I haven't played roleplay fantasy games in years but recently I played Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and things went a bit sour at the end and Im not entirely sure how to interpret it so I thought I'd ask for your opinion. I'll try to just point out some key events. Describing the party is a little difficult as the makeup of the group was initially described as 1 warrior, 1 ranger, 2 academics and my character a rogue, it became even more confusing when the warrior was called a labourer , one of the academics was called a seer, the other academic a merchant and my starting career was a thief and not a rogue. I think the rangers starting career was coachman though he seemed to roleplay a do gooder ranger type. Lets just put that aside and say these things are a broad overview. I couldnt remember much about the game and careers anyway, I just wanted some adventurous fantasy roleplaying fun with friends.
We meet up in a pub and plan to raise some money before leaving the village to seek adventure. The GM gives us 2 ideas each of how to raise money, mine were rob a house because I know the family is out of town or forcefully rob a few lumberjacks who left their job and have severance pay. My ideas were quickly rejected as the wrong thing to do so we decided to go to the lumber camp the next day. We had an encounter in the bar where a local thug wanted to beat up the seer, he broke my jaw and my tooth went flying across the room, it was frowned upon that I wanted to kill that guy and the ranger immobilized him while the labourer knocked him out. It was implied that the ranger would be rewarded exp for trying to resolve the matter peacefully with strong roleplay. I didnt really like that he empathized with my attacker more than me but thats just my opinion. They called over the town guard and explained the story. It seemed odd to me that they were so trustful of the law.
The next day we head down to the meet the lumberjack foreman but no one is around, his shack is there and the door is open. So the merchant guy goes in and looks around mostly for trade routes and records and that sort of thing, the ranger says he will stand in front of the door and guard it from the thief(me) going in. At this point Im annoyed that this guy is trying to restrict my character and ask the GM why is he doing that? isn't he my friend, the ranger guy says to me that I can play my character as a thief who returns everything he stole and changes his life if I want. Anyway I sneak through a window, the ranger guy muttering something stupid about how windows are designed and that its impossible, so I look around, theres a big metal chest with a lock on it, I figured its beyond my skill and its a bad idea since we're looking for work here. I dont really get why he was playing against me, he could have said look around but dont steal anything or at least declare his alignment because obviously he wont tolerate thievery if he sees it.
We end up killing wolves rather than chopping wood because the thief and seer are not suitable for chopping wood. We didnt die but Im starting to think this is crazy for my character and tell the merchant guy that Im not really cut out for wolf slaying. Im also thinking since I cant play my thief the way I want that I might as well try to be some kind of fighter, I didnt really know what to do but I figured with better equipment I might be able to pull that off. They go buy some things and somehow figure an axe will help, the ranger comes in again with another classic comment that all axes are 2 handed and that he wants it. I think it totally missed the point. My char was a 15yr old boy in rags with no parents and pretty much morally bankrupt and stole things to survive but there I was wrestling a pack of wolves. The axe was useless to me I preferred the bonus init of my butter knife. So the axe went to the merchant which wasn't a total loss as he had no weapon. While in town the labourer and I went to the doctor to heal more, while I was there I stole the coin purse of the thug who broke my jaw earlier, he was in a coma, Im not sure why but I felt like that was frowned upon as well, luckily the ranger wasnt there to stop me.
