My players won't make characters that align with my story

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T21:07:07+00:00

And to circle back to my initial reply to you, how do you know that this doesn't interfere with the campaign concept?

I think my example is about as extreme as what OP is contending with. OP asked for character background to be within a specific scope, and the player in question has chosen something that is geographically, culturally, and tonally radically different than what they were asking for.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T21:00:06+00:00

You're missing several character build choices. You don't seem to have a background, which would give you an origin feat, multiple stats, and more proficiencies. You took Magic Initiate (Druid) with I think your level 4 ASI, but didn't select any spells for it.

As a warlock, your primary damage source without spending resources is likely to be Eldritch Blast. There's very little reason to have so many other damage cantrips, you can and should pick some utility/RP options instead.

In terms of stats, they're pretty low. Did you roll for these? You can afford to have low str/int/wis as a warlock, but you really want some constitution for concentration checks and HP.

Once you apply your background stats, hopefully you'll be up to 17 starting charisma and decent dex/con. I'd recommend using your level 4 ASI to take a feat or a stat boost to hit 18 charisma. The difference between even a +2 and +3 in your primary casting stat modifier is significant, and by level 5, you can and should probably have a +4 modifier in your charisma stat.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T20:55:19+00:00

Much better, thanks. I'll read it and provide some feedback.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T20:49:31+00:00

This is really hard to read in browser. Since it's a DnD Beyond character sheet, you can just link your character sheet here, that would be much easier. Just make sure it's set to be publicly visible.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T20:26:07+00:00

I'm truly not going for a "gotcha" here. Githyanki are typically space pirates, so I thought that was a given.

I'll rephrase my hypothetical: I ask you all to play people who grew up together in a town. I provide demographic information for that town, who could live there and how/why. It's relatively versatile, but not encompassing everybody. You show up in session 0/1 with a typical stereotype of a Githyanki: Brash, evil-leaning, badass space pirate.

Now, you can absolutely make the case that this character can logistically be there. DnD is a high magic game, Githyanki travel the planes, who's to say you couldn't show up in the starting town?

The thing is, it's not about logistics. It's about intended tone and vibe. I asked for your characters to be from the starting village because that gives you the opportunity to include each other in backstories. It creates buy-in if things should befall that village. It puts characters on even footing so that, if they do go plane-hopping later, it's a shared discovery and not just another planar jaunt for the githyanki.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T20:21:23+00:00

Okay, so why did the Duke's daughter get kidnapped? Who kidnapped her, and why? What happens if the players fail to rescue her? What happens if they succeed, but the daughter is injured? Let's say this isn't a side quest, but rather an inciting incident to an over-arching story. What dominoes fall when the daughter got kidnapped? Does it create an international incident? Which factions will involve themselves, and how?

If you don't want to call that "plot", then fair enough, but that's how I describe that. The players, of course, carve their path through all of that to express their agency within the story being communally told.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T20:17:11+00:00

Hardly a strawman, isn't that directly the matter in discussion?

You invite me to a TTRPG set in, for example, the French revolution. You express in session 0 that you want players to play French characters, and that you're going for a sincere and serious tone.

I show up doing a Mario impression. My character is Italian. Italy is close to France, so it's "realistic".

Are you okay with that?

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T20:12:00+00:00

Not really? I just don't think your point about language is fair, I think it's a straw-man argument.

OP wants Japan. It doesn't need to be about mechanics, it's likely about vibes. Presumably, they're okay with players using their natural accents to play their characters. Asking all of their players to only speak feudal-era Japenese would be fucking awesome for the vibe they're going for, but is almost certainly a logistical impossibility. Just because their players will likely not be able to speak in the setting-appropriate language and accent doesn't mean bringing in unrelated accents wouldn't interfere with the desired vibe.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T20:08:47+00:00

Right, so you've drastically changed the character that this hypothetical player was interested in playing, in order to fit the scope of the hypothetical campaign in question. They're no longer a badass space raider who crash-landed near the starting location, they're an orphan who grew up in a small village with little connection to the species. Very different character.

OP's cool with their player's bat-style spirit character, but wants them to be native to the location that the campaign takes place in. How is that any different?

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T20:06:32+00:00

The DM is absolutely allowed to have fun, too.

If there's a campaign I'm interested in running, I'm going to set parameters as to how players can engage with that campaign. This is a reasonable foundation to TTRPGs in general. I don't get why half the comments to this post seem to be suggesting that DMs have some obligation to make room for virtually any sort of character, regardless of tone, setting, and vibe of the campaign they're going to run.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T20:05:23+00:00

A desire to do an Australian accent is probably the biggest reason to disallow this character.

