Is there a social obligation?

[PaulofCthulhu]

The last game of 4e I played was an RPGA event. I didn't enjoy the dirty looks & back handed comments I got because I apparently wasn't playing my pre-generated character to its maximum combat potential, but tried to roleplay out of tricky situations (like trying to talk to a Ogre guarding a sacred tree, to - "Oh, I'm just supposed to kill it.").

It has currently been my last game of 4e. Perhaps I just caught a bad game, or I just shouldn't attempt to play such.

I agree everyone should support each other in having fun. The important part is knowing what you all think you're signing up for, e.g. the interpersonal roleplay or the combat. As long as everyone does know what they've signed up for, it should all be good to go.

 

[frankthedm]

Characters who are an actual burden on the group happens a lot less in 4E, because insta-kills have been more or less eliminated. Even if your guy has a 12 attack stat and blatant lack of synergy everywhere, you're still a bag of hit points the enemy has to chew through before they can achieve a TPK.

That makes the burden WORSE. AT least in previous editions, the millstone could get killed after a fight ot two and would no longer be dragging the group down. Now Mr Anchor is attached with an Industrial strength chain. Before the Leroy Jenkins would cost the group a fight and 10 cents for the character sheet. Now Gilligan has a contract that has a chance to last the whole campaign.

 

[Gimby]

I agree that its pretty much down to the group, and the nature of the ineffectualness.

If you are presenting people with status-quo challenges or running a module, then there is more of an obligation to pull your weight in overcoming those challenges as the setting assumes that you are all competant. If you are tailoring the challenges to the party, then this is less of an issue because you can simply factor the ineffective character out of encounter design. This isn't specifically combat effectiveness either - if your module is all high politics then you can't rely on Ug the Barbarian to pull his weight either.

The somewhat seperate issue is when the character is being antagonistic to the group in some fashion and getting them into trouble - this again depends strongly on the group. In some cases, this provides interesting extra adventures, in others it just distrats from what the rest of the group is doing.

Another thing to consider is spotlight hogging - outliers with overall effectiveness much higher or lower than the party risk this by either dominating the game or focussing it on protecting/rescuing them. Again, this may or may not be a problem depending on your group dynamic.

Essentially, it comes down to your group and the tone of your game. If you are into meat-grinder dungeons or high stakes politics or somthing similar then an "effective" character is probably required. If you are into somthing more relaxed/silly then probably not.

The only clear case is where a player has deliberately made an ineffective character and is then complaining about how much they suck. Thats always out of order.

 

[Turtlejay]

The last game of 4e I played was an RPGA event. I didn't enjoy the dirty looks & back handed comments I got because I apparently wasn't playing my pre-generated character to its maximum combat potential, but tried to roleplay out of tricky situations (like trying to talk to a Ogre guarding a sacred tree, to - "Oh, I'm just supposed to kill it.").

It has currently been my last game of 4e. Perhaps I just caught a bad game, or I just shouldn't attempt to play such.

Judging a gaming system based on a gaming group is as silly as judging a gaming group based on a gaming system. For example:

"I joined my friends for a game of Shadowrun the other day, and couldn't stand the system! All those d6's and their cubeness! I'm never doing anything with those guys ever again!"

And kind of speaks to the problem being discussed. The other players *percieved* that you were playing underpowered, and they got all pissy about it. Whether you were or not is not even relevent. Whether your character is underpowered intentionally or due to a lack of system mastery is irrelevant.

It all comes back to the idea of an unwritten, often unspoken Social Contract. You all agree to gather and play the game in a way that will enhance the enjoyment for everyone else. How that happens *specifically* is often not as important as one might think.

Jay

 

[PaulofCthulhu]

You all agree to gather and play the game in a way that will enhance the enjoyment for everyone else.

Well, they certainly weren't enhancing my enjoyment in they way they were playing, nor was I behaving in such an anti-social table manner towards them. I signed up in a pick-up game to play a fantasy adventure. So I'm not sure what exactly I'm supposed to expect from D&D 4e. It seems 3e & 4e are very different beasts.

