I would personally recommend that more game masters out there embrace that spirit! Because far too many folks fight their players tooth and nail to try to make their games as small as possible, and I have rarely seen anything stifle player interest and creativity as thoroughly as those efforts.
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| Go on... let it out already! |
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What I Do (And Don't) Mean About "Small" Games
To eliminate confusion, I'm going to talk about what I do and don't mean regarding what a "small" game is. Because I'm sure there are some GMs out there who think I'm talking about giving their players powerful magic items, letting them have high-level characters, or giving them expansive resources (servants, castles, mercenary companies, etc.) just because the players want it, and it fits their backstories.
But I'm not talking about any of that.
When I say that too many GMs put in white-knuckled effort to keep their games small, I mean that they restrict as many starting options as they can in order to fit everything within narrow boxes. I'm talking about GMs who will tell you that elves can't be barbarians, that orcs and half-orcs can't be nobles, and that drow, tengu, or tieflings are right out because they, "Don't want to deal with them." These are the GMs who, even though they're running modern games, will re-write the rules to discourage use of firearms so that players either won't (or effectively can't) use them. The GMs who, even if the setting is strange, bizarre, and fantastical, want to limit as much stuff as they can so the players only have a handful of real choices when it comes to making their characters and telling their stories.
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| But why, you may ask? |
Academically, I understand why some GMs do this. Generally speaking there are two reasons:
- They want to exert some sort of control on the toolbox that players have available to them. They might be prepared for barbarians, wizards, and sorcerers, but they don't also want to have to deal with psionic nonsense that follows its own rules, a character race that's highly resistant to certain abilities, etc.
- They want to control what kind of story is being told, and what sort of elements are present in it.
For the record, the second one is a way bigger problem, and a far more common reason that this happens in my experience.
You Can Change The Game (But Your Players Need To Know)
The rule most people cite here is that we can all change the rules of any game we want to as long as it gears it toward the experience we want to have. And I am totally in favor of doing this... what most people seem to leave out, though, is that if a GM is going to change the rules or the setting, that needs to be done with the informed consent of their players for it to be fair.
And there should be a conversation around it... especially if this is going to be a problem for your game going forward.
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| Everybody's got deal breakers. |
As an example, if you want to run a Pathfinder game in the core setting of Golarion without black powder, guns, gunslingers, or any of the weird tech that exists in that core setting, then you need to tell your players about this change up-front. This is especially true if there is no canonical reason for the change to happen in setting, such as rewinding the timeline so the gunworks in Alkenstar hasn't been built yet, so of course there aren't widespread firearms. You can limit the race and class choices if you want to, and even declare certain feats and spells are off-limits. You can state that elves are no longer aliens, that gnomes are not fey creatures, or anything else that you want.
What you might find, however, is that your players are a lot less enthusiastic about your game if you do that. It's even possible they'll decide to walk away, and wait for a game that allows them full access to the breadth of options in the published material rather than play with options they want grayed-out.
So the next time you go to make a change in your game, stop and ask yourself whether it broadens the options players have available to them, or if it shrinks them. Because I can tell you this right now... if you let your players have the toys they want, and if you let them really go for it when it comes to their characters, you will never have to chase them down to ask if they're coming to game. They will be there, ready to roll, and eager to play because you worked with them to help provide the experience they wanted.
And sometimes that's worth a little extra planning, or a slightly convoluted explanation on your part as the game master.
Also, for additional reading, consider some of the following:
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Both your reasons are quite negative, but I see a lot of GMs and DMs wanting to create a particular feel for their world. In an immersive forgotten realms of a decade or so ago, Orcs, Goblins and perhaps even Drow would be attacked on sight, let alone Tieflings. It may not be about not wanting to deal with them...
ReplyDeleteI have played in wonderful all human worlds, and would you say that if I chose to run a game in the Avatar the Last Airbender world, or the Wheel of Time series world, that would be considered small?
Something I stumbled on is basically restrictive availability. For example: yes I allow feats, but there can only ever be one instance of a feat in the party at a given time. Yes there can be multiple clerics, but they will need to be from different domains. I feel that it gives the players the entire breadth of published material but they need to work together to figure out what suits who best.
ReplyDeleteWhen I have seen this the most, it has been when the GM just does not have strong system mastery or the system is bloated with massive amounts of "splatbooks" some of which may or may not be a little broken. I can understand a GM trying to rein in the game because he or she just can't handle the mechanical complexity of all those options, but, honestly, that GM is probably better off running a less complex system rather than trying to arbitrarily limit things.
ReplyDeleteI do get it when a GM is trying to tell a particular story from a narrative sense. For example, I run two different sci-fi games with the same rule-set. One is strictly Humans-only and steampunk in flavor, so unless you are a Human (or a clockwork man, which is not exactly a Race per se, but is a specific template), you cannot be in the game, because the universe does not have any other sentient life. However the second game I run with the same rule-set is completely Star Wars themed, so there are aliens galore. But if somebody wanted to play a Rodian in the first game, I'd have to tell them "no" because there are no Rodians in that universe. That's just the nature of the narrative there.
What if the DM has a different world or setting for their game, and it differs from the other worlds of D&D? "Your DM might set the campaign on one of those worlds or on one that he or she created." (PHB, page 6) Chapter One of the DMG outlines many of the ways in which a DM can make their world different - so clearly there is precedent for making changes, sometimes very BIG changes. And if the current set of players doesn't like it, then maybe that means the DM needs a new set of players. Having played with a LOT of different players over time, I know that *some* of them have liked *some* of what I have created, and others have liked the other parts. But your mileage may vary.
ReplyDeleteThe commenters here don't seem to understand that your setting/immersion in fantasy isn't going to snap in half the moment anything that wasn't written by Tolkien or Howard is in it.
ReplyDeleteIt is if that's the game they're running. I don't want demi-humans running around in my Sword and Sorcery setting. As a GM, I'm there to have fun too. If I'm taking the time to run a game for strangers and I present the setting to them, the particulars of what I've taken out of the game, and why I'm making those decisions... The guy who shows up to an all human campaign with a half-ogre dragon man after being presented with the material to read up-front is the problem and I won't feel bad about asking him/her to leave.
DeleteAs I believe is re-stated every time I tackle this issue, the question is, "Did the player follow all the rules set forth by you and the game?" If you told them, "This is a human only game," and they bring an ogre, that's them breaking the rules. But if you said, "This is a human only game," and they bring a human from the jungle region of the world who's traveling on an adventure, then as the GM it's sort of petty of you to suddenly turn around and say, "No, no, no, you can only play THIS kind of human from THIS part of the world."
DeleteThat is what's being addressed here. If you set parameters, and then your players create characters within those parameters, you get more out of working with your players than you do out of restricting them even further because they didn't read your mind, or parse your exact meaning when you drew the broad lines of what was and wasn't allowed.