"Creativity is a waste."

[antipodeF]

Looking back, I don't really know what I've been trying to accomplish here. I've just been whining and throwing complaints around with no intent to solve problems or move forward in any regard.

I'll keep looking for a group where I feel at home, I guess. Sorry to waste everyone's time. Let this topic die, forget I was ever here.

[AceOfFools]

Look at it from their perspective. Being "creative" when it comes to reading rules is that is EXACTLY what rules lawyers do to get unfair advantages. It is the very definition of the term.

People in those communities have tons of bad experience with rules lawyers. Once they see you trying to do so they're going to prejudge everything you do through the lense of "this guy is going to try to bend the rules for unfair advantages" and have a knee-jerk reaction of "you can't do that, play by the actual rules."

Unfair or not, its pretty understandable.
There are a lot of people in the hobby who try to be creative with rules to enhance their enjoyment at the expense of others. It's a serious problem that has ruined many games.

Now my experience with organized play is that people do enjoy creativity, but not arguing about rules. They love creative role-playing (provided it doesn't create unecessary conflict). People talk for years about the evoker who described every spell as being rainbow colored, or how the elves in the party decided they like the fey-blood sorcerer so much they are going to consider him an honorary elf, or the halfling paladin who believes he was already the king of the whole world, and paladin-ing was just part of his kingly duties, or the emo cleric of the sun god...

But each of those characters fulfilled their party roles by the normal reading of the rules.

[BWR]

Frankly I have a problem with players who continually want to alter the rules to suit themselves. Plenty of games (most?) can get perfectly enjoyable characters by doing nothing outside the rules. You don't need to alter the rules to be creative. One thing I like about L5R is how you are mechanically and setting-wise encouraged to play stereotypes; it doesn't result in boring characters because a creative and interesting character is in the personality and how it is played.

[thamolas]

Looking back, I don't really know what I've been trying to accomplish here. I've just been whining and throwing complaints around with no intent to solve problems or move forward in any regard.

I'll keep looking for a group where I feel at home, I guess. Sorry to waste everyone's time. Let this topic die, forget I was ever here.

Have you tried skill-based games as opposed to level-based games? Level-based games almost always invite bad behavior and poor play. It's in the design. I have found, time after time, that the best roleplayers and most fun, creative people tend to veer toward skill-based games.

[Max_Killjoy]

Part of the problem here is that with any class-based system, most characters need to be changed to fit into one of the pigeon-holes, or you need to come up with yet another class that fits the actual character.

And in most splat-based systems, "splat spam" is used to fill page count in new books, and drive sales, leading players to view creating splats as part of the game.

[sktarq]

Firstly.

Creativity is fine but how it is presented and what you do with it is a skill in and of itself.
As a DM I wouldn't have allowed any of examples as presented. I would think they could be built with stuff already published with good creative fluff. And that stuff has been playtested and run though more thoroughly than I could do at the time. That codespeak has duration and other logistic issues. An Int 16 barbarian is not a concept-how it impacts the character is something that would have to be talked about. And for your magician. Perform (stagemagic) for your bardic performance instead of music, the use of a beguiler, Monte Cook shadow mage, of a Dragon Compendium various of a demon linked mage which all have good chassis for your concept.
One of the things about creativity in TTRPG's is taking a crush frame (class, race, etc) and reskinning it in terms of fluff to create a new idea in terms of gameplay but without the need to mass with the RAW.

Secondly

You should try other game systems. . . again like FATE or possibly Exalted from your comments

Third
We don't hate you but using that as defensive mechanism is quick way to make everyone back off and allow to create your own self fulfilling prophecy

[Deaxsa]

We don't hate you but using that as defensive mechanism is quick way to make everyone back off and allow to create your own self fulfilling prophecy

Logged in to second this. Look how many thought out replies you're getting by people who are respecting your topic (if occasionally regarding it with confusion), and notice how none of them are being rude. Its not an echo chamber, and we're certainly not all friends here, but both of those are not bad things.

[scalyfreak]

Feel free to take that as an insult and hate me. Everyone else does.