I'll cut to the chase. We killed some more wolves and the seer was using divination and had roughly the same vision a couple of times, something to do with a grave, a shovel and gold. When we bought the axe etc we bought a shovel and made it clear we wanted to dig in the cemetery, at that time the labourer was ok with it but the ranger didnt like the idea. I befriended the seer as we were both outcasts, he also had a squirrel that he charmed and we role-played a little together. I got an insanity point from watching him fiddle with the wolf entrails the second time. So we're in the lumberjack camp and it turned out the cemetery was only 2 graves right beside the camp, I thought we could leave the others in the camp and then go to the cemetery but thats not how it was although it was described as the cemetery just outside the camp, anyway so we wait for the lumberjacks to return to work and I start digging. The ranger tells us not to do it and starts loading his gun so the seer guy touches his head and puts him to sleep. The seer and I had a real wtf moment, we didnt understand where this guy got his strong moral stance from, he said it was wrong but didn't give a reason he also said its unrealistic for a madman and a thief to be doing that. The GM at that point agreed with him and my thief was transformed into a kid who steals apples from trees and skips around town being disliked to being insane,unrealistic and a bad roleplayer, in my character history the labourer was my best friend and went along with most of my scams but when I asked for his help digging he threatened me like he knew somehow that was morally wrong, he was described as strong as an ox but an ox could beat him at chess. It might help to mention the guy playing him went to sleep and was taken over by the GM at that point. So we couldn't dig the hole quick enough and the ranger guy was waking up, I didn't think to tie him up so we panicked, we took his gun and ran off into the woods and climbed a tree, apparently we couldn't stay awake for 1 night in the tree and had to roll init 3 times and in the end we fell and I broke my arm the seer broke his hip and wolves ate us.
The summary was the others guys were good roleplayers and I just wanted to kill and loot people because its cool, my roleplay was poor and its a big leap going from petty shoplifter to grave robber. Basically that I should have the goal of being good and popular. Digging up a grave to find gold was called something a super villian would do and in the same category as raising an army of undead. The seers attempt at playing his character was called noobish and he was patronized and told the character was too difficult for him to roleplay.
The others had the attitude that somehow they won and beat us because they wouldn't have to start all over again and they got all the exp.
I felt like the GM was unfair. The seer character and I thought we did roleplay well but maybe I have it totally wrong, I think if the coachman and I swapped character we probably would have picked every lock in site and gone with the thief possibilities but I don't know for sure. Is it normal for players to dictate what reality is or apply modern civilized moral standards to the world or warhammer? Was the GM really bad? I thought that like the others we would be allowed to rp our characters in our own way, it seems odd to me that the reasons our characters were bad roleplayers and the reason digging up a grave was wrong was that in a fantasy roleplaying game it was unrealistic. I cant remember fantasy roleplay games having pseudo real world morality where its frowned upon for using your imagination and wanting to be adventurous. From my perspective that ranger guy and the gm going along his idea of moral value etc and being realistic ruined the experience for the seer and thief characters.
What do you think?
We meet up in a pub and plan to raise some money before leaving the village to seek adventure. The GM gives us 2 ideas each of how to raise money, mine were rob a house because I know the family is out of town or forcefully rob a few lumberjacks who left their job and have severance pay. My ideas were quickly rejected as the wrong thing to do so we decided to go to the lumber camp the next day. We had an encounter in the bar where a local thug wanted to beat up the seer, he broke my jaw and my tooth went flying across the room, it was frowned upon that I wanted to kill that guy and the ranger immobilized him while the labourer knocked him out. It was implied that the ranger would be rewarded exp for trying to resolve the matter peacefully with strong roleplay. I didnt really like that he empathized with my attacker more than me but thats just my opinion. They called over the town guard and explained the story. It seemed odd to me that they were so trustful of the law.
The next day we head down to the meet the lumberjack foreman but no one is around, his shack is there and the door is open. So the merchant guy goes in and looks around mostly for trade routes and records and that sort of thing, the ranger says he will stand in front of the door and guard it from the thief(me) going in. At this point Im annoyed that this guy is trying to restrict my character and ask the GM why is he doing that? isn't he my friend, the ranger guy says to me that I can play my character as a thief who returns everything he stole and changes his life if I want. Anyway I sneak through a window, the ranger guy muttering something stupid about how windows are designed and that its impossible, so I look around, theres a big metal chest with a lock on it, I figured its beyond my skill and its a bad idea since we're looking for work here. I dont really get why he was playing against me, he could have said look around but dont steal anything or at least declare his alignment because obviously he wont tolerate thievery if he sees it.
