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

[Kraydak]

Again, I don't think that from a starting backstory the DM will be able to extrapolate every action a character might take, especially in the case of some players. If a character doesn't specifically say he hates farmers in his backstory, but later decides that is the case halfway through the game, how do you propose the DM respond? Or, say, the character starts acting in a way that is inconsistent with their backstory?

Basically, it feels weird that people think it perfectly ok for the DM to veto any backstory elements at character creation, but it is out of line to be concerned about a character's behavior at any later point in the game, even if it proves disruptive to play.

But if the player is being honest about his character, then it isn't the player being disruptive by balking, but the DM who is being disruptive by trying to force actions down the players' throats.

The "spontaneous farmer hate" comes very, very near to a straw-man example, of course. But I can tell you the sequence of events that would occur if a DM made a "woe is me, my player hates farmers, my players suck" post here. In sequence:
1) Lots of people: "your players suck! the lot of a DM is hard".
2) Several people: "the situation you describe doesn't make any sense, clarifications please".
3) After some teeth pulling: "well, yeah, the campaign was advertised as a social-intrigue campaign*, and the character in question is a tricked out social-monster with minimal combat abilities whose ambitions are purely political".
4) Lots of people: "DM-sir, dude, the problem is your fault".

*The fault is actually the player's! The evidence from reading these boards for years (clearly no sample bias........) is every campaign advertised as social-intrigue based is actually pure hack-and-slash.

 

[Celebrim]

Let me address the farmer example again.

I see that there are basically four possibilities. Let's deal with the ideal case.

The player has a character concept for a snooty, fastidious, nobleman. I have approved of this concept. In the course of the parties adventures, the party finds a peasant farmer who offers to pay the party whatever he can to help deal with some problem. The player considers this and decides that his character would consider such an offer to be beneath his dignity. He says, in character, "Are we to be mere sellswords? Am I to be the servant of a slave? I don't accept employment from villains. Let us continue on the Baron, as we had planned, and leave this peasant to his lowly problems." Now, the player is a mature RPer. Out of character he knows this line of play is potentially disruptive. The other players have characters that are more strictly heroic, and he can tell that the other players are excited about this plot hook. But the other players are also mature players, and they recognize from the stylized speach that what the player is really communicating on a meta-level is, "I think we need to play out this scene, because its important to my characterization. So, someone quickly talk my character into going along with the plan, so that we can get on to the adventure. I agree to be flexible on this provided someone provides me with a good excuse." And, if that's what's going on, then let me say that as a DM, it's watching well done intraparty RP like that is one of the great joys of DMing for experienced players.

If I was playing another character in the party, I'd try to resolve the issue by turning it around. I'd tell the peasant he could keep his money, and I'd tell my aristocratic friend that we were of course not drawing blood for pay - we were fulfilling our duty as noble and free men to protect the lowly. If necessary, I'd rebuke the peasant for offering to pay us, as if he was our equal station. I believe that for most mature RPers, this would satisfying the other player's need to characterize.

This can go wrong in one of three ways.

First, the DM can not recognize the issue, and instead tries to take control of the PC. This is going to result in, "My character wouldn't do that.", and the DM is IMO unquestionably in the wrong.

Second, the other players may not recognize that the player's stance. They may assume that the in character stance is exactly reflective of the player's out of character stance. They may believe that he's simply saying, "I (the player) don't want to do this." And they may not have the RP sophistication to come up with an in character way of handling this problem. As a result, they may attempt to respond to the player in an out of character way (and with improper out of character emotion). This is likely to result in player conflict, as you have one player here offering a valid characterization and finding himself dealing with real anger, veiled insults, and a bunch of other childish things. The DM's job in this case is to publicly try to smooth over the misunderstanding and encourage everyone to avoid attempting to solve problems OOC.

Thirdly, the player that is balking may actually be disruptive. Either he is mistaking his own in character stance for an out of character stance (because my character wouldn't want to do this, I don't want to either), or he's letting his out of character feelings influence his in character stance (I don't want to take this plot hook, but I don't want to look overtly like a jerk, so I'll throw an in character fit), or he's actually the sort of player that gets a kick out of derailing the game so as to remain the center of attention at all times. If this turns out to be what is going on, we probably have a blown session, and it's the DMs job to privately take that player aside after the session and try to explain to the player that he's not the only one playing the game and that therefore he needs to keep in mind that he has a responcibility to everyone else in the group to play in a cooperative manner. That doesn't mean he has to betray his character concept, but it does mean that he has to be looking for ways to make his character work with everyone else and if he can't, then he either needs a new character or a new group.

