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

[Mercule]

All I really care about is that the player tries to role-play -- and that it isn't constantly the same character.

I gamed with one fellow who was in the military and was quite tactically adroit. He _always_ played a character who was a minimalist on equipment (low magic, cyberware, whatever) and a tactical genius. I learn a lot from the player as far as tactics go, but he wasn't very interesting to roleplay with.

On the other hand, my wife always plays a fighter-type of some stripe, whatever the game or genre. She always picks something different for personality, though -- it feels like a new character. All of the characters float around the same archetype, but it doesn't get old because she throws some personality in.

Myself, I like to play concepts that challenge me. Chaotic Good comes easiest for me, regardless of other factors in the character's make-up. Lawful is _really_ challenging, though. Right now, I'm playing a Lawful Good rogue. Very challenging for me. Unfortunately, what really makes it tough is that there are a couple of players who seem to hate the idea of doing anything in character and kill any chance at character building.

Regardless, it's fun to try.

Same goes for playing a character who works differently than I do. I suck at spell-casters. Fortunately, I tend to think it's more fun to play the mundane trying to kill the evil wizard. Still, I like to give it a try every now and again, even though it takes a lot more work. I'd hate to be denied the chance.

Likewise for stats. Wisdom's the hard one for me. Charisma can also be difficult. I love the idea of the grand con-man, though. I can usually pull one off reasonably entertainingly. I just need the benefit of the dice. The flip side is that, although I'm not smooth as silk, I'm not bad (average charisma, several ranks in diplomacy). If a DM lets me go on personal ability, I do tend to get a huge benefit.

My basic feeling is that it's up to the charter of the group what flies and what doesn't. If role-playing is in there, it should be encourage and enforced. If everyone is there to kill orcs, then don't try to push role-playing. This goes for players and DM alike.

If your group isn't going to spend the time to build up characters, and especially if you aren't willing to do some work on your own, then don't try to create a deep character (Paladins by their very nature should be deep). It doesn't happen on its own and the end result is usually pretty ugly.

 

[ReiDuck]

Variety

I've noticed that people tend to play the characters that at least vaguely resemble their personalities, with a few exceptions. The most irritating one is always whenever one player in our group, who probably has an 8 Int in real life, plays uber-intelligent, or even quasi-intelligent characters. He simply can't do the job.

It would be like me playing a paladin. I've played a wide variety of characters, large and small, smart and dumb, strong and weak, but I could never, ever play a lawful good paladin. I couldn't even play a lawful good *anything*. By nature, I'm a sneaky conniving person who really doesn't give a about the rest of the world or the people in it (or so it seems at times) and I know perfectly well that I'd do a horrible job trying to roleplay a Defender of the Good.

So I don't even try.

In fact, I've only ever played one character that was neither evil or chaotic - my neutral good halfling wizard Marrik Ghostwise who's currently the mentor of the amnesiac God of Heroes. Our DM comes up with some pretty weird stuff.

As for DMing myself, they pursuaded me to take a shot and so far we've had one session in the campaign I've worked out. It didn't even come close to going as planned, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it all worked out anyway.

But back on topic, I personally think that it's wisest for people to play something they're capable of playing. Otherwise, it makes for a really not-fun game. On the other hand, people should try to branch out. A few months ago, our DM convinced me to play something other than a tiefling rogue, for once - I agreed on the sole condition that someone else in the party play a rogue. Whole reason why I was playing them was that no one else would, and it's a firmly personal belief of mine that every group needs someone to spring traps, search for loot, etc.

But to be honest, deep down, a rogue suits me best. The rogue mentality is closest to my mentality, just like physically I resemble a halfling, up to the point where many of my gamer friends actually describe me as a halfling rogue. My boyfriend actually calls me his "little halfling" when he isn't calling me his "little small person." I'm short, fast, and weak - hence the Small size, +2 Dex, and -2 Str.

It's just how I am.

I've played characters that are the physical opposites of me - for exmaple, one of my favorite characters is Aeshkattar k'Athaenean, halfdragon half-orc who stands at 6'11 with a whopping 29 strength. But his personality is more or less like me in a good, wild mood. One of my tiefling rogues, Essika Darkrend, is like me when I'm feeling moody and depressed. The aforementioned Marrik is like me in math class - quiet and complentative. However, I've never managed to play a character that isn't in part reminiscent of one of the facets of my personality.

There's simple reasoning behind it - how am I supposed to roleplay a personality if I don't know what the personality is like?

 

[ced1106]

Well, for Paladins, pick up "Call of Duty". It attempts to accomodate varying interpretations of paladinhood. Though not some of the more extereme ones on this thread!

As for dumb wizards, mebbe that INT represents "book knowledge". XP represents, imo, more practical knowledge. Just compare a PhD locked in an ivory tower with an average joe with working experience.


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

 

[dpdx]

My whole gaming group is a mixture of typecasts -- including me. So in my one-shot adventure as DM, I made everybody play a race and class different from the one in the regular campaign, and I'm not so sure it helped to "broaden anyone's range":

One of my friends will play anything that allows her to be mean and snarky with the rest of the group - in my regular campaign, that's been dwarven fighter. So, for the one-shot, she played "half-orc barbarian with a heart of gold." She was dropped to -7 in the final battle because she couldn't (or didn't) rage.

