No, I'm telling you that if out of the whole infinite potential area of ethos, outlook, and actions, you cannot refrain yourself from doing things which are contrary to the table's usual way of play, you are indeed not welcome to play with that table. This is a collaborative game, the most collaborative ever, and group arguments always trump individual ones (especially if it's the individual basically asking for a license to act like a jerk).
Collaboration in itself is fine; but the second I get any sense that collaboration is being enforced I'll push back, and hard.
We get anough forced groupthink in real life, damned if I want it in the game as well (which is supposed to be an escape anyway).
And does this really happen with leaving sequels ? I had three friends (two now) who claimed that they could play that way, always had, but the result is that one of them was kicked twice from our tables, and out of the remaining 2, one has stopped playing in 2 of our current campaigns, and the last one is the ONLY ONE that still creates tension between players with his behaviour (I exceptionally allowed LE for my Avernus campaign, for another guy playing a priest of Tiamat, it's absolutely fine, but the guy playing - again - the assassin is very often at odds with the others, both in and outside of the game.
And these are very mature players. with decades of experience of the game, and really good friends out of the game.
I've had players at my table that, given what seem to be your tastes, would probably send you screaming for the hills.
Not all of them worked out, but those that did will - in the best of ways - never be forgotten.
I guess it also comes down to how seriously everyone takes it all. I take it seriously enough to show up on time for the games and to pay attention during them but that's about it: I'm in it for laughs and entertainment (my own and others'), and I've long since learned not to take anything that happens in play all that seriously.
You want your PC to throw down on mine? Fine, do your best - but you'd better be prepared to lose...
Listen, I have played that way for years, but first it's not true that it sorts things out naturally, conflicts can arise at any time with a new objective in the campaign, we see that all the time even with characters who are reasonably congruent.
Second, the reason we don't play that way is because we unfortunately have just a few hours to play every week (compared to almost every evening when we were playing in a more free form mode). This means that we want to have adventures TOGETHER, including with the DM, and that almost every minute spent scheming against the others is a minute where at least some of the table is not participating.
I accept (and expect) as a simple fact of life that there's going to be times when I'm at the game but not involved in play. The reasons for this are many and varied: self-inflicted (I have my PC off doing something else at the time) or due to in-game bad luck (I fail a save and spend a combat paralyzed and unable to act) or because someone else is on a solo mission and I'm waiting back at base, or because I don't at the moment have a character at all (the last one's dead and the replacement hasn't met the party yet).
Over the long run ideally these moments tend to cancel out such that everyone is out of action for roughly the same total amount of time.
That, and there's always next session for what doesn't get done tonight.
Nope, if the player leaves with his character, the character does not disappear from the campaign, the DM is absolutely free to keep the ACTUAL character (the sheet does not mean anything, the character has only "existed" by being played inside the campaign).
I'm not talking about the physical character sheet; generally I'd leave that with the DM anyway.
If the DM wanted to use that character later in the campaign, however, at the very least I as its player/owner would expect a request for permission, and if for whatever unlikely reason my answer was "No" I'd expect the DM to show enough integrity to abide by that.
This is not real life, it's a game.
A game that in part tries to mirror real life, except with a LOT more freedom to do what you want.
It's a collaborative game, that you play as a team, and by doing so you have to accept the rules of the team.
Rules are made to be broken, aren't they?
It's simple respect. Your freedom stops where it begins to infringe on other's, and your fun HAS TO STOP when it infringes on the fun of others. Simple respect, simple consideration.
And that is absolutely fine, the only thing is that characters do not really exist, they are just figments of a player's imagination, so they are under HIS control, and if the character is acting like a jerk and makes is so that the experience is not OK for another player, than it is simply not OK.
If just one person not having fun is enough to veto something it's a wonder anything gets done. But from other things you've said it doesn't seem that hard-line, so...?
And it happens at our tables as well, but there is a difference in doing it because the planners have been doing it for a while and should be respectful of the non-tactician too, or whether it's done on purpose, up front, in a purely destroying manner that has no respect for the planners.
it's all a question of balance, and of respect, of the PLAYERS (the characters have nothing to do in there, they are only what the players want them to be).
My general guiding ethos is "Do what the character would do"; and if that means one character is going to plan for an hour while another will get bored and stir the pot after five minutes then that's exactly what happens.
And I don't consider it my job. My job is running a game for a reasonably united group of friends adventuring together, which again does not prevent discussion, dissension, even harsh words and fighting, or a bit of splitting, but as long as it stays within the boundaries of everyone having fun, which is not the case when people have to spend the majority of their time waiting for the DM to come back to them because everyone is off doing what they want in their corner.
We has sessions like this, which is why, call it a table rule, we don't do "side intrigues" with the DM going off with one player. We have exceptions of course, but in general everyone witnesses everything.
We try not to have players witness things their characters wouldn't, in order to keep player knowledge and character knowledge the same so as to prevent metagaming. And yes, sometimes this means lots of notes get passed from player to DM and back (and sometimes from player to player) or the DM goes off with a player for a few moments.
Especially in these days where it's so easy to zap out of the session on a phone...
Back in the day paperback books served the same purpose.
In that case, I agree, that kind of WORLD consistency is important, as you can see, the rules matter little here...
A ruling made now becomes a rule for the future.
