D&D General Character Individuality

[payn]

I think D&D and its derivatives make it difficult to have competing goals due to the team work nature of the system. I mean, if you decide to split the party in a dangerous dungeon that usually makes the game fall apart where one or more characters ends up dead. In some iterations items are necessary to the leveling process, so stealing and cheating is detrimental to other's development. Furthermore, since the game relies on teamwork, having divergent or conflicting agendas also grinds the game to a halt as nobody will succeed, unless of course, screwing the party is their goal.

I think you can do individuality in D&D and derivatives, but you usually need to abide by some safe guards. I encourage folks to play thieves, assassins, and anti-heroes but they leave the other PCs alone. I am more than happy to fill a world with NPCs for you to play with. If you want PVP on the table, that should be discussed at session zero. Giving the entire party a combined goal helps keep everyone pointed in the same direction. Folks can attack the group goal at different angles, but everybody is trying to achieve the same thing.

Of course, some folks do just fine with a pack of individuals ready to head in any given direction or take daggers to each others throats. If that works for you, great. I do think it works in non-D&D systems much much better. So, if im looking for that intra-party conflict or freedom I'll choose something else to run the game. YMMV

 

[Krachek]

Exactly, basically, once everyone agrees on principle not to be a wangrod, then you won't have any at your table.

I describe an perfect situation, which is rarely seen, and even when players agree they can shift still into anger, jealousy, selfish play.
So if players right from the start didn’t agree, neither are willing to cooperate, that usually lead directly to problems.

 

[DND_Reborn]

to what extent are PCs allowed to be individuals both in thought and deed, with their own agendae, goals, etc. that may or may not confilct with those of other PCs?

As much as the particular player wants. I've had parties split up because different characters had different goals. We roll with one "group" and then move back to the other one.

My only thing is to keep it at the character level, not the player level.

to what extent are the PCs expected to repress their individuality in favour of party cohesiveness, following plans, getting along, and so forth?

Hardly at all, the only thing is honoring group (PCs) consensus. If a PC can't agree with a course of action, they either break from the group or learn to accept it.

are PCs allowed to be untrustworthy with regards to other PCs but not to the extent of outright PvP? Can a PC be a spy for the party's enemy, for instance?

Rarely, but yes. The player agrees or comes forward with their own idea. In Curse of Strahd, one PC ended up making a deal with Strahd and died when he turned on the party in the final battle as Strahd was defeated.

It is too common IME for DMs to bring in an NPC or DMPC that spy, but if another player does it, the rest of the players aren't as suspicious.

 

[Oofta]

I introduced a recommendation for players that they run PCs that want to be part of the group and that they are willing to compromise. I decided to do this after seeing how disruptive and unfun a player can be when running an antisocial a-hole. He patterned it after some anime character. I get that this type of character can be interesting in fiction and makes the story more interesting ... in fiction. At the game table? It was just annoying.

It got to the point where we were the PCs were taking sides and the party was going to split, largely because the a-hole PC blew a minor comment into a major conflict and refused to accept any apology. It may have made for interesting drama, but playing with a drama queen (king?) just gets old after a while.

So no PVP, thanks. No spying for the enemy. I don't expect everyone to hold hands and have group hugs, but acknowledge that you're part of a team and that the goal is for everyone to have fun. The guy with the a-hole PC? This wasn't just a one-off, he did it in a campaign I ran and in a campaign I played. It wasn't fun for me (or several of the other players) in either case. If the entire table was into it it's fine, but then it's just not the game for me.

I want to play D&D as a team sport, not Diplomacy where you can never trust anyone because eventually they will stab you in the back. Or the face. Or whatever convenient stabby spot happens to be most accessible.

 

[iserith]

I set the expectation that the characters all know each other somehow before play begins and that, while they don't have to be best friends, they do trust each other enough to boldly confront deadly perils together.

I further set forth an expectation among the players that the game runs more smoothly if they adopt a "Yes, and..." mindset, that is, they accept what another player offers and add to it rather than negate or contradict it. A player makes a reasonable offer or suggestion and another player figures out a way for their character to go along with it.

Finally, PVP is handled by the target of the PVP action deciding what the outcome is.

Combined, these three approaches make for a cohesive party and a fast-moving game without a lot of intraparty conflict. There's a whole world of villains and monsters out there with whom to get into conflict. We don't need to look for it among other PCs.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think a lot of the success and the conflict of what you're questioning is going to also come out of the style of the DM and game in question. Certain styles of game might lend themselves to more successful "character individuality" with a certain type of desired play while others might stifle it.

For example... if we suggest for the sake of argument that we have a player wanting to express their character's individuality via some background plot points they have that they'd like to pursue or see / acted out during the game... if this game is being run by the "neutral arbiter" style of Dungeon Master that just acts as referee in the game of open-world sandbox... that DM might not put those backgrounds in front of the player and the party. Instead, they might just place them out there somewhere in the hexgrid map to be discovered if/when the party reaches it. Which then puts the impetus on the player to go looking for said background stuff to interact with. But that means the player declaring they want to go to X in order to hopefully reach this plotline they'd like to act out, the other players have to either go along with it and follow, or tell the player they don't want to and go somewhere else instead. We thus get a conflict between the players of the game.

