86 replies to this topic

[dwarvenranger]

Battleships, 2.5 miles, dawn.

FYI, I built underwater mines when I was in the Navy. I sunk your battleship.

[Ampersandrew]

FYI, I built underwater mines when I was in the Navy. I sunk your battleship.

[buglips*the*goblin]

Another annoying thing is "me the player knows something secret about your character, so suddenly my character is going to try and find out about it".

Wha?

Look, I'm at the table and hear/see things omnisciently. My character is off going drink for drink with Jarlbok the Viking. I'm playing that straight, and super ignorant. Heck, if anything I might ham it up to make my character even more ignorant.

To priest of Cyric: "You're a good friend, Eldrik. A good friend. There are few as stalwart, noble, and trustworthy as you."

I can't stand playing with people who don't (or won't) act their character as their character sees the world. There's a statistically decent chance my thief will get eaten by trolls because I've never seen one and in the tales of my clan they are easily dispatched with water.

And if I am eaten, I will either be convinced that shortly I'll be vindicated (give the water a minute to work) - or I'll insist that what these ignorant bumpkins call trolls aren't real trolls. I mean, if they were the water would kill them, right? Right.

Heck, it took the party (including a half-elf) more than three months to convince me that Elves were real. Still not sure if I believe them.

Perspective is more than half of what makes a character worth playing, and so many people throw it away! Buglips was a good cleric (literally - a dying god reached out with the last of its strength to find one mind who would believe, got Buglips, and told him "be good". Leaving Buglips to figure out what The Voice really meant). Buglips's struggle to understand good as a concept was only part of the story - he was, after all, still a goblin and he still acted/thought like a goblin.

But eventually the party got used to him and started to civilize him (no easy task). And his struggle was fraught with difficulties like greed, envy, pride, even lust (he proved exceptionally susceptible to an Erinyes that made him do bad things). Eventually, Buglips became like a noble, wise little Buddha - and none of it would have been worth anything if not for playing it through his perspective. He learned what Good was the hard way.

. . . and then he was obliterated by another player's exploding wizard clone, who was just like all his previous exploding wizards.


Gah! Why do so many people who play roleplaying games not understand roleplaying?

*grumble* *grumble*

[buglips*the*goblin]

Battleships, 2.5 miles, dawn.

FYI, I built underwater mines when I was in the Navy. I sunk your battleship.

One of these days, Dwarf. One of these days I'll win. Then I'll steal all your nickels.

[Argentee]

To quote the old cliche, "It's ROLEplaying, not ROLLplaying!"

[buglips*the*goblin]

To quote the old cliche, "It's ROLEplaying, not ROLLplaying!"

And it's not like it's hard, all you have to do is think of the characters as people who define their reality by the observable, their ignorance, their experience, their speculation, and their interpretation. Like real people do.

And if that means Bragmar the superstitious Barbarian is going to cleave the party's wizard in twain to free his soul from the "evil demons" that he sees when the wizard casts magic, then that's what it means. Unless the wizard's player can either perform his duties surreptitiously, or find a way to create a distinction the Barbarian can live with (which may be as easy as explaining that all magic is not bad, and a Wizard is a Good Magic User, but a Sorcerer is an Evil Magic User - the Wizard opposes Sorcery, so he's a valuable ally to the Barbarian in the quest to defeat evil Sorcery).

[dwarvenranger]

Battleships, 2.5 miles, dawn.

FYI, I built underwater mines when I was in the Navy. I sunk your battleship.

One of these days, Dwarf. One of these days I'll win. Then I'll steal all your nickels.

I suspect that's true. After all kender are good at stealing, er I mean finding, coin pouches.

[Doug Sundseth]

Roleplaying your character is clearly the point of the game. But the corollary of "play your character" is "create a character that works with the group and campaign."

If you're playing an epic, continent-traversing, "defeat the world-threatening evil" campaign, creating a character that isn't willing to travel is trolling*. If you're playing a thieves' guild campaign, creating a paladin that cannot tolerate stealing is trolling**.

Using the excuse, "I'm only playing my character", to ruin a campaign is rude. If you don't like the premise, lobby for a different campaign, sit a campaign out, or play NPCs for the GM, or something.

* Playing a character that grumbles about traveling might be just fine, so long as it doesn't become tedious.

** Similarly, playing a character that is trying to reform the thieves might work, but it will have to be managed very well to keep the concept intact. And that management is primarily the responsibility of the player who chose to play against concept, not the GM. It's not all about you.

[dwarvenranger]

To quote the old cliche, "It's ROLEplaying, not ROLLplaying!"

And it's not like it's hard, all you have to do is think of the characters as people who define their reality by the observable, their ignorance, their experience, their speculation, and their interpretation. Like real people do.

And if that means Bragmar the superstitious Barbarian is going to cleave the party's wizard in twain to free his soul from the "evil demons" that he sees when the wizard casts magic, then that's what it means. Unless the wizard's player can either perform his duties surreptitiously, or find a way to create a distinction the Barbarian can live with (which may be as easy as explaining that all magic is not bad, and a Wizard is a Good Magic User, but a Sorcerer is an Evil Magic User - the Wizard opposes Sorcery, so he's a valuable ally to the Barbarian in the quest to defeat evil Sorcery).

It's sad how many times I've had to say, "well how the hell would my character know that?" In response to another players failure to roleplay.

[buglips*the*goblin]

Battleships, 2.5 miles, dawn.

FYI, I built underwater mines when I was in the Navy. I sunk your battleship.

One of these days, Dwarf. One of these days I'll win. Then I'll steal all your nickels.

