Casual Player, Casual Roleplaying, Sucking the Wonder Away

[Kahuna Burger]

Because, face it, you don't have a problem. A problem is standing on a beach in Thailand and being hit in the face by a tsunami. You have, at worst, a minor inconvenience. Just treat it as such, have a casual chat with the player without getting all excited, and chances are it'll all be fine.

Please. This is a roleplaying website and he has a problem within the context of his roleplaying game. The fact that he doesn't have a life threatening disaster is pretty much irrelevant except for demeaning a poster instead of helping him.

 

[shilsen]

Please. This is a roleplaying website and he has a problem within the context of his roleplaying game. The fact that he doesn't have a life threatening disaster is pretty much irrelevant except for demeaning a poster instead of helping him.

You're free to take it that way, but it wasn't intended to be demeaning. It was simply meant to be an illustration of the point I was making in that post, namely that the situation is not a big enough problem to warrant getting stressed out over. IMNSHO, keeping a sense of perspective about the relative innocuousness of gaming problems helps one deal with (or prevent) them more effectively. YMMV.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

control over the story

One thing I've noticed on these boards is that there is a lack of consensus over how much control the DM should have over the story.

My own opinion is that the game is most fun when the DM sets an initial scene, then lets the player's actions determine the story, rather than expecting their actions to conform to his predetermined story.

It seems to me that you have decided to run one story, and she wants to run another.

Put it this way: will she be upset if her character becomes famous at the cost of drawing her ex-husband's attention? If she won't then in my opinion you should plan for this and allow it to happen. Maybe give him a difficult gather information check each week to find her, then give him a bonus to his check on weeks when she makes an especially good performance.

You can foreshadow his emergence by making it clear through actions of NPCs that she is becoming well known.

Another thing you could do is give her some rules mechanics regarding perform checks:

For example, you could tell her that the really famous musicians can reliably hit a DC25 perform check. IE, their skill is +15, and they are taking 10. If she is first level she won't be able to achieve this, but you've given her a goal to shoot for.

good luck! It seems to me that you can resolve this successfully.

Ken

 

[Stormtower]

I recommend talking to all of your players on a regular basis about what they want in the game, what works for them, what doesn't work for them, etc. And making it clear what you want in the game too and finding some sort of common meeting ground that works for the entire group. If you have issues with some of the assumptions she's making with her PC(s), you need to sit down and talk with her (I recommend face to face over email) and find out what her assumptions actually are. And then explain what your assumptions are (and don't assume they automatically make sense) and discuss how you can both function together as DM and player.

Communication is always key. And I mean communication with the player, not with random strangers like us on a messageboard

This is golden advice and I've found that nothing improves and RPG group's long- and short-term success and enjoyment more than regular, open talks about player & DM expectations and playstyle/table culture.

EDIT: html follies

 

[Jedi_Solo]

I will answer this as a player. I have DMed in the past but for the vast, vast majority I have been a player.

My first move in this situation would be to ask everyone what they liked bast about the last X sessions and what they liked worst. This could be public at the start/end of a session or you ask them to write it down.

Maybe she's like me. I like the tactile aspect and I love the story aspect but it would be hard for me to care less about the setting.

Her tendancy to ask NPCs if they have heard about her character tells me that she cares a little about her character. There are some in my current gaming group that would care if their PC didn't have a name or a background.

Ask my DM about our last campaign. I was very into the overall story. I made Journal entries for (almost) every session and turned them in (no extra XP that I am aware of). This helped the DM know what I cared about in game. Sometimes I worked very hard for my character to avoid situations and sometime I, as a player, ran my character headfirst into brickwalls because I thought that situation would be fun.

On the other hand, the campaign took place in a little known setting called the Forgotten Realms (with a lot of Eberron thown in - but still). I've read one FR book. I know only a handful of the gods and know that The Sword Coast is by water. That may be an exaggeration - but that about covers it.

I don't know how much historical data you give out in descriptions or the level of detail you tend to give. For purposes of example I will go into the extreme. Maybe you aren't this bad, maybe you're at the level I like... I don't know. That said:

I constantly joke about how The Lord of the Rings spends three pages describing a chair or a square inch of Aragorn's beard.

Fair warning to anyone that gets me as a player... I don't care. If you want to describe a chair saying "the chair is beautifully crafted with incredably intricate gold inlay depicting dragons and lions" that is fine. Anything more than that and I begin to tune out. If a DM wants to give me a sense of awe and wonder fancy words aren't going to cut it.

What's the point of incredable vistas and the deep background of a setting if 98% of it won't actually come up in the story? What's the point of spending three pages on a chair if the scene the chair appears in takes one page. What's the point of giving me the last 1000 years of histoy of a forest if five minutes after we're told about it we never come across the forest again?

Give me something to do. Give me an incredable visual in an action set piece where I can Bull Rush an enemy into the lava pit. A wargorged factory? Set up something like the droid factory in Star Wars Episode 2.

On the other hand, give me an intricate political plot deisgned to take over the kingdom that will span a half-dozen sessions - I eat that stuff up. I'm a part of that, I'm not a part a distant mountain or a chair. I want to interact with my environment - either by stopping/solving an assassination or riding a convayer belt - not watch it pass me by with only seeing the mountain or the chair.

Hmmm.... I wrote a lot for basically saying "keep it short".

 

[Faraer]

Trying to run a cooperative endeavour without talking to each other about what you like and what you want is hoping to get lucky. You can't even manipulate people, and I don't think it often works, without finding out what they want.

Since the player is an active reader, I'd focus on how her shift from reading mode to roleplaying mode brings these attitudes not present in her reading -- perhaps foremost the stance of indifference -- which clash with your campaign.