...

I crave validation in all things. It's unhealthy, I know, but I can't help it. When I have an idea, I want to talk about it, but my options are to talk to someone who has no idea what Pathfinder is, or to talk to people who are physically incapable of validating anybody.

A lot pf people in this thread gave you validation. They addressed your ideas respectfully and made suggestions. If you didn't see any of that, either unintentionally or by choice, and only noticed detractors and hate, I strongly recommend you take a long close look at why you did that.

If you walk into a conversation with the attitude that "I know you'll hate my idea and hate me" that's exactly what's going to happen. Every single time. Stop doing that to yourself.

[Clistenes]

Trying something new is a hit and miss thing... You may think that a game about space cowboys would be cool, and some people may think it sucks.

The thing with standard fantasy is, many people have grown being exposed to it, and they have learned to enjoy it. If you use it, you have your work done for you.

If you try something new, you have to teach them about it, and then you have to convince them that it's interesting, and then you have to wait for them to get used to it, and then, maybe, they may like it...

Have you tried cooperative worldbuilding? Trying to find what they find cool, what comics and movies they like and what elements from them they would like to get integrated into the game, and then developing the world together. It would help a lot, but be warned, if they get invested into it and you get them to really contribute, be ready for chairs to fly across the room if you overule and remove or change something without warning...

[GPS]

Question for OP, just curious. Is the title an actual quote, or were you attempting some sort of strawman argument in the title to set the tone for the post?

[Knaight]

The thing with standard fantasy is, many people have grown being exposed to it, and they have learned to enjoy it. If you use it, you have your work done for you.

On the other hand, lots of people are burnt out on it and willing to try all sorts of bizarre stuff as long as they don't have to deal with yet more elves and orcs.

[Mutazoia]

A DM homebrewing something for his game is one thing.
A Player homebrewing someting for someone elses game, with out consulting that person, is an elephant of a different color.

Everything you have listed so far (with the exception of the Int 16 Barbarian) are things that can alter game balance, if not though through very carefully (in respects to how it could possibly be used and/or interact with rules already in play), or, in the case if your "Magician", redundant.

But let's go back to the first two sentences....

Donny DM goes through a lot of time and sweat to creat a campaign, coming up with all sorts of details and situations. Then along comes Petey Player, who starts throwing out random "ideas" to changes/modify all that work, simply because "wouldn't it be neat-oh if".

Now, I can't speak for anybody else, but if a new player to my group did that..I wouldn't be very receptive either. Not just because it's a minor F.U. to the DM, but because all of the extra work a DM now has to do to make sure your "idea" isn't OP as hell, or conflicts with an existing rule, or is just a re-wording of somthing that already exists somewhere else with the possible consiquence of having all the benefits, but none of the draw backs (read OP) of the original thing, and then find a way to work all of this new content seamlessly into his/her campaign.

And letting YOU do this, opens the flood gates for every other player to try to homebrew his/her own stuff, because "he did it, why can't I?". And then the entire campaign de-rails while everybody is off being a Rules Tinker Gnome (TM).

[Darth Ultron]

Donny DM goes through a lot of time and sweat to creat a campaign, coming up with all sorts of details and situations. Then along comes Petey Player, who starts throwing out random "ideas" to changes/modify all that work, simply because "wouldn't it be neat-oh if".

Now, I can't speak for anybody else, but if a new player to my group did that..I wouldn't be very receptive either.

I would not be receptive either. And not just to a ''new player'', but any player.

[Cluedrew]

The solution to that problem is simple: Ask for random ideas before you create the campaign.

We have great success with that strategy in my gaming group. Last time "the new kid" actually just spun out most of the setting for the group. We ended up playing in a warmer (climate change) northern setting. It was lots of fun, and saved the GM the work of doing it. Of course, back on topic of creativity, we didn't just take it as is. People went around, added ideas and adjusted details to make it work better. And no Darth Ultron, we did not just add a million gold coins to the setting.

[Darth Ultron]

The solution to that problem is simple: Ask for random ideas before you create the campaign.

This is why Session 0 is often a good idea.

