[DM gripe/rant] I'm beginning to notice some trends...

[jester47]

Roleplaying is harder than it looks. I can play most alignments, and I can play most character classes, but I think that might be because I DM a lot.

I have a rule at my table:

you must play an alignment that you have not already played, when you have played them all (evils dont count) you can start over at any alignment you want, and cycle through them again.

You must play a core class you have not already played. When you have played all core classes, you may play any one you want, but then you must cycle through them again.

You must play all the core races that you have not already played. When you have played them all, you can start over with any core race. Playing non standard races can be done but this makes your standard list longer. This counts for non-standard subraces with ECLs greater than 0. (I know I will have to revise this one for Savage Species.)

So with this, you can play a race, class, or alignment twice in a row, but if you do it will be a while before you can play that alignment again.

so example- a players favorite alignment is CN. So he plays:

CN LG LN NN CG NG | NN LG LN CG NG CN | CN...

The races are different, as the weirder you get the longer it will be before you can play that race again. Lets say we have a Drizzt lover in the group:

Drow Dwarf Elf Gnome Human Halfling Half-Orc Half-Elf |
Duregar Dwarf Gnome Human Halfling Half-Orc Tiefling Elf Half-Elf Drow |
Drow Duregar Dwarf Gnome Halfling Human Tiefling Half-Elf Elf Half Orc | etc....

That keeps everyone playing somthing but not repeating themselves ad nauseum.

Aaron.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'd personally rather have someone try something and end up being not entirely stupendous at it, than have them affraid to try it because they don't feel they can do it right.

It's a game, not a drama. Who cares if the Int 18 wizard's player is a bit dumb -- metagame the dumbness out of it.

(Wizard: "I push the button that says DO NOT PUSH"
DM: "Okay, but as your finger's getting nearer, your lightning-fast intelligence deduces that, in all the history of buttons, any time anyone had pushed one that warned otherwise, nothing good had ever come out of it, and, often, the violating pusher dies a horrible death and/or start a nuclear holocost. There is no reason to think this may be different. If you push the button, your intelligence tells you you will probably either die or cause the deaths of millions of innocents. Do you still want to push the button?"
(If the wizard says "yes," still, warn him again that it would mean he would probably change his alignment to Chaotic Stupid, and that alignment isn't allowed. ))

 

[cptg1481]

Heh Heh,

I like the comment about playing a wizard with 18 INT, I've never gone there, because I find it utterly impossible to imagine being a genius.


THEM: Oh knowlegabe one, what do we do now.

ME: (with INT 10 portraying INT 18) Attaaaaaak......

For the same reasons we all have problems with alignments and stats vastly different from our own, I tend to go with the CN, fighter type with a low wis score suitable for osomeone like, well, me. I find it easy to portray someone with a lack of self control and the inability to think then act instead of vice versa.

I have fun though....

Nice to hear I'm not the only one who is not desined for the silver screen....well, unless they make a movie about me.

 

[La Bete]

You must play a core class you have not already played. When you have played all core classes, you may play any one you want, but then you must cycle through them again.

You mean I'd have to play a MONK!?!?! Thats just evil. I'm sure the lace would give me serious chafe marks....


(seriously though.. interesting idea, if a little sadistic.)

 

[Irda Ranger]

I think it is a matter of maturity. I noticed in High school there was a definate limited spectrum to what most of my friends could play. They were limited by their own natural tendencies, and lacked the life experience to really see themselves from the outside. Some were good thieves, others great fighters or wizards. Maybe it was the fact that I got half my gaming group at Boy Scouts, but Rangers were a dime a dozen.

There was definately a large correlation between the number of books they read though, and their ability to get into a character. Books with characters that had to be identified with. Plays, biographies and novels were good. Textbook readers were useless (except as rules-lawyers), and poets were the absolute worst. All talk and no understanding of how what they said affected people.

