New players: your recruiting standards

[Son of the Serpent]

1) Be able to make a minimum of 21 (minimum 4 hour) sessions in a year (we make an exception for exceptional cases. Its happened pretty rarely. Hasnt been an issue.)

2) Be on time. If you are going to be late or can't make it, let me know in advance. Yeah. This thing.

3) Be involved. No experience is required, but if you can't be bothered to do a little between-session reading to learn the rules and basic setting data, we don't need you. For us this is true to a point. The setting information part changes drastically if the players arent supposed to know much (or anything) about a setting, which sometimes happens. And we make sure to black list some books so that peoplr dont accidentilly spoil themselves.

4) Have a thick skin and be socially adaptable. Do not demand this of others. If you are, you probably have failed this rule. Exceptions are rare.

5) substances are fine in very light moderated quantities. You will be expected not to exceed the level of intoxication beyond which you experience critical problems with attentiveness, level headedness, rationality, or similar.

6) There is only one GM per campaign (exception is when a person is learning to dm. And wants a bit of dming experience before flying solo. Then we occasionally have a subdm.) A given session is always the given dm's shindig. He is your god. What god says is what reality is.

7) Have a laptop. Yup.

8) Bathe before each game. Yup.

9) chronic pvp gets the dm fist. Rare pvp that is extremely justified in game to the point of not doing it actually breaking immersion/realism is allowed and even encouraged. This is a completely different animal. Do it lightly and it wont be tolerated. Do it right and its good fun.

10) no metagaming of the 4th wall breaking character and player sharing knowledge variety.

11) no cheating

12) have dice, pencil, paper, and a calculator if your phone or pc does not.

13) communicate with the dm on days other than session days in a timely manner. Doesnt have to be same day. Just has to be best effort.

14) be intelligent

15) be a prior friend to a minimum of 1/3 of the groups members

16) cannot be malevolent or otherwise adverserial to any prior member

17) dont be a beligerant bigoted ideologue
A) especially dont be:
A1) feminist
A2) race supremacist
As these are the worst

You dont have to agree with me. But these are basically the requirements my group has.

 

[cmad1977]

I absolutely wouldn’t play in anyone’s game where basic hygiene had to be a requirement for playing.
Not because I don’t bathe, but I wouldn’t play with people that needed to be told they needed to bathe.
That is an instant booting from my game. If you need to be told something so basic, you cannot play at my game.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Ummm they wouldnt be told. Its just a standard which if violated said candidate wont be recruited. Of course thats not said to someone's face with complimentary finger waggling. That would be very odd. I also dont know why you would assume this would be said or told to someone just by being a standard.

 

[dragoner]

Reading some of these I give a huge nope for being a player in their game; it's like one time I played a female cleric in a 5e game, and the DM went off the hook with sexual harassment. I mean, wtf? That's fun? Both a female player and I left the game before 3rd level.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I absolutely wouldn’t play in anyone’s game where basic hygiene had to be a requirement for playing.
Not because I don’t bathe, but I wouldn’t play with people that needed to be told they needed to bathe.
That is an instant booting from my game. If you need to be told something so basic, you cannot play at my game.

I think you've missed the point: this thread is about the standards that have to be met. You have that same standard, because you would give them an instant booting, same as the others.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

In my group, the ongoing criterion has been to be a real-life friend of one of the existing players... It removes most of the risks I can see from the lists above. As we grew older, children of existing players have been invited, starting around age 16, in appropriate campaigns (but with the clear assumption that crude language and occasional crass joke could happen nonetheless), with the untold proviso that their parent should take responsability and make them adhere to the common sense of the group (like, it's OK to check a text message if it's from your boss, it's not OK to casually browse social media...)

I feel sorry that so many people have to mention the personal hygiene rule ; I have never met a stinky player (but that may be because of our groups recruiting policy...)

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Ah. I knew i foegot some. Edited to include the forgotten items.

 

[Umbran]

I don't think of it as a process with standards. Each time I add a player or put a group together, it is an individual thing, and I think of the needs for that particular time.

I generally work with folks I know, or who other players know and vouch for, so many of the risks are reduced. I let folks know that my games are not PvP, and that Wheaton's Law applies.

 

[Zhaleskra]

1.) If you want to be the main character you can FO.

2.) I won't go out of my way to kill characters, but I also won't go out of my way to save you either. After I've reminded you of in game resources three times you're on you're own.

3.) Story is what happens at the table and actions have consequences.

4.) Keep pre-game off topic conversation to 10 minutes tops, and extremely limited while game is in session.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

At my home table:

1: Be a friend or a friend of a friend - I wouldn't dream of inviting a stranger into my house.

At both my home and open tables:

2: Do not cheat.

3: No PVP or rolls against other PCs.

4: Whatever character you make, D&D is a group activity and you need to find a way to work with the rest of the group.

5: No sexism, homophobia, racism, and so on. Treat everyone at the table with respect. Depending on the severity, you might not even get a warning, just The Boot.