[Mordar]

Frankly I have a problem with players who continually want to alter the rules to suit themselves. Plenty of games (most?) can get perfectly enjoyable characters by doing nothing outside the rules. You don't need to alter the rules to be creative. One thing I like about L5R is how you are mechanically and setting-wise encouraged to play stereotypes; it doesn't result in boring characters because a creative and interesting character is in the personality and how it is played.

QFT. There are sooooo many options available already, both within and between a given class/system (Dozens of classes to choose from, and dozens of ways to play most of them = grosses of options...which is fun to say) that I think sometimes "creativity" in the manner of adding spell effects or enhancing abilities via homebrew is more an effort to gain additional power or perhaps skirt work. The Barbarian Int16 thing, on the other hand, is more of a wrinkle.

That being said, I'm a little surprised by the volume of people that dislike the "rigidity" of playing by a common set of rules. I totally get the idea of an established group of players working together to develop new wrinkles/rules for games once they have played together for a while, and absolutely understand the idea of houserules for a specific game/setting...but the idea of wontonly () re-writing rules on a seat-of-the-pants basis? Would the people that support such free development be equally amenable to showing up to league night and making everyone use a new bowling score methodology*, or turning softball into Calvinball, or shuffling around the rank order of hands in poker?

What makes this game more acceptable to "homebrew" than that game? Is there a logic, or are the fans of game changing fans of game changing across all games to meet their (including the potential plural) wants?

- M

[TheFamilarRaven]

I'll keep looking for a group where I feel at home, I guess. Sorry to waste everyone's time. Let this topic die, forget I was ever here.

Nah, this thread will probably go on for a few pages before dying, if I know this forum. Even if you're not reading....

Now, you might think I'm another one of those people just trying to shut you down. Thats fine. You can think whatever. But I don't think it's your creativity that bothers people. Its the execution and presentation of your ideas that raise eyebrows.

Take your use of Codespeak to write a dictionary. No rule prevents you from doing this, (but there are certain limitation to consider that are written into the spell). But you're literally creating a whole language. You can't reasonably expect to do that, then declare that you have learned a new coded form of communication and that anyone who studies your new book can learn it too (without spending a point in Linguistics). That would be a clear violation of the rules of Pathfinder. The only time you could reasonably allow this to work is with written messages, in which both parties have time to reference the dictionary and the message. If this was your intention, then yeah your GM was being silly for not allowing this and you should feel vindicated. However, on the other hand this form of communication doesn't need an entire dictionary, nor does this need the spell Codespeak to create it.

If you want to create a code language that everyone in your party can share, there are numerous ways to do this. The simplest being that everyone spend one point in Linguistics to learn the new language (because speaking in complex code is treated as a language).

However, if all you want is a few words that mean simple things like "Attack", "Help" etc... This also doesn't need a book or spell to be viable. Simply work it out in character that "Blargle" means "Oh god I'm going to die, please save me!"

In this case, I don't feel as though you're being creative, just overcomplicated. Harsh I know. But I'm willing to hear a counter argument to any of my points

Second, with the barbarian. How can any of us know if you're being creative if all we see is "Barbarian with 16 INT". I mean, this could be a viable build. Especially if you go with the Urban Barbarian archetype with high dex and perhaps later go into Duelist. But we don't know because you've refused to share any of the details.

Also, for many of these so called "veterans" you speak of. We're not impressed by the concept of a barbarian with 16 INT, because for those among us who have played for quite awhile, we do not see classes as defining a character (with perhaps a few exceptions, like Paladin), rather we see them as a chassis for which to construct what makes the character special. So when making a character, it's the difference between "I wanna play a barbarian who is smart" and "I wanna play a character that is very intelligent, but often finds that his/her rage consumes his/her thoughts". The former begins with the notion that you HAVE to be a barbarian, the later comes to the conclusion that barbarian might help realize the character concept the best.

As far as your homebrew class is concerned. Did you at any point ask yourself if you can make it with the existing rules? Pathfinder has a lot of archetypes that can fit the mold you're going for. The only time it is necessary to construct a whole class is for when there is really a character concept that cannot be realized with the existing ruleset. And even if you don't find what you're looking for, this entire forum or other websites might be able to give you some pointers..