With another style of DM though... perhaps one that is more about "creating a story"... that DM might just place the background bits the player wanted right in the path of the direction the players as a group were already going. So the player can get their individual interactions as they wanted, without needing to ask the the rest of the group to forsake the path they wanted to go-- both things occur at the same time. But it does mean there's more narrative "coincidence" that things the players and their PCs want just happen to show up at opportune times in whatever direction the party is going. That sort of narrative deus ex machina will irritate several types of players.

And neither side is right or wrong in this, because you can also get the flip side of some combat and strategy-centric players wanting to express their individuality via how they interact with the mechanics, while playing at a table with a DM who is very lacksidaisical with the rules and just wants to go with the flow. That will also cause conflicts obviously. So what it means is that that every member of the game group should do themselves the favor by figuring out what type of player they are and what styles they do or not not like or prefer, because trying to express your individuality as a player and a PC can be made more difficult if it runs counter to what the others at the table want. So if you can, you'd really want to find a table where you all feel relatively the same way towards RPGs and the styles you like to play them, and thus you are more inclined to get support from others when you express your individuality because the other will be expressing theirs the same way too.

 

[Maxperson]

Exactly, basically, once everyone agrees on principle not to be a wangrod, then you won't have any at your table.

Now I want Wangrod the Conqueror to be my next barbarian character.

 

[Short-Peanut]

The whole idea of PvP and DnD seems absurd to me.

 

[HammerMan]

From another angle: is it a built-in table expectation that your PC can always trust someone else's PC? (and if so, why?)

To flip that last one around: are PCs allowed to be untrustworthy with regards to other PCs but not to the extent of outright PvP? Can a PC be a spy for the party's enemy, for instance?

we go back and forth on this.

right now we have talked about the pattern we have noticed... We go through a stage where we basicly force all players to be on the same page with there characters... then we get board, all agree we are mature enough to go against it... then we open it up and push that envelope over and over again then something goes wrong and derails a game... and then we lock it down and the pattern repeats.

some noticeable examples: in 2e we had a player who was 100% for pvp and pvdm he tried to 'lay traps' even for the DM... we got to the point where we stopped playing with him.

in 3e especially early on we all made different characters with different goals and sometimes split the party. Until Paul (yes his real name) who would brag about "I have the avoid DM plot hook feat in real life" and would go out of his way to try to derail games... and he did a few times. We then made the rule "This is the game concept. If you want to have your character go off on there own and do something without everyone cool... they are now an NPC and you can make a new character" but then things got better and problems went away and we played an evil game and an any alignment game and things went AWESOME... then came the down side.

we had a game set in a 3pp setting, and we all made characters with our own objectives... but we ended up finding out about these swords of power and this mind flayer invasion... we figured out that 2 of us had very oppsed goals though, and we had to agree to (in game) put that aside it twice almost split the party in half. It tokk the DM asking us to please trust each other to get it going as long as it did. but around level 7 (when the DM told us he planned up to epic levels) the game blew up when one player stole the 3 swords we had, and took them to his king. The DM tried to get the game back on the table but that player was not trusted... not his character for sure (and he wanted to bring the character back) and I personally said I didn't even fully trust the DM... he knew that player was planning on betraying us and still told us to trust each other.... so we went back to good/neutral align only and have to work together.

Right before we split off D&D for a while I thought things were cool and opened up ideas and we played in my world... 1 player (not either of the above but someone who was no problem in those) got his hands on a hand out... that spelled out alot of what was going on. But he read it outloud but editied the hand out. (this was game 4) we played for months and the player kept the hand out in his character foler with his other notes. He also forgot (in and out of game) that he didn't share the info. So something happened that if they knew what that hand out said would be perfectly logical... but 2 players (Out of game) where mad about the twist that had not been foreshadowed and if anything (like above) felt the DM (me in this case) cheated by putting his thumb out of game on things... but I broke and said "XXXX knew for months" and that player forgot had to go back reread the hand out then say "opps... I wanted to read that book and I may have screwed up the game..."
(FYI that game did not end we did get it back on track but with issues)

about a year or year and a half we stopped playing D&D. we didin't like the 3e system and went away from it but we found a different idea. (while playing Mage we figured out how to make a rule/concept for Vampire) "What if we were all the actors AND the audiance"

So that is what we have done coming back for 4e then slowly moving to 5e. We allow PCs to go off on there own, and other players just take up NPC roles with them, then that player takes an NPC role with the main cast. No notes passed no secrets kept. If someone is secretly working against the other characters... out of game everyone at the table knows and is laughing cheering and going on. We also all have red cards. Anyone (DM, Player anyone) can just say "NO" to a twist to an idea, to anything. by red carding (orginally just a word veto then literally Becky made index cards with red duct tape and an X on one side and a circle with a line through on the other, but now on Roll20 just words again even though I have the cards here)


We are now talking about running curse of strahd with some twists... and maybe going back to keeping (some) secrets but we aren't sure...


edit: my biggest complaint with splitting the party is lack of fun for people who are not there in game... keeping everyone engaged is the most important part now to me.

 

[Umbran]

Or to flip it around: to what extent are the PCs expected to repress their individuality in favour of party cohesiveness, following plans, getting along, and so forth?

Broadly, this is a table-agreement thing. However, you begin with a false premise. If the characters are created with basically getting along in mind, folks can be cohesive without anyone "repressing" anything.

My players are informed before play begins that I run a largely cooperative table, and characters should be created accordingly. Characters who are apt to be disruptive, antagonizing, or duplicitous to their teammates don't make it to the table in the first place, so those things don't need to be repressed in play.

Yes, this does put a bit of a limit on the players to start with.