 

[MrMyth]

In that sense yes it boils down to the same thing-one person decides that it is up to everyone else to entertain him/her in a desired manner and is unwilling to consider the desires of anyone else. These are player types the group is better off without.

What makes it a bit trickier for me is that I've seen a number of players who act like that, but not because they are outright bad people - it just comes from a complete lack of understanding of the social dynamic, or that part of the goal of the game is for everyone to be having a good time. And that's where it gets tricky to deal with - this person genuinely feels that their character should act in a certain way, and doesn't understand why doing that is pissing off everyone else in the group.

Honestly, the biggest lesson here is just communication. There are times when a player's personality or a character's history may conflict with the group. Sometimes there may be solutions to be found in-game, sometimes the only approach is to try and address it out of character. Either way, though, recognizing it and discussing it is the key.

At one time long ago a new person joined our local gaming club and ran a campaign for us. It was very heavy handed and at one point he actually addressed the group and said: " This is my campaign and you will do exactly as I say!!"

This was followed by the sounds of dice being put away and the rest of us getting up and leaving the table. The DM eventually learned how to get along with people better and became a good friend but that game was toast.

Yeah, I can't deny that presentation matters a lot! Despite the roles of player and DM, the game is a cooperative one, in the end, and attempting to deny that is generally not going to end well.

 

[S'mon]

It appears that I'm in the minority but I disagree with this pretty strongly. My games benefit significantly when I provide some narration that helps frame the upcoming session and glosses over stuff that would take a long time to play out during the session in minute detail and would, ultimately, not be very engaging for the group as a whole. Let me give an example of what I'm talking about to see if I'm really at odds with most of the posters in this thread:

Let's pretend my campaign has three players, each with one character. Here they are with the basic personalities that the players themselves have established:

Tricksy, the Halfling Rogue - Tricksy has a thirst for knowledge, especially about maps and history. He's shy around women.

Grongar, the Human Barbarian - Grongar is a simple man with simple tastes. He likes beer and he likes wenches. He knows that his chosen profession is likely to result in his death at a young age and he's all about indulging his vices whenever he isn't risking his life.

Snevish, the Human Wizard - Snevish views adventuring as a means to an end. He wishes to open a school of wizardry and that's going to take a lot of money. He takes every opportunity to grow his fortune by making good investments with the loot he gains by adventuring.

So, last session, the party arrived at the town of Stinkport after making their way through the many dangers of the Fetid Swamp and were able to turn in a bunch of Lizardman Heads for a bounty. I'm trying to frame the action for the next adventure, but I'm not sure what exactly that will be. I have a few things prepared and want to figure out what direction they are headed. So, the day after our game night I send out the following e-mail:

"Over the course of the next week you grow familiar with Stinkport. You had already indicated that you were fine to stay at the Barnacled Anchor Inn because the innkeeper, Belik, regarded you as heroes for slaying so many of the accursed Lizardmen that slew his brother. As such he's cutting you a low rate on your rooms.

He's also cutting Grongar a low rate on ale, which Grongar proceeds to consume in large quantities. Grongar is also cutting a swath of conquest through most of the serving wenches as the week progresses. Belik is fairly tolerant of Grongar's behavior in general as many other patrons are coming into the Anchor to hear his tales from the swamp. Amid the debauchery, Grongar hears from some of the wenches that it's been a while since they were "with a proper man since the sailors don't seem to come to town much anymore". He also picks up from some of the other patrons that the Coast Road to Kingsport across the border with Faldren is dangerous and trade is light.

Meanwhile Tricksy has been at the Temple of Shaldra, Goddess of Knowledge. There he meets the head archivist, a female elf name Kaella. After stumbling over their initial meeting she points Tricksy to a cramped room crammed with maps and books, which he dives into with relish. Among other things he finds some documents referring to the new king of Faldren who ascended the throne a couple of years ago. It seems that since that time the area has been beset by more pirates than usual. A look through some of the maps shows a multitude of small islands located off the coast within a couple days sail of Stinkport.