To sum up. No one in the hobby balks at creativity. I've played with many memorable characters. They typically begin with a sentence or two like "I wanna play a kobold with a Napoleon complex. He's 2'1", and he's very proud of that extra inch." not, "I wanna play a kobold rogue with the vexing dodger archetype. He's got a DEX of 18". I've seen Drow played as disney wizards, some Mexican mariachis, sarcastic archers and a whole gambit of other characters that didn't rely on the class and novel distribution of stats to tell me who they were.

I've seen abilities used in unorthodox ways. Like a low level Psionic power to create and mold ectoplasm to pry open a nigh air tight door, stone shape to create safe passages underneath enemy crowd control spells and earth elementals to safely scout ahead. So don't tell me people in this hobby are uncreative. We just expect creativeness to be clean (not overcomplicated), and kosher with the rules of the game.

[CharonsHelper]

I've seen abilities used in unorthodox ways. Like a low level Psionic power to create and mold ectoplasm to pry open a nigh air tight door, stone shape to create safe passages underneath enemy crowd control spells and earth elementals to safely scout ahead. So don't tell me people in this hobby are uncreative. We just expect creativeness to be clean (not overcomplicated), and kosher with the rules of the game.

I'll +1 this.

When someone comes up with another homebrew class/idea which seems very similar to what's already allowed within the rules, my first two thoughts are that it's likely ill balanced and/or they just want to be a special snowflake, adding complexity to no real benefit.

I'll usually take a gander at it anyway, but those are my initial assumptions.

Uncharitable? Probably. But my experience says that it's usually true.

[Knaight]

That being said, I'm a little surprised by the volume of people that dislike the "rigidity" of playing by a common set of rules. I totally get the idea of an established group of players working together to develop new wrinkles/rules for games once they have played together for a while, and absolutely understand the idea of houserules for a specific game/setting...but the idea of wontonly () re-writing rules on a seat-of-the-pants basis? Would the people that support such free development be equally amenable to showing up to league night and making everyone use a new bowling score methodology*, or turning softball into Calvinball, or shuffling around the rank order of hands in poker?

What makes this game more acceptable to "homebrew" than that game? Is there a logic, or are the fans of game changing fans of game changing across all games to meet their (including the potential plural) wants?

The thing with bowling, and softball, and poker, is that all of them are games where you're fundamentally interacting within the mechanics of the game at all time. That's the core engagement. In RPGs the core engagement is more often about playing a character interacting with the setting, and the mechanics are there to support that. It puts it in the realm of mechanics as simulation, and that's a place where they're routinely altered. Videogames are modded, and then of course there's scientific and engineering models, which are roughly analogous to mechanics but in a serious setting. Those are refined all the time.

[Mordar]

The thing with bowling, and softball, and poker, is that all of them are games where you're fundamentally interacting within the mechanics of the game at all time. That's the core engagement. In RPGs the core engagement is more often about playing a character interacting with the setting, and the mechanics are there to support that. It puts it in the realm of mechanics as simulation, and that's a place where they're routinely altered. Videogames are modded, and then of course there's scientific and engineering models, which are roughly analogous to mechanics but in a serious setting. Those are refined all the time.

I think I understand what you're getting at...but

In baseball (or softball) I am a player interacting with my setting via gameplay...conditions change base on the count, base occupancy, opponent positioning, opponent skill, score, inning, weather, ground rules and a host of other factors. I'm attempting to hit the ball (dragon) with my bat (sword) through the right side of the infield (to threaten the flank) to advance the runners (so my rogue can get a flanking bonus and backstab) and eventually plate the winning run (setting it up so the fireball finishes it off). The mechanics support my interaction with the setting and determine what is allowable. In some cases the mechanics/static rules determine those things, but in others they are based on impressions, experience, perception and chance. I am also a player socially interacting with my setting via teammates, opponents, umpires, spectators in a non-mechanical fashion (in addition to the mechanical fashion of interaction that is gameplay). Talking to the coach/manager (king) about what we'll need to do about this particular pitcher (horde of goblin raiders) is not determined by the mechanics, but is informed by them.

