How do you make a player play a normal character?

[smetzger]

Well, my RttToEE game I am running I required everyone to have at least 1 level of Cleric, Druid, or Paladin. They started out at 5th level and where all memebers of a martial order of the church and had all recently gone through training with the same patron. I let them define previous character history and why they joined the church.

If I understand your problem, he plays off the wall characters that don't fit in well with the campaign or other players. So, If you provide the same hook for all the players, as I have above, you should have a better chance of a more cohesive group.

 

[John Crichton]

Actualy, he does DM. He's actualy a fairly good one. His games are always light-hearted, a bit silly... as you might guess. But overall fairly good.

I think he plays the same way he DMs... and while I enjoy playing in a silly game well enough, if that's what it's meant to be, I don't enjoy silly behaviour in an otherwise serious game.

I stand corrected. Actually, the friend in my example DM's as well so I should have known better....

Maybe talk to him on the DM level, ya know? Like what if he wanted to run "Game Type X" and all of the players except one went along with it. How would he feel? Of if he's doing his typical light-hearted game if half the players wouldn't get into the spirit of things and were all tight-wads? Something like that, maybe?

 

[bret]

How about challenging him to come up with a strange character that helps the group. Someone who is just a little off kilter, but done in such a way that it actually explains why that character wants to be part of the group and why the group finds him useful.

I doubt this would work, but it probably would make it easier to say no to concepts. "I just don't see how this would help the group. Really, fear of spiders and then taking a hairy spider as a familiar just doesn't seem like something that fits the bill."

 

[Valicor]

Hey Tysr

I know what you mean. I have run in games and played in games with people who have a one track mind set. No matter how hard you try it just doesn't work.

And directly confronting him, probally won't make it any better. It would probally lead to an argument, that can be avoided, or lead to him intrenching deeper into the style he currently plays.

Here is a few examples of what I have seen.

The Lafwul Good Paladin *Shudder*

1. Plays a 11 year old paladin who is the son of Corean (Scard Lands God). One of the pc's plays a small monkey like creature, that sows intelligence. The laful good guy dosesn't like the PC and decided to attack him while he is in a church.

2. Lawful Good guy refuses to play with the current party, and plans to try and kill that party because of a Person seeking acsess to become a Good Lich, one pc is a revenant back to avenge his murder. and another netural character.

3. Lawful Good guy plays a bugbear barbarian. For some reason it becomes fluent in english, and has a high charisma and a great noble personality. did I mention it was chaotic evil?

These are like three of the 15 siuation I can recall off the top of my head.

Some Options

1. Like mentioned above, Challange him to play a character
that isn't of his standard archetpe. (He may except, you might
even just get the thought in his head of trying soemthign new
eventually) Either way you would atleast have the idea in the
air.

2.Explain what your campaign setting is in detail to him. Sudaly
hint that party unity is essential, improtant for the players to
survive. (He might not realise that he is endangering the entire
group).

3.Get to know his player mentality. Ask what makes him want to
play characters the way he does. It could be he dislikes the
basic hero concept and wants to seperate himself from it.
Maybe he is trying to show his character difference between
PC's. Maybe you can help him make a unique character that is
tailored to the party.

4.Try to burn it out of his system. Let him make the characters,
and see how long they last. Eventually he will get tired of
making these characters. (Do not do this one unless you are
prepared to dig in for the long run, spanning many characters,
& campaigns)

Hope that helps.

 

[Valicor]

Simple

Don't allow oddball crap characters. I have found as a DM and as a player watching other players that characters are like fashion.

Some people just have to have a strange, odd, cool trendy character. Unfortunately that character just like overly trendy clothes gets old and stale much faster than a normal character. They may think it is neat one day to have a character with a charisma of 5 and a bizarre stutter but give that player a month or two of playing the character and suddenly they will get bored with him and want to move on to something else.

Whoa, good point. I have a PC who gets bored with characters just like that. Not the guy I mentioned before. He makes unique stuff and always gets bored of it.

 

[Zhure]

I've seen lots of characters like this and there are three step "defense" or "solution."

0 - Talk to the Player about His Disruptiveness

This should be self-explanatory.

1- Jump on the Bandwagon

He wants to find his shoes, by cracky, we all want to find his shoes. Get every character behind the plan. Some might be reluctant, but the majority needs to make this a priority.

2- Have NPC's Deal with the Violence

Part two is optional.

