Do you think that it's alright for a DM to do this?

[Pielorinho]

Re: Re: Do you think that it's alright for a DM to do this?

Alot of DM's take offense at a player being silly, it bothers them that something they took so long to create is taken lightly.
Some players dont care for the serious mood setting all the time, I found that the solution is to have a silly game every once in a while. It gets it out of the players systems, and then when you want to have that serious mood setting where the situation is generally dire and grim all the time they tend to be more responsive to it.

That's one solution. My preference is for characters to be silly in-character as much as possible, and to try to play along with the mood when I turn it grim. I don't have any problem with characters making Buffy-like wisecracks as they kill their enemies, as long as they don't wisecrack through the scene in which they discover mass graves of a massacre.

Last night we faced a tremendous challenge in killing a red dragon, and won only by the skin of our teeth. Afterwards, one player's followers climbed on top of the dragon's carcass, and I joked about snapping a picture of them posing up there. It was in the aftermath of a dramatic scene, and it was a quick joke -- that's the sort that I as a DM don't mind so much.

Jokes that break the mood are the ones that can get annoying, especially when a DM has spent hours thinking about how to build up to a particular scene or mood.

Daniel

 

[Trainz]

Well, if one of my PC's named his drow elf Djimyan Drix, by accident, and then someone says :"Hey ! That sounds like Jimmy Hendrix ! Voodoo chile baby !", I wouldn't tell him to change his name, because that would simply be a fluke.

Now...

If your character uses ANY anachronism, like Ted Nugent or somesuch, well, your PC wouldn't really be a hero in an adventure now, would he, because he obviously is some kind of Pratchett-like spin off farce character: thus, no X.P. as long as the character is not immersed in the role playing universe to a minimal degree.

That said...

Djeta Thernadier's Midnight Runner is quite OK for a horse, even though of the intended reference. Why ? Because "midnight" and "runner" are both common words in a RP universe. Nugent is not.

In my Quite Humble Opinion.

 

[tburdett]

Re: Re: Do you think that it's alright for a DM to do this?

*I* would tell that DM that your PC is not under his control. At all. Ever.

Is that before or after the freak lightning/acid/fire/sonic storm materializes directly above the character, delivering 1000's of dice worth of no save damage?

 

[Angcuru]

Re: Re: Re: Do you think that it's alright for a DM to do this?

Is that before or after the freak lightning/acid/fire/sonic storm materializes directly above the character, delivering 1000's of dice worth of no save damage?

Before.

 

[Walter_J]

For a Dm to tell a player, "no, you can't do that with your character" or "Your character wouldn't do that!" in regards to your character's personality?

We're getting ready for Angcuru's FR campaign. After Angcuru tells me about how the way things are for the Avariel(which is the race my character comes from) being hunted by the drow as wel as the blue dragons, I decide that he's gonna try to hide his identity...and not very well at that.

He introduces himself to everyone as something different. "Hi, I'm Ted. Ted Nugent." "Axelrod, Axelrod Rimthruster, glad to meet you." "Helena, Helena Handbasket." Angcuru looks at me and says "no, you can't do that."

What's your opinion, is it fair for a DM to do this? I'm gonna play the character as a dead-serious ranger the rest of the time; I just want to lighten up the mood a bit sometimes, and it does seem like it'd be appropriate to the character.

Why not? Its your character and, with the exception of magical compulsions 'n such, you and only you get to decide how your character will act. You could have your character set his or her hair on fire and run naked through the town if ya want.

 

[Angcuru]

It seems to me that Walter here did not read the rest of the thread.

 

[Creamsteak]

Yes, it is right for a DM to do just that.

I wouldn't do it, though.

 

[Emiricol]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Do you think that it's alright for a DM to do this?

Before.

Totally lame. More importantly, that wasn't the point. The DM CAN enforce his will. He can punish all he likes. I may choose to accept those consequences, or not. What he can NOT do is tell me what my PC does.

Now, had this hypothetical lightning-bolting DM bothered to talk to the hypothetical funky-name-wielding player, perhaps it wouldn't have come to that, and avoided hard feelings, and got the campaign back on track.

So, yeah, what my PC does is STILL *my* decision alone. Period. And I may have consequences for my choices. The DM's choices are to kill the PC (great fun! Wonderful DM skillz! w00t!), kick the player out (possibly disrupting the group), or... gasp... talk to the player directly.

 

[Chimera]

Good God. Remind me not to play with most of you.

The stick doesn't belong there.

 

[Walter_J]

It seems to me that Walter here did not read the rest of the thread.

Nope. Ya busted me.
A lot of the replies weren't here when I responded though, particularly your post regarding PC background 'n such.

My answer to the original question still stands. If this advice helps any, instead of using "silly sounding" or real world names, make up a list of more believable fantasy names and use those.

I DM'd a greyhawk campaign many moons ago and a friend of mine ran an elf mu who constantly changed his names, went from names like "George" to actual elvish sounding names to names like "Conan." He had his reasons (which I don't recall), didnt' disrupt the game and actually became a pretty memorable PC. I remember George and Conan, because that's what everyone ended up refering to the character as, "George Conan", in and out of the game.