I'm a little lost. Please help.

[The Red Priest]

The players should be kissing the ground you walk on for carrying their undeserving hides. By smashing the foes, your character and her friends have acquired XP and Gold. They could be dead w/o you. And, you possibly w/o them, but I don't hear you whining.

 

[Gold Roger]

One level later that cleric would have gotten righteous might and played well have pwned your ass. These are the levels fighters start to become insignificant for everything but their HP.

Geez, those two need to get a grip of their D&D knowledge, manners and maturity, seriously.

 

[Goldmoon]

In answer to the age question, I am 30, the DM was 20, and the other players were 19, 32 and 34 (the 34 year old was doing the most complaining.)

 

[IcyCool]

From your point of view, it certainly seems like they are overreacting.

But, to play devil's advocate, you might want to consider the possibility that the problem is you. After all, you are the only common denominator between the two groups, and you are having similar problems.

I'm not saying this is the case, just that it's a possiblity.

 

[Thanee]

As for the role-playing... it might help if you actively include them in the role-playing. Speak to their characters in a role-playing fashion to encourage them to role-play themselves. Step back and have someone else handle something, whose character might be better suited (or at least suitable enough) for the job.

Also, don't role-play to solve situations (i.e. use your own talent in rhetorics to overcome a challenge), role-play to portrait your character. That doesn't always lead to the best solution, obviously. Maybe you are doing this already, not sure about that.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Goldmoon]

From your point of view, it certainly seems like they are overreacting.

But, to play devil's advocate, you might want to consider the possibility that the problem is you. After all, you are the only common denominator between the two groups, and you are having similar problems.

I'm not saying this is the case, just that it's a possiblity.

I've considered that and so I had the DM arrange a meeting for all of us Wendsday night. We sat down and discussed their issues. I explained that while my character was great in a brawl, he was pretty useless in many other situations. I also explained that I want everyone to have fun as much as I do. Basically we had a two hour conversation about what we can do to make them have more fun. I think it went well. I challenged them to role play well and that will in turn encourage more role-playing. I was building a specific character for a specific purpose in that case. They havent been playing very long and probably dont know all the options available to them. In the future, I will help them with character creation. Were going to try it again this Saturday. I think it will work out just fine.

 

[Thotas]

Let us know how it goes ... if ya lived up here in the north, I'd invite you to try my group (which, once summer's over, may actually play again ...)

 

[TheEvil]

Ok, lets say that three people are in a game. One playing a rogue, one playing a caster and one playing a cleric who wont heal people, but instead trys to be a frontline fighter and uses all his spells to buff himself. The DM tells me that a frontline fighter is needed. I bring in a frontline fighter. The very frst encounter is with 8 NPC's. Each is about a CR4 from what I can see and we are level 6. Between my greatsword good stats and lots of good rolls I could cleave off of, I killed every one of them. I didnt do all the damage but I got in the last hit on them all. The other players got pissed because they didnt actually drop anything and I did. They tried to cite various rules in an attempt to nerf my character and I responded with what I thought was right and the DM sided with me on almost everything. In the end, I was called both a powergamer and a rules lawyer and two of them quit. I feel pretty upset by this. In the course of the "conversation" they also said that I dominate all the role playing. I feel that they just dont roleplay much at all and its easy to dominate when youre the only one participating. I wont make underpowered characters with short life spans on purpose and I can't not roleplay to the best of my ability. I dont want this to happen again. Any thoughts?

OMG!!! My wife and I played in this game! In this case, the GM, younger brother and two of their friends. My wife and I both played fighters, came in, kicked butt. The guy running the cleric was ticked that he wasn't the top melee person any more. They also were not much on the roleplaying, mostly they rogue and cleric players seemed to want other people to mess with. We played with them twice and then avoided ever seeing them again.

In any case, chalk it up to a bad group and don't worry about them. It didn't sound like you did anything 'wrong'.

*having now READ the responses*

Hope it works out for you. I would be worried about their initial reactions, but since they are pretty new to the game I guess there is hope for improvement in the game.

 

[SpiralBound]

In answer to the age question, I am 30, the DM was 20, and the other players were 19, 32 and 34 (the 34 year old was doing the most complaining.)

Hmmm... Consider the previous poster's guesswork on the ages... It was based on the description of the players' behaviours. I too was thinking, "a bunch of kids with maturity not on their side yet, give 'em a few years to grow up". However, you're telling us that these are 30 year olds? I was much more mature than what you described when I was in my teens and I'm willing to bet that many other posters here were too. I wouldn't have put up with such selfish and childishly pouting behaviour from a 16 year old, let alone 30 year olds!! Their time to have "grown up" has come and gone!

I commend you for your desire to encourage them to step up their roleplaying and also for wanting to preserve the peace by dropping the fighter in favour of the bard. Sadly though I don't think that this will solve anything in the long-run. The first time your bard uses charisma or bardic magic to convince an NPC to give information or aid the party, the Cleric will be mad at you cause you "stole" his opportunity to use his cleric magic or church related social influence to bully convince the NPC to cooperate, meanwhile the rogue will complain that he was "just about to" steal the info from the NPC when you "butted in and ruined everything"... Any time these "heroes" aren't in the limelight will be just cause for them to complain. Let me guess, in combat, they start whining to the GM when their hit points get dangerously low? "Uh oh, I only have 3 hps. If I die, I'm outta here." Are comments like "no fair!" used when the bad guys have the upper hand, but they gloat with glee whenever they sucker-punch or pull a fast one on the bad guys? I suspect that they're both in favour of and blind to such double-standards, and that your GM is pulling punches a lot just to keep them in the game...

I also strongly suspect that the other poster was in fact correct in guessing the ages of your problem players - he was just guessing their maturity levels, not their biological ages... I do wish you the best of luck, but don't feel obligated to bend over backwards too many times just to please a couple of selfish and childish players who apparently never became adults. :\ In the long run, such efforts are wasted on people like that. They won't appreciate it, they won't change, and you'll only end up with a bitter taste in your mouth from having to dumb down your experience just to please a bunch of maturity-stunted, overgrown children. You and the GM would be better off in letting them take their toys and leave when they don't get their own way. Then you'll be free to recruit some players who want to join an actual group activity, not force a bunch of people to watch them (and only them) shine in glory...

Here's hoping that I'm wrong and your players have hidden reserves of untapped and undeveloped personal potential just waiting for the right conditions to spring forward and grant them the "late bloom" of maturity that they so desparately need! Just don't wait too long for that miracle to occur.

 

[Goldmoon]

Well, this weekends game went surprisingly well. I was even able to have my Bard save the partys butts with her charm and a well timed song and no one complained. I came in late in the game last time and I think that may have been the problem. Our characters now have a chance to "grow up" together. Thank you all for your advice, I really appreciate it.