Heroic Campaigns...and how players disrupt them.

[EarthsShadow]

Hi all. Just curious but I was wondering how many DM's out there have tried to run a heroic campaign with the players making 'heroic' characters to defeat a great evil, with the players knowing full well what you want to do, and somebody always ends up deciding to foil it or end up playing evil instead just because and ruining the game. Has anybody else ever experienced this kind of campaign breaking results? Has anybody ever succeeded in running a game where no player has actually ruined it in one way or another?

 

[Wormwood]

What about saying, "No Evil characters this campaign".

If the players agree, cool. If they don't, one of them could DM for a while.

 

[Endur]

Sometimes players aren't interested in heroism.

Sad but true. :<

Yes, I've seen campaigns sidetracked from where the GM wants to go.

Usually, its a good thing to go along with where the players want to go. However, its difficult for the GM to prepare when he doesn't know where the players want to go.

Tom

 

[GenLang]

When I started my newest game, I bluntly said, "You will play the good guys. You can be neutral, as long as you're helping the good guys. Anyone who is evil will become an NPC." I said this, along with the rest of my campaign viewpoint&major houserules, in the invitation I sent out to all the players. This way, anyone who did not want to play in that sort of game could bow out before the game even started.

I still had more people want to join than I really had seats for.

This bluntness is, admittedly, a luxury that can only be enjoyed by GMs who are not desperate for any players they can scrounge up and can afford to turn players away from a specific campaign.

 

[Voneth]

Like almost every other game I have this happen.

And to top it off, this type of player would also happen to be the power gamer in the group to boot. For these guys, "No," never worked. they kept saying that they couldn't "see" how their PC wouldn't work with the group. Then these players would essentinaly run roughshod over the others in the group and my NPCs with their twinked abilites.

I have a guy like that now in my group, but fortunately his character design is under par. If he causes too much trouble, he'll be shut down by my other players, never mind the NPCs.

 

[demiurge1138]

Gods, does this sound familiar. I just (as in minutes ago) pseudo-ejected a player from my group for this very reason.

He came into the group during an epic level save-the-world-from-evil-Cthonian-cultists. You know, pretty standard plot. Just because he flet like it, he instigated a second Blood War, dragged the entire party to evil, and them complained that I let him get away with too much.
I eventually had to just kill them and start a new campaign, because he had gotten things so off track.

And so I started a new campaign, one intended to be darkly heroic, with evil characters. Of course, instead of wanting to do what I, the DM, have set out for him, he decides to... (ten points to who guesses it)
Start a war! For no reason other than to bug me! Even though he had already promised to not to interfere with my story!
It just came to an ugly head tonight.

Demiurge out.

 

[EarthsShadow]

I brought this up because this is how my last game ended, after everybody agreeing to play heroic characters and fight against evil...then out of the blue one of the characters, who happens to be neutral and not evil, roleplayed an encounter and thought it best to turn the other characters in

... even though it was within how his character was designed (for the most part)...

it ended the game because he layed a trap for the others and when they realized that the boat they were on was owned by the evil overlord and they were suddenly trapped and became slaves, or they could jump over the side into a ocean with no land around, then the player told them about it...

yes there was a lynching...err...almost a lynching. One of the players even said he has rope in his garage...

I guess the real question is, why is it so hard for some people to play good and heroic?

 

[Witch Doctor]

Been gaming for 2-3 years now, and every single campaign me and my group have done has been a heroic save-the-world type. It's finally getting to the point where it's almost boring......almost

I think that's where it stems from; saving the world just isn't everyone's cup of tea.

 

[WattsHumphrey]

I dont know... Most of the players I play with are pretty good about this sort of thing. The problem (that I'm guilty of as well) comes from the GM's.

The GM's often think that they know what's best for the plot and can't handle it when the PCs feel incapable of handling the plot. One of the last games I was in was a heroic Shadowrun game. Unfortunately, the scale was way above us, and we felt like useless pawns (probably intentionally) just about the whole time. The problem with this was that we ended up totally falling apart because we didn't see any reason to continue trying against such odds. One or two of the characters did turn somewhat evil in an attempt to fix the problems.

my 2c.

 

[Ruined]

I guess the real question is, why is it so hard for some people to play good and heroic?

Sounds like you have less of a problem with him being heroic and more with him not being a team player. I've seen this before. Some players look for more of a game where they can be competitive against the other players. You know, the guy back in 1e who wanted to play an assassin and then does away with a party member one night after they had an argument?

For most of my players and friends I play with, it's an unspoken rule that we will gravitate towards a working party. Yes, if things go too far, we may eject a character who's not trustworthy, but we try to keep that to a minimum in respect for the GM.

I hate to say it, but some players are better off playing card and miniature games where the object is to defeat your friends...