D&D 5E Sidelining Players- the Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Poll

[jasper]

Hiya!

I....I really don't get the "me me me! me! Me! MEEEE!!!!!" mindset of a lot of people nowadays. It's like, if they aren't the center of attention, or if people don't directly include them or acknowledge whatever they just did...then they feel "left out", "shunned", "picked on", "ignored" or any other number of things that all boil down to a sense of self-importance. As if their input must be recognized at all times by their peers or people around them. ...it's.... ...odd. I don't get it. Probably because I'm an old fart and grew up without the internet, cell phones, facebook, "participation awards", and where I played team-sports where we kept score and wanted to win...but still had fun even if we got our asses handed to us.

Must be a young/old thing. *shrug*

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Jasper grabs PMING by the ear, pours warm castor oil down it. Shoves a cotton ball in the ear. Repeats with the other ear. Jasper beats PMING with a wire fly swatter. Then pulls the cotton balls out.
"Clean out your ears you old fart. And remember some of the bad players you played with in the 70s, 80s, and 90s."
Dear internet forgive pming he is old and forgets the bad things. I would say he looks thru rose coloured glasses but he got lasik on both eyes last year.
I had "me me me me " players back in high school who would not only pull out the DMG, but the dragon, their Chemistry book, the other rules lawyer Biology book, and mine Geometry book if would help their griping and prevent their pc for being sidelined.

 

[CydKnight]

I'm fairly confident that the second PC would have been every bit the same had you included him in the session. I can't think of a reason why you guys wouldn't have come up with that PC just because he played a bit.

In your game perhaps but it's not what happened in mine. I'm not surprised you can't think of a reason why since you weren't there and don't know my players.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Hiya!

I voted for the first one: Yes. Bad things can happen to players, and the game goes on.

IMNSHO, if a player can't sit there and just enjoy what's going on at the table...or, to put it another way...if the player absolutely must be able to have his/her PC do something "all the time or there's no point in showing up"...well, such a player can just not come back to my game.

I've played (mostly DM, but I'm talking about one of the rare occasions I get to play as a Player) in games where I've been "sidelined" for most of the session. Didn't bother me one lick. I don't have to be "doing something" to be enjoying the session.

For me, I enjoy seeing what happens. Is it better if I get to have input as a PC? Sure! But if I get "sidelined" for most of a battle, then an extra 45 minutes as the other players struggle to survive...that's cool too. I enjoy watching movies and hearing people tell stories. Sitting at a game table waiting for my PC to be resurrected/rescued/whatever is part of the story.

I really don't get the "me me me! me! Me! MEEEE!!!!!" mindset of a lot of people nowadays. It's like, if they aren't the center of attention, or if people don't directly include them or acknowledge whatever they just did...then they feel "left out", "shunned", "picked on", "ignored" or any other number of things that all boil down to a sense of self-importance. As if their input must be recognized at all times by their peers or people around them. ...it's.... ...odd. I don't get it. Probably because I'm an old fart and grew up without the internet, cell phones, facebook, "participation awards", and where I played team-sports where we kept score and wanted to win...but still had fun even if we got our asses handed to us.

Must be a young/old thing. *shrug*

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Is there really no middle ground in your mind between "I am the center of the universe and everything must revolve around me" and "I would prefer not to sit around twiddling my thumbs for several hours the one time a week/month/whatever I set aside to play D&D"? Because while I don't ascribe to the former, the latter is quite true for me. And I'm no spring chicken myself.

 

[Maxperson]

In your game perhaps but it's not what happened in mine. I'm not surprised you can't think of a reason why since you weren't there and don't know my players.

So explain how allowing him to participate would have caused the two of you to later be unable to think of this fabulous new PC.

 

[CydKnight]

So explain how allowing him to participate would have caused the two of you to later be unable to think of this fabulous new PC.

Why would I do that when it's not what happened? I offered a personal point-of-view of actual events. Projecting what might have happened had I done something else is a black hole I don't travel and I am not very good at creating a straw man.

 

[Maxperson]

Why would I do that when it's not what happened? I offered a personal point-of-view of actual events. Projecting what might have happened had I done something else is a black hole I don't travel and I am not very good at creating a straw man.

You won't do it because you can't. I mean look, I get what you are saying about people learning differently, but at least admit to yourself, if not to the rest of us that attempting to connect two unrelated events(playing and PC creation after the game) was a lame way to represent that.