My regular DM generally plays hard-to-roleplay characters: the time he stepped out from behind the screen IMRC, he played a reluctant half-elf paladin of Pelor, always at odds with his god. In the one shot, he played elven wizard. He was dropped to -4 in the second battle of the adventure because he couldn't resist his usual character's impulse to come charging to the front line.

His girlfriend, and I like her a lot, plays to win, but tends to whine when her character isn't hitting, or is taking damage. She took halfling rogue in the regular campaign for the sneak attack dice and the bushels of skill points. For the one-shot, she decided to try human monk. Same deal.

The "substitute DM" is addicted to evil characters, and when they can't be evil, they tread the line between good and evil, if not fall completely over through their acts. IMRC, he's a Chaotic Neutral Cleric of Wee Jas, and we hardly go through a battle in which we're not standing alongside several d6 of raised skeletons, or zombies. In the one-shot, he played a gnomish paladin of GG who wanted to slay a whole tribe of unarmed kobolds (Anakin? Step slowly away from the sand people...). He's also an RBDM who loves to break enchanted weapons on attack rolls of 1.

We have a few guest characters from time to time, and they run the gamut of player stereotypes.

As for me, I'm the most limited of them all. I can play any race, as long as it's human or elf. I can't imagine (or stomach) playing a halfling, gnome, or half-orc. Until the IC threads, I'd never deviated from Neutral Good. In two years of 3E, I have yet to play an arcanist of any kind. And even if I can't use them, I go nuts without decent skill points or penalties to the number of divine spells I can cast. My elven ranger 10 is headed happily down the path of blissful ignorance, even though his usefulness is limited to the two or three encounters out of twenty we've had outside.

As players there aren't many of us (and almost noone in my gaming group) who can play a character true to type, much less integrate that character into any kind of an effective team dynamic. I'd love to learn how.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

Maybe you need to have them watch Launcelot in Excalibur, or better yet, read the Arthurian legends focusing on Launcelot and Galahad.

I usually derive my Paladin's behavior from the Arthurian legends, the chivalric code, and from studying faithful people who follow a good philsophy such as Gahndi or a good priest or reverend.

Seems like you have players who think of their Paladin's as the Punisher or Wolverine. They need to play a different class, IMO.

 

[Graf]

Wow. A lot of bitterness on this thread....

I have had more than one player who doesn't fulfill my expectations of how they "should" act. I've had more than one person violate what I think their code of alignment is....

Not to be to contrarian but this is normal behavior and I'm not sure why it's such a problem for people:

Intelligence
1. I know many smart people who do some dumb things. In general in D&D people act on the information you are giving them... are you, as a DM, supplying people with enough information and analysis?
(I played in one game where I was repeatedly called stupid because I didn't wind up following the DMs plots. I've learned over the years that something that appears "obvious" to the DM is rarely so to the player.
Characters with high intelligences, in particular, should receive a lot more information if you want them to act intelligently.)

Alignment
2. I know many people who think they are honest & trustworthy, when they are often not in real life. Most people don't really follow their self stated codes of behavior and many more become very different people with very different behaviors without even noticing it themselves.
If you think someone's behavoir violates their alignment then give them a good warning (from an IC source and have an OoC discussion about it). If they do that again change their alignment. One of the monks in my group is a Duelest because he couldn't do the Lawful thing anymore. I gave him warnings and then it became an in-game event.

Class
Why not let the Paladin fall from grace and be done with it?
It's not like it's a big shock to the player that they have to follow a code of conduct. They can make up a new character or try to atone or play the character on by multi-classing.
As for Rogues who don't fight "properly" this gets addressed a bit on the board in various forms. Some players use poor tactics and don't make good use of their class abilities. This happens all the time in real life too.... you have people who do things the hard way, or inefficently or despite years of doing something specific (and knowing a lot about it) can't do a more than half decent job.
Why not in D&D?
Work it into the story line. Or get them a mentor. Or discuss things OoC. Or suggest that the rogue should take a level of fighter or two.

In most serious cases the you need to talk to the player. Generally I speak with another player who has watched the situation or knows the player and get an outside opinion. If that doesn't bring up some sort of new insight then either directly or indirectly bring up the topic.

Just my two cents....

 

[Gez]

Troll alert !

 

[Frostmarrow]

No one has brought up the charisma-nuisance. I.e. high charisma players who dump charisma yet plays their personal charisma to the hilt to get advantages in game. Or the low charisma player who plays a sorcerer like a door mat but still thinks she deserves more attention based on numbers on a sheet of paper.

 

[Black Omega]

I've had more experience with a very quiet player trying to play a very quiet character, but he buys of charisma because it benefits the class and so people keep picking him out to talk to him because he's so much more personable than the other low Cha people around him. That's been alot of fun.

I played in one game where I was repeatedly called stupid because I didn't wind up following the DMs plots. I've learned over the years that something that appears "obvious" to the DM is rarely so to the player.

Quoted from Graf, it's something I'm keenly aware of. My idea of subtle when GMing is so subtle it's never noticed. So I aim for amazingly obvious (in my mind) and my players usually will pick up on that. What's simply obvious in my mind is usually a little chancier.

 

[Fenes 2]

If a PC has a high Charisma in my game, you bet that he or she will get attention even if the player is playing it like a doormat. I will go as far as either suggest appropriate actions/words if the player is unsure how to act, or prefers rolling a skill/stat check, or just present he PC's actions in the most appropriate light.