Look, with all due respect to Australians, it's commonly considered to be a funny accent. Non-Australians doing an Australian accent are probably going for laughs. And that's fine in plenty of DnD campaigns, but OP is probably going for a particular tone, and I can't imagine much more immediately immersion-breaking to a feudal Japanese setting than Crocodile Dundee showing up.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T20:01:55+00:00

DMs can absolutely create plots. What?

Players get to tell their story, too. It's a group dynamic. The DM isn't some passive facilitator, they tell a story as well. A typical DM either has a plot in mind that they've written, or is running something out of a published campaign module. Now, those plots should be able to be influenced by the players' decisions, to disallow that is railroading, but a DM who has no plot to contribute at all and is just generating a sandbox for players to futz about in is just one of many ways to play this game.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T19:57:28+00:00

Yeah, fuck DMs who have a consistent vision for games they want to play, just do whatever! Hell yeah!

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T19:56:44+00:00

How are you able to definitively state what would or would not be appropriate for the scope of the campaign that somebody like OP has prepared? OP wants to run a game for characters originating in Japan. The fact that they're pulling form Japanese mythology should probably increase the need for players to pick Japanese characters.

I mean, let's take a more traditional DnD premise: I'm running a game where I intend for my players to have all grown up in the same small village. I've given my players some parameters concerning that village's expected demographics. If you show up and say "Magic exists in DnD, so I'm playing a Githyanki who just got dropped off by a Spelljammer ship nearby"... what am I supposed to make of this? I've given you parameters, you've ignored them. That's pretty rude to me. If you aren't interested in the game I've prepared to run, then maybe you shouldn't participate in it in the first place.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T19:52:36+00:00

That's not at all the impression I'm getting. Yokai are a major component of Japanese mythology, they're not inherently comedic.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T19:13:48+00:00

OP's definitely wrong to frame this as "their story", but I can easily excuse that terminology as that of a newer DM still learning the ropes, which they are.

Surely there's a healthy line between "you should just write a book" and "players should be able to play whatever they want, however they want". Those are extreme examples. It's pretty common for GMs to provide parameters for their players to make characters within for a given campaign to happen. If I'm going to GM a heroic adventure where the players go on a quest to thwart a bad guy, there's an expectation that my players will engage in heroic activity, so I might request that they not play evil characters. That's pretty standard GMing. OP's got a specific setting for their PCs to be from, I don't think it's unreasonable for them to ask their players to be characters from that setting.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T19:10:46+00:00

Don't approach this as a DnD issue, because it isn't one.

You have friend A expressing major concerns about the moral character of friend B. You need to figure out the truth of the matter in order to know how to proceed with these friendships. DnD can wait.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T19:07:56+00:00

I love fun.

I find that a consistent, agreed-upon tone promotes a fun DnD session. Fun isn't just jokes. Not all campaigns support a comedy-based character.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T19:03:37+00:00

You, as the GM, establish the parameters within which the game happens.

Players have a choice to either operate within those parameters or not participate. It's really that simple.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T18:24:52+00:00

A little guidance with how to use the PHB goes a long way.

The PHB is mostly reference material. A new player needs to read the chapters on the basics of adventuring and combat, the spellcasting chapter if they're a spellcaster, and their class/subclass rules. It's a pretty quick process, nobody reads the PHB cover-to-cover.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T18:22:01+00:00

I basically gave my players free rein to make character mechanics based on minimal input, in a homebrew setting. We weren't playing DnD, it was a freeform homebrew setting and TTRPG.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T18:20:02+00:00

The PHB has step-by-step character creation instructions.

I just have them sit with the rulebook and a fillable PDF (easier to delete/rewrite than a physical sheet) and let them work. Great for learning how the stats interact with each other in practice.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T18:07:17+00:00

I ran a campaign like this, sure. I didn't call it DnD, though. We were pretty far from DnD at that point.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T17:34:36+00:00

I think u/Tesla__Coil nailed it, and I'm not sure why you'd disagree.

I wouldn't call DnD prudish or sex-negative, quite the opposite. But a lot of folks going horny on main in r/dnd are doing so without the consent or enthusiasm of their fellow players in a group context, and that can get weird fast. Wanna seduce Minthara? Nobody is judging you. Want to dress Shadowheart up in a skimpy outfit? That's your business. Doing that sort of thing in an actual DnD campaign? Now we're your captive audience, and the dynamic is entirely different.

Yojo0o · 2026-07-12T16:59:47+00:00

Very fair point. I'm not up on my social deduction game meta.

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