Looking for advice

[marsfan2999]

Heya, I hope this is the right place to post this in. I have some trouble with a campaign I'm currently playing in. English isn't my first language, so I'm sorry if there are any mistakes in this.

So, just to get that over with I’m going to tell you what our party looks like. Other than me as a player, there is our DM L (a close irl friend), my boyfriend M, F (also a good friend irl), K and D (both I have met before irl but that was about how well we knew each other before the game). We’re all about the same age, I’m the only girl in the group. We play on discord voice and foundry.

I have been both playing and DM’ing D&D 5e for years now. My friends have never been interested in it and never wanted me to DM for them. So, I’ve been mostly dm’ing and playing with random people I met online and I also dm a game for my brother and his friends quite regularly. I think I can confidently say I feel like I know the game mechanics (at least for D&D 5e) well, I have never had a problem getting into character or roleplay and so far, I’ve never been this anxious or nervous playing before.

That changed when we met L a while ago. He was talking about a Pathfinder campaign he was working on. All of us mentioned above were interested, we did a Playtest, and it went amazing, so he shared some info on this world with us and we got to character creation. I was a little worried about not being familiar with Pathfinder, but was assured it wouldn’t be a problem and all of us would learn together.

So, I went ahead and wrote a short (2-4 sentences) backstory/character idea for 3 different characters, sending them to L to pick which one would work the best. He said they all look good, but the first one wouldn’t work because K wanted to play that class already. He said the last one would be best because the party could use another spellcaster. I said cool and went ahead to create the character and flesh out the backstory and personality.

My character is a tiefling witch, very nature based, kind spoken and nurturing. I love her and my dm said everything looks perfect, so I patiently waited to start playing. Now we just played session 7 yesterday, and I am having a lot of trouble getting into character, roleplaying my character with the other characters, and just generally fitting her into the world and finding a reason for her to be there with the others.

My boyfriend talked to me after the session, saying I truly need to make more of an effort to roleplay and give her reasons to be on this quest because at the moment his character doesn’t like her, thinks she should just stay behind and is useless as long as it doesn’t come to healing (which I don’t think is true, we learned a lot of lore through my character as she has the best occultism and diplomacy of the group). He also says the other guys share this opinion.

We had a longer talk about it where we talked about the following things:

