What do you think of reality-sim players?

[gizmo33]

At worst, it can feel a bit like what I want may be taken away from me. An example would be: I had a barbaric people based on RE Howard's savage,menacing Picts. With added detail from her, they became rather 'Dances with Wolves' real-world Amerindians. Have you experienced anything like this? What do you think about it? Any advice?

Are you guys co-Dming the campaign? In any case, I'm not sure exactly how (or why) generalizations fit into your game. If you mostly describe things to players in terms of things their characters experience, then there's room for both charicatures of the barbarian tribe to exist at the same time.

For example, you create an NPC barbarian leader and his group of followers as some sort of demon-possessed savages, then how could the co-DM change this? Does she have the power to change establish facts in the campaign?

And so what if she says that the barbarians like to dance and be nice to each other? *Which ones* is the question. Perhaps this is only a subgroup within the larger group of "savages" (might make a nice adventure hook) from which her NPCs originate. Ultimately, I think the problem could be solved by getting down to the specifics of which characters did what and leaving the generalizations as rumors known by the PCs (and thus capable of contradiction).

And the complexity of both types existing side-by-side might make for a better long term design anyway. I wonder if REH would have set more stories in the Pictish Wilderness, if there would have been individual characters with more of a range.

 

[Doug McCrae]

She loves the details of the campaign setting... she loves to add to it... She is not at all antagonistic

She's a keeper. Even though she's not a perfect fit for your style she sounds like a really good player. Top 10%, easily. I particularly like players that are creative, who add to the campaign world, the vast majority don't in my experience.

The whole issue regarding an 'enemy' race being less scary when seen from the inside is a big one, recurring throughout roleplaying, adventure fiction, and real life. There are obvious political implications, which I won't go into. On the whole D&D takes the view that orcs and the like are Evil and that's that. It's a simple game. Your player's approach is more RuneQuest-y where every type of being can be viewed sympathetically. Though of course many individuals in Glorantha take an 'X is Evil' view, particularly where X is Chaos, the game text doesn't, it makes it clear such views are subjective.

It does help strengthen the X is Evil notion if X is a non-human race or, even better, from outside reality in some way like Chaos and Lovecraftian horrors. It's a bit trickier to do it with Picts. Heck it's hard to make drow scary now, they've been so overexposed.

Do you think your player could ever view a being as 'other' or is she an anthropologist through-and-through?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Player has a background that annoys you?

Wipe them out. All of them. Every last one.

That actually has some merit...

Thulsa Doom: "My child, you have come to me my son. For who now is your father if it is not me? I am the well spring, from which you flow. When I am gone, you will have never been. What would your world be, without me? My son."

 

[S'mon]

She's a keeper. Even though she's not a perfect fit for your style she sounds like a really good player. Top 10%, easily.

Do you think your player could ever view a being as 'other' or is she an anthropologist through-and-through?

100% anthropologist, yup.

Top 10%, yup.

BTW the example with the Picts was 2 campaigns ago! But we are about to start a new 4e campaign set in the same area. Looks like she'll be playing a spellcaster, possibly a tiefling, possibly a follower of the Raven Queen/Hela - who is supposed to be scary, so I will bear in mind some of the advice here - I'm a bit worried about Hela being neutered.

 

[malkav666]

In your particular scenario with the picts being turned into a native american backstory for a player. This is fabulous!

Now you can make an evil antagonist sway the tribes (or possess them, blackmail them, or gain new blood thirsty chieftains, or other wise be forced) into evil actions. And when it will hit home harder with your player who has tied herself to them. You don't even have to crush them, you can let her save the tribes int he end! How cool would that be?

I find when players tie their characters to areas of my game world that it just makes it easier to make them care about that world. If you have a player that simulated your Indians, then make then important to your story in some way. That player will be all over it and enjoy it that much more.

I would personally suggest evil spirits influencing the tribe, and giving then supernatural powers, or perhaps a maddening plague, or maybe even a blood war with a culture invading their lands.

I know you wanted to serve apples and your players made them oranges. Make orange juice.

love,

malkav

 

[kitsune9]

The FR canon lawyers thread got me thinking of a good player/GM who often plays in my games. She loves the details of the campaign setting - including the details of my homebrew game world - and she loves to add to it, drawing heavily on real world history and especially anthropology, in particular with regard to non-European cultures such as Amerindian, Arabic and Japahese. She does the same in her own GMing. She is not at all antagonistic, but sometimes I feel that there is a sort of disconnect between her very real-world simulationist approach, which takes joy in the anthropological details of language, clothing etc, and my heavily pulp-fantasy approach, which is aiming more at the mood and feel of swords & sorcery, fantasy and myth, rather than reality.

At worst, it can feel a bit like what I want may be taken away from me. An example would be: I had a barbaric people based on RE Howard's savage,menacing Picts. With added detail from her, they became rather 'Dances with Wolves' real-world Amerindians. Have you experienced anything like this? What do you think about it? Any advice?

I haven't had your kind of problem. I have a history buff in our gaming group, but since we play make-believe rpgs then it doesn't come into play unless we get side-trekked on our discussion and talk about history stuff. The rest of my past gaming groups didn't have any real science type folk that tried to apply real-life stuff to the rpgs.

In thinking about your problem, I'd say roll with it. It sounds pretty cool that you have that kind of detail or fluff working for you