D&D 5E As a Player, why do you play in games you haven't bought into?

[ph0rk]

I agree with your point, but let's steer back to the important distinction that the player accepted what the DM was offering. This isn't about the DM forcing anything on the players.

Assuming the DM is communicating everything they need to - how does the DM in this case vet potential players?

 

[Blue]

Assuming the DM is communicating everything they need to - how does the DM in this case vet potential players?

I don't know that they can. Communication happened: DM communicates everything, player acknowledges that's a campaign they are interested in. There's little information for the DM to vet to know if that acknowledgement was made in bad faith (intentional), made but later rescinded (second thoughts), or made but without a meeting of the minds so that the player thinks they are complying (accidental) until there is more communication - of which submitting the character is the clearest one.

So a DM vetting players who have agreed would need to have the DM openign up additional lines of communication before the characters are submitted. Perhaps putting together a campaign document and asking the players to read it.

 

[Don Durito]

It's funny. But these threads always focs on the importance of clear and explicit communication.

I'm somewhat bemused, because really anyone who posts on internet forums should know how badly explicit communication can fail.

The message you give is not the same as the one received. Twenty years of teaching have taught me explicit communication is only a very small part of what you need to do to set expectations.

If you say "no elves in this campaign" that may be interpreted as "No elves unless I have a really cool concept", or "No elves in the fiction but I can reskin the race as something else", because that is what happened in the past when GMs said similar things. If you say "low fantasy and low magic," that will likely be ignored because it's really not particularly clear and doesn't communicate any real expectations to the players about what they will do. If you say "this is a sandbox game, it's up to you be proactive and drive events - there will be no overarching plot", the players may not see how this is different to other games in the past where the GM has given them a clear direct plot but emphasised that they can always choose not to follow it if they really wish.

A lot of the time we gesture at the thing we want, rather than say it explictly - even when we think we say it explicitly. If you want to run a "highly political urban game involving the machinations of a small city state" you might be imagining bards and rogues and lots of characters with local ties - maybe a Fighter or wizard with an aristocratic background - but from the players perspective you haven't actually told them what you need them to do, so you get Druids and Barbarians and Dwarves from the mountains.

Session 0 can help of course - but that has it's own problems and can be too late if players come already thinking they know what they want to do and feel suddenly deflated.

Edit: Nothing communicates gaming better than gaming. If you have some unusual setting idea often the simplest thing is to make some pregens and run a oneshot. By the end of the session players know what you're trying to do, and they know if it actually interests them. You can then let them make characters and start the game proper (and it's surprising how often players ask to continue with the pre-gens).

 

[ph0rk]

And in that same vein, if communication isn't working as well as it could - the player in question may not even see what they are doing as disruptive.

At least until the DM says "this is disruptive".

 

[Retreater]

90% of the time when I've been a player, DMs don't actually enforce this stuff anyway. They may promise courtly intrigue and political maneuvering, but it ends up being a dungeon crawl anyway. They might say it's going to be a light-hearted tale of swashbuckling pirate adventure on the open sea, and it's a grim survival story. I'll just abandon my original concept and make something that fits the DM's actual campaign, forgetting the "story bible" approach and see what happens in real play.

Those two campaign styles (political intrigue and pirate adventures) are two that I will be very hesitant about joining these days. Pirate adventures, especially, I have NEVER seen done well. And that's a mystery to me.

 

[ph0rk]

90% of the time when I've been a player, DMs don't actually enforce this stuff anyway. They may promise courtly intrigue and political maneuvering, but it ends up being a dungeon crawl anyway. They might say it's going to be a light-hearted tale of swashbuckling pirate adventure on the open sea, and it's a grim survival story. I'll just abandon my original concept and make something that fits the DM's actual campaign, forgetting the "story bible" approach and see what happens in real play.

Those two campaign styles (political intrigue and pirate adventures) are two that I will be very hesitant about joining these days. Pirate adventures, especially, I have NEVER seen done well. And that's a mystery to me.

Well, pirate movies tend to go off the rails pretty fast, too.

 

[Don Durito]

90% of the time when I've been a player, DMs don't actually enforce this stuff anyway. They may promise courtly intrigue and political maneuvering, but it ends up being a dungeon crawl anyway. They might say it's going to be a light-hearted tale of swashbuckling pirate adventure on the open sea, and it's a grim survival story. I'll just abandon my original concept and make something that fits the DM's actual campaign, forgetting the "story bible" approach and see what happens in real play.

Yes. And therefore it's no great surprise if players don't take GM talk about their intended campaign all that seriously.

You might mean "Highly political game with no dungeon crawling and not really all that much combat" but players may hear it as "Dungeon crawling and combat with the occasional element of politics".

 

[Hussar]

And, moreover, if you are playing a game where faith matters, the question of "What if I don't have faith?" would seem to matter... a lot, actually. In a world where how much money you have matters... when you are dead broke, that's pretty serious, right? And an issue worthy of exploration.

Fair enough. But, if we're running a Dynasty (the TV show) style campaign (ok, I'm not a fan of the show, have never watched it, but, I think you get what I mean) and one of the players comes up with his Hobo with a Shotgun character, or, after everyone has agreed to play in the campaign one of the players declares that his character is now completely bankrupt due to unpaid taxes, that's going to be a problem.

Note, I'm specifically talking about a scenario where the group has already agreed to play X and then one of the players decides to sabotage the game. Why play in a game that you don't want to play in?

 

[Retreater]

Well, pirate movies tend to go off the rails pretty fast, too.

"Off the rails" would be completely acceptable to me. I'd be all about some "ya-har" and "arrgh!" pirate swashbuckling hijinks, Captain Blood riding down the sail on his dagger, kind of high adventure.
Pirate adventures I have played always turn into this "let's look at what daily life for pirates was really like" and "the captain is going to keelhaul you and put you in the stocks" and "let's make sure you have all the provisions for 9+ months at see before you start the voyage in three sessions" and "can you make Fortitude saves to not get seasick" and "can you swab the deck for 3+ hours, make a Strength check."
All we want is Pirates of the Caribbean, not Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

 

[Hussar]

You seem to have missed my point. I agree that the GM should be clear. However, being explicit is not sufficient. It is not enough for the GM to state explicitly that a thing matters. It has to actually make a difference in play. If it doesn't... it isn't actually important.

So, if you want a game in which religion is important... make it so those without faith cannot be healed by divine magic or raised from death. Suddenly, it'll actually matter to the players.

Or those without faith cannot proceed on to an afterlife perhaps?