Homebrewing or modding that has been discussed in this thread (IMO) is modifying gameplay interaction. You used the S-word as a form of play where gameplay is routinely altered. That is similar to practice when teams freely modify rules and create artificial situations that are linked to regulation gameplay. That also applies (in my analogy) to playing pick-up games or BP games where you modify rules to account for number of players, time frame, etc. But when it comes to league play, everyone plays by the standard rules.

To me, that is an element of expectation. Rules are present and standardized. They should be expected to be followed as the default. But, in cases where you are in a special condition (in RPG terms, a one-off, or a long standing group of players familiar with each other), create new rules and classes and change spells if they enhance the experience.

But be aware that there is a long history of people looking for the IWIN button, and you should build up some group-game-credit before trying to modify the rules, and look at your mods in the harshest light possible before bringing them to the group.

- M

[Knaight]

To me, that is an element of expectation. Rules are present and standardized. They should be expected to be followed as the default. But, in cases where you are in a special condition (in RPG terms, a one-off, or a long standing group of players familiar with each other), create new rules and classes and change spells if they enhance the experience.

I'd argue some of this (starting with how a group of players all familiar with each other is arguably the default and not a special condition), but a broader point is that this varies highly between the cultures attached to different games. With D&D, or GURPS, or HERO, or Rolemaster, or really most high crunch systems this is the assumption. In lighter systems it routinely isn't. I mostly GM and play Fudge*, and it explicitly doesn't use the standard-variant setup, instead having multiple places where there are essentially a bunch of variants posited with something to the effect of "pick one or write your own"** written somewhere. Nobody with a clue is going into a Fudge game expecting standardized rules.

*Where the GM:Play ratio is something like 35:1.
**It's probably a paragraph or three, as Stephan O'Sullivan isn't great at being concise, but that's the result.

[Mordar]

I'd argue some of this (starting with how a group of players all familiar with each other is arguably the default and not a special condition), but a broader point is that this varies highly between the cultures attached to different games. With D&D, or GURPS, or HERO, or Rolemaster, or really most high crunch systems this is the assumption. In lighter systems it routinely isn't. I mostly GM and play Fudge*, and it explicitly doesn't use the standard-variant setup, instead having multiple places where there are essentially a bunch of variants posited with something to the effect of "pick one or write your own"** written somewhere. Nobody with a clue is going into a Fudge game expecting standardized rules.

*Where the GM:Play ratio is something like 35:1.
**It's probably a paragraph or three, as Stephan O'Sullivan isn't great at being concise, but that's the result.

Once upon a time I'd certainly agree/expect that the "standard" group is the home-game you describe. I honestly don't know what the distribution would be like these days with the alternate venues and formats so broadly available.

I do certainly agree with your point on variability among games...but we wouldn't you agree that Pathfinder/DnD and other highly standardized/crunch systems have the lion's share of the market and, plausibly, the lion's share of the game play? I mean, there are recreational adult dodge-ball leagues...but they are the small minority compared to soccer and softball (or in my case, baseball).

- M

[Knaight]

I do certainly agree with your point on variability among games...but we wouldn't you agree that Pathfinder/DnD and other highly standardized/crunch systems have the lion's share of the market and, plausibly, the lion's share of the game play? I mean, there are recreational adult dodge-ball leagues...but they are the small minority compared to soccer and softball (or in my case, baseball).

Oh, absolutely. However, we're in a bit of a self selected group here - everyone here is sufficiently deep into the hobby to be posting on an RPG forum. Within that select group the margin is much smaller, and if we're talking about RPGs more broadly it's worth actually talking about RPGs more broadly.

[Mutazoia]

This thread should be combined with the thread about "Selfish DM's" lol Both seem to be addressing the same issue from only a slightly different angle.