• I’m honestly kind of anxious to talk unprompted because the couple of times I tried to roleplay, I felt like I was getting shot down. Some examples: I casted a cantrip letting me enchant some mud to use as a healing plaster, so I said I’m going to cast this and sent it in the chat, paused to see if there was any input from the dm and when there wasn’t, I started to describe how my character was mixing up some mud in the rain and then applying it to K’s wounds. As I was doing this L suddenly cuts in just saying that the spell is basically less useful than my normal healing kit and that it won’t do anything at the moment, then immediately moved on to other things without giving me a chance to say or do anything else. Okay, maybe I’ve picked some bad spells, I don’t know how to optimize in pathfinder so I don’t feel too bad about it and move on. The exact thing happens more after that, with me trying to either roll for something or use a spell or equipment, only to be told no and everyone instantly moves on to something else.
• Another example was one time my boyfriends character was trying to do something and I asked if mine could help him. I described how my character was helping him and I assumed he would gain advantage from it. L made me roll to help him and I ended up rolling really low. Because of this, my boyfriends character had to roll with disadvantage and failed. I felt kind of bad and tried to apologize in character. I would have been fine with my boyfriend’s character being upset with mine as it would have given me a chance to roleplay a little, but instead the whole group just got upset with me out of character, telling me to stop doing this extra naughty word and just play like a normal person. None of their characters talked to mine about this after and they all just moved on.
• The one time I actually felt like this is another moment where my character could speak up and it would make sense was when we met a crying ghost child. As my character is supposed to be really nurturing and kind and she looks the least threatening in our group, I thought it would make sense for her to try and take the lead with this interaction. I started talking and saying that my character was getting up to step closer but promptly got talked over by D, who apparently didn’t hear me speaking and did the entire interaction by himself.
• I haven't really had the chance to speak to any npc in character, as the others immediately take the lead and whenever I try to say something, I'm told my character doesn't know anything about this, so I just sit back and wait. This also happens when it's just our group sitting in camp talking, whenever I try to speak in character L tells me my character has no information on the conversation topic and when I roleplay my character asking the others about what they are talking about, I usually get ignored.
• Another thing kind of rubbing me the wrong way is that everyone else seems to have knowledge about the world without even rolling checks. They will hear about something or look at something and just tell us things about the world that their character knows, without L having them roll a check or telling them what they know. I asked my boyfriend about this and found out that they all had super in depth talks with L about it and he gave them a list of things they each know. L never talked to me about any of this and I thought all of us basically just knew what he shared in his world lore document.
• I also feel like whenever I do learn something about the world through a check I don’t really get the chance to roleplay that much either. When the others roll, D for example is a monsterhunter, so he can roll to get info on monsters, L will then send him some info he learns in a private message and his character explains it to us. Same goes with the others, they usually learn one specific thing that is told in a couple of words or they get a provate message about it, and then their character roleplay telling us about the info we got. Whenever I learn something, L basically talks for about 5 minutes or more and we get a lot of exposition and after, I pretty much just go “I tell the others about this” because I don’t want to repeat all of this info we just heard as a group again. Whenever I’ve actually went ahead and tried to tell them about the things I learned in character, I’m interrupted by someone pretty much going “yeah yeah we know we heard, no need to repeat it”.
• My character generally just doesn’t fit into the world. Nature is basically not a real part of the game, whenever I ask to look at a plant or whatever, I get told it’s not important. I get that if it's not a big element of the story it makes sense for my character to feel this useless, but not once before we started playing did L tell me about that. He even told me to go with this character. Every character actually has a good reason to be on this quest. F hired all of us and the entire quest is about him getting a special weapon and is closely connected to his family. The other’s are all out to find either specific information or an item linked to their backstory there as well. My character is kinda just there to get paid, I guess. I know this is on me, I created the character so I don’t really have the right to be upset about this, but I just think if I was dm’ing and I was aware that all these characters are so connected to the world and story and they all had extensive info and a goal on this quest, and that I reached out to them to give them info only their character would know and would come up during the game, I would have reach out to the one character that doesn’t and try to figure something out beforehand.
• My boyfriend is now kind of making me feel like I don’t have a place in this campaign. He told me the world is just not what I usually play, he says it’s obvious that I don’t get the references to specific videogames L put in there, and that I should have opted out before we even made our characters. But I don’t see how I was supposed to know any of this beforehand when no one talked to me about it. The lore document we all got seemed interesting and not much different from the lore I got in other games so far.
• I told my boyfriend I’m perfectly fine just to keep going like it is at the moment, with me just being quiet for the most part and basically being there for support, healing and buffing the others. I still enjoy the worldbuilding and the story, even if my character isn't a big part of it. Maybe my character will die eventually and I will get to make a new character that fits into the story better, or maybe the next quest has elements where it makes sense for my character to tag along and it will get easier from there. But he says that’s stupid and by being quiet and useless I will ruin the game for everyone else. I don’t want to take the fun out of it for the others. But I also know for a fact my boyfriend would be upset if I just left the campaign as he thinks I made a commitment to it and now I have to see it through, which he is right about.
• He now told me that I should just change my entire character. He suggested I just change my backstory completely and focus it around this relic we are looking for so my character has a reason to be there. My problem with that is that I don’t like the idea of completely changing my character’s backstory and personality, I’d much rather just make a completely new character then. Also, the relic he is talking about is from F’s backstory and is pretty much his big backstory moment for the campaign from what it feels like. I don’t want to take this from him and make it about my character.

Now where I was definitely the naughty word, is when I started comparing this campaign to another campaign I play in, where I don’t have any of these problems. I was trying to explain the differences between the games and telling him why I think the other game is more enjoyable for me at the moment. I was basically trying to figure out whats so different between these games for myself to maybe get an idea what I could try and change to make this campaign more enjoyable for myself. I didn’t mean that I think that dm is better than L, I think L is an amazing dm. But it made my boyfriend pretty upset and I can understand why. He told me that he thinks me playing it multiple campaigns at the same time is disrespectful to L, him and the others. He thinks by playing in different games I automatically make one of them less enjoyable for myself and it's unfair to L who is putting a lot of work into his world. Now he wants me to just quit the other campaign (and the one I dm for my brother and his friends too), in order to be solely focused on the pathfinder one. But I love my other groups, I love the story and the characters and I look forward to these games, so I don't want to stop playing them.