Snevish spends the majority of his time meandering through the Merchant Quarter and the Docks looking for a place to sell some of the Drake Blood that he collected in the Swamp. He is told that there is little market for it here but there might be at the University in Kingsport or at the College of Arcanum on the island of Skyfall. But the prices he is quoted here are terribly low. When he asks further about that he's told that the merchants traveling the Coast Road have high overhead because they must hire large numbers of guards. The ship captains are clearly afraid to venture west toward Skyfall due to an increase in piracy. Both the merchant caravans and the ship captains seem interested in hiring the party as protection for their respective ventures.

Let me know what you guys want to do so I can plan for next session..."


So tell me, is that wrong in your opinion?

I think this is good stuff, esp with less proactive players, though more effort than I usually go to. Players should be free to retcon this stuff if vital: "No, sorry, Grognar is still grieving for his lost love Taleria, slain by the evil high priest Tulsa Dark, and has no interest in wenches right now" - but that's rare. Usually GM & player are on the same page and players love this stuff.

Re some PCs getting more stuff going on than others - I think that's fine. But it should be influenced by factors such as the PCs' Charisma, relevant Skills (Streetwise should generate many hooks) and prior actions in-play. Wallflower PCs are ok though.

 

[Rel]

What makes it a bit trickier for me is that I've seen a number of players who act like that, but not because they are outright bad people - it just comes from a complete lack of understanding of the social dynamic, or that part of the goal of the game is for everyone to be having a good time. And that's where it gets tricky to deal with - this person genuinely feels that their character should act in a certain way, and doesn't understand why doing that is pissing off everyone else in the group.

Honestly, the biggest lesson here is just communication. There are times when a player's personality or a character's history may conflict with the group. Sometimes there may be solutions to be found in-game, sometimes the only approach is to try and address it out of character. Either way, though, recognizing it and discussing it is the key.

I agree with you on this. I was mentioning in the thread about "negative XP" that we used to have a standing (joke) rule in our games that if your character starts with more than half a page of backstory that you get a 100XP penalty on Night 1 of the campaign. That "rule" was instituted after years of us having long and fully fleshed out backstories that we gave to the GM and brought to the table with us.

The problem was that all this stuff that we'd written about who our character was was getting in the way of the party gelling as an entity with its own agenda. One guy would have written, "There is NOTHING more important than getting my father's sword back from the Duke who murdered him and stole it!" Another would write, "The Blacktooth Orcs destroyed my village and those who I loved. I will hunt them down to my last breath." Then we'd start gaming and those two players would argue endlessly about what direction the party should take.

That's a bit of a simplification for illustrative purposes (assume the players in question were my bisexual Penthouse Pet players) but it's not that far off. Too often some minor tidbit from a PC's five page backstory was suddenly brought to the fore when the GM threw a certain plot hook that the rest of the party wanted to go with.

So now we make sure that our individual character motivations fit well with the group and broadly motivate the PC rather than force them into a narrow focus. The Dwarf Warden I'm currently playing in my friends 4e game is living in the shadow of his father's greatness and is motivated to do anything and everything to prove that he is equal to the legacy. So basically that means that pretty much any plot hook that gets tossed at us I'm like, "I'll DO IT!"

 

[MrMyth]

The "spontaneous farmer hate" comes very, very near to a straw-man example, of course. But I can tell you the sequence of events that would occur if a DM made a "woe is me, my player hates farmers, my players suck" post here. In sequence:
1) Lots of people: "your players suck! the lot of a DM is hard".
2) Several people: "the situation you describe doesn't make any sense, clarifications please".
3) After some teeth pulling: "well, yeah, the campaign was advertised as a social-intrigue campaign*, and the character in question is a tricked out social-monster with minimal combat abilities whose ambitions are purely political".
4) Lots of people: "DM-sir, dude, the problem is your fault".

Er... no offense, but I don't think that's a correct interpretation of a straw man argument. It was an example given of the sort of play where I've seen this type of situation come up. A straw man would be more like, say, involve taking my example and then responding to a different situation that you yourself come up with. Such as, perhaps, a situation where a DM misled a character as to the type of campaign, as opposed to a situation where a character spontaneously invented a personality trait that ended up disruptive to the campaign.

Seriously though, I think your point breaks down when you say that "if a player is being completely honest with their character," then the DM is at fault.

Do you really think it so impossible for a character to have elements in the backstory with ramifications that the DM doesn't forsee? Or for a player to genuinely decide, in the middle of the game, that he has a new personality trait? Or that his interpretation of a previous personality trait is different from the DMs?

I don't think these are common situations, sure. But I've seen players that have acted like this. Sometimes to intentionally be a jerk, more often because they just don't quite get what is wrong with a character being disruptive and causing conflicty. It is this sort of thing that I am talking about, and I think a very different situation from a DM advertising one type of campaign and running a different one.

