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[Forgotten Realms] The Wall of the Faithless
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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 6789958" data-attributes="member: 22779"><p>Missing the point though. I'm very much not saying you can't do it. Obviously you can. I've seen it done, again and again, in campaign after campaign. And I'm incredibly tired of it. It's lazy character design. "Hey look at me, I'm different because I'm bending the genre". Whoopee. Anyone can do that. To me, it's a much more interesting challenge, and makes for a much more interesting campaign, when everyone works within the constraints of that campaign and tries to make interesting and unique characters within those constraints.</p><p></p><p>That you saw them does not change my point.</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>A further thought occurs just to better illustrate my point. I think this example of a Cylon in a SW game really drives my point home.</p><p></p><p>In BSG, the theme of what is a human is a major element of the show. Are cylons "alive"? If you wipe a cylon's memory, is that murder or is it the same as wiping the hard drive on a computer? This is a huge element of the show. Any BSG RPG game I played, I would expect this to be a pretty big theme in the game.</p><p></p><p>In Star Wars though, this issue is 100% absent. Wiping a droid's memory is no more a moral issue than re-installing Windows. It's done casually without the slightest hint of a moral issue. More importantly, in the shows, it appears that the droids themselves are 100% okay with it. They might not like it - "please don't wipe my memory" but, they don't seem to have a whole lot of issue with it. Droids are treated as 100% machines. Smart machines, but, still machines with no more autonomy than my cell phone or my car. It's 100% not a theme in Star Wars.</p><p></p><p>Now, adding it to a SW campaign might be very interesting. I'd certainly play in that game. I find the issue fascinating, and a campaign with that as a major or minor theme would interest me greatly. So, it's not like I'm against the idea in and of itself.</p><p></p><p>But, if the GM says, "Ok, we're going to play a smugglers SW campaign, and we're going to buckle our swashes and chandelier our swings" I would not expect this theme of "what is a person" to play a role. It's completely out of place with the base theme of the campaign. A player who brings his Cylon character to this campaign obviously hasn't bought into the campaign. That player is trying to change the campaign at the outset. Adding that character to the campaign means that the campaign will be very different than what the GM originally brought to the table. Now, if everyone else and the GM is groovy with that, then fine, no problem.</p><p></p><p>Where the problem occurs, IMO, is when four players bring in swashbuckling heroes ready for actions of daring do and one player brings in his Cylon. It just doesn't fit with the campaign. It's especially egregious when you don't do group character generation and the other four players are now blindsided by this one character. No one wants to be "that guy" and tell a fellow player that his or her character doesn't fit with the campaign, mostly because most groups default to the GM for that decision. And the GM might not want to be "that guy" either. So, we wind up with two different campaigns going on at the table. One where the four players are playing and one with that one player off doing his own thing, even if they're all at the same table at the same time. It leads to very difficult situations at the table. Often times, it can lead to campaign ending situations. </p><p></p><p>To me, it's no different than that guy who brings his urban hating druid to an urban thieves campaign or a psychopathic evil character to a high heroic campaign. It's disruptive and, imo, very selfish. It shows a lack of buy in to the campaign that's being played and a strong inclination to try to drive the campaign into directions that the campaign isn't really set up to go.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 6789958, member: 22779"] Missing the point though. I'm very much not saying you can't do it. Obviously you can. I've seen it done, again and again, in campaign after campaign. And I'm incredibly tired of it. It's lazy character design. "Hey look at me, I'm different because I'm bending the genre". Whoopee. Anyone can do that. To me, it's a much more interesting challenge, and makes for a much more interesting campaign, when everyone works within the constraints of that campaign and tries to make interesting and unique characters within those constraints. That you saw them does not change my point. --- A further thought occurs just to better illustrate my point. I think this example of a Cylon in a SW game really drives my point home. In BSG, the theme of what is a human is a major element of the show. Are cylons "alive"? If you wipe a cylon's memory, is that murder or is it the same as wiping the hard drive on a computer? This is a huge element of the show. Any BSG RPG game I played, I would expect this to be a pretty big theme in the game. In Star Wars though, this issue is 100% absent. Wiping a droid's memory is no more a moral issue than re-installing Windows. It's done casually without the slightest hint of a moral issue. More importantly, in the shows, it appears that the droids themselves are 100% okay with it. They might not like it - "please don't wipe my memory" but, they don't seem to have a whole lot of issue with it. Droids are treated as 100% machines. Smart machines, but, still machines with no more autonomy than my cell phone or my car. It's 100% not a theme in Star Wars. Now, adding it to a SW campaign might be very interesting. I'd certainly play in that game. I find the issue fascinating, and a campaign with that as a major or minor theme would interest me greatly. So, it's not like I'm against the idea in and of itself. But, if the GM says, "Ok, we're going to play a smugglers SW campaign, and we're going to buckle our swashes and chandelier our swings" I would not expect this theme of "what is a person" to play a role. It's completely out of place with the base theme of the campaign. A player who brings his Cylon character to this campaign obviously hasn't bought into the campaign. That player is trying to change the campaign at the outset. Adding that character to the campaign means that the campaign will be very different than what the GM originally brought to the table. Now, if everyone else and the GM is groovy with that, then fine, no problem. Where the problem occurs, IMO, is when four players bring in swashbuckling heroes ready for actions of daring do and one player brings in his Cylon. It just doesn't fit with the campaign. It's especially egregious when you don't do group character generation and the other four players are now blindsided by this one character. No one wants to be "that guy" and tell a fellow player that his or her character doesn't fit with the campaign, mostly because most groups default to the GM for that decision. And the GM might not want to be "that guy" either. So, we wind up with two different campaigns going on at the table. One where the four players are playing and one with that one player off doing his own thing, even if they're all at the same table at the same time. It leads to very difficult situations at the table. Often times, it can lead to campaign ending situations. To me, it's no different than that guy who brings his urban hating druid to an urban thieves campaign or a psychopathic evil character to a high heroic campaign. It's disruptive and, imo, very selfish. It shows a lack of buy in to the campaign that's being played and a strong inclination to try to drive the campaign into directions that the campaign isn't really set up to go. [/QUOTE]
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