How to not treat PC's like idiots (even when they are)?

[pemerton]

As a player, I also want to be the Grand Hero of Destiny, but every time our group talks to someone, it always ends up the same way. With a face palm, them muttering "these people are idiots", and wishing we would just GO AWAY already. Every. Single. Time. Doesn't matter if it's a prince or a shopkeep. Doesn't matter who's the DM or what genre game. Always ends up the same way. Always.

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So, open ended question - how do you keep this from happening?

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For DM's, the second side of the same coin. How can you keep up a truly "heroic" or "epic" feel when your Rogue is pickpocketing the rest of the party, the Bard is trying to sleep with everything in sight, the Barbarian is grappling random strangers hoping for a bar brawl, and you're trying to tell the story of "An elf, an orc, and a halfling walk into a bar" without it being the start of some joke?

I haven't had this problem since 1990, when I started a new campaign with mostly people I had only just met, and one of the players started off with a character who turned out to be a serial killer with serious pscho-sexual pathologies. After maybe half-a-dozen sessions it became clear that the character didn't fit the game, and she was written out and a new character who did fit the game was introduced.

The other thing I've found as a GM is that the PCs have to have something they care about in the game world written into the fiction. If they are truly rootless, vagabond murderhobos and they couldn't care less if the town next door is burnt to the ground, then they'll generally act like it. If you want players to not act like witless morons, they have to have something their characters value, something they're willing to protect, and make sacrifices to protect.

<snip>

In reference to the above, as a GM I now mandate that every PC will have some element of their background that ties them to every other PC in the party.

I don't mandate that all PCs be connected - I leave this to the players, and sometimes it emerges organically and sometimes integrating the PCs is a challenge that I have to deal with as GM.

But I generally do require the players to give their PCs backstories and motivations that link them into the gameworld - and then, in play, I make these things matter (both as colour - eg NPCs will recognise a PC, or know something about his/her uncle, or notice that the PC is an out-of-towner and make a fuss about it - but also as elements in the situation that is driving the action). And in my experience that's enough.

The situation that I as GM set up doesn't have to be that interesting or engaging to be more engaging than wanting to pick pocket your fellow party members, or wanting to have your imaginary avatar have off-screen sex with imaginary people. In my experience it's been enough that it (i) speak to whatever concerns the players have built into their PCs, and (ii) not be a railroad.

 

[aramis erak]

We've all seen the meme, right? DM's expect Lord of the Rings, but players always turn it into the Quest for the Holy Grail.

That is easily my #1 gaming pet peeve of all time. As a player, I also want to be the Grand Hero of Destiny, but every time our group talks to someone, it always ends up the same way. With a face palm, them muttering "these people are idiots", and wishing we would just GO AWAY already. Every. Single. Time. Doesn't matter if it's a prince or a shopkeep. Doesn't matter who's the DM or what genre game. Always ends up the same way. Always.

Not only is it an unfortunate pattern, but it really breaks the immersion of the story. We're not the only dudes bad enough to go save the President...we are simply the only ones the NPC is able to send on this mission. Because we're the Player Characters, and it's our game to go and play. He doesn't think highly of us, obviously, but he expositions us whatever he's required to and then moves us along. (Some DMs can hide this a little better than others, but look and it's there.)

So, open ended question - how do you keep this from happening?

1) playing in settings the players have strong emotional investment in.
2) taking away XP when the start quoting Monty Python or Red Dwarf.
3) By having NPC's who, when the players start getting stupid, treat them as stupid.
4) by limiting such campaigns to players who agree up front (in writing, if need be) to the setting and tone.

In military gaming, including trek, ending the characters (but not the campaign) by "court-martial removes them from the show" can result in improved player behavior. (50-50, IME, between improved behavior and walks away.)

 

[The Crimson Binome]

One problem that can send D&D 3.x/PF astray, particularly, is that a level 9 fighter or cleric could probably take on an entire 100-person village of 1/2 CR commoners by themselves. It's easy to fall into the metagame mindset----"I have 105 hit points and AC 28 . . . there's no one here that could even challenge me. Oh, really, now, Master GM? All of your town guards are now level 8 master assassins?" If your group has a hard time "getting into character" on their own, these kinds of metagame aspects can make it worse.

You seem to be confused by the topic of meta-gaming. A high-level character may not know anything about AC 28 or 105hp, but they do know the in-game reality that corresponds to those numbers - they know that they have a ~95% chance of shrugging off anything the guards can throw at them, and that they can keep fighting through a dozen or more telling blows.

Meta-gaming would be if they ignored that reality, and acted like they actually were afraid of the town guard.

That is somewhat tangential to the topic at hand, though. Playing characters who are more... mortal... is certainly a method to encourage immersion and discourage dissociation. It may not work for every genre, but it can definitely be useful in some situations.

 

[discosoc]

1) playing in settings the players have strong emotional investment in.
2) taking away XP when the start quoting Monty Python or Red Dwarf.
3) By having NPC's who, when the players start getting stupid, treat them as stupid.
4) by limiting such campaigns to players who agree up front (in writing, if need be) to the setting and tone.

In military gaming, including trek, ending the characters (but not the campaign) by "court-martial removes them from the show" can result in improved player behavior. (50-50, IME, between improved behavior and walks away.)

None of these are practical, in my experience.

Anyway, I totally sympathize with the topic though. As a gm, it's always frustrating to spent time preparing for adventures, coming up with ideas, balancing things, developing npcs, and all the other stuff that goes with it, only to have players show up with a Space Balls character and a pun name. It honestly makes me just want to break out a board game or something, because then at least I'm not wasting time preparing for the session.

 

[aramis erak]

None of these are practical, in my experience.

Anyway, I totally sympathize with the topic though. As a gm, it's always frustrating to spent time preparing for adventures, coming up with ideas, balancing things, developing npcs, and all the other stuff that goes with it, only to have players show up with a Space Balls character and a pun name. It honestly makes me just want to break out a board game or something, because then at least I'm not wasting time preparing for the session.

Funny, but I've used ALL of them. Successfully.

#4 - which boils down to "expectations made clear up front" - is the most important of them.

Persons who can't or won't see campaign expectations as valid are exactly the kind of people not to play a serious campaign with.