Players, GMs, and "My character"...

[Celebrim]

So, despite everything you've claimed

Despite? I went back and reread this thread from the beginning over the weekend and I've been absolutely consistant in my position from start to finish.

you do exactly the same thing I've stated should be done all the way along - you take the other person's claim into account...

Yes.

...and stop doing what makes the other person uncomfortable.

Maybe. I have never claimed that player #1 is under an absolute obligation to stop making the other person uncomfortable. Nor have I ever claimed that player #2 should have the expectation that if they are uncomfortable, other people must accomodate them. Instead, I said that the two players should try to find a way to work out their differences and look for an acceptable comprimise to all parties. I have never suggested that either player #1 or player #2 in the specific scenario being described is fully justified in expecting the other player to 'give in'. Instead, I've suggested that there are a huge number of variables involved here and that when the conflict arrises the individual players and the table as a whole will either have to comprimise or go their separate ways. I've suggested alot of ways to achieve the former so as to avoid the later.

You do it with a lot more words, but, at the end of the day, that's what you're doing.

You try something, the other person says stop and you stop.

No it's not, and no that's not an accurate summary of my position.

Why are you disagreeing with me then?

In brief, it's because we disagree something. Your position summarizes to:

And, when it happens...you stop. It doesn't matter about anything else.

I disagree.

And, please, can we stop with the whole "You just don't understand what I'm saying" thing?

Can you please stop putting words in my mouth? Because you know what, I'll stop saying you don't understand what I'm saying when its no longer clear that you don't have a clue what I'm saying.

No, I don't have to subject myself to discomfort merely because you are ignorant of what's making me feel uncomfortable.

No one has suggested that.

Nor should I be forced to remain silent when I'm being made to feel uncomfortable.

No one is being forced to do anything. I'd be curious exactly how anyone could force anyone to remain silent at the table.

When someone does something that you are not comfortable with, who cares why? That person is uncomfortable. That person is not having fun. Not only is that person simply not having fun, that person is outright having a bad time.

This is the real heart of our disagreement. You continue to insist on a right to be uncomfortable and continue to persist in disowning your own feelings and making them the responsibility of someone else. It very much does matter why someone is uncomfortable and real friends are concerned with more than just shutting up when someone tells them they are uncomfortable, to say nothing of the fact that you might not be gaming with close friends. I have suggested that the way to resolve this is introspection, mutual compassion and understanding. I have not suggested and never will suggest that if someone says that they are uncomfortable that that gives them absolute authority to squash whatever it is that makes them uncomfortable. True mutual compassion and understanding might lead to player #1 forgoing something, but if the compassion and understanding is truly mutual it might simply mean that some comprimise is hit upon that addresses the real reasons for player #2's discomfort and allows everyone to have fun. Exactly what resolution should be achieved for any given conflict is not something I'm prepared to suggest, but I have suggested many different possible resolutions that could be achieved.... as for that matter so did Lanefan.

I would say that that position is a bit far from:

And, when it happens...you stop. It doesn't matter about anything else.

Now, I'm going to risk addressing that position. You've previously said that you had a truly uncomfortable roleplaying experience that ended in a really ugly way because you kept your silence, tried your best to participate, and didn't speak up. I really admired that you told that story and tried to give you XP for it (but failed because I've apparantly given you XP too recently). That position that you took within the story I would fully disagree with as well, whether I was a DM or a marriage councilor. But as a result of the experience, you seem to have taken the exact opposite stance - that when you are uncomfortable not only should you immediately speak out but that everyone else ought to be immediately and fully accomodating to your feelings. You've vacillated from thinking that in effect you had to be fully accomodating of someone else, to claiming that everyone else has to be fully accomodating of you. Neither is I think particularly healthy.

Now, I could be being completely unfair to you in that. But is it possible that the problem here is that you've got a bias coloring your stance that is rooted in your own personal experience? Because I'm otherwise finding it very hard to explain how in the same post you can say we wildly disagree and that I'm saying what you've been saying all along. Nor do I understand how, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, you persist in saying things like:

You think that the game should come first. That people should just suck it up for the good of the game.

No, I think I've made it perfectly clear that I don't.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Another excellent post, Celebrim.

 

[Celebrim]

DannyA - Honestly, thinking about the whole "Who's your Daddy" thing, I think I came to a realization. The reason that so many players come to the table with a blank slate character background, Man With No Name, character who's family is dead and just got off a ship from a continent that sank into the ocean ten minutes after he set sail, is because of DM's that can't keep their mitts off other people's characters.

It's been commented on before, and you are undoubtably right. I disagree with the assessment of what constitutes 'keeping mitts off other people's characters', but I do agree that some people see it that way.

Seriously. If you include family members in your background, you can guarantee they will either be kidnapped, murdered, or will betray the PC.