Judging a gaming system based on a gaming group is as silly as judging a gaming group based on a gaming system

You are correct, but I am not judging the game based on this single gaming group. It was not my first game of 4e or the only group I've played 4e with.

It seems that 4e is just not for me, and all power to those who love it & enjoy it. As for the "social obligation" - I'll just re-state - that I think as long as you support each other in having fun, that is the primary social obligation - in whatever form you wish to have that fun.

 

[jgbrowning]

People have a social obligation not to be a jerk at the table.

joe b.

 

[Wik]

All of my characters -and my brother's, too- tend to be fairly flawed in terms of personality... plus, we both enjoy playing characters that have powers that can "backfire" and harm the rest of the party (Bravura warlord for me, Wild Mage for him).

Also, in terms of mechanics, I will take sub par choices in favour of a character concept, from time to time. And to the poster that mentioned the wizard with weapon focus: axe... if the player wants that concept, let him... I won't fault a player for making sub par choices to better fit a character concept. But, then again, if ALL of a player's choices are sub par, then yeah, it can get annoying.

But the problem of players making mechanically inferior characters on purpose can be a problem. However, I've generally noticed that this is a sign not that the player is being a jerk, but more that the DM needs to look at his campaign. If you look at "meat grinder" games, where PC deaths are astonishingly common, you can often see a tendency for players to deliberately make weak characters - the idea being that since no matter how hard they try they're going to die, they derive a certain sense of "power" in making characters destined to die. If, as a GM, you start seeing mechanically inferior characters pop up (a wizard with 18 strength and 10 intelligence who uses a long sword, for example), it could be a sign you're killing too many PCs.

I know I've seen this in the past - particularly with 2nd edition D&D. (Mostly because that's where the bulk of my playing was done, during the times I was playing with crappy GMs).

 

[BryonD]

There is a social obligation to get along with society. The penalty for failure to comply with this obligation is exclusion.
In gaming the group is the society.

 

[Azgulor]

Do you think there's a social obligation or am I being too harsh?

Absolutely not -- unless you establish such a stipulation/requirement before the game/campaign begins.

People play D&D & other RPGs in different ways. Just because it's not the way you play it doesn't make it wrong - just different.

I've run & played in D&D solo sessions and for groups of PCs of 2 or 3. I've seen players invest in the character and not give a damn about the metagame/group dynamic aspect as well as the other end of the spectrum.

Now, if you establish up front the style of play and tone of the campaign and someone creates a character that'll be completely incompatible, then you've got a legitimate gripe.

 

[Nifft]

What if a character was too effective and detracted from the fun?

In my very first 3.0 game, a player lost a character and brought in a single-classed (Batman) wizard.

Because we were playing a very "unoptimized" campaign (everyone was duel or even triple-classed), the wizard completely outshined the rest of the party. The other players got very frustrated since it started to devolve into "wait for the wizard to do everything for us".

The game quickly fell apart after that because the player of the wizard didn't want to play his character anything less than he could, and the other players didn't like feeling "forced" to change their characters to match his play style. (He even said that wizards "should" be all-powerful and the other character classes "should" be substandard.)

So I personally feel that the ineffective-effective character business really reflects the fact that one player is playing with a completely different set of expectations than the other players. In that perspective, the one player is bound by social contract to not detract from the fun of the other players, but it doesn't have anything to do with effectiveness.

Yep, what's important isn't keeping the PCs in the group optimal, it's keeping the PCs each able to contribute enough to match their player's expectations.

To be fair, you don't have to do much to make a full spellcaster awesome at high level: keep all your caster levels, and the 3.x system pretty much ensures you rule the roost as a full Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer or Wizard of level 10+.

I think the event responsible for killing the group dynamic is the event that killed the Wizard guy's previous character. It's like he looked at that character death and said, "Oh crap! Being an ineffectual layabout has consequences!", and went on to design the Wizard PC, who was effective.

As to the argument that high-level Wizards ought to overpower other PCs of the same level, well, that particular argument comes from a time before the idea that characters ought to be balanced against each other. Destroying that power asymmetry was one design goal of 4e.

Cheers, -- N