?

I'm assuming nothing about the snowflake's motivation.

Quote from: Bren;866197the snowflake's motivation is irrelevant

In my experience, there are a few reasons why this sort of things happens.  A common one is players who just want to be a pain in the GM's ass.

Some players make a game of seeing if they can cajole the GM into letting them play some character that doesn't fit the setting or, even better, is something that the GM has explicitly disallowed.  This sort of player is easy to spot.  If you say that X does not exist and isn't an available option, they will immediately want to play X and try to cajole you into letting them.  If you give in to them, they quickly get bored with the character.  That's because they never gave two shits about it in the first place.  All they ever cared about was haranguing the GM into letting them have their way.  Once they "won" that game, they lost interest.  

Some players want to make a special snowflake character in an attempt to make the game revolve around them.  They want to make their character and, by extension, themselves the center of attention.  The problem (for them) is that things often don't work out that way at the table.  They make a character that is not really connected with the other characters or the setting the game is taking place in.  Their character doesn't have anything to do with the game being played or what anyone else is doing and gets marginalized.  If the GM doesn't respond by making the game all about the special snowflake, this is inevitable.  Since their characters aren't involved in anything, they get bored.

Some players just seem to love novelty for the sake of novelty.  The problem with novelty is that the novelty wears off pretty quickly and they get bored.  The easy way to spot this sort is that they will want to play some special snowflake characters, quickly get bored of it and want to switch to some other special snowflake character over and over for as long as the GM will tolerate their shenanigans.

Another common reason is that the player just doesn't want to do what everyone else is doing.  They don't want to just bow out and not play for a variety of reasons with no other game being available as a common one.  However, they don't actually want to do what you are doing.  Even if they get their special snowflake character, the rest of the game will still be the game they don't actually want to play.  The reason why they want to play The Punisher in your Silver Age superhero game is that they don't really want to play Silver Age superheroics at all.  Putting in that character is an attempt to shift the game toward the gritty Dark Ages anti-heroes game they actually want to play or at least want to play more.

That also applies to players who want to add some widget to a class.

Armour for Magic users is the hands down most common one I've seen as a DM, Player, Playtester, and Game Designer.

Multiple attacks for non-fighters is the other hands down most common one seen.

Spellcasting for non-casters is another. Dont see that as often though.

Swords and other pointy things for Clerics. Any class restricted weapon really. But clerics bitched the most for their swords and spears. Its not really an unreasonable a request though. But I usually just ask why dont they play a paladin then?

That seems a little different to me.  The people I have encountered that push for that sort of thing just want to have their cake and eat it too.  They want to be able to cast spells without having to deal with the weaknesses normally associated with spell casting classes like not being able to wear armor and not having high combat ability.  I have had multiple players come to me with their homebrew character classes that combined all of the virtues of two or more existing classes and had none of their drawbacks.  One came up with some sort of devotee of magic combat sort of class that had all the spell casting ability of a wizard, the option to take cleric spells and combat ability only a bit lower than a fighter including armor and multiple attacks.  I asked him why anyone would ever play the existing wizard, cleric or fighter classes with such a class available.  He just didn't get why I would have a problem with his homebrew super class making making multiple existing classes completely obsolete.  He was rather butthurt when I refused to let him play his baby.