D&D General Player Responsibilities

[R_J_K75]

I was talking about players needing to prepare for the game. Don't show up & start leveling your character after a week long break. Dopn't show up & ask me to rule on a questionable interaction you noticed days ago while leveling up/reviewing your abilities/etc & weren't sure about but would like a ruling on right now before we start when you could have asked in chat at any point. Don't show up & declare that you couldn't print your character sheet because your printer was .dead this week to five people who could have printed it for you had you asked before we were starting the game. So on & so forth

I understand now. Yes, that is extremely annoying, and I've had this happen more than once. I had a player who would constantly do most of these things and show up and forget his character at home. I gamed with him for years on and off and tolerated/overlooked a lot of this but eventually he got more and more disrespectful to me and the other players, so I texted him last September and said, "Don't show up to our game anymore, you aren't welcome". Haven't heard from him since. It's pretty mind boggling how some players lack common courtesy when it comes to the other people in the group.

 

[Hussar]

Engage.

That’s pretty much my primary rule.

Engage with the game. Don’t be a passive lump waiting for me to roll up the plotwagon week after week so you can passively be spoon fed. I am not here to entertain you. That’s not my job as the dm.

If you can’t engage, and I could replace you with a chatbot and a random number generator, I’d rather not game with you.

 

[thom_likes_gaming]

Be respectful, and pay attention.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Engage with the game. Don’t be a passive lump waiting for me to roll up the plotwagon week after week so you can passively be spoon fed. I am not here to entertain you. That’s not my job as the dm.

God.

I've never met players like this and I certainly hope I never do. That sounds horrifying.

 

[delericho]

Most of it boils down to simple respect for others: turn up when and where you say you will; let people know if you can't make it; treat others with respect; abide by the group conventions on drinking, smoke breaks, and the like (and if you do partake in illegal substances, don't bring them to my house!).

There are a few specific to the game:

• If there is a cost associated with playing, be sure to bring your share. And if it's a fixed cost for the room (or similar) and you have to cancel at short notice, then if we have to pay then you have to pay your share.
• Prior to the game there will be a discussion of the conventions (genre and otherwise) in play. Once agreed, you need to follow them: don't bring a CE assassin to a good-aligned party (or an LG paladin to an evil campaign). And no, you can't turn the Enterprise's transporters into the ultimate anti-personnel weapon - I don't care how detailed and logical you argument, it's just not done.
• Ultimately, it's your job to make the game more fun for the other players (including the DM) by your presence, not less so. So it's fine to play a jerk character in the vein of Wolverine; it's not fine to play a jerk character who ruins the game for everyone else.
• And "I'm only playing my character" is never an excuse. You chose that character, so if it's a problem choose another one.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

What do.you think the player responsibilities are?

I have to break my answer in 2... cause online now

Pre covid) we all bought and shared minis terrain and battlematts. I had bought (and we all used weather I was DM or not) magnets that are color coded and things you can put on and take off the minis that the magnets grab to.

We always bought our own meal (or split pizza) but snacks were who ever brought them shared them (DM or Player) and Soda was almost always the person who's house we ran at. (At most we ever had 3 'game safe' houses at a time even when we had 5 or 6 alternating DMs)

One thing that came up in another thread that I was actually surprised at my own vehemence of was this: players need to.show the GM the respect of actually paying attention and engaging the game enough to remember important events and people and things. Not every detail of all the lore, just things that actually happen in play. Take notes.

this more or less... we assume that none of us (again DM or Player) is remembering things when real life keeps punching... so we often have 1 or 2 players take notes and 'remind everyone' at the start of game.

the other thing is 'responsible for table fun' and 'responsible for rules calls' gets farmed out alot. If a PC says "Wait I have this spell that might help called XXX" the DM or another player can help with the rules and rulings. But it's more then that. If the table isn't having fun we think of it as all of us that need to fix that too.

Post covid) on roll20 there has been 0 shareing of the costs. and almost 0 time input on mapping/token generating... I have done most of it with 1 other player having helped find a program for mapping... When I play people use the tokens I made. When I run I use (and make new) tokens I made. Each of us have chosen to or not buy a sub to roll20, with 0 cost share,

 

[Laurefindel]

As far as I’m concerned, the only big responsibility I expect out of players is « Don’t be a jerk ».

That’s intentionally generic

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Players should look for and find the adventure.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Players should look for and find the adventure.

Not necessarily the one the DM planned.

 

[Lanefan]

I was talking about players needing to prepare for the game. Don't show up & start leveling your character after a week long break. Dopn't show up & ask me to rule on a questionable interaction you noticed days ago while leveling up/reviewing your abilities/etc & weren't sure about but would like a ruling on right now before we start when you could have asked in chat at any point. Don't show up & declare that you couldn't print your character sheet because your printer was .dead this week to five people who could have printed it for you had you asked before we were starting the game. So on & so forth

IME there are a lot of players who, while perfectly engaged and fun and entertaining during the session, simply don't think about the game at all during those week-long breaks between sessions. It might as well not exist for them, unless they're physically at the table (or...sigh...the computer) in-session - kind of like a boardgame, that way.

I've long since learned that sometimes seeing to this stuff during the session is the only way it'll ever get done at all.