Note: This is partly a rant and partly a discussion directed towards the Enworld community about different approaches and philosophies about games.
I'm playing in a Warhammer fantasy game with my group of friends here at college and I'm a bit put off with how the session went tonight. Our group's clearly divided into two camps: the theatre and creative writing people who are dear friends of mine, but spend a significant amount of time in their characters' heads trying to psychologize their characters' motivations. I prefer to play the game as a social activity among friends though I am heavily into reading manuals for rules and exploring the system itself. I'm a mythology student and enjoy the story for its own sake rather than trying to imagine how my character would react when faced in different situations outside of game.
One of our wizards had a vision last session about a book the should seek out in a ruined town that was hit by a comet several centuries ago. Somewhere within the bowls of the crater would be this unknown text we'd find for some unknown purpose. All we knew was the place we were going and had to find a specific text that the player would know when seeing it, at least we hoped. This information/plot hook came from the wizard who received the in private from the DM as opposed to the DM presenting the vision to the play group as a whole. Random plot hook, a bit forced but not a problem.
The thing about the wizard I can't stand is her tendency make a decision for her character and go off on her own to put it into action. She does down dungeon hallways alone, sometimes we let her go off alone, some of the party breaks off to follow her or the whole party has to tread behind her. We have another player who has similar behavior and it really bothers me when the two of them do it. They've also attached themselves to one another to create a very vocal duo in the group who often get their way as the party debates on battle strategy or which way to go down a hallway. Combat's extremely fatal in Warhammer and we don't get a chance to make a plan of attack because our dwarf just charges for the largest guy and we have to fall into formation behind him.
The session tonight went over the top as the wizard could not attend game due to time conflicts and another player controlled their character. Normally in games I've seen characters without their player present fall into the background except in combat to perform an action or if the party needed them to make a skill check. At game tonight, due to the wizard's role as the plot hook for our present quest and her character's vocal personality, the whole group look it upon ourselves to arbitrate the character's actions and try to keep her actions in the spirit of how the player would play them. We spent much of game trying to decide at various point what she would do to the point that the player filling in for the absent one had an argument with herself out-loud.
I'm bothered by the fact our group allowed an absent player to have so much control over our party during a session that they did not attend. Its hard for me to accept that I've given up so much of my own free will or say that my character might have to someone who's a much stronger role-player than myself who has strong convictions, strong enough to possibly sacrifice her own character to keep those convictions. Her character's throughly insane due to the insanity points of the Warhammer system and manifests Chaos powers, but it seems like the DM's rewarding her for directing the party instead of saying that its not okay. I don't like we've silently acknowledged her character's leadership position within the party due to her style of overbearing role-palying.
I'm playing in a Warhammer fantasy game with my group of friends here at college and I'm a bit put off with how the session went tonight. Our group's clearly divided into two camps: the theatre and creative writing people who are dear friends of mine, but spend a significant amount of time in their characters' heads trying to psychologize their characters' motivations. I prefer to play the game as a social activity among friends though I am heavily into reading manuals for rules and exploring the system itself. I'm a mythology student and enjoy the story for its own sake rather than trying to imagine how my character would react when faced in different situations outside of game.
One of our wizards had a vision last session about a book the should seek out in a ruined town that was hit by a comet several centuries ago. Somewhere within the bowls of the crater would be this unknown text we'd find for some unknown purpose. All we knew was the place we were going and had to find a specific text that the player would know when seeing it, at least we hoped. This information/plot hook came from the wizard who received the in private from the DM as opposed to the DM presenting the vision to the play group as a whole. Random plot hook, a bit forced but not a problem.
The thing about the wizard I can't stand is her tendency make a decision for her character and go off on her own to put it into action. She does down dungeon hallways alone, sometimes we let her go off alone, some of the party breaks off to follow her or the whole party has to tread behind her. We have another player who has similar behavior and it really bothers me when the two of them do it. They've also attached themselves to one another to create a very vocal duo in the group who often get their way as the party debates on battle strategy or which way to go down a hallway. Combat's extremely fatal in Warhammer and we don't get a chance to make a plan of attack because our dwarf just charges for the largest guy and we have to fall into formation behind him.
The session tonight went over the top as the wizard could not attend game due to time conflicts and another player controlled their character. Normally in games I've seen characters without their player present fall into the background except in combat to perform an action or if the party needed them to make a skill check. At game tonight, due to the wizard's role as the plot hook for our present quest and her character's vocal personality, the whole group look it upon ourselves to arbitrate the character's actions and try to keep her actions in the spirit of how the player would play them. We spent much of game trying to decide at various point what she would do to the point that the player filling in for the absent one had an argument with herself out-loud.
I'm bothered by the fact our group allowed an absent player to have so much control over our party during a session that they did not attend. Its hard for me to accept that I've given up so much of my own free will or say that my character might have to someone who's a much stronger role-player than myself who has strong convictions, strong enough to possibly sacrifice her own character to keep those convictions. Her character's throughly insane due to the insanity points of the Warhammer system and manifests Chaos powers, but it seems like the DM's rewarding her for directing the party instead of saying that its not okay. I don't like we've silently acknowledged her character's leadership position within the party due to her style of overbearing role-palying.
Sometimes the others come willingly, sometimes they simply don't speak up for their own desires for some reason. 
