D&D General What is an Adversarial Player?

[Thomas Shey]

I'm not sure I agree that Rules Lawyers mean to be adversarial, even if they can annoying. I've certainly encountered Rules Lawyers who are just overly obsessed with what they see as correctness.

And sometimes they can see it as an active service to other players who may not be as assertive.

 

[GuyBoy]

The Lone Wolf....and we still refer to the player as such, though we haven’t gamed with him for a decade:
His characters weren’t totally identical - some were rogues, some rangers, some half-elves, some human - but all wore grey cloaks, carried longsword and dagger, were born in tragedy, had no relatives and friends...and all were Lone Wolves!
They would always leave the party after scouting ahead, always attack NPCs ( great for plot devices...not!), never share treasure and rarely speak.
They were like a bad fantasy version of Eastwood’s Man With No Name.

Totally adversarial, but we laugh about it now, especially in his final game with us; I was running 2E Return to the Tomb of Horrors, and his character, whose name escapes me so we’ll call him Lone Wolf, went off ahead to scout near the City of Moil, and Lone Wolf-ed his way into a Winter Wight. He could have fled, could have called for help, but, no, Lone Wolf attacked. It was messy.

 

[Greenfield]

My own thought on the meta-gamer: A micro-version of that is the classic "Check the Chest" scenario. The party Rogue has the skills needed to check the treasure chest/hidden compartment for traps, and to open it.

Everyone else stands clear, to avoid the area-damage that some traps trigger. But, as soon as the chest is opened, everyone is somehow there, having mysteriously teleported in front of the party Rogue, starts demanding to know what's inside. They're somehow there, ahead of the guy who was right there.

The only difference between this scenario and the "He took 16 points" setup is the distance involved. A matter of scale, not principle.

What is different is the intent: The treasure chest scenario is driven by greed and/or curiosity, while the other may be more action/adrenaline junky.

Neither one is necessarily "adversarial", in that the player isn't trying to beat the DM or player.

I was running a super-hero game one time. I started by asking each of the players where their characters were. One said, "I'm in my recording studio". One said, "Probably stuck in traffic". Another was at the gym. One was consulting with the team lawyer.

When I announced that something was happening at the team base, it suddenly turned out that the recording studio was at the base. So was the meeting with the lawyer. Wanna guess where the gym was?

My own fault, in a way: I asked where they were, and they told me what they were doing instead.

Kind of shot my scenario in the foot. The players didn't intend to be "adversarial", more opportunistic. But it still ruined a planned story line, and that's the real problem with adversarial cases.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Oddly enough, I think that one is driven by people hitting adversarial players previously themselves, specifically players of rogue characters who consider it their God-given right to highgrade treasure just because they're the ones first on top of it.

 

[Mort]

I don't see this as adversarial if roleplayed well, in fact I've done this and see as the opposite. I'd say a player who expects the party cleric to heal them or cast other spells for them just because they can without contributing to help spread the teachings of the clerics faith is somewhat adversarial. Now I'm not saying that a players needs to contribute gold for every hp of healing but there should be a mutual understanding in the party that the cleric will heal and the rest will help spread the faith.

There needs to be some kind of understanding, either at session 0 or whenever, why the characters are adventuring together and what the expectations are. Generally (barring specific campaign concepts) the group should expect cooperation for mutual benefit for ALL the members.

If something as fundamental as healing is to be withheld, the group needs to be on board that this is a possibility. If a Cleric's player suddenly, without prior discussion or consent of the group, decides to have his character withhold healing/beneficial spells? That's going to warrant an above game conversation with the player - because it absolutely is adversarial and disruptive.

 

[jasper]

Did you get hacked, or are you showing an example of adversarial play?

An example.

 

[overgeeked]

There needs to be some kind of understanding, either at session 0 or whenever, why the characters are adventuring together and what the expectations are. Generally (barring specific campaign concepts) the group should expect cooperation for mutual benefit for ALL the members.

If something as fundamental as healing is to be withheld, the group needs to be on board that this is a possibility. If a Cleric's player suddenly, without prior discussion or consent of the group, decides to have his character withhold healing/beneficial spells? That's going to warrant an above game conversation with the player - because it absolutely is adversarial and disruptive.

Yeah. We had a player try that once. No one wanted to play the cleric but this guy stepped up. After the first fight he demanded extra shares of the loot for healing people. We agreed, then the next fight we made like we were all going to rush in...but held back while he charged in alone. We let them kill him then negotiated a cease fire with the monsters. The player never did that again. I think he got the point.

 

[R_J_K75]

because it absolutely is adversarial and disruptive.

OK, if you say so.

 

[Mort]

Yeah. We had a player try that once. No one wanted to play the cleric but this guy stepped up. After the first fight he demanded extra shares of the loot for healing people. We agreed, then the next fight we made like we were all going to rush in...but held back while he charged in alone. We let them kill him then negotiated a cease fire with the monsters. The player never did that again. I think he got the point.

Glad that worked for you.

Though I still prefer an out of game discussion for something like this - mostly because I've seen "in game" solutions fail/not have the desired result a bit too often. Such as, quite a long time ago, a player was playing a jerk character, the other characters let the character die rather than save him. The player brings in an even more jerk character, this time with a backstory vendetta against the characters that let him die. It got pretty ridiculous. After an above game discussion where it became clear the player wasn't going to let up the shenanigans, he was not invited back.

 

[Mort]

OK, if you say so.

How is it not?

Withholding healing is a PVP move.

That's the kind thing that needs to be discussed and approved by the group.