Possibly. Certainly every NPC you ever encounter is going to be in some fashion a role-playing complication. I generally feel that players who consider this to be a violation of the separation between the PC and the DM to be simply stating a preference for a game without alot of low drama, or possibly a preference for a game without DM plots. I think both are valid preferences, but I'm not sure that you can validly claim the DM doesn't have a right to invent, use, or play NPC's as he sees fit.

I truly believe that most players have been trained almost from the get go that anything they put in their backgrounds will just be ammunition for the DM to screw them around with.

If having an innocent used as a plot hook is 'the DM screwing them around', then truly I say to you that playing as an orphan is not going to result in the DM not being able to 'screw you around' much less keep you safe from plot hooks baited with innocents in distress. Look at what happened to Luke - the villain turned out to be his father, his mentor turned out to be dispassionate liar who was using him for his own ends, and his damsel in distress love interest turned out to be his sister. That goes way beyond any thing I've ever came up with.

 

[Umbran]

I honestly can't think of a situation I was ever in where it was necessary (or wise) as a player to tell another player flat out in the middle of the session, "I'm not comfortable with this line of play."

I have, unfortunately, seen such situations. Not among stable gaming groups with fairly set members, but in more pickup-game situations and live-action play: at least three different jerks who didn't know how to behave around ladies. I can go into gory details if you like.

I understand what you're saying, but given my own experience I'd modify it - it is quite possible that someone could make you mildly uncomfortable, and maybe direct and immediate confrontation on the matter wouldn't be called for. But there are some cases where swift and direct raising of the issue is the best option.

For example: if player 1 (player, not character) is physically touching Player 2 in any why that makes player 2 uncomfortable, it is okay to say so, right then and there, and it is probably best to do so.

 

[Raven Crowking]

If one of the players in question is someone that one would generally not wish to game with anyway, I will note that the resolution to the problem ought to be crystal clear.

EDIT: Also, I hope you realize that your post blurs the distinction between something happening to the character, and to the player. Many, many, many things can happen to the character without them being okay to happen to the player. Being attacked by large rats, for instance, is a D&D trope that should probably not be extended to the actual player. IME, anyway.

So, if that becomes the bar, I suspect that most sane individuals would be uncomfortable with having what happens to their characters happen to them. I know I would be, well before the first spiked pit trap.


.

 

[MrMyth]

Instead I would focus humbly on the possibility that the feelings I'm feeling are my own, and my responsibility, and that if I'm asking someone to change their otherwise harmless behavior to conform to what may be my weaknesses, that I should look on that as asking some one a favor and by no means state it as a demand or expect that in making the demand that I'll get a particular outcome.

...

Don't be that player who gets offended and then says, "You are making me uncomfortable" as if its some other person's fault. Sure, there are times when things are going to happen that are legitimately offensive, or which you rightly don't feel you can participate in. But even when you are completely in the right, you still need to practice diplomacy in whatever situation you find yourself in. In my opinion that is not always best served by a OOC challenge.

I think I find most of what you are saying entirely reasonable, but these (bolded parts) are where I'm still in disagreement. I think my main objection here is that you are assuming that it is a weakness in Player 2 to be offended by something, and that you are making the judgement call for them that what they are objecting to is actually harmless.

I still find it really inappropriate to say it is a personal failing of someone when they become offended or are made uncomfortable. Removing the responsibility from the offender seems to be very close to condoning inappropriate behavior on many levels. It sounds like that is a fundamental difference in philosophy between us, though, so I'm not sure we can ever resolve that disagreement.

I do understand why you prefer dealing with events IC or waiting until after the session to handle it OOC. I agree that if an event can be easily handled IC, all the better. And if a situation genuinely doesn't bother someone, no reason why they can't play through it and discuss their thoughts on it after the game.

But I think there can be many situations where that will only make things worse. Where the option for IC resolution won't be there (or will involve delving further into the uncomfortable situation), and the experience is unpleasant enough that it is best handled immediately. Like we saw in the initial example, where an uncomfortable situation arose without player 2 having the opportunity to handle it IC - hence the two options were either to ask it to stop OOC right then, or to let it play out through the rest of the session, in which player 2 would have a miserable experience for the rest of the game.

I said it before, and I'll say it again - honest and open communication is a big sign of mature behavior. Discouraging that is not a good thing. Telling people that they should swallow their emotions and sit through an unpleasant experience, solely to avoid a momentary disruption to the roleplaying of a session, just doesn't sit well to me.

I mean, when I play, we have disruptions all the time - someone breaks to go to the bathroom, food arrives, some comment sounds like a Monty Python quote and everyone laughs and/or groans. I mean, you might play differently, and fair enough.