We end up killing wolves rather than chopping wood because the thief and seer are not suitable for chopping wood. We didnt die but Im starting to think this is crazy for my character and tell the merchant guy that Im not really cut out for wolf slaying. Im also thinking since I cant play my thief the way I want that I might as well try to be some kind of fighter, I didnt really know what to do but I figured with better equipment I might be able to pull that off. They go buy some things and somehow figure an axe will help, the ranger comes in again with another classic comment that all axes are 2 handed and that he wants it. I think it totally missed the point. My char was a 15yr old boy in rags with no parents and pretty much morally bankrupt and stole things to survive but there I was wrestling a pack of wolves. The axe was useless to me I preferred the bonus init of my butter knife. So the axe went to the merchant which wasn't a total loss as he had no weapon. While in town the labourer and I went to the doctor to heal more, while I was there I stole the coin purse of the thug who broke my jaw earlier, he was in a coma, Im not sure why but I felt like that was frowned upon as well, luckily the ranger wasnt there to stop me.
I'll cut to the chase. We killed some more wolves and the seer was using divination and had roughly the same vision a couple of times, something to do with a grave, a shovel and gold. When we bought the axe etc we bought a shovel and made it clear we wanted to dig in the cemetery, at that time the labourer was ok with it but the ranger didnt like the idea. I befriended the seer as we were both outcasts, he also had a squirrel that he charmed and we role-played a little together. I got an insanity point from watching him fiddle with the wolf entrails the second time. So we're in the lumberjack camp and it turned out the cemetery was only 2 graves right beside the camp, I thought we could leave the others in the camp and then go to the cemetery but thats not how it was although it was described as the cemetery just outside the camp, anyway so we wait for the lumberjacks to return to work and I start digging. The ranger tells us not to do it and starts loading his gun so the seer guy touches his head and puts him to sleep. The seer and I had a real wtf moment, we didnt understand where this guy got his strong moral stance from, he said it was wrong but didn't give a reason he also said its unrealistic for a madman and a thief to be doing that. The GM at that point agreed with him and my thief was transformed into a kid who steals apples from trees and skips around town being disliked to being insane,unrealistic and a bad roleplayer, in my character history the labourer was my best friend and went along with most of my scams but when I asked for his help digging he threatened me like he knew somehow that was morally wrong, he was described as strong as an ox but an ox could beat him at chess. It might help to mention the guy playing him went to sleep and was taken over by the GM at that point. So we couldn't dig the hole quick enough and the ranger guy was waking up, I didn't think to tie him up so we panicked, we took his gun and ran off into the woods and climbed a tree, apparently we couldn't stay awake for 1 night in the tree and had to roll init 3 times and in the end we fell and I broke my arm the seer broke his hip and wolves ate us.
The summary was the others guys were good roleplayers and I just wanted to kill and loot people because its cool, my roleplay was poor and its a big leap going from petty shoplifter to grave robber. Basically that I should have the goal of being good and popular. Digging up a grave to find gold was called something a super villian would do and in the same category as raising an army of undead. The seers attempt at playing his character was called noobish and he was patronized and told the character was too difficult for him to roleplay.
The others had the attitude that somehow they won and beat us because they wouldn't have to start all over again and they got all the exp.
I felt like the GM was unfair. The seer character and I thought we did roleplay well but maybe I have it totally wrong, I think if the coachman and I swapped character we probably would have picked every lock in site and gone with the thief possibilities but I don't know for sure. Is it normal for players to dictate what reality is or apply modern civilized moral standards to the world or warhammer? Was the GM really bad? I thought that like the others we would be allowed to rp our characters in our own way, it seems odd to me that the reasons our characters were bad roleplayers and the reason digging up a grave was wrong was that in a fantasy roleplaying game it was unrealistic. I cant remember fantasy roleplay games having pseudo real world morality where its frowned upon for using your imagination and wanting to be adventurous. From my perspective that ranger guy and the gm going along his idea of moral value etc and being realistic ruined the experience for the seer and thief characters.
What do you think?
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