Best Version of DnD?

[Auberon]

Garbage is a relative term.  If you enjoy playing the character then it doesn't matter if the char-op player hyperventilates every time you level up.

[Doug Sundseth]

28 minutes ago, Auberon said:

Garbage is a relative term.  If you enjoy playing the character then it doesn't matter if the char-op player hyperventilates every time you level up.

 

I'll actually disagree with that, at least in part.

 

I agree that it's a relative term.

 

But if your build, whether mechanically strong or mechanically weak, is causing other players in the group to be unhappy, it's a problem. Note that this does not mean that characters need to be balanced in every group, but you need to understand and abide by the social contract of the game you're in.

 

Note that this also applies to character personalities. "I'm just playing my character", unless caused by some sort of mind control or involuntary personality change in game, is not an excuse. It's your character; if you built a character that's making the other players unhappy, you did it wrong.

[Auberon]

If everyone else at the table has a problem with the character then yes, someone is probably not playing the same game as the rest of the group.  OTOH if only one other player has a problem with the character while the rest of the group is cool with it then the character itself may not be the issue.

 

I would split character personalities into a separate discussion from mechanical builds.  In broad strokes I will categorize the "I'm just playing my character" crowd up into two subgroups.

1. The player that has mostly been exposed to single protagonist fiction.  In this case they are likely not trying to do anything malicious, they are just playing their PC how characters work in the fiction they are familiar with. The way stories work with ensemble casts are obviously different.  You still have hope for these players if you can get them to understand how story works differently in the group setting.  With the right players (well, and right DM) it's possible for a paladin and a blackgaurd to function in the same party when both players understand how ensemble fiction works.
2. The player that is acting in a selfish manner.  This could be straight up control - basically you have to do what I say, or attention - now everyone in the group has to focus on me, or any number of related reasons an actual psychologist could discuss in detail.  Even if the player isn't consciously acting this way it's still a problem.  If it is intentional then you really do have a problem player.

Also, I see it is well past work night bedtime so I'll leave it to others to continue the discussion.

[DocPiske]

There are two considerations with character choices. One is the play style of the campaign. If you are playing a combat focused, kick the door down and kill anything that moves, and someone is trying to play a role-play focused character and picks character options for role-play value, then that player is in the wrong group.

 

On the other hand if in the same campaign someone is playing a bard/wildmage and opens every encounter with a wand of wonder, anyone upset by this is in the wrong group as well. The same bard/wildmage might be totally inappropriate for a role play heavy campagn. (I say might be because it depends on the group, again).

 

The other consideration is what does the player enjoy playing? Maybe they really want to play that elven fighter/monk melee specialist that is useless at range. Why should they play a character they don't enjoy?

 

Any play style is fine as long as the game is fun. The best anime are the ones with a mixed group of misfits and [email protected]$$ characters. Anyone who lets one person's character choice ruin thier game probably should stick to video games.

 

Feel free to disagree. You're just wrong. ;)

[Doug Sundseth]

17 minutes ago, DocPiske said:

Anyone who lets one person's character choice ruin thier game probably should stick to video games.

 

Feel free to disagree.

 

I will. Sort of, anyway.

 

One disruptive character can absolutely ruin the fun of the entire group or the GM. And that can be any sort of disruptive character, whether because of mechanical choices or personality choices. If you haven't seen that, you're either very new or very lucky indeed.

 

The "sort of" part is that if you boot that character (and possibly the player who built him) from the campaign, he won't ruin the game. Since that's the right way to handle it, I suppose I technically agree.

[DocPiske]

Been playing and running games since the early eighties, so kinda new.

 

A mature DM will find a way to make it work and minimize the disruption. Really if someone gets so intollerent about another persons choices that it ruins the game for them, then I expect they are the one who needs to leave. And yes, I've had players quit; not many, but it does happen. I feel bad for them and wish them well, but the game goes on.

 

Keep calm and roll for initiative!

[TheAuldGrump]

29 minutes ago, DocPiske said:

There are two considerations with character choices. One is the play style of the campaign. If you are playing a combat focused, kick the door down and kill anything that moves, and someone is trying to play a role-play focused character and picks character options for role-play value, then that player is in the wrong group.

 

On the other hand if in the same campaign someone is playing a bard/wildmage and opens every encounter with a wand of wonder, anyone upset by this is in the wrong group as well. The same bard/wildmage might be totally inappropriate for a role play heavy campagn. (I say might be because it depends on the group, again).

 

The other consideration is what does the player enjoy playing? Maybe they really want to play that elven fighter/monk melee specialist that is useless at range. Why should they play a character they don't enjoy?

 

Any play style is fine as long as the game is fun. The best anime are the ones with a mixed group of misfits and [email protected]$$ characters. Anyone who lets one person's character choice ruin thier game probably should stick to video games.

 

Feel free to disagree. You're just wrong. ;)

Going to disagree - to a degree - sometimes the role play character is a great way for the PCs to find out which doors to kick down and kill things.