Thirdly, the player that is balking may actually be disruptive. Either he is mistaking his own in character stance for an out of character stance (because my character wouldn't want to do this, I don't want to either), or he's letting his out of character feelings influence his in character stance (I don't want to take this plot hook, but I don't want to look overtly like a jerk, so I'll throw an in character fit), or he's actually the sort of player that gets a kick out of derailing the game so as to remain the center of attention at all times.

This is really the situation I'm referring to. Honestly, with most players, when you have conflict between a character's motivations and the direction of the plot (or even just the direction other PCs want to go in), that sort of conflict can be an opportunity more than a disruption. Some of the strongest RP and character development I've seen has come out of mature players having that sort of conflict - and either making the hard decisions (that might result in a character leaving the group) or finding a way to resolve it.

I think your point about the player merging character and player positions is a key one - for a good player, they can often resolve an in-character conflict with an outcome that the player finds interesting even if the character is upset with it. But for some players, they can't break out of that divide, and that is where this sort of problem comes from.

If this turns out to be what is going on, we probably have a blown session, and it's the DMs job to privately take that player aside after the session and try to explain to the player that he's not the only one playing the game and that therefore he needs to keep in mind that he has a responcibility to everyone else in the group to play in a cooperative manner. That doesn't mean he has to betray his character concept, but it does mean that he has to be looking for ways to make his character work with everyone else and if he can't, then he either needs a new character or a new group.

And I guess this is where the real difference of opinion comes from. If this sort of thing happened, I wouldn't just call the session. I'd try and have that conversation right there, possibly with the assistance of the other players. Either finding a good resolution in-character, or try and convince him, as you note, that he needs to try and be 'part of the party'... or, worst case, let his character go off and sulk and let everyone else keep playing.

 

[Doug McCrae]

But the other players are also mature players, and they recognize from the stylized speach that what the player is really communicating on a meta-level is, "I think we need to play out this scene, because its important to my characterization. So, someone quickly talk my character into going along with the plan, so that we can get on to the adventure. I agree to be flexible on this provided someone provides me with a good excuse." And, if that's what's going on, then let me say that as a DM, it's watching well done intraparty RP like that is one of the great joys of DMing for experienced players.

Good stuff. In the past I've seen players, including myself, be much too dogmatic, too inflexible about their character's personality and behaviour. Never get beyond, "My character wouldn't do that" to "My character has concerns about that." Rpg players seem to love dogmatic types of PC tbh - the paladin, the witchfinder in Warhammer, the X who hates Y. It's always perfect undying eternal hate, of the sort that never (or very seldom) occurs in the real world.

You're absolutely right that it's a mistake to feel that extremely stubborn behaviour is necessary to portray character. Often all that's needed is the raising of an objection, a concern or somesuch, followed by acquiescence to what is obviously the GM's prepared adventure, or the party majority view. Ben Grimm always grumbles. In the end he almost always goes along with Reed's crazy plan, but it's the grumbling that is his signature character feature. That he caves is not a problem.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Good stuff. In the past I've seen players, including myself, be much too dogmatic, too inflexible about their character's personality and behaviour. Never get beyond, "My character wouldn't do that" to "My character has concerns about that." Rpg players seem to love dogmatic types of PC tbh - the paladin, the witchfinder in Warhammer, the X who hates Y. It's always perfect undying eternal hate, of the sort that never (or very seldom) occurs in the real world.

You're absolutely right that it's a mistake to feel that extremely stubborn behaviour is necessary to portray character. Often all that's needed is the raising of an objection, a concern or somesuch, followed by acquiescence to what is obviously the GM's prepared adventure, or the party majority view. Ben Grimm always grumbles. In the end he almost always goes along with Reed's crazy plan, but it's the grumbling that is his signature character feature. That he caves is not a problem.

This is a very good point. Extreme attitudes need not be constantly held onto just to make a character feel like it has some flavor. Actually it makes the character more of a generic stereotype than flavorful.

For every David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel in a party there should be about 5-8 Derek Smalls.

 

[Celebrim]

Good stuff. In the past I've seen players, including myself, be much too dogmatic, too inflexible about their character's personality and behaviour. Never get beyond, "My character wouldn't do that" to "My character has concerns about that." Rpg players seem to love dogmatic types of PC tbh - the paladin, the witchfinder in Warhammer, the X who hates Y. It's always perfect undying eternal hate, of the sort that never (or very seldom) occurs in the real world.

