How do you tell a fellow player he can't pick a particular feat for his PC?

[ST]

If this whole thing isn't entirely fabricated, then it's just sad. I think we can count on fabricated, though.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Simple question, simple answer. You don't. It is not your character. If you started browbeating a player at my game about his or her choice of feats it would not be that player that ended up sitting on the porch.

*EDIT* Mind you, I have not seen any sign that I would like having the OP in my games in any event.

The Auld Grump

 

[Driddle]

*EDIT* Mind you, I have not seen any sign that I would like having the OP in my games in any event.

That was totally unnecessary and unbecoming of this otherwise wonderful message board. And if I were a petty, small person who wanted to strike back after such a rude comment, I'd probably say something like, "Well, thank gawd you don't live in my neighborhood, either."

But I'm not that sort of guy.

 

[Falkus]

That was totally unnecessary and unbecoming

I think it was necessary as a method to help demonsrtate how your group dropped the ball on this situation. Regardless of what you might think, the problems your group has have not been resolved, and in fact, are worse than you even think. The problem in your group isn't a character with substandard feats, it's a complete and total lack of internal communication and mutual bad feelings.

Honestly, putting a note in someone's dicebag? You think that's a solution?

 

[Felon]

It is somewhat interesting how utterly humorless people are about the subject, and how defensive they are about their characters. Aren't groups of gamers supposed to be somewhat friendly at least? Aren't friends people you can be honest with and even tease a bit? Me, I can't think of gaming with folks that I wouldn't hang out with otherwise. If there's no comraderie, there's no point in getting together.

Someone puts a note in my dice bag like that, I don't make some big indignat display about how offensive it was, I just tell everyone "thanks for the input, knuckleheads--I'll file it away immediately" and go for a two-point delivery into the wastebasket.

 

[Dracorat]

The point is that it was immature and that this entire subject has been created to cause strife.

Personally, I think the topic should be locked with reckless abandon and then we never look back.

 

[GQuail]

Problem's been taken care of. Someone at our table slipped a note into his dice bag at the end of the game while we were all preparing to leave. He must have noticed it later. ... "Stop picking stupid feats and screwing up our game. You're either with the team or a liability."

As others in this thread, this strikes me as so wrong I don't know where to start.

D&D is a group game: you do indeed need to design characters with the group in mind. My current group has a dude who is onto his third character because the first two were retired becaues they were starting to grate in the party: the first was a morally ambiguous thief heading into Assassin, who the party lost all trust for; the second was a LG Aasimar Monk who was too goody-goody to trust the party when they went morally ambiguous themselves. ;-) His new character was picked to fit the party, and also to fill a mechanical hole: he knew we had enough meatshields and blasty casters, so he made up a Illusion/Mind-affecting Sorcerer.

If he'd chosen to spend a feat on Skill Focus: Craft (Basket Weaving)? That's his call, if he can still pull weight in the group. If he was "wasting" feats and spell slots? I'd mention my opinion to him, but it's his call: for example, he's taken IDentify, which the group Wizard already has. Next I see him I'm going to tell him I think that's a poor choice, and reccomend he switch it for something else, but if he has a specific reason for taking Identify right now I'll let him go with it.

The "solution" mentioned above is pretty immature, IMHO, and if a group I was invovled in started that sort of OOC sniping I'd be very dissapointed. A constructive, group chat on the topic of character chocies? Hey, that'd be fine. And if in-character the PCs questioned how useful a Wizard who didn't seem a sfocused on magical studies as the others they've met? That could be interesting. Leaving anonymous notes with, frankly, threats on them for the guy to find? Frankly, this guy is not the problem player in the group if that's the environment he's playing in.

There seems to be a major communication issue in this group: one guy is clearly playing a different, non-optimised kind of game, and the others aren't taking that well at all.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

...So he comes out, he looks at me, looks at the dolly and the truck and asks me "Are you hurt." I saw (stupidly as it turns out) "No" (even though I would ache a lot later on.) He says "Fine, get up." And walks away...

...so I dragged myself out from under the bags of pancake batter, cut them all open and peed in them, except for one. From that one I took a few bucketfuls of pancake batter, poured them into the gas tank of that idiot's expensive car, and on my way out wrote "I QUIT" in permanent marker on the door of the restaurant.

 

[Venator]

Fake scenario or not, as a DM in this game I would absolutely NOT allow any player to dictate another player's choices, or otherwise stand by and watch him be bullied into doing what the rest of the party thinks is 'correct'. I've made a point of supporting any and all character builds and, yes, sue me, I adjust the game to compensate if need be. Smiling happy player with fun PC = good.

Bingo.


This thread is kind of interesting though. Has D&D really evolved into a game where players and/or parties HAVE to make combat effective choices with their characters at all times? Having no room for players to take the "flavor" feats is kind of sad and really takes away from the RP side of the RPG. In fact, it suggests that D&D is moving further and further (as feat/spell/power/weapon options get bigger and better) away from being a RPG at all.

If building a combat effective guy is a requirement to even play the game and have fun, whats the point in designing the feats like Handle Animal and Acrobatic? It is a very interesting point and i really think it touches on some much bigger issues with where D&D has gone, and is going.

For instance, as my group started the AoW adventure path, almost every one of the players built characters as CHARACTERS. Almost every feat choice was a reflection on the PC and how he was role-played. Very few choices had to do with combat at all.

After we talked more and more with the DM about the game, and as he got the new Dungeon every month, we soon realized that this game was going to be very, very difficult. Especially for a party without a cleric. Between the lvls of 4 and 5 almost all of us went back and changed parts of our characters (skills, feats, sometimes spell selections) to give us a better shot at dealing with threats down the road. The DM didnt want to have to tone down the game if at all possible. He wanted to keep it difficult and stick true to what the authors had in mind for each encounter.

If we had continued to build fluffy characters we would surely have a much harder time with an adventure designed for characters making use of all kinds of material from many different sources. Unless the DM tweaks all encounters, which is what needs to be done if the players choose to reflect themselves through feats, spells, powers, weapons, whatever, PC built like this might be a liability on the party as suggested in this thread. Sad, but true.

 

[Odhanan]

Has D&D really evolved into a game where players and/or parties HAVE to make combat effective choices with their characters at all times?

I don't think so. If we look at the player feedback and debates for all editions of D&D and AD&D, we'll find out that the players and DMs of the opinion that character builds should be effective in combat situations always existed.

The real underlaying question is: does 3.X encourage this behaviour more than previous incarnations of the game? I don't think so. In AD&D, we had the killer DMs and killer Dungeons (Tomb of Horrors). In all editions of the game actually. What would need to evolve in some cases is the hardcore/theoretical interpretation of the guidelines provided by the DMG and published adventures by some players and DMs of the game throughout its history.