 

And the opposite is also true - sometimes a party of roleplayers needs someone they can send in to kick open the door and kill things. (Hello Jon. )

 

Both actually work really well - it is about the team member having a role, and working with it.

 

The Wildmage with a rod of wonder on the other hand... yeah, chaotic silly/stupid/random is a problem for a lot of games. I try to avoid them.

 

The Auld Grump

14 hours ago, PaganMegan said:

We've split the party again.

 

This is going to end well.

 

Half of us are heading out of the city, into Shoanti lands.

 

Half of us are hiding in Old Korvosa.

 

I'm an urban witch, guess which half I'm with?

 

Never ever let the barbarian make decisions for the party!

 

 

The CLERIC is the healer that is staying in town.

Don't worry about it - I am pretty sure that plan was sooo last Wednesday night, and he has other plans now....

 

Not necessarily better plans, mind you....

 

Seriously - have faith in Julie talking some sense into him. There has been enough examples of the party splitting to their peril that I think she can rein him in. (He's a SCAdian - they can be a bit restless after Pennsic.)

 

The Auld Grump

[Doug Sundseth]

10 minutes ago, DocPiske said:

A mature DM will find a way to make it work and minimize the disruption.

 

As the GM, why should I have to "make it work and minimize the disruption"? I'm not getting paid, so if it's not fun for me, I'll stop. (And yes, I've fired my group before.) It's easier to just get rid of the problem as soon as it becomes apparent that it's significant, whether that's a character played by a player who is otherwise just fine or a player that can't stop being a prat.

 

15 minutes ago, DocPiske said:

Really if someone gets so intollerent about another persons choices that it ruins the game for them, then I expect they are the one who needs to leave

 

Why don't you just "make it work and minimize the disruption"? 

 

If the problem is that the whole group (very much including the GM) is fine with a style of play and one player isn't, then get rid of the disruption. Which is what I've been saying.

 

I make my expectations pretty clear before the start of character creation for any game I run. If a player continues past that, I expect, and I think reasonably so, that said player has agreed to abide by those expectations. If a player doesn't agree, I would expect that the player would find a game that meets his needs better. If he doesn't agree but continues anyway, I'll dump him.

[BlazingTornado]

I feel like we really strayed from Etherial's original concern of accidentally making a garbage build in an edition other than 4E and into "people making characters that don't flow with the GM/party dynamics in general".

 

1 hour ago, DocPiske said:

The best anime

No such thing!

 

[VitM]

6 minutes ago, BlazingTornado said:

I feel like we really strayed from Etherial's original concern of accidentally making a garbage build in an edition other than 4E and into "people making characters that don't flow with the GM/party dynamics in general".

 

No such thing!

 

 

Not really, because a garbage build can also not flow with the GM/party dynamics.  If your character doesn't pull their weight because they decide to make sub-optimal choices for character reasons, and the rest of the group isn't cool with that, you're the bad guy in that situation.

[Doug Sundseth]

7 minutes ago, BlazingTornado said:

I feel like we really strayed from Etherial's original concern of accidentally making a garbage build in an edition other than 4E and into "people making characters that don't flow with the GM/party dynamics in general".

 

No such thing!

 

 

I think that concern is a subset of the greater problem. To be specific to that concern:

 

A character whose power is out of line with the rest of the group (above or below) in a group where the players care about being comparable in their contributions to mechanical challenges, can be a problem.

 

Note that those limiters are important. Some groups care only that the story works and find that mechanics aren't really all that interesting or important. Some groups as much about other contributions as about mechanical contributions. And some groups are fine with very different levels of contribution from each player in every part of the game.

 

But if the group wants broadly equal contributions in combat or skill challenges from every player, failing at that can be unfun for everybody.

 

(Which is basically to say that I agree with @VitM. )

[DocPiske]

I think we may be just stating the same thing, just to different degrees.

 

If a player is being disruptive by acting out and deliberately trying to ruin the game, or force the other participants to change their play style, then they don't get asked to return. No need for an angry dismissal. Why let some bonehead get you that worked up?

 

If they simply have a different play style but are willing to enjoy the game anyway, then the same social contract you spoke of means the group should try to make it work. I don't go along with the tyranny of the mob, and ironically intollerence is itself intolerable. If they really dont fit in they will eventually seek another game anyway.

 

Different levels of character effectivemess can lead to memorable encounters. But I suspect some gamers don't see it that way; they are only out to "win" a game that has no such outcome. Anyone not "pulling their weight" is somehow ruining the game. Some gamers refuse to play in a group with a bard or monk because of some subjective "tiering" of class power. I have never been able to understand that mindset.

 

The game should absolutely be fun for all involved, but as DM you assume some responsibility for the work required to run the game. It's not all fun, nothing worthwhile ever is. That includes making some accommodations for play styles.

 

But to each there own. I dont intend to stoop to mocking other play styles or approaches to running the game to make my point.

 

Keep calm and roll for initiative!