Do you have any advice for me? Is there anything I’m doing wrong and need to change to make sure the others still have fun? I know I should just talk to L about this, but from how upset my boyfriend got about the whole situation and him telling me that the others all feel the same way, I’m scared it will cause even more trouble. I don’t want to make anyone upset or angry, and I don’t want L to take it the wrong way and think I don’t enjoy his dm’ing or his worldbuilding.

 

[aco175]

@marsfan2999 first, welcome to the boards and I know you will get some good advice here. Hope you stay a while. Second, it is a game where everyone should have fun, including you and the DM. However some people's fun is not the same for everyone. One person likes to kill things, another likes to roleplay, and a third likes to gain magic and optimize the character build. The DM should provide opportunities for everyone to get some of what they like each session or at least often enough.

From what I see, most of the issue is different style of play. If L, the DM, is a close friend then talk to him about feeling pushed aside. Maybe work with him to make your PC have a secret deal for something that will be revealed later. Or, tell him you want to make a new PC that fits in better. Part of the problem might have been submitting 3 ideas to him to approve and not just make whatever you wanted to play.

I do not play online so I'm not sure if any of the problem is online and things might not be communicated the best in that style. Some people seem to want to make progress in the game and solve the problems to move on and complete things.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Echoing @aco175, much of it may have to do with enjoying different styles of play (THIS EXISTS AND CANNOT BE IGNORED) and online play.
Your best bet is to speak to L directly about your concerns so as not to hurt the friendship. It should be done in a casual environment.
Besides differing playstyles, the disconnect may have to do with maturity and I do not mean just age.

I would recommend not to quit the campaigns that are giving you enjoyment.

Best of luck and welcome to Enworld.

 

[TiQuinn]

Heya, I hope this is the right place to post this in. I have some trouble with a campaign I'm currently playing in. English isn't my first language, so I'm sorry if there are any mistakes in this.

So, just to get that over with I’m going to tell you what our party looks like. Other than me as a player, there is our DM L (a close irl friend), my boyfriend M, F (also a good friend irl), K and D (both I have met before irl but that was about how well we knew each other before the game). We’re all about the same age, I’m the only girl in the group. We play on discord voice and foundry.

I have been both playing and DM’ing D&D 5e for years now. My friends have never been interested in it and never wanted me to DM for them. So, I’ve been mostly dm’ing and playing with random people I met online and I also dm a game for my brother and his friends quite regularly. I think I can confidently say I feel like I know the game mechanics (at least for D&D 5e) well, I have never had a problem getting into character or roleplay and so far, I’ve never been this anxious or nervous playing before.

That changed when we met L a while ago. He was talking about a Pathfinder campaign he was working on. All of us mentioned above were interested, we did a Playtest, and it went amazing, so he shared some info on this world with us and we got to character creation. I was a little worried about not being familiar with Pathfinder, but was assured it wouldn’t be a problem and all of us would learn together.

So, I went ahead and wrote a short (2-4 sentences) backstory/character idea for 3 different characters, sending them to L to pick which one would work the best. He said they all look good, but the first one wouldn’t work because K wanted to play that class already. He said the last one would be best because the party could use another spellcaster. I said cool and went ahead to create the character and flesh out the backstory and personality.

My character is a tiefling witch, very nature based, kind spoken and nurturing. I love her and my dm said everything looks perfect, so I patiently waited to start playing. Now we just played session 7 yesterday, and I am having a lot of trouble getting into character, roleplaying my character with the other characters, and just generally fitting her into the world and finding a reason for her to be there with the others.

My boyfriend talked to me after the session, saying I truly need to make more of an effort to roleplay and give her reasons to be on this quest because at the moment his character doesn’t like her, thinks she should just stay behind and is useless as long as it doesn’t come to healing (which I don’t think is true, we learned a lot of lore through my character as she has the best occultism and diplomacy of the group). He also says the other guys share this opinion.