But staying in character, to me, and preserving the roleplaying intensity of the game, is not something that is more sacrosanct than the enjoyment of the game itself. If things are getting weird or unpleasant for a player, the mature response is to discuss the issue, not pretend it isn't there or swallow one's emotions and suffer through the situation.

Honestly, if I did something that bugged another player, I'd much prefer they tell me about it up front. The alternative - keeping silent, and instead eventually having it poison things in character and between us as friends - is the sort of thing that leads to group-breaking drama.

Sure, if one does bring it up OOC, one should do so as diplomatically as possible. But avoiding honest communication just leads to tension building up in the group - and by the time it does come to resolve all that lurking anger and discomfort, it can often be too late.

 

[Celebrim]

For example: if player 1 (player, not character) is physically touching Player 2 in any why that makes player 2 uncomfortable, it is okay to say so, right then and there, and it is probably best to do so.

Yeah, I would say that we've definately already crossed the line between IC and OOC there. You can't make an IC objection to a OOC action and the complaint that something is making the player uncomfortalbe is slightly but importantly different than 'something that is happening to my character is making me the player uncomfortable'.

 

[Hussar]

Actually, Celebrim, I don't think you've made it "perfectly clear". You stated rather strongly that if someone had a problem in the game that was making them uncomfortable, they should wait until after the session to bring it up. I thought you were pretty clearly stating that doing it during the game was a bad thing - the best thing would be to role play through it.

How does that not constitute basically telling someone to suck it up?

The reason I feel that someone should immedietely tell the other person is because holding it in means that someone is not enjoying the session. Not just that they're bored, but they are outright having a bad time.

Why should they wait to tell the other player?

The other player, in good faith, is trying something that he thinks is a good idea. The problem is, he's wrong. It's not a good idea because the other person is not happy. I would be much more worried about a player who insisted on continuing even though that player knows that it's a bad idea and the other person isn't enjoying what's going on.

If the other player tries to wait until the end of the session, that sends a very mixed message. Player 1 tries something, and Player 2 plays to that concept. Tries to show willing despite really not enjoying any of it. After the session, Player 2 tells player 1 that he just had a terrible time during the session because of what Player 1 did and doesn't want Player 1 to do it anymore.

This is actually better than just speaking up immedietely?

Like I said upthread, all of these problems go away when you are open and up front with the players. In the Luke Skywalker example, if I was Luke's player, and all those things happened without any consultation first, I'd be right out the door. Writers can get away with that because the characters in their stories can't leave the game. DM's shouldn't.

but I'm not sure that you can validly claim the DM doesn't have a right to invent, use, or play NPC's as he sees fit.

I would say that a DM has the right to invent, use or play NPC's that have no ties to the PC's as he sees fit. As soon as something directly impacts a PC, I ask the player. After all, what's the point of doing all the work of coming up with plot ideas and whatnot, just to have the player turn around and shoot it down because the player has zero interest in what you've brought to the table? The player wrote the background that his parents are dead, he has no family now that the Empire has slaughtered his adoptive parents and he is totally cut loose from any familial entanglements.

The DM turns around and rewrites his background so that his father isn't dead, and his love interest turns out to be his sister. I'm thinking that's a bit overstepping DM authority there.

Again, this is why I adore the Chronica Feudalis system of Backgrounds. I can put whatever I like in there, bring it to the table when I choose to, and know that the DM is constrained by the rules against using what I put there against me. Love, love, love the idea.

 

[Celebrim]

I think my main objection here is that you are assuming that it is a weakness in Player 2 to be offended by something, and that you are making the judgement call for them that what they are objecting to is actually harmless.

Before I even begin to address your post, let me ask you a question.

Did I actually say that?

Because if your main objection turns out to be about something I didn't say, then that changes things a bit wouldn't you agree?

What exactly did I say. Don't paraphrase. Don't surmise. What exactly did I say. I suggest that in the context of your objection you are bolding the wrong part of that sentence.

 

[Umbran]

Yeah, I would say that we've definately already crossed the line between IC and OOC there.

If we allow consideration of live-action play, the line's a whole lot more hazy.

You can't make an IC objection to a OOC action and the complaint that something is making the player uncomfortalbe is slightly but importantly different than 'something that is happening to my character is making me the player uncomfortable'.

It is only the extreme example to make the point that sometimes it does make sense to just state the issue baldly.

One of the trouble cases I alluded to before included no touching - just a guy who repeatedly leered, spoke too suggestively, and otherwise harassed female players. He made them fearful for their actual physical safety. He haunted several conventions I went to, but since nobody ever spoke up during game, no official report ever got filed on it, so none of the conventions or individual GMs could ban him.

He was an extreme case, I admit. But he wasn't the only one. I've seen enough folks willing to be complete jerks that I wouldn't make the same generalization as you, is all.