I have seen problems stem from misaligned expectation and simple misunderstanding once too many and decided to write a post about it.
As always the opinions are only my own and does not represent universal truth.
The “Uncanny valley” of gaming if you will. If you are not familiar with the concept, the idea is that there is a area of perception when something which is close to the expected/familiar but not quite can invoke a negative response. Originally it is applied in the field of robotics where the
“original hypothesis states that as the appearance of a robot is made more human, a human observer's emotional response to the robot will become increasingly positive and emphatic, until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong revulsion. “ (From Wiki)
The response is not always cognoscente as for the cause, as in you walk into a familiar room and something does not feel right only to latter discover that something (books, furniture) in the room has been rearranged. You are aware of the “wrongness” before/without being to pin down the reason.
Lets see some that I have seen with examples:
First of all, we do not necessary are playing the same game. If I say I run 3.X edition that may be a good place to start but does not tell you all that much about my game. If it is specified what books are allowed/sourced such as that I am using OA and Book of 9 swords, that is slightly better.
If further I state that I started with 2ed and like EGG's work and make it a point to read his two books on running that game (“Role playing mastery” and “Master of the game”) at least once a year, while still dim a more concise picture start to emerge.
Furthermore, with all the 3pp available IME lots of people use non WOC products in their games. I for example use Arcana Unearthed, Portals and Planes, Chaositech, Book of Fiends and others in my game. Different sources can lead to significant variation of in-game experience. That seems like an overly obvious statement, but I been surprised before what players have and have not experienced.
If I tell them (before first session of course) that in this campaign there will be no item creation until latter levels (in effect lifting the item creation feats by several levels, but also giving casters some of those feats for free), there may be some questioning looks but mostly shrugs. What they did not consider was the implications: magic items are not as readily available. Oh, the screams, the moans, the complains. Some people quit, others stayed and even got a taste for it. The moral was (for me) that players not always know what rule variations entail and I have to, in order to be on the safe side, explain down to people in great detail my house rules.
Second most prevalent point of contention: cannon. Let me start with the statement: “I like the Forgotten Realms, read the books, steal ideas and so on.” That being said I never run campaigns in it.
Why? Setting lawyers. I do not feel like reading 30+ fiction books and baker dozen source books just so I can run a (bare bones) consistent game. The problem is the fiction is cannon and sometimes forced into cannon (Drizzit, spellfire). By that I mean that both drow as PCs and spellfire wielders were introduced as rules after first apearing in the novels. This tendency is mostly not true in the other settings I use. Evelyn did not defeat Lloth in Grayhawk lore, no matter what Paul Kidd wrote in his “Queen of the Demonweb Pits” book.
In the end it seems to boil down to the same old advice: While it is acceptable and even enjoyable to create characters inspired by fiction, do not try to recreate them. It both seldom works exactly enough, and when it does not (that is most of the time) it is very frustrating.
FR (again in my opinion) suffers from its own success by being over detailed and familiar. By that I mean that even the smallest mistakes/inconsistencies seem glaring and with all the material available it is hard not to slip. This leads to destroyed verisimilitude hampering immersion.
I am sorry I cannot give credit, but a while back there was a suggestion on Enworld of making Elmister an mid-high level expert (as in the class) as opposed to a powerful wizard, who wrote all those novels about himself. While I personally would love to play in game with such a twist (with some in front hints that not everything may be as in cannon) at least some of the people I have played with will walk as soon as this is revealed saying “You lied to me, you are not running FR or even something remotely based on it. You violated the premises of the setting so much ... Just NO!”
Of course the level of expected setting consistency varies from group to group, but overall I think more rather then less is the expected norm.
And no I have not forgotten (or contradicting my first point) that many use home brew. It is just that even in that case DM s “borrow” ideas, items, plot, NPC and what not from other sources. Sometimes it is more obvious then others, but invariably it happens. Even if the source is not a established setting (I gave FR as an example only) as long as at least one of the player is somewhat familiar with it the potential of getting caught in inconsistencies exists.
The previous two misconceptions can happen even before sitting down to play. So now we get to->
Third, the in-game misaligned perceptions. As the DM is responsible for all the PC senses as well as rule interpretation a lot player decisions is heavy influenced by his/her description. Well, many times the misconceptions are innocuous, but still can have important consequences.
Lets say the party is scouting a ship and the DM states “You can see five sailors sitting close to loaded guns. They look dangerous and (Wisdom check) probably will fire on slightest provocation.”
So far so good, not a lot of detail, but considering that the PCs are spying they probably do not have time to take long looks without raising suspicion. Plus it is fast pace action scene. The information is enough to get a picture in the player's minds. They get away and plan their assault, with the DM dropping several hints that it is probably be very dangerous. You get the picture.
Now, I am not here to give solutions, especially since what works for me may not work for you. I am just trying to raise awareness of some sources of problems I have seen. The above may not even me a problem in your game.
As always the opinions are only my own and does not represent universal truth.