No, but perfect and absolute beliefs are common to heroes, and it could be argued that they are in fact the defining trait of them. Real people comprimise their principles; heroes almost never do. That's what makes the heroic. Jean Val Jean isn't heroic because he's one of the strongest men in the world; he's heroic because when he decides he is going to atone for the wrong he feels he's done to Fantine, he isn't ever let anything get in his way. This unbending unyielding nature is part of what makes heroes inspiring.

You're absolutely right that it's a mistake to feel that extremely stubborn behaviour is necessary to portray character.

That might be correct, but it would be a mistake to think that's what I said. I think that you may be focusing to much on the eventual acquiesnce and not enough on the party comprimise that yields it. The trick here is to find a way to comprimise without betraying the character.

Ray and Belkar in 'Order of the Stick' are great examples of characters who find ways to be themselves while still playing as a group and advancing the overall story. Caving in can be a problem if it is forced or contrived and if it occurs to easily. It's essential that everyone still be driven by believable in game considerations. Likewise you have to watch out for the temptation to be looking for excuses to comprimise your character, because if that is really the driving force behind your role playing, then you should be playing a different character IMO. (In fact, before next session, I'm going to have to issue an in game caution to one of my players over being to willing to betray his character concept when its conveinent to do so.)

The more salient point of that example that I was trying to make was that mature groups of players considered it more important to help each other achieve characterization, than it was to acquire gamist rewards like money. The mark of an immature player in the above example would be resentment toward the player who ultimately forced the party to forgo treasure, which would be borne out as real anger directed at the player. The mature players IMO see that characterization as 'the fun' and the treasure as arbitrary numbers on a character sheet with no real worth. Were there another player in the party whose character was 'greedy', there should be characterization of the interparty conflict over the lost reward, but this should never be spilling over into real resentment between the two players as if the player himself is greedy and the treasure real.

 

[Pbartender]

No, but perfect and absolute beliefs are common to heroes, and it could be argued that they are in fact the defining trait of them. Real people comprimise their principles; heroes almost never do. That's what makes the heroic. Jean Val Jean isn't heroic because he's one of the strongest men in the world; he's heroic because when he decides he is going to atone for the wrong he feels he's done to Fantine, he isn't ever let anything get in his way. This unbending unyielding nature is part of what makes heroes inspiring.

Perhaps, (and this assuming you mean Jean Valjean from Les Miserables, and not Jean Val Jean the French porn star ) but he's a hero working solo in the context of a novel written by a single author.

Heroes working in concert with a half dozen other heroes as a team, in the context of a game narrated by, effectively, more than a half dozen authors is a whole other ball game.

A better example might be D&D's standard point of reference... The Lord of the Rings.

Each member of the Fellowship is a hero in his own way. Each of them has his own absolute beliefs and unbending, unyielding natures. And, what happens when those beliefs come into conflict and cannot be resolved? One of them dies, two of them get captured, and the team falls apart irrevocably, with majority of them abandoning the original quest they set out upon, either on purpose or by necessity.

That's hardly inspiring, when you really think about it.

The trick here is to find a way to comprimise without betraying the character.

Ray and Belkar in 'Order of the Stick' are great examples of characters who find ways to be themselves while still playing as a group and advancing the overall story. Caving in can be a problem if it is forced or contrived and if it occurs to easily. It's essential that everyone still be driven by believable in game considerations. Likewise you have to watch out for the temptation to be looking for excuses to comprimise your character, because if that is really the driving force behind your role playing, then you should be playing a different character IMO. (In fact, before next session, I'm going to have to issue an in game caution to one of my players over being to willing to betray his character concept when its conveinent to do so.)

The more salient point of that example that I was trying to make was that mature groups of players considered it more important to help each other achieve characterization, than it was to acquire gamist rewards like money. The mark of an immature player in the above example would be resentment toward the player who ultimately forced the party to forgo treasure, which would be borne out as real anger directed at the player. The mature players IMO see that characterization as 'the fun' and the treasure as arbitrary numbers on a character sheet with no real worth. Were there another player in the party whose character was 'greedy', there should be characterization of the interparty conflict over the lost reward, but this should never be spilling over into real resentment between the two players as if the player himself is greedy and the treasure real.

That, however, I couldn't agree with more, and largely illustrates the point I was trying to make earlier in the thread.