Are your players risk takers?

[Glyfair]

I was recently reading Mike Mearls' blog. The latest entry discusses the concept of "bangs" and "kickers" (terms the indie RPG crowd often uses that are drawn from the "Sorcerer" RPG). In the entry he makes a comment I found interesting:

I have to check to see if the tables are something I can post (they refer to some 4e-specific rules), but there's another interesting lesson I learned from them. Players, especially D&D players, are risk averse. They don't want their characters to die. They'd rather find the safest way to get treasure and beat a villain. I think that if I used my "power" as DM to force interesting backgrounds on the players, they'd rebel. Most D&D players want a background that looks like this:

1. My character has no notable friends and family.
2. My character didn't have any major villains or real issues with anyone.
3. My character wants to... get some treasure?

These are all really safe, easy statements. There's nothing there that can pose a threat. It's exactly what the smart, no-risk gamer wants.

As DM, I don't want that. I want to chase the characters up burning trees. However, if I just toss them into a tree, I'll get resistance. That's railroading. It's not really interesting, because a GM can always just arbitrarily throw stuff at characters. Arbitrary is stupid and bad in games, because the fundamental promise of games (interaction! choices!) runs directly counter to it.

Are your players like this or are your players the sort that will be "chased up burning trees"?

 

[blargney the second]

Most of mine try to make up plot-immune PCs with no families and no enemies.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Mearls analysis, like that of his commie hippy indie buddies, is sound.

The main aim of the player is the success of his character. When bad things happen to your PC that means you've failed and if your PC dies it means you've failed big time. But it's all relative. If something a bit bad happens to your character while everyone else dies, that's a win. Rpgs are, surprisingly, competitive.

The point he made about his players not minding the kickers because it was the same for everyone is spot on.

 

[Aholibamah]

I think that the DM bears a lot of responsibility when it comes to players taking risks of the kind suggested. I mean if you have the Gygaxian style DM who really enjoys lots of traps and 'surprise' monsters and that kind of thing, every player is going to be a survivalist when it comes to character concepts. (no offense to Gygax but a lot of the adventures he wrote were like that--fun but not really big character builders)

On the other hand if you actually encourage story building I find that players will sometimes really like that--they'll enjoy running into an npc who is more colorful than useful, or actually like owning a tavern if it doesn't get burned to the ground every session.

 

[Glyfair]

I think that the DM bears a lot of responsibility when it comes to players taking risks of the kind suggested.

While I think this has some truth to it, I feel that the players previous DMs have more responsibility. When a player gets a string of DMs who feel the only way to motivate players is with constant risk of death, then that effects their style of play. Indeed, sometimes it only takes one such DM.

 

[Jackelope King]

Mearls analysis, like that of his commie hippy indie buddies, is sound.

The main aim of the player is the success of his character. When bad things happen to your PC that means you've failed and if your PC dies it means you've failed big time. But it's all relative. If something a bit bad happens to your character while everyone else dies, that's a win. Rpgs are, surprisingly, competitive.

The point he made about his players not minding the kickers because it was the same for everyone is spot on.

A lot of it comes from "upbringing", so to speak. If you get a player who spends most of his game-time seeing his character thrown through meat-grinders, where you have to check every 5-foot square and every chest and every statue and every switch with a 10-foot pole or your character is going to die a swift death (or any other features of Gygaxian expert dungeoneering), then you're going to see that player with a lot of survivalist characters. When I play D&D with certain DMs, I go immediately into this mode to make sure that my character has a shot at surviving. We had one player like this in our Mutants & Masterminds game who threatened to quit the game any time plot happened to his character (such as a demon coming to ask for a favor after he sold his soul to hell to gain powers, or his character's girlfriend getting kidnapped).

On the other hand, bringing players in from other play experiences (including, surprisingly, MMORPGs) tends to circumvent this and bring about characters who are fresh, interesting, and loaded with plot-hooks. Another new player who we introduced to the game created her own character who had problems controlling her powers, had a major falling out with her family and her church, and who had a mysterious benefactor (or possibly stalker, depending on how you looked at it) lurking in her background.