The “Uncanny valley” of gaming if you will. If you are not familiar with the concept, the idea is that there is a area of perception when something which is close to the expected/familiar but not quite can invoke a negative response. Originally it is applied in the field of robotics where the
“original hypothesis states that as the appearance of a robot is made more human, a human observer's emotional response to the robot will become increasingly positive and emphatic, until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong revulsion. “ (From Wiki)
The response is not always cognoscente as for the cause, as in you walk into a familiar room and something does not feel right only to latter discover that something (books, furniture) in the room has been rearranged. You are aware of the “wrongness” before/without being to pin down the reason.
Lets see some that I have seen with examples:
First of all, we do not necessary are playing the same game. If I say I run 3.X edition that may be a good place to start but does not tell you all that much about my game. If it is specified what books are allowed/sourced such as that I am using OA and Book of 9 swords, that is slightly better.
If further I state that I started with 2ed and like EGG's work and make it a point to read his two books on running that game (“Role playing mastery” and “Master of the game”) at least once a year, while still dim a more concise picture start to emerge.
Furthermore, with all the 3pp available IME lots of people use non WOC products in their games. I for example use Arcana Unearthed, Portals and Planes, Chaositech, Book of Fiends and others in my game. Different sources can lead to significant variation of in-game experience. That seems like an overly obvious statement, but I been surprised before what players have and have not experienced.
If I tell them (before first session of course) that in this campaign there will be no item creation until latter levels (in effect lifting the item creation feats by several levels, but also giving casters some of those feats for free), there may be some questioning looks but mostly shrugs. What they did not consider was the implications: magic items are not as readily available. Oh, the screams, the moans, the complains. Some people quit, others stayed and even got a taste for it. The moral was (for me) that players not always know what rule variations entail and I have to, in order to be on the safe side, explain down to people in great detail my house rules.
Second most prevalent point of contention: cannon. Let me start with the statement: “I like the Forgotten Realms, read the books, steal ideas and so on.” That being said I never run campaigns in it.
Why? Setting lawyers. I do not feel like reading 30+ fiction books and baker dozen source books just so I can run a (bare bones) consistent game. The problem is the fiction is cannon and sometimes forced into cannon (Drizzit, spellfire). By that I mean that both drow as PCs and spellfire wielders were introduced as rules after first apearing in the novels. This tendency is mostly not true in the other settings I use. Evelyn did not defeat Lloth in Grayhawk lore, no matter what Paul Kidd wrote in his “Queen of the Demonweb Pits” book.
In the end it seems to boil down to the same old advice: While it is acceptable and even enjoyable to create characters inspired by fiction, do not try to recreate them. It both seldom works exactly enough, and when it does not (that is most of the time) it is very frustrating.
FR (again in my opinion) suffers from its own success by being over detailed and familiar. By that I mean that even the smallest mistakes/inconsistencies seem glaring and with all the material available it is hard not to slip. This leads to destroyed verisimilitude hampering immersion.
I am sorry I cannot give credit, but a while back there was a suggestion on Enworld of making Elmister an mid-high level expert (as in the class) as opposed to a powerful wizard, who wrote all those novels about himself. While I personally would love to play in game with such a twist (with some in front hints that not everything may be as in cannon) at least some of the people I have played with will walk as soon as this is revealed saying “You lied to me, you are not running FR or even something remotely based on it. You violated the premises of the setting so much ... Just NO!”
Of course the level of expected setting consistency varies from group to group, but overall I think more rather then less is the expected norm.
And no I have not forgotten (or contradicting my first point) that many use home brew. It is just that even in that case DM s “borrow” ideas, items, plot, NPC and what not from other sources. Sometimes it is more obvious then others, but invariably it happens. Even if the source is not a established setting (I gave FR as an example only) as long as at least one of the player is somewhat familiar with it the potential of getting caught in inconsistencies exists.
The previous two misconceptions can happen even before sitting down to play. So now we get to->
Third, the in-game misaligned perceptions. As the DM is responsible for all the PC senses as well as rule interpretation a lot player decisions is heavy influenced by his/her description. Well, many times the misconceptions are innocuous, but still can have important consequences.
Lets say the party is scouting a ship and the DM states “You can see five sailors sitting close to loaded guns. They look dangerous and (Wisdom check) probably will fire on slightest provocation.”
So far so good, not a lot of detail, but considering that the PCs are spying they probably do not have time to take long looks without raising suspicion. Plus it is fast pace action scene. The information is enough to get a picture in the player's minds. They get away and plan their assault, with the DM dropping several hints that it is probably be very dangerous. You get the picture.
But wait, how many considered that the term gun is a bit ambiguous. In fact, In the scene above we are actually talking about naval cannons. Yes there was a time where cannon and gun were interchangeable and another when only the naval ones were called guns. While I would not expect the players to know that the world “girl” used to be gender ambiguous at the spur of the moment I may forget that they may not have the same knowledge that I do. Or vice versa, I may be using a term incorrectly and only latter find that the somebody have misunderstood what I have intended to convey. So I try to encourage players to ask questions (within reason). Of course there is always the “it was too dark/too far to see the details” answer if you do not want to reveal too much.
Now, I am not here to give solutions, especially since what works for me may not work for you. I am just trying to raise awareness of some sources of problems I have seen. The above may not even me a problem in your game.