We had a longer talk about it where we talked about the following things:

• I’m honestly kind of anxious to talk unprompted because the couple of times I tried to roleplay, I felt like I was getting shot down. Some examples: I casted a cantrip letting me enchant some mud to use as a healing plaster, so I said I’m going to cast this and sent it in the chat, paused to see if there was any input from the dm and when there wasn’t, I started to describe how my character was mixing up some mud in the rain and then applying it to K’s wounds. As I was doing this L suddenly cuts in just saying that the spell is basically less useful than my normal healing kit and that it won’t do anything at the moment, then immediately moved on to other things without giving me a chance to say or do anything else. Okay, maybe I’ve picked some bad spells, I don’t know how to optimize in pathfinder so I don’t feel too bad about it and move on. The exact thing happens more after that, with me trying to either roll for something or use a spell or equipment, only to be told no and everyone instantly moves on to something else.
• Another example was one time my boyfriends character was trying to do something and I asked if mine could help him. I described how my character was helping him and I assumed he would gain advantage from it. L made me roll to help him and I ended up rolling really low. Because of this, my boyfriends character had to roll with disadvantage and failed. I felt kind of bad and tried to apologize in character. I would have been fine with my boyfriend’s character being upset with mine as it would have given me a chance to roleplay a little, but instead the whole group just got upset with me out of character, telling me to stop doing this extra naughty word and just play like a normal person. None of their characters talked to mine about this after and they all just moved on.
• The one time I actually felt like this is another moment where my character could speak up and it would make sense was when we met a crying ghost child. As my character is supposed to be really nurturing and kind and she looks the least threatening in our group, I thought it would make sense for her to try and take the lead with this interaction. I started talking and saying that my character was getting up to step closer but promptly got talked over by D, who apparently didn’t hear me speaking and did the entire interaction by himself.
• I haven't really had the chance to speak to any npc in character, as the others immediately take the lead and whenever I try to say something, I'm told my character doesn't know anything about this, so I just sit back and wait. This also happens when it's just our group sitting in camp talking, whenever I try to speak in character L tells me my character has no information on the conversation topic and when I roleplay my character asking the others about what they are talking about, I usually get ignored.
• Another thing kind of rubbing me the wrong way is that everyone else seems to have knowledge about the world without even rolling checks. They will hear about something or look at something and just tell us things about the world that their character knows, without L having them roll a check or telling them what they know. I asked my boyfriend about this and found out that they all had super in depth talks with L about it and he gave them a list of things they each know. L never talked to me about any of this and I thought all of us basically just knew what he shared in his world lore document.
• I also feel like whenever I do learn something about the world through a check I don’t really get the chance to roleplay that much either. When the others roll, D for example is a monsterhunter, so he can roll to get info on monsters, L will then send him some info he learns in a private message and his character explains it to us. Same goes with the others, they usually learn one specific thing that is told in a couple of words or they get a provate message about it, and then their character roleplay telling us about the info we got. Whenever I learn something, L basically talks for about 5 minutes or more and we get a lot of exposition and after, I pretty much just go “I tell the others about this” because I don’t want to repeat all of this info we just heard as a group again. Whenever I’ve actually went ahead and tried to tell them about the things I learned in character, I’m interrupted by someone pretty much going “yeah yeah we know we heard, no need to repeat it”.
• My character generally just doesn’t fit into the world. Nature is basically not a real part of the game, whenever I ask to look at a plant or whatever, I get told it’s not important. I get that if it's not a big element of the story it makes sense for my character to feel this useless, but not once before we started playing did L tell me about that. He even told me to go with this character. Every character actually has a good reason to be on this quest. F hired all of us and the entire quest is about him getting a special weapon and is closely connected to his family. The other’s are all out to find either specific information or an item linked to their backstory there as well. My character is kinda just there to get paid, I guess. I know this is on me, I created the character so I don’t really have the right to be upset about this, but I just think if I was dm’ing and I was aware that all these characters are so connected to the world and story and they all had extensive info and a goal on this quest, and that I reached out to them to give them info only their character would know and would come up during the game, I would have reach out to the one character that doesn’t and try to figure something out beforehand.
• My boyfriend is now kind of making me feel like I don’t have a place in this campaign. He told me the world is just not what I usually play, he says it’s obvious that I don’t get the references to specific videogames L put in there, and that I should have opted out before we even made our characters. But I don’t see how I was supposed to know any of this beforehand when no one talked to me about it. The lore document we all got seemed interesting and not much different from the lore I got in other games so far.
• I told my boyfriend I’m perfectly fine just to keep going like it is at the moment, with me just being quiet for the most part and basically being there for support, healing and buffing the others. I still enjoy the worldbuilding and the story, even if my character isn't a big part of it. Maybe my character will die eventually and I will get to make a new character that fits into the story better, or maybe the next quest has elements where it makes sense for my character to tag along and it will get easier from there. But he says that’s stupid and by being quiet and useless I will ruin the game for everyone else. I don’t want to take the fun out of it for the others. But I also know for a fact my boyfriend would be upset if I just left the campaign as he thinks I made a commitment to it and now I have to see it through, which he is right about.
• He now told me that I should just change my entire character. He suggested I just change my backstory completely and focus it around this relic we are looking for so my character has a reason to be there. My problem with that is that I don’t like the idea of completely changing my character’s backstory and personality, I’d much rather just make a completely new character then. Also, the relic he is talking about is from F’s backstory and is pretty much his big backstory moment for the campaign from what it feels like. I don’t want to take this from him and make it about my character.