If his character is homicidal, let the police get on his trail. The more violent he becomes, the more they pursue him. In a near-lawless world like Dark Sun, Cyberpunk or the ilk, a powerful local warlord or yakuza gang leader might take a personal affront to the character's actions. Maybe he winds up killing the yakuza's beloved niece....

3- Find the Solution.

The shoes get found! His mystery background is solved! Whatever odd thing he is questing for gets discovered and therefore the character needs a new hook. After a few iterations he'll create a truly open-ended hook.

- - -

I think the player is trying to create a character with an open-ended background so it continually is interesting to him. What he's actually doing is being disruptive but he probably isn't aware of it.

Greg

 

[ghoti69]

All good ideas, but if he's distrupting the enjoyment of the other players, simply sit him down and tell him he's got to stop or he's got to go. I understand that he's your best friend, but I've removed my best friend from a game when he became too disruptive. It's your job as DM to make the game as enjoyable as possible for everyone else. If it's only enjoyable for one person, well, there's always solo modules...

 

[Pielorinho]

This is difficult, and I'm guessing you've tried most of the simple solutions. Here are some ideas that may help:

* Have everyone work together to create characters for the game. If you're starting beyond first level (or the equivalent in another gaming system), tell them that they're creating PCs that have worked together in the past, and they're to come up with the group of PCs together. If you're starting at first level, require every PC to have strong connections to at least two other PCs, connections that make it natural for them to work together.

I started my current campaign like this, going so far as to get teh players to describe the PCs' first "adventure" together before we actually began playing the game. Thus, by the time we started, they all had a sense of having worked together before.

Hopefully, this will generate peer pressure on this guy to have a non-homocidal PC. It might not do anything about the country music lovin'.

* Ask players to fill out a questionnaire about their PCs that goes into gory detail. Ask questions in it like,

"Did you have a nickname as a child? How did you feel about it? Does anyone still call you by that nickname?" and,

"What did you do for your last birthday? What do you figure you'll do for your next birthday?" and,

"Are you romantically involved currently? What do your romantic/sexual relationships, if any, look like? If you have never been in a relationship, why not?" and,

"Who do you most look up to? Do you know them personally? Do you have a mentor? Do you keep in touch with anyone who acts as a role model?"

Your goal here is twofold: first, by developing a social context for the PC, you'll discourage antisocial PCs. Second, you want to ask enough varied questions that a single schtick can't answer them all. Sure, he might have been called Tex as a kid, he might have gone to see Robert Earl Keen for his last birthday, he might have slept with all of the Dixie Chicks at one point or another, he might really look up to Willie Nelson -- but if he starts doing that, you'll have something to point at, something to say, "No!" to. You can sit down with him and say that you'd like to see other influences in his PC's life, such that it's not such a one-trick pony.

* Finally, talk to the players before the game and make it clear that you want it to be somewhat serious: while in-character humor is fine, PCs who are insane are not, and it's insane to risk one's life to satisfy a frivolous desire (finding shoes, listening to country music, etc.)

Hope this helps, and good luck!
Daniel

PS If you're interested in the questionnaire, I've got a couple of them somewhere in my computer that I can post; I think they're stolen from other Web sites, though, so I'd have to give credit to the Unknown Designer.

 

[JesterPoet]

Wait a minute... Some people are saying to remove him from the group? Your FRIEND? It seems to me that there are a lot of people forgetting that we're talking about GAMING here. Gaming, the point of which is to have fun, correct?

If this guy is a good friend, I think you would be making a stupid move to remove him from your gaming group because of character incompatibility in a role-playing GAME.

I think when one is ready to exclude a friend from a group based on the way he roleplays, it is time to reassess the situation. This is gaming... it's about fun. When a friend is getting asked to leave, you have stepped into the realm of the pathetic.

I hate to have this sound like a flame, but seriously... if you're willing to exclude friends to enhance your role-playing experience... you need to get out more.

[edit]
By the way, there are some fantastic, non-player-removal ideas from people in this thread, that I myself may even implement in one of my games. Way to go folks!

 

[Psion]

I understand your frustration, but must say that I personally don't feel comfortable making players play characters that they don't want to play and would feel uncomfortable trying to get such a player to switch.

In these sorts of situations, I find it most productive to:

• Set reasonable boundaries: I like players to have a certain amount of freedom, but it still has to fit within the game world.
• Present the player with the problem, not the solution: players will (perhaps rightly) feel like you are cramping their style if you come down on them hard. Instead of saying "you can't play this character" say "this character won't work for [this reason] what do you want to do about it?" This gives the player options without being too harsh and gives the player a chance to strecth his creative muscles. You may even be suprised by what he comes up with.