D&D 5E As a Player, why do you play in games you haven't bought into?

[doctorbadwolf]

I don’t think you would be at the same table, because if you were and had expressed dislike of the premise Hussar has already said he would have changed the concept.

If that’s the case, then there is no reason for him to insist that I should just offer to run the game instead or leave.

Good! If you wouldn't want to be there at the table, then that solves the problem! If you were so offended by the request to make a character with a certain thing highlighted or made important but you deliberately wished to not do that because reasons... then it's just as well that you decided to leave. Saves us the time later on.

Lol Sure, bud. Spin it however you want.

 

[TheSword]

If that’s the case, then there is no reason for him to insist that I should just offer to run the game instead or leave.

Well ultimately if you exhausted Hussar’s pitches then that would be the expectation.

Unless of course everyone else really wanted to play his holy war campaign and you were the only one who didn’t. Then everyone makes a decision...

...is the pleasure of your company at the table more important to them than the pleasure of a potentially great campaign without you? I guess it would depend on the relationships.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well ultimately if you exhausted Hussar’s pitches then that would be the expectation.

Unless of course everyone else really wanted to play his holy war campaign and you were the only one who didn’t. Then everyone makes a decision...

...is the pleasure of your company at the table more important to them than the pleasure of a potentially great campaign without you? I guess it would depend on the relationships.

Thing is, I'm not the one who has been insisting on binary solutions. My position has been that in a healthy group with a good DM, it's a conversation, not a binary ultimatum of "accept the brief in full or don't play".

The idea of playing in a group where the DM presents a campaign brief, and the rest of us either say yes or no to the brief, is what I objected to, because that was what was presented both in the other thread, and in the start of this one. If Hussar has said somewhere in this mess of a thread that they'd be open to changing aspects of the concept, great!

The ideal, for me and everyone I have gamed with in the last decade or so, is for the group to hear the very basic campaign idea before it's a fully fleshed out brief, and for the group discussion to start there, meaning that there is never a point where the player is being handed a campaign to either enthusiastically join or walk away from.

 

[TheSword]

Thing is, I'm not the one who has been insisting on binary solutions. My position has been that in a healthy group with a good DM, it's a conversation, not a binary ultimatum of "accept the brief in full or don't play".

The idea of playing in a group where the DM presents a campaign brief, and the rest of us either say yes or no to the brief, is what I objected to, because that was what was presented both in the other thread, and in the start of this one. If Hussar has said somewhere in this mess of a thread that they'd be open to changing aspects of the concept, great!

The ideal, for me and everyone I have gamed with in the last decade or so, is for the group to hear the very basic campaign idea before it's a fully fleshed out brief, and for the group discussion to start there, meaning that there is never a point where the player is being handed a campaign to either enthusiastically join or walk away from.

That’s not always possible. In the case of pre-written adventures for instance. A player who didn’t want to game in a horror based Rime of the Frostlord game wouldn’t persuade me to run it as a light hearted romp. Some themes are integral parts of a campaign.

A decision to play or not is at the end of the day, a binary one. What you negotiate up that point is fair game, but eventually you have to commit or get off the bus. As I said I would manage my expectations based on the strength of the rest of the players opinions.

As a player I would compromise a class preference if there was someone else who wanted strongly to play a particular class. I’d also compromise a desire to play an atheist if the DM wanted to make the patronage of the gods a cool part of the campaign.

 

[Scott Christian]

Which brings me around to the basic question: If you, the player, isn't engaged by the premise of the campaign, why are you still playing in that campaign? To me, this is one of the most frustrating parts of being a DM. You pitch a concept, the concept gets okay'd by the group who agrees to play in the campaign, you do the work preparing and whatnot, and then you have a player or players who insist on doing the exact opposite thing.

Sorry if this is a repeat. I have not had time to read the whole thread.
Here is my list:

1. Spend time with friends
2. Learn something new (a new playstyle, a new type of character, a new system, etc.)
3. Because I know the DM spent time, and I trust that the DM will make it fun, even if it is not the premise, theme or style I was initially craving

 

[DEFCON 1]

Lol Sure, bud. Spin it however you want.

I WILL, Mister!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That’s not always possible. In the case of pre-written adventures for instance. A player who didn’t want to game in a horror based Rime of the Frostlord game wouldn’t persuade me to run it as a light hearted romp. Some themes are integral parts of a campaign.