Now where I was definitely the naughty word, is when I started comparing this campaign to another campaign I play in, where I don’t have any of these problems. I was trying to explain the differences between the games and telling him why I think the other game is more enjoyable for me at the moment. I was basically trying to figure out whats so different between these games for myself to maybe get an idea what I could try and change to make this campaign more enjoyable for myself. I didn’t mean that I think that dm is better than L, I think L is an amazing dm. But it made my boyfriend pretty upset and I can understand why. He told me that he thinks me playing it multiple campaigns at the same time is disrespectful to L, him and the others. He thinks by playing in different games I automatically make one of them less enjoyable for myself and it's unfair to L who is putting a lot of work into his world. Now he wants me to just quit the other campaign (and the one I dm for my brother and his friends too), in order to be solely focused on the pathfinder one. But I love my other groups, I love the story and the characters and I look forward to these games, so I don't want to stop playing them.

Do you have any advice for me? Is there anything I’m doing wrong and need to change to make sure the others still have fun? I know I should just talk to L about this, but from how upset my boyfriend got about the whole situation and him telling me that the others all feel the same way, I’m scared it will cause even more trouble. I don’t want to make anyone upset or angry, and I don’t want L to take it the wrong way and think I don’t enjoy his dm’ing or his worldbuilding.

Sadly, this sounds like a boyfriend problem first and a group problem second. From the sound of it, you’re the only girl - everyone else is a guy? What your boyfriend said was rude, uncalled for, possibly not even true (how do you know that’s what anyone else thinks?) I can’t imagine anyone at our table making someone feel so unwelcome. Possibly this is an issue of maturity - I don’t know how old the people are. It strikes me as too much testosterone and guys acting out.

My only advice is don’t seek the answer to this within the game. This is a people problem with others not behaving appropriately. It has nothing to do with the game or your play style.

 

[marsfan2999]

Echoing @aco175, much of it may have to do with enjoying different styles of play (THIS EXISTS AND CANNOT BE IGNORED) and online play.
Your best bet is to speak to L directly about your concerns so as not to hurt the friendship. It should be done in a casual environment.
Besides differing playstyles, the disconnect may have to do with maturity and I do not mean just age.

I would recommend not to quit the campaigns that are giving you enjoyment.

Best of luck and welcome to Enworld.

@AnotherGuy @aco175 @TiQuinn

First of all, thank you all for the warm welcome and the advice, I really appreciate it. Talking to L about this will definitely be my next step. I just want to be prepared and know what to say beforehand, as I'm a little nervous about how it will be recieved. I'm afraid he'll feel attacked or as if I'm blaming him for me not fully enjoying the game. I also want to figure out how to start the conversation without him knowing my boyfriend talked to me about it first. I don't want to accuse my boyfriend of lying if the others never said anything to him about it, or if they did actually talk to him about it I don't want them to think he told me about what they were speaking about privately.

For the playstyles, I actually think we are all pretty alike. We all seem to enjoy a good mix of roleplay and combat, the problem is just that I feel my character doesn't really get involved in the roleplay that is happening. The only time the other characters actually respond to anything mine says if when I compliment their character directly (if they did something cool in combat I usually will have my character go up to them and say that I liked it or ask how they did that, things like that). Everything else I say in character will usually either be ignored completely or I will be told that my character doesn't know anything about the topic out of character.

About the submitting 3 characters thing: we were instructed to do that. L told all of us to come up with 3 ideas we liked and then we talked about them in private messages and during session 0 to figure out which ones to each play to create a good group.

