>Campaign is set in a small local region and concerns local politics and war
>One player shows up and insists on playing a race that has nothing to do with the conflict and no possible reason for being present
How do you handle this?
>Campaign is set in a small local region and concerns local politics and war
Anything related to diplomacy and trade is fair game for being there. Race has nothing to do with an outside conflict, you could be there for personal gain or to accompany someone else that is there for his own ends, or in more or less official business to keep an eye on things unfolding even if his country/organization isn't directly involved.
Does the player want to be involved in the game or are you thinking it cannot be done due to the idea you had about the game?
Let them if they can explain it? And i mean ask about it in good faith, not try to bully them into switching.
have them be a neutral party. In times of war, external suppliers of crucial goods and services have always been highly sought after
Every npc should react to seeing him as the odd thing he is.
"You look far away from home, lad. Whats your story, eh? Are ye running from something?"
"I didn't knew your people were involved in this. Maybe our plans must change..."
"YOU? HERE? WHY?"
"I can help you, adventurers, but why is a person of that race with you? Is he a spy? Is our conflict here something of interest for their people?"
Be a good GM and simply make your player feel like his choices have consequences in game.
Does anyone have a solution that doesn't pander to the player's ego by making his random level 1 chucklefrick the coolest thing since sliced bread?
Outcast Ratings from Ravenloft (the real one, not the SJW all-stars disaster for 5th edition)
Attention does not equal positive attention.
A player in my current campaign made a character who deliberately stems from the area where the invaders of the past came from who are now occupying part of the land - in fact, he is deeply linked to that invasion. Yet he still wants to play a part in combating that occupation, so he is constantly surrounded by people who have fought against people of his phenotype in the past and associate him with the enemy. While this isn't equal to no explanation, it results in a similar idea; the character getting attention which it might not want, in this case facing discrimination. The same might happen to somebody who is not connected to the conflict at all, potentially being belittled by conflict parties for treating this decisive event in their history as an opportunity for travel. Or maybe it is obviously reviled for being a mercenary.
Make some of the NPCs actively racist.
>Refuse to serve the PC
>Have the guards keep try to arrest him
>Even the children spit on him
>Maybe the fantasy Klan can drag him from the back of a wagon at high speeds
Just really drive home the point that this isn't his place, and he's not welcome. Player choices have consequences, and he made a stupid choice.
>be pc
>be lvl 1 idiot
>go to a foreign country and insert yourself into a conflict you have no stake in and don't really understand for either ideological reasons or because you want to be a super cool merc (assuming a level 1 character isn't competent enough to be an actual merc)
>"holy frick, you fricking idiot, what are you doing here, no one wants you here?"
You remind me of my wife.
She hated being nice to anyone.
Roleplay as an adult and talk to him about his idea for the game and where it's remotely compatible with the game I'm planning to run. If not, he will not play it.
Like a champ, you little homosexual
I like how Skorkowsky way back when did a video on character concepts that don't work, listed "character from a completely different story that doesn't fit" and labelled it as "13th warrior"... and people tear him a new one over this, pointing out that 13th warrior is a perfect example how "unfitting" characters can work. To the point he delisted that video and over the years distances himself from it. Guy is great, but that one moment almost derailed any credibility he worked for half a decade
He did remake it.
... there is no hope
I'm genuinely disappointed now.
Lol attention prostitutes will forever be ass blasted by this
Except it's a (rare) case when he's not just blatantly wrong, but venting out his own personal butthurt over bad experience he had.
I feel like there is some purely personal reason why he seems to be so fricking against the concept of the odd-out characters in theme campaigns. Like particularly bad experience(s) with specific players or something like that. The guy is easily one of the most balanced and experienced voices out there, with decades of gameplay behind his belt and in varied systems and settings... yet has some serious beef against such basic concept.
A foreign dignitary. An exiled from far away. Trusted as an exotic healer. Someone’s personal champion or Varangian Guard.
Think a little.
Fine by me: dude is a mercenary and gets to be the main focus of all enemy combatants simply because he's so noticeable compared to the other PCs. Other than that, he's going to make a lot of disguise rolls if the party wants to do anything without attracting attention or avoid being scapegoated for whatever crime happens around their general area. If he isn't disguised, he gets a bonus on intimidation rolls but a malus on every other kind of social interaction. If the race is particularly freakshit, he's even going to risk being lynched by the local KKK equivalent. Trust me, people are quick to lose interest in being muh super special snowflake when they don't have the world's elite and msm behind their homosexual asses.
A good character will be able to handle a variety of settings, situations, and goals.
A good setting will be able to handle a variety of characters, motivations, and goals.