Our group is currently pretty heavily the latter, with everyone having a pretty full back-story, enemies we've made prior to the game starting and during the game, relationships of all stripes, weaknesses in different situations, and so on. We prefer it that way, since we like games heavy on character development. Gygaxian expert dungeoneer / Gygaxian survivalist gameplay would absolutely ruin what we have going in this particular game.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

I'd definitely have to go with not wanting the character to ever be in a situation that would depress me. I play these games to be someone who can't have my problems, not to gain new ones. Quite possibly I could just distance myself from the character, but I think if that happened it just wouldn't be possible to get into RPGs. So I try to avoid having any friends or family that the D/GM can use to put me in a tight spot.

It can be a different thing when it comes to death: my own survival instinct takes over. Again, it's an issue of how much I identify with the character and make him/her me. If that happens of course I'm going to be risk-adverse: I wouldn't be caught in those types of situations.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I was recently reading Mike Mearls' blog. The latest entry discusses the concept of "bangs" and "kickers" (terms the indie RPG crowd often uses that are drawn from the "Sorcerer" RPG). In the entry he makes a comment I found interesting:

1. My character has no notable friends and family.
2. My character didn't have any major villains or real issues with anyone.
3. My character wants to... get some treasure?


Are your players like this or are your players the sort that will be "chased up burning trees"?

As a player, I find I go for #1. For some reasons many DMs think thatfamily make great plot hooks when the players are writing backstories. Personally I would rather find a less exhausting way of writing plot hooks to help the DM.

Lots of well-though-out characters don't make their family known to the audience, so I wonder why family is considered so important in a game.

Friends are another story. To be honest, unless they're going to help me somehow (they own a magic shop, etc) I'd rather make an NPC a friend after the game starts.

Two I try to go for, and I'd rather fight bad guys than get treasure. (The treasure is to amplify my ass-kicking ability, not to satisfy my greed. If the game makes treasure less importance, the desire to acquire treasure dwindles.)

 

[Derro]

Most of my players either construct interesting backgrounds with a hookable element or two or generate something very bland and force me to arbitrarily assign background plot elements. No one is built immune to plot hooks in my games. I take a very direct hand if a character's background seems underdeveloped or geared toward an ultimate end that I feel is inappropriate.

I've taken to suggesting players construct up to three negative elements that can be balanced by positive elements when writing a background. Something like a professional nemesis balanced by status in a guild or the like. It gives me a quick hook and gives the player an immediate in-game payoff, neither of which are very mechanical or earth-shakingly powerful.

As far as risk taking is concerned I am the biggest one in the group. There is another regular player that takes big risks but I'd say most of that is willful ignorance of rules and odds instead of actually understanding the perilousness of the situation.

I'm a big risk taker because a) I rarely get too attached to my characters (a bi-product of my early days of RP in very Gygaxian settings and the fact that I am a GM more often than a player) and b) I get very impatient when my fellow players hem and haw situations to death. To me it always feels like 15 or more minutes of discussing a course of action in all but the most elaborate scenarios is just blowing hot air. As a player I prefer being in the thick of things making direct and decisive actions. I'm usually the first to kick in the door, engage the BBEG, or start the tavern brawl. Sometimes it pays off sometimes it doesn't. For most of the people that run the games I play in my willingness to sacrifice a character is welcome and generally balanced by GMs not handing me cheesy death sentences. Usually.

 

[el-remmen]

I have a standing rule in my games, either make up some kind of background that immerses the character into the setting somehow, or I will do it for you when it becomes narratively convenient.

"Your buddy Larry who is always trying to borrow money from you? Well the last time you refused him he went and borrowed money from Nanda the Shark instead, and now he needs your protection because he can't pay the 200% interest."

EDIT: I wanted to add that creating a background with potential hooks is your way of guiding the game in a direction you want, otherwise you get stuck with what comes up.