[Doug Sundseth]

You might be right about not being far off. The biggest differences I see are twofold:

 

1) I see disruptive characters as most commonly a symptom of disruptive (often unhealthily attention seeking) players. The player who wants to run a paladin in the evil game or the PVP assassin in the Saviors of the World game is not going to be reasonable to accommodate, IMO. And that typically happens because the player is more interested in his own thing or hogging the spotlight than in ensemble storytelling. There was a time that I tried hard to work with those people; I've decided that it's not worth much of my time and effort anymore.

 

2) If you're a softball/baseball player and want to gather your friends together for a pickup game at the local park, that's a fine recreational activity. If you're a topflight recreational softball/baseball player and you want to gather your similarly skilled friends together for a team at the top level of the local league, that's also a fine recreational activity. But they're not all that closely related. And it's pretty likely that the player overlap will be small.

 

Playing an RPG as a primarily roleplaying activity with some rules and playing an RPG as a primarily gaming activity with some roleplaying are likewise both fine choices and not all that closely related. I wouldn't choose the same groups for those varying activities. (And I wouldn't be chosen at all for that high-end rec softball league, come to that. )

 

I've watched people play RPGs in ways that interest me not even slightly. Purely charop-focused, strongly adversarial games and very rules-light games are neither one the sort of thing that I would seek out ... or stay with if I stumbled in. But there are people who love both. (Some of them are even the same people.) They should play the games that make them happy as I play the games that make me happy. And if we are never interested in playing the same game, I don't see that as a problem.

 

But if a person that is only happy with a style that I don't want is playing in my game, it's pretty likely that one or the other of us will cause him not to come back. And I feel no obligation to adjust my preferences or practices to accommodate such a person.

 

Finally, it's perhaps worth noting that I don't often (as in, haven't done it in years) have to bounce someone out of my game. Part of that is making my requirements clear ahead of time, part is that I've been doing this for long enough that I'm part of a group with a fairly solid dynamic, and part of it might be that I'm willing to do it.

[TheAuldGrump]

The easiest and best way to handle such players is to just tell them, outright, what you are looking for in the game.

 

If he insists on doing the PVP Assassin? Wish him luck in finding a game that will allow it, but it won't be yours.

 

I very much view the job of GMing as being the director of an improvisational theater troupe - a mummer's play, where there are characters of set personality and motivations, but no script. (Call me Harlequin... but when I am but one of the actors, strutting upon the board, call me Scaramouch.)

 

Setting up the plot complications, while the PCs provide the plot.

 

The Auld Grump

[TheAuldGrump]

The kids game on Tuesday was fun  - the PCs replying to a notice on a bulletin board - and hired to deal with River Pirates - heading for the town of Raven's Reef.

 

While on the road, the weather turned nasty, and then turned horrible - the cold rain turning to sleet, the sleet to freezing rain.

 

The party made camp in the shelter of a small copse on the side of the High Coast Road, only to have their slumbers broken by the sound of a ship on the reefs.

 

Darting from their tents, they saw a light in the middle distance, but not from where the town they were heading for lay, and heard the sounds of battle from the beach below, and the deep tolling of a distant bell.

 

Scrambling, slipping, and sliding down the ice laden track, they made it to the bottom - to find rough men slaughtering the surviving sailors from the ship on the rocks, as a huge hulking figure, armed with a large hook charged the PCs. (Ogre, armed with an Ogre Hook - a two handed weapon with the Trip ability - for which the Ogre lacked the proper proficiency - giving him a -4 to hit, but dealing a lot of damage if he did manage it.) *EDIT* The ogre is from Bones 3 - in previous runs, the ogre has been armed with either a ballista or a small cannon. Again, not likely to hit, but doing serious damage if he manages it.

 

The combat was a complete mess - with the Dwarf ranger managing to keep most of the ogre's attention as most of the others took off after the smaller pirates - casting spells to down as many as they could before actually engaging in hand to hand. (Sleet does bad things if you are trying to use a bow or crossbow.)

 

The PCs managed to take two pirates alive, while the ogre - badly damaged - fled the scene faster than they could chase.

 

In return, the dwarf ranger was in the negative hit points but stable, and both the fighter and the rogue were injured, but had pretty much held the field while the witch cast spells.

 

By the time they had finished their fight, the light had been extinguished, leaving all in darkness and the rain.

 

Rather than risking the climb up the cliff, the party hunkered against its shelter, to wait until morning before checking the shipwreck.

 

While hunkered, the human on watch managed to fail three Perception rolls, only to get a natural 20 on the last one - so did not see the shadowed figure that slit the throats of both their prisoners until it was climbing back up the cliff - not using the path, but instead scaling straight up the cliff itself. Drenched, matted hair - but otherwise naked. (Hey, I didn't say getting a natural 20 was a good thing....)

 

That had killed the prisoners, yet made no move against the party.

 

The Auld Grump

Edited September 15, 2017 by TheAuldGrump