>if you don't accommodate my every whim you have a bad setting
This is just a laughably clumsy attempt at emotional blackmail.
Variety doesn't mean every, you illiterate troglodyte.
The context of the thread is a player making a GM accommodate a choice that is outside of the established scope of the game. Nothing suggests there is no variety already.
Someone from a foreign land entering into a domestic conflict isn't "outside the scope" it's something that happens all the time.
Ask him. “Why are you there and what is your stake?” Come up with some interesting reason. There are already some great suggestions itt.
Others could be
>prophesied to fulfill some great task in a foreign land and pressed/coerced into being there, 13th Warrior style
>ambassador for a foreign power looking to win favor locally by intervening in the conflict
>warrior-artist whose art concerns great battles there to witness some epic shit going down and be inspired
English mercenary convinced to wage war in Italy as a Condottieri (mercenary) after getting a "spiritually uplifting sum of money" (enough to pay for a construction worker for 3,000years) from the Pope to stop besieging his palace in France during the Hundred Years' War.
Sir John Hawkwood?
> In the 30 years that he served as a captain, Hawkwood's earnings ranged between 6,000 and 80,000 florins annually (in comparison, a skilled Florentine craftsman at the same time earned 30 florins a year).
Real life examples of people being in places they aren't from
>What was the Genoese tower and quarter in Constantinople and who lived there?
>Why did millions of Indians move to African nations in the 20th century and many fled during revolutions/wars back to India or UK?
>Why did millions of Europeans leave their countries in late 19th and early 20th century to go to the USA?
>What are political/economical/familial immigrants
You're trying to come up with any reason to not have this in your game because to be honest it sounds like you have a clear start and finish (i.e. railroad) in mind. People who on paper have nothing to do with a conflict have regularly turned up (German mercs were hired by the British in the US revolution for example and became absolutely hated). Lafayette also got involved in the war long before the French decided to become militarily involved (a personal example). Reasons that might be unknown at first may reveal themselves over the course of the campaign. I ran a dwarven civil war with a half elf and halfling as two of the 4 players, and they developed their own plausible investments as the campaign progressed, so it can happen.
The OP made it blatant that the player didn't give their PC a valid reason for being there.
>"they developed their own plausible investments as the campaign progressed, so it can happen."
>"as the campaign progressed"
Please learn to read.
No, OP said that there was NO POSSIBLE REASON for that character to be there. That tells us they've decided that, not that the player hasn't come up with a reason.
I love how Land Cruiser 70s piss of Ganker so fricking much. Soul vehicle.
>Nooo nobody has ever traveled!
>nooo you can't play a traveler from afar in my fricking adventure game!
>you can't be a war tourist in my war tourism game!
WotC guidelines on the matter are that this is now considered bad taste tourism at best or colonialism at worst. Please understand, travelling to a foreign country is highly disrespectful, especially if you don't conform to the culture of the place.
WotC had a hot take on visiting other countries?
They removed an old book that advocated making outsider characters in a setting as an interesting take, because it was inappropriate.
>especially if you don't conform to the culture of the place.
I want to, but apparently owning slaves is inappropriate.
Mercenaries, Bards/Journalists, Clerics/Medics, Stranded Tourists/Expats, religious pilgrims, Idiots who literally don't know better and go rubber-necking in a warzone, etc
Did you not pay attention in history class anon?
A wild card that can change the balance of power
>>One player shows up and insists on playing a race that has nothing to do with the conflict and no possible reason for being present
Money.
More or less psychopatic need for adventure/violence.
I point out that the first thing I told him in Char-gen was that he HAD to make a character that would WANT to interact with the party and the world. No buttholes, no lone wolves.
>how deal?
By running the game with the requirement for everyone to make characters together, in a simplified 3d6 down the line and randomly assigned character traits and backgrounds in small number. No one ends up playing their preconceived characters they made up before the game and having that idea at all is directly discouraged by saying.
>Hello game friends we will be making characters together, in a simplified 3d6 down the line with randomly assigned character traits and backgrounds so don't come with a preconceived character
>Sorry Dave, I know you wanted to play a mercenary fighter looking to profit from all this political upheaval, but the simplified 3d6 down the line method with randomly assigned traits and backgrounds says you are a 10 int wizard who is a sailor.
I say this as a man who enjoys the terror that is Traveller character gen; such random systems suck if you want to play a particular type of character.
Brainlet take, not even Gary did 3d6 down the line.
I would exclude the chatacter from the adventure of the main group (either ditch the player completely or run separate session for them).
Mercenary? Tourist? Just some guy who got stuck in a warzone and is trying to survive?