PC refusing to play a higher level character to start...

[hammymchamham]

OT: Where can I find "101 BAD USES OF A TOAD FAMILIAR" by Piratecat"

Back on topic: I don't see the problem with starting at first level. I mean, will a CR 15 creature even give him experience? Just use the FR variant of giving out XP. Determine how much XP that person should get from a certain CR. Have him be a fighter and try to get through a CR 15's AC. Have him be a wizard and get through that SR.

But as others have said, it sounds like you'd be better off without him. Try to find another player perhaps? And you can always throw in an NPC the party controls to fill in the gaps if you're worried the party needs 4 players.

Edit: And my group almost fell apart due to a lowsey player. Thankfull he quit, but we lost one really cool player. We picked up 2 more (so there are 6.5 (one who is there one every two weeks) of us total). I really hope the one that quit gets back in.

 

[Piratecat]

Piratecat is rude. Neener neener.

Monkey sucker.

Starkad, I meet most of my new players at gaming cons. Pandemonium in Harvard Square has started doing open gaming nights on Tues. and Wed. In fact, I'll be there running games for the next few Wednesday, competing with Balsamic Dragon for their "Iron Gamer" title.

Where's the email... hmmm.... oh, yes.

Lastly, in answer to my call, Iron Gamers have arisen and are ready to demonstrate their gaming mastery. Those of you interested should email me at tyler@pandemoniumbooks.com, or swing by the store and sign up on the bulletin board.

Here is the line up for November 2002:


Tuesday, 11/5: GURPS Discworld - (presented by Carla Schack, Tuesday Night Proctor)

Wednesday, 11/6: Toons RPG- TiToonic: The Hurt Goes On (presented by Emily Ronald, who is not an Iron Gamer, which is really too bad!)

Tuesday, 11/12: Furry Pirates (presented by the Iron Gamer Without Portfolio, Andrew French)

Wednesday, 11/13: Battle D&D - Round 1 (a duel between the Iron Gamers D&D and D20, Vivian Abraham and Kevin Kulp (Piratecat), or vice versa)

For this special challenge, we need eight players -- and up to two alternates -- who will be willing to commit to attending both this session and the one on the following Wednesday, November 20, 2002. The duel consists of each Iron Gamer running an adventure for a different group of players on the first Wednesday, then running again on the next Wednesday, swapping players. At the end of each session, the players will judge the Iron Gamers' efforts, and at the end of the duel the scores will be totalled, and one of the Iron Gamers will emerge victorious!

Alternates are not only encouraged, but will be given the opportunity to play supporting characters (henchmen, familiars, and the like) while waiting in the wings should one of the players drop out.


Tuesday, 11/19: Lord of the Rings RPG - The Breath of Night (presented by
Iron Gamer LOTR, Michael LaMeyer)


Wednesday, 11/20: Battle D&D - Round 2
The duel concludes!


Tuesday, 11/26: Sorcerer RPG - Applied Sciences (presented by Iron Gamer Obscure, Tom Russell)

Wednesday, 11/27: No Gaming

If you can, come join us!

 

[starkad]

Ok, I am stuck, and getting extremely angry with this person now.

I tried to talk to him, using some advice from above, and he counterpointed with things completely not relating to the topic at hand, took everything out of context, and is making me angry as hell.

For instance... He took every comment I made on him seeming to be a bit selfish on his stances on levels by refusing to change them... And counterpointed that I made prestige classes for other PCs (I made one for him too.. boggle?), and had no problem with theirs!

Well jesus dude.. I have no problem with yours either. How much plainer english can I put it than I have? I have an issue with you refusing to play anything other than level 1 characters from scratch! I have an issue with you holding the group emotionally hostage.

Gaaaah... I am so close to kicking this player out it hurts. And that would suck because I genuinely like this guy. He's just being so obstinate and childish I wanna puke.

Just venting. I suggested to him we sit down and chat with a neutral party (moderator) to try and settle this..

I've had to do this exactly once before in my 18 or so years of gaming. It was frustrating as hell then, and I lost a friend. My great fear here is the same thing will happen.

