Selfish playstyles and other newer issues with the game

[S'mon]

I see it a bit with 3e/Pathfinder. It was worst running 3e at the Meetup ca 2008-10, but I've occasionally seen it more recently. Not ever been an issue with 4e and I've not seen it with 5e either, though my experience there is less.

 

[Raith5]

You know, I’ve seen the same thing. Other than the cleric, most PCs in my group would rather attack than take a round to stabilize a dying companion. Some in my group just charge in without any strategy or thoughts of working as a team. The most recent character death was directly a result of the group not working together, and it was almost a TPK.

And in Adventurer’s League play, it seems like my bard ends up responsible for healing magic much of the time.

I’m not sure what gives. For me, it started in 4e, when most characters got to be nigh-invincible. But I don’t know if that’s just a timing issue, or an actual root cause.

I have seen introverted play ever since the early days of 1e but I actually saw less of it in 4e because there are so many out of turn attacks. The number of out of turn activity created other problems but it increases the need/ incentivises the need to be engaged with the group activity.

Sure there are so many distractions around the table now - with mobile phones and in some cases children - but I think the key is having combats where there are in game stakes involved other than just killing everyone. Fights where someone is escaping, where there are captives to be saved or a ritual to be stopped - these tend to decrease questions of individual performance in my experience.

 

[religon]

People make good points about the changing nature of players, but the DM has some culpability.

It sound like the players need a quicker game pace and the players do not respect the potential for character lethality within the game. The game sounds like it is in a rut of very mechanical challenges. The DM may be able to improve attention with more role-playing and less combat. Tricks. Riddles. Clues. Role-playing to avoid combat. When there is combat, add 50% more challenge. When things drag or the party splinters, wandering monster rolls seem to increase the frequency of monsters appearing.

In the role-playing portions of the campaign, develop an enemy that is better informed and more powerful than the PC's. The characters are now the hunted rather than the hunter.

The DM can retrain the players into understanding that frequent, lethal combat is the result of poor role-playing. Darwinism. (Perhaps watch the movie _Miracle_ to see how the coach motivated his team to band together.)

After some tough love, the players who don't understand the need to cooperate will become marginalized at lower character levels and less principally involved in the main narrative... effectively they are playing uncooperative henchmen.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm finding the opposite, it seems to be more with players who had exposure to previous editions. The younger folks I've gamed with don't seem to have any expectations. I've actually seen several friends I've known for 10 or 20 years move to this type of play style, and if they are regular MMO players, the problem gets far, far worse.

There's maybe been a pendulum swing going - assuming you're playing the latest ed, that is. Last edition, the game got very group-focused - group tactics, abilities that helped allies, defined 'roles' that contributed to group success, and involved 'set piece' combats that called for all that. Latest edition generally tries hard to be everything the last one wasn't, so none of that - individual tactics & abilities, self-contained characters, small/fast combats that don't require synergy to defeat.

That said, it's still mostly a style thing. You can support eachother and work as a team if you want to, the system just doesn't give every class tools to do so, specifically.

How do I deal with players like this? Kick them out? On the other side of the coin, what if I'm stuck at a table (or worse, a table at a con) with one of these people?

As a DM, I believe it's better to give players what they want rather than 'teach' them the 'right' way to play, but that's just me. You could give them harder challenges that require teamwork to overcome - it may just be that they're not engaging because it's 'too easy' (not a rare complaint lately). On the other extreme, you could give them more scenarios that offer a chance to compete, even while working towards a common goal. Making who scores the 'killing blow' on a monster important somehow (exp, renown or some more tangible reward, like finding a magic item on it or receiving some special ability from it's 'heart's blood' or something), for instance, means they cooperate, but are also racing eachother.

When you're playing? Play the support character, but only support the PCs that show a glimmer of teamwork? Or, on the other extreme, build your own self-contained character and ignore 'em?

It really depends on the individuals. You might do better to find a different group, if that's not an option, you might try asking some leading questions and try to figure out what's up, maybe point out some possible teamwork tricks.

 

[Orius]

I agree that it's more of a player thing rather than an edition thing. In my most recent campaign, the party cleric is more interested in playing Whack-a-Mole with her flail and the monsters and casting combat spells than paying much attention to everyone else's hp. This is a 2e game (albeit with some 3e influences), BTW. And it's definitely the player's personality rather than the system.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I've only played with a few groups of players. They've almost always fought together as a team. Often they cannot work together outside of combat. (I don't allow that in any game I'm DMing.) We play more 4e than anything else, and healing isn't really a huge issue. (Healing is a minor action that takes the healee's resources, so it's not like the leader doesn't want to heal.)

Of course, it's not just the rules, but the player too. We played what ended up as a one-shot using Book of Nine Swords. We had a PC who could use 3e's version of Healing Strike (hit someone, heal as a "no" action) and the player with that ability outright refused to use it. Naturally we didn't know about this until play started. That player was perfectly fine as a shaman in 4e, using more actions (minor actions only, though) to heal PCs while still controlling the battlefield.

But I have to wonder... A friend of mine plays a lot of indie games, and her players would be, in D&D terms, incompetent. They always split up, give tasks to unsuited PCs, and so forth. Her stories sound hilarious, but I doubt I'd have much fun playing in one.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I’ve kinda noticed the same thing, with groups playing both D&D and other games. I think it has to do with conveying objectives and knowing the game world. With D&D, we all bring a base default set of assumptions. But with other games, the goals might not be as clear, or the play style. So that people start doing stuff just to do stuff, or meandering without a clear way to proceed.

But I have to wonder... A friend of mine plays a lot of indie games, and her players would be, in D&D terms, incompetent. They always split up, give tasks to unsuited PCs, and so forth. Her stories sound hilarious, but I doubt I'd have much fun playing in one.

 

[Bleys Icefalcon]

I have two offspring - can't really call them children anymore, as one is 24 and is the manager at a game stop and the other is 21 and a grad student - ahem, they both play DnD with my group from time to time. I have definately noticed a distinct difference between the younger players and the old school. When we play with them and their younger friends it literally takes an act of congress/parting of the red sea/meteor strike to pull them out of their smart phones when it is not their exact turn, or if it is during a part of the game where nothing is directly impacting their characters. The older generation pays significantly closer attention to the story as it unfolds.

 

[Celebrim]

When we play with them and their younger friends it literally takes an act of congress/parting of the red sea/meteor strike to pull them out of their smart phones when it is not their exact turn, or if it is during a part of the game where nothing is directly impacting their characters.

How is no smart phones at the table not a rule?

 

[Starfox]

I have seen this problem, mostly with older players who get jaded at "just another fight". But I've also seen something that works as an antidote - playing one of those cooperative adventure games, like Descent or Zombicide. These games have very clear synergies built in, and the action is fast and lethal enough that players feel there's a point in using such abilities. Also, because it is "just a boardgame", gameplay can be much more dangerous, even lethal. When you die in an RPG you lose your connection to the story, when you die in a boardgame its just a smudge in the evening's fun.