Now that I am out of college, I find that once most people get past their self-consciousness, they can get into a new character pretty easily. They just have a litttle more self-awareness, a little more understanding of what makes people tick. However, that's also a function of the friends I have. I know plenty of folks who haven't matured a whole lot since high school (or even middle school), and would probably be just as lousy. I don't think I would enjoy playing with them. Not trying to sound snobbish, but there it is.

I do have a problem though. When I DM, my players agree that I can be brutish, nasty and shortening, but when I have a PC, I just can't do it. All my PCs are Paladins, whether they are official with the class and all, or any other class. I just can't convincingly play a CN person for any length of time. Even CG is tough, since I have a problem not keeping promises even to bad guys.

Race is something I can switch around, but I have trouble pulling off elves and gnomes. Too flighty.

Irda Ranger

 

[jester47]

You mean I'd have to play a MONK!?!?! Thats just evil. I'm sure the lace would give me serious chafe marks....


(seriously though.. interesting idea, if a little sadistic.)

It makes them work for it. Also, if they really don't like the character concept that they have to play, then they tend to be more reckless with the character and this actually leads to really cool things happening in the game.

Someone who always plays ranger having to play a monk is gonna get real creative real quick. Perhaps he decides to forego the wiz bonus to AC and wears armor and hangs out in the woods. It still makes for an original character.

Also forgot to mention that only one multiclassing counts towards the classes used.

Aaron.

 

[Henry]

A-HA! A thread to take my stand as my alter-ego, The Rogue Dissenter!

While it does bother me to see Paladins portrayed as one-track maniacs, it bothers me more to see a DM let them get away with it. Ground rules for the Paladin's code need to be insisted on at first level, so that the player knows what is and is not within their code. Have it written on a piece of paper, and had it attached toi their character sheet - this represents the fact that their paladin would likely have the letter of the code burned into his brain.

If said paladin does something against the code, then their deity/ their own conscience/ what have you should take approporiate action, and strip the paladin of all abilities until atonement and contrition is undertaken. This will do two things: (1) Enforce consequences to actions. (2) Drastically cut down on the number of Paladins played at your table. Its not just any Tom, Dick, or Helen who can play a paladin without atonement at some point.

Conversely, DM's who let their players take advantage of their character scores really bug me too. Just as a DM wouldn't let a player who is burly and muscular in real life get combat bonuses to the character, the DM should call a player who is obviously abusing anything from charisma, to intelligence. Giving a small bonus for exceptional roleplay is understandable, but DM's who, for instance, let their players with CHA 5 characters give Henry V's St. Crispin's Day Speech, are not playing by the spirit of the rules, nor its letter.

The same goes for characters with attributes well outside of their player's capabilites. Personally, I DON'T CARE if Ed the player is a high-school drop-out; if his character has an INT 18, and 24 points in various knowledge skills, then it shouldn't matter to me that his character is vastly different. If he can't make an obvious deductive reasoning on his character's behalf, perhaps the DM should give Ed a hint or a clue, or allow him an Intelligence check to get a subtle hint to lead him the the direction such a brilliant mind would OBVIOUSLY be going.

I don't penalize a physically challenged player who plays a barbarian by saying, "Sorry Bobby, but because you are physically diabled, there is no way your barbarian could throw that caber into that throng of Saxons." Bobby is playing for fun and escape - he rolled or picked those stats, his character should use them.

One point to reiterate to all who think otherwise: Our characters are not us. In fact, 99% of the time, our D&D characters are FAR better than the people playing them at the table -why not cut us losers some slack?

That's my mini-rant about characterizations - it is not directed at anyone in this thread, but the sentiments I have seen voiced here are too close to these practices that undercut the spirit of fair play too many times. Too often do I hear about people undercutting a character's scores, just because the player is better at a certain thing; it's out-of-character metagaming, and should be avoided, in my humble opinion.

 

[DDK]

It's a game, not a drama. Who cares if the Int 18 wizard's player is a bit dumb -- metagame the dumbness out of it.