 

[I'm A Banana]

One question:

*why* will he only play a first level character?

Because he thinks it looses story and plotline? Because he likes to be weak?

There a few things you may be able to do:

*Powerful races. If he doesn't want a high-level character, he can have a high HD monster as a race. Just hook up with some advice on ECL's on these boards, and you should be good to go: low levels, and he's not that much weaker than the rest (by ECL +14, those guys BETTER be getting some monster hit dice, or I have bigger doubts about the ECL idea than I thought....)

*Let him write the tale of his adventuerer *until* he met the PC's. If he's not a 1st level character, he's been through some adventures before, and bringing in an already-seasoned adventurer could help him get over that "realism" hump. Certainly, the PC's aren't the most powerful people in the world? Develop this guy like an NPC, and then have him join the party. Is he a well-known swordsman? Is he a slayer of dragons from a kingdom over? A mysterious traveler from beyond the sea? An elderly elf who has seen twenty wars already? If he's as big a drama queen as you're making him sound, this should be his dream: he gets to legally make up any convoluted novella he wants about his character. As the DM, you can use this for plot hooks or just say that you might. Either way, he's not playing a budding adventuerer. He's playing someone who's a hero already, whose interests mesh with the party's.

*Give him a template. Might add a bit of resilience to him, so that it won't be so easily to accidentally kill him (or at least no easier than it would be to any other character). Make him a were-something, or an undead or a half-golem or whatever your imagination can concoct. It could be incapacitating ("Sorry, you're a zombie, new PC time! But you can't walk out, because I didn't kill your old one..."), or just something to give him a slight edge he may not have right now.

*Let him play his 1st level nobody...but make him a prince or something, perhaps a budding celestial or the reincarnation of some important figure. He can go on adventures, and he's likely to survive...and then just level him up like nobody's business (the XP that a 15th level party gets should bump him up helluh-fast).

Seriously, it's a bit tough to stop him from doing something you don't like if I don't know the motive behind it...

Either way, don't be forced to play with him. There are probably methods that will stop it from going that far, but sometimes two people's idea of how to have fun with an RPG just don't mesh. I mean, I may be friends with a Vampire LARPer, but, dude, I ain't gonna have fun doing that, you depressed whackjob.

Yeah, try having him play potent races or meshing with the story.

Or, if you're really getting annoyed, here's a plan: afflict his character with a template. Say, make him a Werebear or a Vampire or something. Something that'll up his power without discarding his original character. If you're really a RAT BASTARD DM, I'd either make his character undead ("hey, you said don't kill your character, and I didn't....permenantly..."), or give him some sort of incapaciting injury that doesn't kill him. ("you're not dead, but with Wisdom as a nonability, you're technically an object. I'm affraid you'll have to create a character that will work")

I guess the main issue is that he shouldn't simultaneously be insiting on playing a weak character and then forbidding you from killing said weaking. That's the risk of playing a low-level character, dood. Suck it up, and stop yer whining, candy-bottom.

 

[Kibo]

It was frustrating as hell then, and I lost a friend. My great fear here is the same thing will happen.

At the risk of being callous and obvious, if you guys can't do anything other than argue over fantastic numbers on real paper, you're not friends, you're aquaintences, and don't seem to actually have much invested in each other at that.

If someone is really my friend, and something is important to them but inconvient to me, I bend but don't break. At worst we don't share in that activity. (I am not likely to be found in a church with those I know who are so inclined.)

Given your take on what you consider to be your joint friendship, perhaps you should take a deep breath an a little time to examine what your role in the melodrama might be? My friends can call me on being a dumbass when I drift off that direction, I can be honest with them. That trust is why they are cool. Here it is you guys are fighting, at least one of you planing the end of a friendship, and you have only a dim idea of what you're fighting over, and even less illumination as to why?

 

[Squire James]

I think there's 2 good ways of dealing with a control freak... boot him out, or make him the DM!

