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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8119603" data-attributes="member: 6801228">What engagement level? Player: "Okay DM, since I can't get into the room, I'll just watch our rear" DM: "Okay" Seven minutes passesDM: Your turnPlayer: Nothing coming? DM: NopePlayer: Okay, I'll keep watchingseven minutes passesDM: Your TurnPlayer: Still watchingSeven minutes laterDM: Your TurnPlayer: We still aren't done with combat? Can I... nope, can't get in, guess I'm staring at an empty hall waySeven minutes passesNearly a half an hour of the player... doing nothing. They could have just as easily said "Okay guys, I'm going to watch the rear until the situation changes, let me know if I can do anything, going to take a bio-break" and then walked out of the room.Yeah it does happen. And it tends to suck. I'm willing to make a bet that there was at least one joke about her "uselessly flailing" or something similiar, because that is what tends to happen in the games I've seen. But, by the third turn of missing, most people don't find it funny anymore. And yeah, hindsight is when it shows up, but hindsight isn't "after the battle" it is after the turn. And after failing multiple turns in a row, not only hindsight, but foresight looks like it is just going to be a series of failures.Sure, that is funny and absurd. I also reject your conclusion. Because it has nothing to do with your character not contributing, because if your character had made it into the room and that interaction had not happened... you would have contributed, right? And I bet you contributed earlier in the module too right? I didn't. In that entire four hour session, my character did two things.  1) The GM of the session forced me into the bilge, where my character spent a good fifteen minutes swimming through sewage and being forced to throw pieces of naughty word at large pieces of naughty word by a crazed crewmate. 2) The literal final scene of the session. As you can imagine, by the end of 4 hours of doing nothing except swimming in sewage (because I was forced to do that, I missed the second fight scene of the night, because I was too far away) I was pretty well done. I had made a one-shot character who was a duelist, lady's man and refined gentleman and got to do nothing with it. I had even, due to the system, thought through many of my flaws. Including a desire to not allow children to die. So, in the very last scene, when a guy I didn't care about was threatening a kid and literally every person at the table, GM included, was telling me that my character should retreat and not do anything, because the tower was about to explode, I made a sacrifice play. The only bright spot in that torturous four hours of being mocked for things this GM forced me to do, was seeing his face when I straight told him I could care less if this character lived or died, but that I was actually playing the character I had made, and that meant trying to save the kid. And I still have zero desire to ever play that system, or another "ongoing story" game at a convention ever again. Because I never contributed anything, except disbelief when I actually played a character instead of following their "advice".You are right. But that changes nothing of the perception after you have failed repeatedly. That is the point. If I fail, I try again.If I fail, I try again.If I fail, I try again, but by this point I'm kind of getting sick and tired of failing. If I fail, well, I guess I try again, nothing else to do except just skip my turnIf I fail, well, it is pointless to keep trying, but I might as well roll the dice and have a small spark of hope of succeeding.Oh, the scene is over? Thank the gods, that was horrible, hopefully that never happens again.</blockquote>

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