Another "Have You Ever Had This Player?" Discussion

[Inconsequenti-AL]

I agree with Diaglo - definitely a conversation to have in character.

Or

Burn the witch?

 

[PJ-Mason]

Wow. Not only have i had that experience, i'll tell you about!

I had just gotten a new group together and we were playing 3.0 that had just come out, i think we had started playing before the MM had come out, we were that eager.

Anyway, we had a couple in our group (BF/GF), both gamers in their own right. So we were playing a couple weeks or so and pretty much much everyone recoginized Colleen's Priestess of Lathander was a little loopy. Turns out it was the player, not the character, but i digress.

The first sign that she wasn't quite on the same page was when one of the other player's monk got hurt by ghouls (or is ghasts?). Rather than heal him or see if he was getting turned, the priestess bashes in his head, turned to us and said "It was for his own good!"

Okay. Move onto the Sunless citadel (or a version of it), we were investigating the place (i normal don't like dungeon crawl types but we were having fun with it) and got into a dust-em up with a small dragon. Not only was that small dragon tough, our DM was channelling Hannibal with his tactics! We got torn up! i think one of us was down and the rest us of could see our insides. So when the priestess started to cast healing magic, we were quite happy. Until she healed the DRAGON!!! Yep. She thought it was cute and didn't want to see it hurt! .......
So we had to fight the dragon again. This time we fought like warrior-poets and defeated it again! We really took it out on the dragon, though i suspect that the DM took it easy on us the second time around. Now i think only two of us were still standing and the priestess got that same look in her eyes again. So my bard swivelled his crossbow to her and i said "If you do that again, Lathander himself shall greet you when you next awaken!"

She didn't heal it. But did pout a bit. She played for a while more, but they eventually broke up and she moved away. To this day we still make the joke about bashing in anyone's head when they fight undead or diseased creatures.

 

[sniffles]

Isn't a velociraptor the same thing as a deinonychus?

A deinonychus is a huge flightless bird. A velociraptor is a carnivorous bipedal reptilian dinosaur.
Unless it's different in the MM.

I'll just bet you that this player will claim she's "playing her character" and get all offended if you talk to her about it, in or out of character. And she'll be really upset if you kill her PC. Some people just do not know how to be team players. :\

 

[Arnwyn]

Has anyone else had such an experience?

And, as usual, my response is: "no, never".

This is getting weirder. Such anti-social behavior wouldn't be tolerated for 1 minute in our group, and would result in a quick out-of-character discussion about idiocy. Solve it in-game, my ass.

 

[diaglo]

Solve it in-game, my ass.

i guess you don't want to be friends anymore.

weeps

 

[MarkAHart]

It often seems such behavior is always accompanied by statements like "I'm just playing my character," or "That's how my character is..."

I know of one player (not in my group, happily) who consistently uses Flame Strike and other "blow em up" spells against the monsters...the main problem that she has no concern for hitting allies with friendly fire. After routinely roasting her teammates, her response is always "you should know better than to be in my blast radius!"

It seems that this sort of player has lost sight that, in the end, role-playing is a group effort, and is supposed to be fun for everyone. Sometimes a character needs to act out of character for the good of the other players at the table.

 

[sniffles]

It seems that this sort of player has lost sight that, in the end, role-playing is a group effort, and is supposed to be fun for everyone. Sometimes a character needs to act out of character for the good of the other players at the table.

I wholeheartedly agree with you here, but I have a good friend who holds just the opposite opinion. He feels he's roleplaying to roleplay his character, and sometimes that means that he won't do what is good for the group. He does consider everyone's fun important, but he doesn't want to subsume his own fun to the needs of the group.

 

[firstborne]

A deinonychus is a huge flightless bird. A velociraptor is a carnivorous bipedal reptilian dinosaur.
Unless it's different in the MM.

Both are carnivorous bipedal dinosaurs. The deinonychus is, however, one of first and best pieces of evidence pointing to the relationship between birds and dinosaurs.

So I'd say you're half right.

Fun Fact: A velociraptor is actually smaller than a deinonychus.

--ENWorld's lurking paleontologist.

 

[TheGM]

I wholeheartedly agree with you here, but I have a good friend who holds just the opposite opinion. He feels he's roleplaying to roleplay his character, and sometimes that means that he won't do what is good for the group. He does consider everyone's fun important, but he doesn't want to subsume his own fun to the needs of the group.

Yeah, I've got a player like that. I'm on the verge of quashing his character like a bug and telling him "next character, roll up someone you can roleplay that actually knows how to get along."

The character is sexist. Half the party (players) are female and are not significantly impressed.
The character waited until the priest was leaning over the tied up, unconscious bad-guy getting ready to heal him and then shot the prisoner. And refused to agree to never do that again without reason.
Players have thus far pulled punches in favor of group unity, I'm not likely to continue to do so as the GM.
Yes, "he was just playing his character", and yes, he was ruining evryone else's fun. In a group of eight PCs, guess who's gonna lose when I have to make a call to continue with the group having fun?

He's in some of my other games, and not all of his characters are like this, but most of them are.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

I used to game with this very person. After she and her boyfriend broke up, we never gamed with her again. After they got back together briefly, we never gamed with him either. I can't game with people like this because punching them in the face might get me arrested.