Player Character Choices and how far you're willing to indulge them

Cognitheurge

I have a friend who wants to run a game of D&D. I'm rather burnt out on the idea of D&D, so I wanted to find a class that would mix things up and try to make it feel new. I stumbled upon Matt Mercers Blood Hunter, I am a fan of the Witcher series so I thought this would be cool, until I read through the class. There were so many options that relied upon the player knowing what sort of adventure the DM planned to run and quite a few more, that unless you planned your stats perfectly, weren't useful at all.

With this in mind the class as a concept is pretty cool, the specialization options bring some very cool flavor even if two of them mimic other classes.

As a Game Master how far will you bend the campaign to match what the players make? If someone makes a character that will only truly shine if you're fighting the ghosts of elderly goblins, do you add said geriatric goblinoid spectres? Is my knee jerk reaction to you shouldn't give them too much leeway a bad thing or is chasing the awesome they're looking for exactly what an RPG should be?

Fredrix

I am now of the opinion that character creation is where the players tell the GM what sort of game they want to play. The GM must create the adventure around the players. (Though, the No, you can’t play a ninja, this is an Old West game and they didn’t have Ninjas rule still applies)

HouseDok

Fredrix hits a lot of how I see things. Before character creation starts, there should be a conversation between everyone involved about what kind of game is going to be run and what type of people places things everyone wants to see. This should help shape the characters that are going to come from that. This is something we thought about a lot and baked into character creation for Metahumans Rising. Hopefully, these conversations avoid grossly inappropriate characters for a given game. For an example in D&D land this prevents building a dedicated undead hunter in a game where you are hunting and escaped demon. although, In fairness there's I'm generally good with retcons in D&D and a fair amount of overlap conceptually between hunting the dead and demons, but you get my point.

EricfromNJ

Fredrix agree 100%. Players tell me what they want. I am going through this with Monster of the Week right now and they are D&D players so they are still grasping the concept and looking to me for answers. I am trying to guide them before session zero so that we have some sort of consensus before play. Also I consider the first game like a pilot episode of a series. If you want to change up stuff after game one to more enjoy the campaign by all means do it. You can switch up Pike for Kirk if you want.

Cognitheurge

With my last couple gamemastering runs I very much tried to have character creation/ session 0 with everyone attending my group of friends/players don't really want that sort of control and basic lost their minds and the whole thing became a very large joke, presumably to cope with no wanting to own up to what they'd actually like to play.

However, whenever I've been invited to a D&D game this usually isn't the case as D&D in my experience is invite a couple people those who can make a character on their own do and the other's are helped in making theirs at the first session. So characters are usually made separately in my neck of the woods.

I do like the solution of shifting a "favored enemy" when it makes sense that someone who hunts goblins wouldn't necessarily take the mission rid a forest of undead.

Vyrrk

I think session Zeros are really the answer here. A session zero can form your world and player characters to match. But the problem is, players often feel like session Zeroes are a wasted night because they didn't "play". Its actually one of the reasons I really like what @Kimi did with her Decuma game. You all sit down and Play a GAME and people walk away feeling like they played something and super excited to play the campaign.

As for a class that feels different in DnD, Matt Mercers Gunslinger can be super fun if you GM is will to work with you a little on ammo. Also Moon druids are a blast because you can change into so many animals now, it spices things up.