 

[phindar]

I disagree with those who say you should just let her have the game she wants, because that's not roleplaying, that's her writing a story with no concern for everyone, as much as some have accused you.

Personally, I draw a distinction between giving someone the game they want, and the character they want. If a player were ignoring the other players and the plot and working on something completely isolated from the other people at table, that would be a player hijacking a game. But if the player simply wants to define something about her character, well that's just a player playing their character, and of course you should give them that.

No one player gets the game they want, if for no other reason than there are five players at the table and they all want different things. But what we're talking about here is something that will generally take about 10 seconds of the game (GM: The nobleman says, "Why yes, I have heard of you, but the reason I have called you here is that orcs have stolen my pies..."), doesn't really distract from the action, and will thrill the player because apparently, for some reason, having a character be a good singer is important to her. As a GM, that costs you nothing, and its something the player enjoys and ten seconds later you can get right back to what this game is supposed to be about, killing orcs and taking their pies (or you know, whatever).

 

[Spell]

I think this is short-sighted for two reasons. 1) It naive to expect players to enjoy the game for very long if you punish them for doing the things they enjoy

in general i'd agree with you. on the other hand, if i had to hide, i'd keep a low profile, or at least change name and style, rather than asking people in the street if they recognise me.
i might enjoy being the centre of the attention, but it's only logical that then i suffer the consequences, in this particular case.

it would be different if there was another campaign hook and the DM would be simply annoyed at the player's behavious and decide to punish her in some way.

2) Its not really a consequence if it was something that was going to happen anyway. I'm assuming that this powerful, abusive husband wasn't put into the game merely as background filler, and that its a part of the plot. Which means he's going to turn up, even the characters are being as quiet as a church mouse peeing on cotton.

well, even if he was put there for a reason (as opposed to just be part of the character's background and a possible advance for the campaign) i don't see how is not consequential to the player's action to bring him forth sooner rather than ever.

in fact, the more i think about it, the more it looks like the player might be asking subtely for this confrontation. maybe she wants to face this husband and see what happens anyway. maybe she wants to explore that part of her character history, and instead of telling flat out to the DM, she's acting "in character" to make this... ehm... family reunion happen.

Heroes are supposed to live dangerously. Characters are supposed to take chances.

i agree wholeheartedly. only, they should pay for the consequences of the risks they're taking, be them good or bad.

The trick is to give the character a chance to accomplish her immediate goal (be famous in this case) and to make the consequences interesting (the nemesis showing up), and not have it play like, "You were foolish and now your character is being punished,"

you might have misunderstood me. i wasn't suggesting for the DM to go: "ok, i don't like the way you're playing your character and so the husband shows off".
given her actions and her background, the husband should show up regardless.

 

[Spell]

A lot of it is probably me. I've been writing a lot recently, and I guess that puts me in the mindset of having total control over all the other characters.

BAD DM! BAD DM!

sorry, just kidding. but you see, you realise it yourself: for whatever reason, you want to have control... and that's never going to reduce the enjoyment at the table regardless of the style of the players. if you have a great game while being rather... ehm... "controlling", you could have a really memorable game that your players should never forget.

when i had my group, i tended to be really controlling during character creation. i HATED obscure kit and rule specific characters, i hated ubercharacters, and i hated half gnoll half demon characters (we're talking AD&D 2nd edition here, so that wasn't even really in the rules... and yet i had one player constantly asking me to play something that made no sense, in the game world... bless his heart! ).

if you wanted to play at my table, you had to create a credible character that could work with the rest of the party... basically a normal human being (or elf, or whatnot).

after that, after the actual game started, i would have let the players do what they wanted. joe the wizard is DYING to become a lich? cool! henry the fighter wants the hackmaster sword +12? mmmh... i guess i could manage to fit it into the plot.... and so on.

in other words, once you start the game, it's everyone's game. don't take your player inputs as limit to your vision, but rather as an opportunity to expand the plot and enrich the game world in ways you had not imagined at first.

just my 2 pence's worth.

 

[Mallus]

What she has is no sense of wonder. All of her characters, from her epic-level fighter to her first level bard, are blase about everything.

Each person enjoys the game in their own way.

Even the most mind-blowing possible descriptions of world-shaking events...

Mind-blowing according to who?

Not to toot my own horn, but the other players in the group were suitably awed (or, more fairly, their characters were) by said descriptions.

If you're getting the positive feedback you're looking for from the rest of your group, why is it so important you get it from her? What's wrong with simply letter her experience/enjoy the game in the manner of her choosing?

But no, the player really seems to believe her character should be famous. Granted, we're playing in Eberron, where there aren't a boatload of high-level NPCs, and a relatively low-level character could be famous.

So let her be famous. So long as she doesn't want to parlay that fame into game-breaking mechanical advantages, I'd say it's your job as DM to help her play the character she envisions, and the easiest way is to simply have some NPC's react to the character in the manner the player wants/expects.

Let me say it again, because I think it's important (as important as shilsen's advice re: open lines of communication). A good DM helps his or her players develop the characters they envision at same time he challenges them. Like everything else in a good RPG campaign, it's a team effort.

re: the "hiding out badly in Sharn" thing. Where you see her character's actions as problematic, I see the next few adventures writing themselves. If she keeps asking to be recognized, by all means have people recognize her, and then sick their pursuers on the party. A vain bard and her series of hair-breadth escapes --if she's lucky-- sounds like a blast, not to mention a good way to build a little intra-party tension (if you're players go in for that sort of thing). Mind you, I'm not suggesting you punish the bard for her actions, I'm saying you should use the players actions as a springboard into some exciting, level-appropriate encounters.

Do I bite the bullet and have a private conversation or e-mail?

Talking is good, but adjusting your expectations with the regard to this women is better...