If you and the other players really like the guy, you should probably try to run (or have HIM run) an alternate campaign where his sort of character is favored (level 1 drama queens who fight EL 5 encounters so they can't be blamed for resting after each one...). If you and the others don't like him that much, boot him from the game but not your life.

As good as D&D is, it shouldn't be the sole basis of a life or a friendship. If D&D is your only common interest, and he doesn't mesh with the D&D group, is he really a friend or is he just a "D&D buddy"? If you do boot him out of the group, I strongly suggest setting up some other sort of activity in which you CAN get along with each other.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I'm trying to see where exactly you two are friends...

I've known people like this. You think you're friends at the time, but when you stop seeing them you realise that you didn't actually get on with them all that well. And I bet if you kick him out of the group you'll never hear from him again.

He sounds like a pain in the a$$. Kick him out and let him go find a game that supports that kind of playing. And if he keeps whining, throw a CR+3 encounter at the party with the intent to kill his character for a valid storyline reason. If his character dies, ask the other players if they would want his character resurrected. If not, he's dead, buh-bye...!

 

[CTD]

I've had to do this exactly once before in my 18 or so years of gaming. It was frustrating as hell then, and I lost a friend. My great fear here is the same thing will happen. [/B]

This gentleman has already stated that he will only play D&D and intends to leave the group when you and the other two friends switch to the next game (which is not D&D).

If this has not changed, there is no question of "if?" about him not participating in the future. It's a "when?". He is going to leave, according to his stated intent, when you stop running your game and the next one begins.

How much of an impact is there if he leaves before the D&D game ends? Remember, this is a question of "when?" not "if?".

When he does leave your friendship will be tested and you will discover the truth of him being a friend or a D&D buddy. It's OK to have people who are just D&D buddies btw, so don't feel bad if it ends up being just that.

From the sounds of things he is creating more problems than he solves, which is a strong case for moving up the "when?" date to ASAP. That's my suggestion.

As a bonus, here's a lesson I learned over a decade ago:

The ratio between good DM's to players is way out of balance. Good DM's are few and far between. As such, I take great liberties to ensure that I am running a game that I enjoy. Before I factor in the enjoyment of my players, I make sure I'd have a good time running it, because if I don't, it'll suck.

This gentleman is attempting to coerce you into running a game that you can't enjoy. He is unaware of the ratio. Run the game you enjoy. He can be replaced. You can't.

 

[wolff96]

He sounds like a major pain in the butt to me. But hey, he's supposed to be your friend.

If you're worried about super-low level characters in the group, give him the template of all templates: Paragon, from the ELH. I think that comes in at +12 ECL... I could be wrong, though.

Seriously, though, I wouldn't play with this guy at all. Granted, we only have one side of the story, but this guy sounds like a total jerk.

 

[starkad]

Ok, I will elaborate.

Outside of this situation, he and I get along fine, and enjoy each others' company. We're friendly towards one another, and it hasn't affected how we get along.

Only when it comes down to this situation do we butt heads so far.

Last night, he stated he "might" try spycraft. But not to count on him... Which to me sounded like "cater to me or I leave still".

And it's not so much that we argue over numbers on paper... I run my game a certain way. I allow PHB races and FRCS races. Nothing else. I really have issues with allowing him to play, say, a celestial.

His reasons for playing a level 1 character are simple (to him). He has no imagination. He likes to experience the character as he gets his experiences. My rebut to that was "Well what about the years before he adventured?"... And then I realized that he virtually ignores that time frame.

When I suggested he make the history up for a 15th level character, he told me it made the character 'fake' for him, because he didn't go through it himself... After I told him to feel free to take liberties. When you make a history up, how can it be fake? You've put the work into describing his past and made him a little more 'real'.

At this point, I am about ready to toss my hat in as a DM for a while. He has never run a game, admitted it, yet continued to spout off on how he thought I was being unfair, and trying to strongarm or force him to play something he didn't want. At that point I made a note to him that his idea of what he wants is so narrow, it might not fit in with my game whatsoever.

I really am beginning to think he is not a viable member of this group anymore. His opinions and restrictions detract from the overall fun of the group.