Yeah, I do too. One of my personal DM rules is that the player is NOT the character and therefore leeway should be given. I do understand that it is a roleplaying game, the crux of what I'm frustrated about, I guess, is the sheer lack of thought some people put into playing their characters.

But there really does seem to be a trend in this sort of thing. Like this group I was in a few weeks ago, the one I whinged about with the smoking. Everyone there was cool except this one guy who played Knight of the Chalice.

Aside from being an ass OOC, he was also SO unknightly it wasn't funny. The worst part was, this was one of those people who ARE intelligent. I mean, credit where credit is due, he wasn't a dummy and he knew all about the HOW of knights and the history and whatnot, but most of his in game actions were contrary to the ideals of knighthood.

A for instance would be where the entire party was threatened by a companion who had been acting strange for the past few months. The companion ended up attacking the party and was subdued and then we hear a demonic voice booming from the shadows telling us that the soul of the character was it's and it had come to claim it.

The Knight of the Chalice... the party leader I might add... orders everyone to RUN. Now... a knight of the chalice is a prestige class dedicated to hunting and killing fiends... without any thought for his companions soul or the fact that a demon was telling us what to do, or the fact that he was a KNIGHT, he ordered us to run.

My character stayed and challenged the demon on the basis that he was going to defend his companions life and soul and that he wasn't about to take orders from any hellspawn. And my character was just a measly apothecary.

That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.

 

[Churchill]

I have a rule at my table:

you must play an alignment that you have not already played, when you have played them all (evils dont count) you can start over at any alignment you want, and cycle through them again.

You must play a core class you have not already played. When you have played all core classes, you may play any one you want, but then you must cycle through them again.

You must play all the core races that you have not already played. When you have played them all, you can start over with any core race. Playing non standard races can be done but this makes your standard list longer. This counts for non-standard subraces with ECLs greater than 0. (I know I will have to revise this one for Savage Species.)

So with this, you can play a race, class, or alignment twice in a row, but if you do it will be a while before you can play that alignment again.

(some stuff I snipped)

That keeps everyone playing somthing but not repeating themselves ad nauseum.

Aaron.

I think that would drive me crazy as a player.

I can enjoy playing any class, race or alignment on a short-term basis (as a one-off adventure, or for a few weeks), but it would get on my nerves pretty quickly.

Ya see, for me, the game is about having fun and - having played all the core classes and races (at some point or other) - there are a few I just don't get any enjoyment from.

Since 3e came out I've played (not counting my time on the GM side of the screen):

A chaotic good elven fighter/wizard/arcane archer

A lawful good halfling paladin (that campaign didn't last too long - the group didn't care much for me being a "moralistic dead weight")

A neutral selfish human wizard (necromancer)

A lawful good human monk/rogue

A neutral good halfling rogue/sorcerer

An elven fighter/wizard/bladesinger

I really don't like playing clerics or half-orcs, barbarians and gnomes really irk me.

I'm losing my train of thought. Anywho. It's your game, and if you and your players have fun with it, then that's all that matters.

 

[maddman75]

I can play anything, and any alignment. I prefer to play good, and the only time I can recall not doing so was in an evil based campaign, where I played CN and LE. I just don't 'get' players who want to play neutrals. Or evils. I play D&D for heroic fantasy. Call me goofy for wanting to play a hero.

I disagree with forcing people to play different classes than they prefer. Some people get more enjoyment out of certain classes, and they get good at running them.

For instance, in my group when we started back in the day, I always played wizards. My sister always played tank fighters. One guy was either the ranger or rogue, another was a cleric or paladin.

The result is that we have four *experts* in my group on each of the four archetypes. Editions may change, but knowing what makes a class tick doesn't. We encourage our new players to explore an archetype fully. Two have done this, focusing on rogues and archers respectively. Another makes a character, gets killed, makes another character, gets killed, etc. He hasn't learned to play anything really well.

As for a palading attacking anything remotely evil, that's a quick way to end up as a 5th level warrior IMC....