A decision to play or not is at the end of the day, a binary one. What you negotiate up that point is fair game, but eventually you have to commit or get off the bus. As I said I would manage my expectations based on the strength of the rest of the players opinions.

As a player I would compromise a class preference if there was someone else who wanted strongly to play a particular class. I’d also compromise a desire to play an atheist if the DM wanted to make the patronage of the gods a cool part of the campaign.

My point was exactly that in my groups, there woudln't be a Rime of the Frostmaiden game unless the group as a whole wanted to play it. We're gonna play DnD, either way, with the group that is present. The question is what type of DnD game it will be, and that, in my groups, can only ever be answered as a group conversation.

 

[Dire Bare]

That’s not always possible. In the case of pre-written adventures for instance. A player who didn’t want to game in a horror based Rime of the Frostlord game wouldn’t persuade me to run it as a light hearted romp. Some themes are integral parts of a campaign.

A decision to play or not is at the end of the day, a binary one. What you negotiate up that point is fair game, but eventually you have to commit or get off the bus. As I said I would manage my expectations based on the strength of the rest of the players opinions.

As a player I would compromise a class preference if there was someone else who wanted strongly to play a particular class. I’d also compromise a desire to play an atheist if the DM wanted to make the patronage of the gods a cool part of the campaign.

Sure it's possible.

If my DM says, "Hey guys, I really want to run 'Rime of the Frostmaiden' and lean into the horror themes" we can still totally have a conversation about exactly what that means. It's not like the horror genre has strict boundaries. As mentioned earlier, the novel Dracula has some pretty colorful characters in the protagonist group.

Can I run a horror game with light-hearted elements? What kind of races and classes do and don't belong? How heavy is the horror? All of this is open to group discussion to set the stage for a game where everybody has fun.

 

[nevin]

i've played a lot of games I didn't "buy into" for me it's a social thing I go to play with my friends and sometimes meet new people.

I think a lot of people play in games that they don't buy into because they are friends or it's the only option they have for gaming. I only see it as a problem if the player in question starts to act out because they aren't enjoying themselves. The few times i've had that issue as GM or as player I have a conversation GM to player. I've left a game because that was the best thing for the game and I've asked a Player to either get with the program or not come back. But games are social events that tend to bring friends so that makes it dicey sometimes, a player may not want to tell thier friend the DM they think his story sucks, a DM may not want to tell his friend, wife etc that their roleplaying style is annoying everyone else. In my experience stuff like that is why it happens the most.

 

[Dire Bare]

When a DM pitches me a game and starts listing restrictions, I have to decide as a player if what the DM seems to be going for sounds fun, or stupid. It's often stupid.

I've played too many games where the DM sets arbitrary restrictions on race, class, or character concepts thinking they are setting up a unique and interesting game, where really they are setting up a standard D&D game with unnecessary restrictions.

The situation in the OP reads that way to me.

"FR is a setting where religion is important, so your character has to follow a deity". Why? The wall? That's stupid. What about the FR setting really supports the idea that faith is an integral aspect of the setting? Nothing.

This morphed into, "I want to run a game focusing on religious characters". Why? Convince me this story really requires everybody to have faith in a different fantasy religion. Why wouldn't a heretic or atheist be an interesting character concept here? Otherwise, it just sounds like more stupid restrictions.

If you came at me with, I want to run a "Catholic horror" style D&D game (like "The Omen") where the PCs are priests fighting the incursions of devils onto the material plane . . . okay, now we have a specific theme that seems like it's going somewhere! But, do I have to play a priest? Or even a religious person for this to work? I just finished the tv show "Evil" where the protagonists all work for the Catholic church debunking demonic possession and prophecy . . . and stumble into real evil . . . and none of them are priests! One is a priest in training who struggles with past substance and sex addiction, another is an atheist psychologist, and the third is a non-practicing Muslim tech guy. There are a lot of priests in the show's supporting cast.

Even really good campaign ideas and themes can be flexible and open to group discussion so that everybody has fun. Doesn't mean that as things develop, certain ideas or concepts can't be nixed. But the DM and the group should be open and flexible for me to want to spend any serious amount of time with them.

D&D has this "tradition" that the DM is the driving artist, God, King, or what-have-you, and gets to lay down the law and call all the shots. Ugh. I got enough of that in middle school, don't need that anymore regardless of which side of the screen I'm on.