"Anti roleplaying" roleplayers? (or, about that non fighting druid...)

[National Acrobat]

Along with the topic

Minor Rant

My biggest pet peeve is the person who has played in a continuing campaign for a long time, who unfortunately dies along the way. Then they decide to bring in a character who does not fit the current group profile or mission and who would have nothing to do with the goals and objectives that the party is trying to accomplish. Basically, the new character would never agree to what the current party is doing and complains about it.

Why on earth would you do this?

The last time this happened the players just looked at this person and said, "where have you been for the last 12 months and why would you create a character with this attitude after all that we have been through here?"

End of Minor Rant

 

[Buttercup]

Have you ever played with the really annoying rogue who starts fights with potential allies, playes "practical jokes" on the other party members and generally makes everyone hate the character, but is suffered long past the point of logic because "it's a PC"?

Why yes. I think I ranted about it here back in mid-April. But I guess the player took it seriously when one of the dwarf fighters said that he would chop the PC's hand off if he found it in his belongings ever again, because the player decided to "tone down" his character before the next session. It was a great relief to me.

But I've seen it mostly with druids in the past. They get all pissy and whiney if the party has to spend time in a city. Were it a real world situation, either the druid would move on, or the players would tell him to shut up and be part of the team.

I've got a new player joining my group, and I'm running him through a one-on-one session tonight. From what I've seen of his character so far, I'm a bit worried he'll have pacifist tendencies. He's a monk, so that might not be all bad for the first few levels--if he wants the character to survive, that is. I'll report back tomorrow morning.

 

[Buttercup]

At which point the player turned to the DM and said... "I'm to lazy to come up with a different character concept... Can't we come up with a valid reason for this character to be this way?"

The simple answer to this question would be...no.

Why did the guy even show up for the session if he was too lazy to create a viable character?

 

[Tom Cashel]

I have a very simple rule in my games - I encourage roleplaying AND I encourage the creation of characters which you can roleplay without breaking the game for everyone else.

No specific story to share...just a little routine that's become canon with our group.

PC: You see, my problem is that there's no way--absolutely no way--that my character would want to go on this journey with the other PCs!

DM: Oh, well--better make another character then.

 

[mirzabah]

... I've had the rolewimp(tm) who makes as weak and inefficient characters as possible on the more or less subconscious basis that if powerful=munchkin then weak=good roleplaying ...

Heh heh

I had a "debate" on a newsgroup somewhere a while ago with a guy who was proud of himself for playing a thief with DEX 6... Turns out you just can't argue with people who think that's a reasonable thing.

I think, however, that the term shouldn't be so much rolewimp as rolenazi(tm). Whereas munchkins are supremely indifferent to whether or not anyone else shares their strange obsessions, a rolenazi will loudly decry as a flagrant powergamer anyone who has the temerity to play a character who isn't deeply flawed.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I had this nearly happen very badly once.

A players character croaked and he created a new one tht the DM approved without really thinking.

Now the character he created was a female fighter who was from a noble family and very arrogant. The rest of us were mere commoners and she enjoyed ordering us around and making disparaging comments like we were low paid help.

Now this was annoying in and unto itself because no one wants to get ordered around by a b*tch which is what this character was.

To make matters worse though my character the cleric (we were all about 7th - 8th level the point when a cleric really comes into his own for power) worshipped the God of Freedom. His clergy absolutely despised nobility and quite often fought to oppose nobility and its abuse of power. Now my character was probably the most powerful character in the party and the defacto leader since he was the only one that generally made long term plans and thought out strategy in tough situations.

Basically the new character and my cleric were not going to get along no matter what. So I made it very simple. My cleric told the new character that she was traveling with us at our sufferance and the next time she dared to order any of us around I would draw and quarter her then leave her for dead in the frozen wasteland we were currently traveling through.

Then I told the player in question that he forgot what kind of character I was playing and that things were not going to work out. He apologized for not thinking when he created the new character and at the next session the character had a new personal background and a very different personality.

Problem solved.

 

[Voneth]

Re: Game Killers

Not necessarily a character type, but I have had players when bored try to ruin the game for everyone. They do things like set towns on fire, shoot crossbow bolts at the town guard, and so on. Then when the whole game predictably blows up, they gleefully brag about wrecking the campaign.

Yep, I had a punk like this a game of mine. We were playing d20 Pulp mini-game and the kid picked a gangster. Soon after he kept trying to literaly kill everyone he met. I finally let him kill himself. After the game, he told me that he was trying to see how many people he could kill before he committed suicide.

I said, "There is a game called Parinoia, all the players are trying to do that in that game. " He said, no thanks. His idea of fun was that only he was trying to kill off all the PCs and NPCs. I don't think the kid has played a RPG since.

 

[Voneth]

But I've seen it mostly with druids in the past. They get all pissy and whiney if the party has to spend time in a city. Were it a real world situation, either the druid would move on, or the players would tell him to shut up and be part of the team.

Part of this may be that a GM has to keep a druid in mind when designing adventures. I had a lizardman Druid that I ran for 16 levels in a party of humans and lizardman-hating elves. We actualy all got along rpg wise. My motivation for being with the group was loyality to my war-time buddies (We were all part of the last 20 surviviors of some battle at the pass thing)

Class wise, my entange did no good in the city and every undead and demon made my "defensive fence" of animal compainons run away. Other than healing, my character didn't really blossom until 12 level.

 

[The_Gneech]

The DM would have brought him back but he kept insisting "that's what my character would do". So the DM had him sold into slavery and carried across the sea in the opposite direction the party was travelling.

The correct response is, "Well, this is what would happen to him if he did that! Well played. Now make a new character."

-The Gneech

 

[Murrdox]

on the off chance this post relates to the one it's replying to...

What is this "very interesting" character good at that justifies his inclusion in the party, IC? Has the other player's character been given good in game reasons to want him around inspite of not being useful in combat?

Just trying to tie this digression into the thread at hand...

Kahuna Burger

I was mainly pointing out an opposite situation. A player who creates a poor fighting character who is GOOD at roleplaying... but then a combat-oriented player resented him for not having a combat-optimized character.

The character is "good at" being very very creative in using his skills. He's used "Descipher Script" more times than I've ever seen it used, and he makes EXTREMELY creative use of the very low level spells that he has (He's a Rogue 3/Wiz 3) His character is fun for him to play, and he doesn't disrupt the group at all.


Now, I have ANOTHER player in this same group who joined in, and is basically an insane pyromaniac. He is constantly rolling a D4, and if he gets a "1" he goes and tries to burn something nearby. He also has a small fire elemental (small=halfling sized) as a familiar. THIS character is proving to be a disruption, and I'm kindof annoyed that the player didn't give him any personality whatsoever aside from the fact that he really likes burning things. But I'm hoping the player will figure out that since I'm not going to let him start forest fires all over the place, his character concept is a bit weak, and he'll hopefully get a bit more personality. If not... I might just kill him.