And maturity wise, I never had a problem with either of them during our friendships. We are all around the same age (mid twenties) and everyone has always been very respectful outside of the game.

I'm also just feeling a little confused I guess. I'm pretty close friends with both L and F and I think if the way I played bothered them they would talk to me about it. But I also don't think it's something my boyfriend would lie to me about as there really isn't a reason why he would do that.

But I will try and talk to L as soon as I figure out how to approach the topic with him and maybe give a little update after we talk. Thanks again for your advice

 

[Voadam]

It sounds like you are being treated differently and badly in this group.

They are cutting you off and shutting you down.

They are each getting private stuff to work with and share with the group and you are not.

The plot has hooks for everybody but you.

It is not rude to have other games, you should not quit the games you are having fun in.

Talking to L about your specific campaign issues, the hooks into the game for your character to be there, your not being given lore stuff privately to roleplay out yourself the way others are, but that you are enjoying the worldbuilding and such, is a good step to making those problem aspects better for you if you stay with the game.

The being shot down and cut off by the other players is a pretty big issue too though, it may be enough for you to not do this group activity with this group.

Two good games would be two good games in your life.

 

[borringman]

It just sounds like this is one of those male(ness)-dominated tables that maintain order through aggression. I don't know if that's because they're jerks or just too caught up in their own habits.

If you don't mind my asking, and you don't need to answer, how are you treated otherwise? Do you feel safe, respected, and comfortable being yourself (that last part is important)? That's pretty much how I'd judge if this is driven by bad social habits or straight-up misogyny. The former is ostensibly fixable, although there's a question of whom it's up to, to put in the effort to fix them. . .

 

[marsfan2999]

It just sounds like this is one of those male(ness)-dominated tables that maintain order through aggression. I don't know if that's because they're jerks or just too caught up in their own habits.

If you don't mind my asking, and you don't need to answer, how are you treated otherwise? Do you feel safe, respected, and comfortable being yourself (that last part is important)? That's pretty much how I'd judge if this is driven by bad social habits or straight-up misogyny. The former is ostensibly fixable, although there's a question of whom it's up to, to put in the effort to fix them. . .

I do feel safe and I wouldn't be friends with them if they treated me badly outside of the game, which is why this is so confusing to me. They aren't really aggressive more just not interested. I like the characters they made (none of them are what I'd consider a red flag when I join a new online group), and when we talk when we hang out irl or just in voice chat after the sessions they are completely normal and we have fun. At least for my boyfriend, L (dm) and F, the other two guys I'm not really close to but they haven't been weird out of game either.

As a player outside of the actual gameplay I feel appreciated as well. I'm the one taking notes and doing the recaps at the start of each session and they all said they are glad I'm doing that because they don't really want to. They all like the memes I make after each session and when we first started playing I made all of us mini's on heroforge to paint and give to them (we play on foundry so we don't use them but I still thought it was fun to have them), and I got a private message from each of them saying thank you and that they love their minis.

The best way I can describe it I guess, would be that to me it feels as if all of them came up with this world together and they made their characters specifically to play off of each other and have a fixed story in mind that they want to play, and I just don't fit into that and feel like a background character. Which again, I don't even mind but according to my boyfriend the others are bothered by it. But it's not like I joined an already existing group (I would understand it if I did), I was the second person to agree to play and two of them had never played a ttrpg before.

 

[GMMichael]

I’m the only girl in the group. We play on discord voice and foundry.

Besides the issues that earlier posters have addressed with maturity, courtesy, etc. I can offer this advice for online play:

Turn up your microphone sensitivity, and use a pitch shifter to lower your voice.

It's not ideal, but it might make you some headway with this group.

 

[borringman]

OK, thank you for the clarification.

I guess (I can only guess, not being there) it's two things then. One, this sounds like a very botched "Session Zero", where expectations and character compatibility were not properly discussed. That's unfortunate but fixable, if the DM is willing to learn.

Second, I think a game environment can flip a switch in some people, make them very aggressive and self-centered, and they need to be told to settle down. Like, I've seen dads in pick-up soccer matches ignore their kid running around -- never getting to touch the ball -- until I suggest they involve the kid more. . . and they do! NOT saying you're a kid, my point is that switch can be turned off, shifting the mindset from competitive to collaborative. But it often does take someone to remind them.