I suspect that's true. After all kender are good at stealing, er I mean finding, coin pouches.

Starships, 40000 kellicams, in front of the sun.

[dwarvenranger]

Battleships, 2.5 miles, dawn.

FYI, I built underwater mines when I was in the Navy. I sunk your battleship.

One of these days, Dwarf. One of these days I'll win. Then I'll steal all your nickels.

I suspect that's true. After all kender are good at stealing, er I mean finding, coin pouches.

Starships, 40000 kellicams, in front of the sun.

Ok I'll catch up. Psst everyone, I kicked the kender off the PLANET!

[MonkeySloth]

One thing I've been doing recently is based off of a character's background he may know something that the rest of the group wouldn't even if they all have the same knowledge skill. An example is in our current Iron Kingdom's game we're dealing with a lot of Undead--which any knowledge about on the magical end is strictly taboo (even punishable by death) and there's a player who had stuff in his background that allows him to know. So if he knows it I'll walk over to him and whisper what he knows and it's up to him to decide if he wants to share with the group.

[buglips*the*goblin]

Roleplaying your character is clearly the point of the game. But the corollary of "play your character" is "create a character that works with the group and campaign."

If you're playing an epic, continent-traversing, "defeat the world-threatening evil" campaign, creating a character that isn't willing to travel is trolling*. If you're playing a thieves' guild campaign, creating a paladin that cannot tolerate stealing is trolling**.

Using the excuse, "I'm only playing my character", to ruin a campaign is rude. If you don't like the premise, lobby for a different campaign, sit a campaign out, or play NPCs for the GM, or something.

* Playing a character that grumbles about traveling might be just fine, so long as it doesn't become tedious.

** Similarly, playing a character that is trying to reform the thieves might work, but it will have to be managed very well to keep the concept intact. And that management is primarily the responsibility of the player who chose to play against concept, not the GM. It's not all about you.

Well, yes, but . . . if you take these to their logical end the problem often solves itself.

Let's take example number 1, and I choose to troll and play a character who absolutely will not travel. The party has to leave without me, and I'm left behind with no adventure. My own fault. A good DM would then allow me to live-action roleplay my character's boring home life by cleaning up the game room and then heroically washing some dishes.

In example #2, if I decide to play Sir Trolly of Not Appropriate, and I play him as a nuisance, I have a very limited span of playtime before the rest of the group works together to be rid of my meddling. Again, my own fault. If I make a Paladin, I have to make one who has good reason to be there and who is clever. If I do that, I should be allowed. If I don't, then I've got less than a week before I'm found naked in an alley with forty poisoned daggers in my back.

Similarly, if the Barbarian in my example proves beyond any sort of reason, no matter how clever, the wizard is completely justified in vapourizing him in self-defence.*

So you can let people make whatever they want - but be clear that they must own the consequences of that decision and get no special consideration (or special elimination). That's the route we took, and I think that's how we managed to so easily rid ourselves of troublemakers. By playing it logically and not meddling with natural consequences, their trolly fun will probably be short-lived. Then they can either make something more appropriate, or take their ball and go home.

In any case, as a DM I wouldn't be especially inclined to grant special consideration to somebody who deliberately made an oppositional character. I'd be fair, yes, but if they're going to cry over the consequences then that's just too bad.


* Incidentally, my superstitious character became aware the half-elf was a magic user, and we had not yet established him as a Good Guy (wizard). There was at least a 50% chance I would attack him, and he knew this, and so he had prepared Charm Person for that eventuality. Had it come to that, and it worked, I'd have hammed it up all the way. Because he's not just a wizard - he's my bestest friend ever in the whole wide world!

Unless a strong will counterpoint (reason for the spell to be disrupted) is present (and it wasn't, I only had vague suspicions) then it's entirely probable I would not get an additional future save - and even if I did if I'd spent that long thinking he was the greatest guy ever I might have stockholm syndromed myself into making it fact anyway.

In any case, it didn't come to that because everybody knows the surest way to spot a sorcerer is for them to change their shape. Since the wizard did not, then clearly he wasn't a sorcerer. Or he was a really clever sorcerer, but in any event it bought him time to prove he wasn't evil. Stupid, maybe, since he thought elves were real, but stupid is okay.

[smokingwreckage]

Firewalling- keeping player knowledge apart from character knowledge- is a convention. It is not vital to play by it, depending on game, group, and style. Even if it's in play, you can push it, but you have to do so in a manner that fits the group's conventions. So a character may ask a question that may lead the right way, but that would have to be done in a credible fashion and dropped if it lead no-where.

[Sanael]

One of the problems I'm having in my current campaign is a bit of PC knowledge of other PC's. I have a wizardess who is a military deserter, formerly special ops/infiltration. The rest of the party was unaware of this, until they started doing heroics in the country from which the wizardess deserted. She was spotted, angry military police began chasing the party, fun for all. Especially since the party wants, nominally at least, to be on the windy side of the law. Come-to-Jesus-time, and the wizardess explains her role in the military to the party. They now know she's a former special ops commando.

Trouble is, she's been presenting herself as a support caster and minor artillerist.

Last night, the game session took the party to a prison to break out their illegally and unjustly detained patron. Required infiltration. Real special-ops, commando type stuff. Wizardess starts to suggest a plan of attack, but the goblin rogue and our barbar are already rushing the first guard. It took three cellblocks before the party realized the wizardess was keeping them all from dying.

So the moral is that some parties just don't pay much attention to roleplaying and backstories. And this is a good group that I love playing with.