Ninjas, knights, clerics, and sailors

[RandomCasualty]

1146167638[/unixtime]]But we're not talking about the Forgotten Realms. Why do you have to create a part of the world that a PC won't reasonably ever go to?

You don't, normally. Until it starts interacting with the rest of the world. If Kara-Tur (or any other region) just sorta did its thing and sat there, then nobody cares. Once it's people start meddling in the affairs of the main world where your story focuses on, now it becomes more important to describe it.

Now you dont' necessarily have to do that much world building there, not as far as laying out towns and cities and everything. You dont' need a map of Kara-Tur. However you do need to add a bunch of NPCs that fit into Kara-Tur's influence in the main campaign world.

I mean when a guy makes a samurai spy/scout/whatever, there are going to be quiestions that PC inevitably asks.

The first of which is how he's going to relay the information he discovers. Samurais don't have magic (obviously), so he needs some contact he can talk to who has a sending or teleport spell, or he needs a portal.

If there are portals or teleport magic involved, the situation becomes even more complex, because now the possibiliy of Kara-Tur based help becomes a possibility. So now you've got to work on this master's motivations, and think up a way to fit those motivations into a good plot. You certanly don't want a Kara-Tur army disturbing the balance of power you've set up in your campaign world after all.

Next of course, you need a reasonable way to involve the PC in your campaign. If his master sent him on a quest that involves the focus of the campaign, such as "spy on the zhentarium" then great, that part is done for you. If it's more of a 13th warrior set up, then you're going to have more problems trying to fit him in. First, why does he care? Second how does he meet the other PCs? Third, why do the PCs even trust him? And so on...

Even on a spy mission, you're probably going to need some connection to the other PCs and some reason fro the other PCs to trust the guy. So now you may want to connect the samurai's master with an existing leader in your story. And guess what? Now the DM has to think of why they're working together, what each side gains by the alliance and so on.

Ironically the higher in level everyone is, the easier this becomes. Epic threats naturally cause unlikely alliances to be formed. As for low level threats, one might wonder why Zhentarium smuggling is such a focus to a lord thousands of miles away. So you've got more story to worry about.

Of course, you don't want the lord's involvement to be too major, otherwise he'll be sending in armies and higher level soldiers, and this is supposed to be the PC's story.

I'm not saying this all can't be done, it's just a lot more work on the DM than it seems, and it likely may well be something a DM doesn't want to do. Most cross culture characters that I've seen played have been boring and one dimensional to the point that I give out a groan everytime someone wants to play a wandering samurai.

[dbb]

I'm not sure where this odd conception came out that DMs have absolutely no life beyond the game and can afford to work out huge amounts of material at the player's whim.

But in this case it is -- or at least can be -- the player who's working out the huge amount of material. I mean, I can sort of see your point if the player comes to the GM and says, "I'd like to play someone who's kind of like a samurai, could you please make up a place in the game world that he could come from, and then tell me all about it?"

That's kind of rude, unless the GM has previously made clear that requests like this are cool with him. It's equally possible, though, that the player can say something like, "I'd like to play someone who's kind of like a samurai, and I have thus and such ideas about the place he comes from -- do you think that would fit in the game world somewhere?"

And, you know, there's always the fbmf option -- where the player just says "I'd like to play someone who's kind of like a samurai", and the GM says, "Sure, as long as he has a reason to be way far from home, because I don't feel like writing up all the details" and then they just go with that.

In my opinion, those backstories tend to be the kind of thing that produces boring disconnected characters in the first place and overall lead to boring campaigns and to your character being little more than a sore thumb most of the time.

Characters with no backgrounds at all lead to boring campaigns. Characters with crappy backgrounds lead to boring campaigns. Characters with exotic backgrounds can lead to boring campaigns if the backgrounds are crappy -- but no more than any other crappy background. I mean, seriously, in what way is "I'm an exiled Samurai from the Sapphire Realm, where my brother led a rebellion against the rightful Emperor that forced me to flee for my life and never return to my home" not a better background than "I'm an elf from the woods over there and I kill things with a bow"? Which one do you think is more likely to be associated with a boring character?

But in a storyline based game, I've found that it's a lot more fun when the characters are actually conected to the story as opposed to being outsiders.

What is it that leads you to think being from a place that isn't right nearby necessarily equates to not being connected to the story? This kind of logic would lead us to conclude that the Marquis de Lafayette wasn't connected to the story of the American Revolution.

--d.

[fbmf]

And, you know, there's always the fbmf option -- where the player just says "I'd like to play someone who's kind of like a samurai", and the GM says, "Sure, as long as he has a reason to be way far from home, because I don't feel like writing up all the details" and then they just go with that.

Emphasis mine.

How come Oberoni gets a falacy and all I get is a crummy option?



Game On,
fbmf

[power_word_wedgie]

To me, they're all fine to some degree.

As a player, I wouldn't have a problem if a DM said, "As a part of the plotline, I need for you to be of European/Oriental background," and many of the groups that I play with are that way as well. When we would start to plan for a new campaign, basically those type of intricacies are worked out between the DM and the player during the last few weeks of the current campaign. Thus, it's not like the players show up one week one with all these characters and the DM is completely off-guard. I'm not trying to overtly state that this is the norm, bt I would be curious to know if it isn't for others.