Also, learn what a Strawman is.

 

[Jester David]

That isn't what this discussion is really about. Hitting a snake is like taking some damage. You fall back, but you aren't automatically removed from the game. No one has suggested that you should stop injuring characters or remove the risk of character death.

The examples that started this debate were instances where the character was removed from play for the majority of a session and the player wasn't allowed to do anything else (like run an NPC or roll a new character; in one case the player wasn't even allowed to make any commentary that might be construed as metagaming, I believe on penalty of the entire party losing half their earned xp). Moreover, it was not a steady loss like hitting hotels in Monopoly over and over until you "die". These were SoS effects; the equivalent would be if go to jail meant you instantly lose in Monopoly.

I don't disagree with you, but it isn't truly pertinent to this topic if you understand the root of the discourse (because no one has been arguing against character death). This has been about sidelining a player for hours due to one bad roll. IMO, there's no reason for that, since even if the PC is out of play for an indefinite period, it's easy enough for the player to roll a new character in relatively short order.

But if you play Snakes & Ladders enough times, you'll eventually have a situation where you go from winning to losing with a couple bad rolls. Where you land on the longest snake, move once onto another snake, and again down a third snake. Rolls that just take you out of the game.
That can happen in any board game. Again, like being sent to jail twice in a row early in Monopoly and missing out on six turns of property buying.
That happens in board games. You lose. You end up playing but mostly just sitting there because you're not in a position to win. You're running out the rest of the game in the hopes everyone else takes each other out and you can claim a longshot victory.

I say this as someone who has not played for the last two weeks in my weekly RPG game, and isn't likely to play a third time. It's a zombie apocalypse game, and the group ended up in a hospital. My character caught a tainted bullet (long story) and became infected, turning on the party, and needing to be put down. The GM already brought in a new players, so two survivors in this one building seem unlikely (it's several months into a plague). And the players are slow to explore through their surroundings.
And then there was that time I played in a Pathfinder Society game and my character died 45 minutes into the 4-hour game in the first encounter.

You find ways of entertaining yourself. Doddle. Chat with people not in the spotlight. Help the DM. Pull out the smartphone and browse ENworld. Or, y'know, watch the game and generally hang out with friends. Given how small a percentage of the time one person is in the spotlight at the table, the difference between being dead and alive isn't a significant reduction in play (25-20% of play time down to 0%, excluding time spent making jokes and chatting).

 

[Fanaelialae]

But if you play Snakes & Ladders enough times, you'll eventually have a situation where you go from winning to losing with a couple bad rolls. Where you land on the longest snake, move once onto another snake, and again down a third snake. Rolls that just take you out of the game.
That can happen in any board game. Again, like being sent to jail twice in a row early in Monopoly and missing out on six turns of property buying.
That happens in board games. You lose. You end up playing but mostly just sitting there because you're not in a position to win. You're running out the rest of the game in the hopes everyone else takes each other out and you can claim a longshot victory.

I say this as someone who has not played for the last two weeks in my weekly RPG game, and isn't likely to play a third time. It's a zombie apocalypse game, and the group ended up in a hospital. My character caught a tainted bullet (long story) and became infected, turning on the party, and needing to be put down. The GM already brought in a new players, so two survivors in this one building seem unlikely (it's several months into a plague). And the players are slow to explore through their surroundings.
And then there was that time I played in a Pathfinder Society game and my character died 45 minutes into the 4-hour game in the first encounter.

You find ways of entertaining yourself. Doddle. Chat with people not in the spotlight. Help the DM. Pull out the smartphone and browse ENworld. Or, y'know, watch the game and generally hang out with friends. Given how small a percentage of the time one person is in the spotlight at the table, the difference between being dead and alive isn't a significant reduction in play (25-20% of play time down to 0%, excluding time spent making jokes and chatting).

I don't have time right now for a complete response, but sure, that could happen in snakes and ladders. Just like it could happen in D&D from a string of unlucky crits. But snakes and ladders is a quick game. Even if you're knocked out, you won't be waiting 4 hours while everyone else plays. Similarly, if that happened in my D&D game, I would let him roll a new character and add him in as soon as he's ready. There's no reason to make him sit around for 4 hours because "D&D is SERIOUS BUSINESS and if players aren't punished for their mistakes then they will never learn", IMO.

 

[lowkey13]

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[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*