[Mr Beer]

I want to make this clear: I've played with dozens of groups by now, and almost all of them have been awful in some way or another. I consider myself a fairly tolerant person, and I tried to keep an open mind, but there was always something far too terrible to just shrug off.

Either you are the problem or everyone else, if it's literally dozens of groups and they're all awful...statistically speaking, it's you.

[Darth Ultron]

Either you are the problem or everyone else, if it's literally dozens of groups and they're all awful...statistically speaking, it's you.

Not always though.

For example: Back in the 3X glory days I would go to the mall to DM random pick up games. It normally was something like 30 players to one DM, so there were all ways lots of players sitting around wanting to game.

And there was a point where every single player (under 25 or so) was insanely obsessed with things they ''had'' to have in the game to ''play and have fun''. And this was the Tri-sult Tome of Battle/Magic of Incarnium with wacky interpreted d20 rules from random books(the one I recall the most was the ''Dragonlance moon magic...but they wanted the 'moon' to always be active'').

So this was a couple hundred gamers that could ''only'' game that way. So that left DM's like me out as I would never run that sort of game.

So is the problem that I did not jump on the table and go ''wow, what an awesome way to play..pew, pew, pew'' or is the problem all the players were just...um..misguided and crazy?

[Joe the Rat]

I think it's more an issue that the OP is late to the game.

All those alt core classes and hybrids and archetypes and traits and non-core feats that let you tweak nine ways to Sunday? Somebody created them. All that third party stuff which is allowed in a lot of play? Somebody created it, and got it published. You see a niche that is not covered, and can find a creative way to make it insteresting and contribute to the game, bang it around. "I have this idea I am developing, and would like to test it" will fly with some groups. Playtest credits have an appeal (as do editing credits, btw).

16 Int barbarian? let's see... tons of skill proficiency, access to all the fun tricks on the Combat Expertise chain (so you can use your Rage powers on other things), the trait that lets you swap one Charisma skill to Intelligence... sounds kinda fun. Erudite and violent, Monocle optional. The catch is that a 16 is expensive. You're going to suffer on points to cover your primary roles. "Smart Barbarian" works - but you have to find the balance. If there's something you want to do with it, and can make it work, rock on.

[weckar]

Considering threads such as "101 Atypical..." in this very forum, I think your premise is flawed.

[Florian]

Hm... If I remember correctly, I actually saw the thread about the "Stage Magician" over in the 3E/PF section of the forums.
If I´m correct and it was by the same person, sorry to say it, then I actually do understand why a group would dismiss such "creative" ideas right from the start.
I´m all in for good fluff and descriptions, but it´ll bore me to tears fast having a "Faux Magician" do real spells with "stage tricks" and jabber about how I should imagine it. Yeah, you pulled that bunny from your top hat. It´s SNA, I get it. Can we get on or do you want to explain this every time again?

[Mutazoia]

Not always though.

For example: Back in the 3X glory days I would go to the mall to DM random pick up games. It normally was something like 30 players to one DM, so there were all ways lots of players sitting around wanting to game.

And there was a point where every single player (under 25 or so) was insanely obsessed with things they ''had'' to have in the game to ''play and have fun''. And this was the Tri-sult Tome of Battle/Magic of Incarnium with wacky interpreted d20 rules from random books(the one I recall the most was the ''Dragonlance moon magic...but they wanted the 'moon' to always be active'').

So this was a couple hundred gamers that could ''only'' game that way. So that left DM's like me out as I would never run that sort of game.

So is the problem that I did not jump on the table and go ''wow, what an awesome way to play..pew, pew, pew'' or is the problem all the players were just...um..misguided and crazy?

Eh.

In your example, though, your not going into an established group that's been running a regular game, your PUGing a one shot in a room of munchkins. The OP gives off the impression that he joins a group, hangs around for a week or to (just long enough to learn the rules), then wants to start shoehorning his own hombrew class or super secret, none more secret language, or what have you, into an established game in progress. No GM worth his salt is going to let a relative new player do anything of the sort. If you want to play a homebrew class...wait till the next campaign and talk to the GM before things get started. Don't barf it onto the gaming table mid session and then get upset when the GM say nix.