Then there is just having all of the players being of every background that can be conceived. Now, is it really rational that every single samarai was kicked out by their master? Probably not. But when you're asking these questions, just ponder:

1) Being an adventurer most likely isn't the wisest thing that a person can do, even in a D&D world. Really, you have to have your priorities pretty messed up to be one. You're going around trying to wrestle monsters all the time with the understanding that with the basic laws of attrition you're going to die eventually. Even if you're successful, rivals are going to whack you off before you get too powerful because they don't like the competition. All of this would happen in a "rational" world. So, if there's going to be a group, they're going to be some sort of mish-mash of various backgrounds because they're the only ones crazy enough to be adventurers.

2) You're playing a game where the goal is to kill other creatures (even if you've never met them) and loot their homes and bodies. In fact, the more that you partake in this psychotic activity, the more the game rewards you. What the heck is rational about that?

I understand some of the rationale for wanting the Eurocentric party - I used to have the same thought process long ago. However, when I really thought about it, I realized that it was that I was locking my mind on the stereotypes of the D&D Basic game. Hey, there are times that I like to play the Eurocentric parties now. However, it's not a "must be" European or Oriental party for me any longer. Unless the DM has an agreement with the other players due to plot lines, let people play what they want to play.

[dbb]

1146190053[/unixtime]]
How come Oberoni gets a falacy and all I get is a crummy option?

Would you prefer "the fbmf rejoinder"?

Then we can enshrine it alongside the Josh Kablack Maneuver, the Lago Syllogism, the Ed Stark Injunction, the Frank Trollman Hypothesis, and all the other various pearls of wisdom produced or distilled by TGD.



--d.

[Username17]

It's worse than that, I'm pretty sure that I get "The Frank Cheat" - a reference to the slopover effects possible when spells have a duration measured in hours and can be used every "day".

So if you get an option, well hell - I get a cheat. Something which was specifically named as libel by other people to discredit some accounting tricks that I codified. Getting an option is awesome.

-Username17

[User3]

I've heard that one of the main reasons the monk class was first introduced to AD&D was to provide players with an "outsider" archetype: the stranger from the East, who journeys to a distant land where he embarks upon adventure. That sort of thing is not at all unusual in source material, and it isn't unreasonable for a player to propose a character from a far-away land.

However, sometimes the campaign has a theme where the setting is important, and in this case I think that at least most of players really ought to make some effort to play along if they choose to participate in the campaign. If you are playing the "It Ends in Darkness" campaign, maybe Alladin could travel to Meso-America somehow and go on an adventure with a couple Aztecs and that could makd for a fun campaign. But if the party of four characters for "It Ends in Darkness" consists of Alladin, a Norse cleric of Odin, Sir Lancelot of the Round Table, and a cave-dwelling kuo-toan gadgeteer, then the referee is probably going to be disappointed, and rightly so. After all, he did take the trouble to put together an Aztec-themed campaign, and was probably expecting Aztec-themed characters. He might switch the setting if no one else is interested in Aztecs, or he might ask the players to reconsider the character concepts.

And after all, if the outsider becomes the norm, wouldn't that defeat the point of playing an outsider in the first place?

[Josh_Kablack]

1146243499[/unixtime]]It's worse than that, I'm pretty sure that I get "The Frank Cheat" - a reference to the slopover effects possible when spells have a duration measured in hours and can be used every "day".

So if you get an option, well hell - I get a cheat. Something which was specifically named as libel by other people to discredit some accounting tricks that I codified. Getting an option is awesome.

-Username17

Yes, but, well

[Oberoni]

RC, sometimes I notice a pattern to your posting habits.

You say something that, in certain situations, could be construed as sensible. Perhaps, as an individual, this is indeed the experience you've had.

So, you play in a campaign (or in multiple campaigns, perhaps with the same people) and you notice that the players and/or DMs are incapable of adequately mixing outsiders into the campaign. So you type:

Honestly I never really saw the point of combining Kara-Tur, Al'Qadim and the rest of the crap into one setting. While a lot of people like ninjas and stuff, almost nobody wants to have ninjas travelling with full plate armored knights, cleric crusaders and Arabian sailors.

Mixing settings generally produces crap for storylines. Since you've got a bunch of guys from the other setting with essentially no background and no connections.

Which, as I said, is not some sort of definitionally absurd statement to make.

Then, a bunch of people come by and say stuff that blows your claim out of the water.

Not that your claim is wrong when it applies to just your experiences, as I said. However, it's probably wrong when applied as a generalization.

So, rather than admit anything like this--and rather than even trying to see the many, many valid reasons the other posters are giving--you entrench yourself. You throw out anything at all you can get to stick. Anything! Retreat is not an option.

I guess this leads me to ask--what's the point? Is your claim really that important? Do multicultural settings and character groups really have to be bad?

Seriously?

[MrWaeseL]

Wow, there's more artifacts in that picture than in the tomb of Tutanchamon

[power_word_wedgie]

1146244970[/unixtime]]I've heard that one of the main reasons the monk class was first introduced to AD&D was to provide players with an "outsider" archetype: the stranger from the East, who journeys to a distant land where he embarks upon adventure. That sort of thing is not at all unusual in source material, and it isn't unreasonable for a player to propose a character from a far-away land.

Honestly, one of the reasons why the monk was introduced was due to that the TV show Kung Fu was somewhat popular in the late 1970's. It is the same reason why Gygax included psionics in AD&D - Star Wars was popular in the late 1970's and people were bugging him about including it into the game. I've heard that Gygax has said that he regrets the psionics addition, but I'm not 100% certain about that.

I'm not saying that either should not be included to the game - just giving a little perspective of the environment of which AD&D was derived.