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

[pawsplay]

Yeah, I'm going to start carrying legal insurance when I GM, because that could totally happen.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Amusing, but there's no need...unless you simply can't avoid violating Wheaton's Rule.

Courts are still fairly hostile to IIED cases, but the climate is changing, and rapidly.

While I seriously doubt any gamer is going to bring such a case for stuff at the table, why take the risk of being the first DM ever to get sued?

 

[Hussar]

Ok, let's not get too far into left field here. The odds of getting sued are, I hope, pretty remote.

But, Wheaton's Law is pretty much the deciding factor here. If you KNOW that what you are doing makes someone else uncomfortable, AND that person has asked you to stop, then you stop.

I have to admit, this thread has really been eye opening. I honestly have never given this a whole lot of thought. This is what you do when you are asked to stop bothering someone.

Yes, there might be cases where that isn't true, but, that doesn't change the underlying idea. When someone is bothered by something you are doing and let's you know that what you are doing is bothering them, you stop.

End of story. To me, anyone who lacks that basic level of respect for their friends is not someone I really want to associate with. That someone would put their imaginary person ahead of my personal feelings tells me exactly how important my feelings are to them.

By all means, try new things at the table. But, don't ram them down my throat please. If I say no, then that should be the end of it.

Let's turn it around a second. Can I declare that my character is your character's long lost older brother? I want to do a whole Cain and Abel sort of thing. Not only that, but, that family heirloom sword that you have? That's not really yours. You are honor bound to hand it over to me, thankyouverymuch.

Is this acceptable behavior?

 

[fanboy2000]

Not whether a player is allowed to intentionally inflict significant psychological harm on someone else. That is a different topic, and I hope we can all agree that that is not permissible.

Well, nothing in the example of unwanted PC on PC romance raises to level of a tort, true. But just because you can't get the courts involved doesn't mean it's ok.

My point, and I think this is a big one, is that as a society we understand that there are some situations where our feeling are the direct result of other people's actions. Why else is it illegal to threaten people? Why teach our children to say please and thank you?

Telling a person that they are responsible for their own feeling is great in one on one counseling, when people need tools to take control of their lives. It's great in an anger management class when you need to teach people how to control their emotions because they've let them get out of control. But it fails as general rule for evaluating this situation because we're not talking to an individual. I'm not telling Player 1 that he can't have his secret romance. But it does come with hazards if he's not careful. Also Player 2's response isn't unreasonable.

It's possible that one of those players isn't right for the group. Player 2 may genuinely be to uptight for the group. Player 1 may really be a creep by the groups standards. Is that a bad thing? Does every player have to fit into every group? If a player doesn't fit in with a group, maybe that player should be kicked out, no matter how reasonable the Player's conduct is to someone else.

Do all reasonable people get along? Do they all have the same preferences? Can Player 1 and Player 2 both be reasonable, but not belong in the same group? I think so. It's possible that, like the example you gave above, that the two can work out something quickly and easily.

This is a thread about a player's ability to define their own character's existence. As I think has already been established, for the most part a player has the right to define their character's past and their attributes, within whatever parameters are agreed upon in the group. The question is whether another player can decide their PC is in love with this player's PC without their consent.

Yes, a player can do that. But doing so may come with consequences. As with so many of the thing adults have to deal with in the real world, actions may have unintended consequences. Lanefan certainly didn't expect the thread to be about this, for example. Fortunately, all that's at stake is fun. If you're not having playing D&D with this group, maybe you find another. If you can't find another, maybe you can have fun doing something else.

Fairly low stakes.

 

[Lanefan]

Let's turn it around a second. Can I declare that my character is your character's long lost older brother? I want to do a whole Cain and Abel sort of thing. Not only that, but, that family heirloom sword that you have? That's not really yours. You are honor bound to hand it over to me, thankyouverymuch.

Is this acceptable behavior?

I'll play. (though I'm unfamiliar with Cain and Abel, not being a Bible-reading sort) (let's assume the heirloom sword has some enchantment, but not artifact-grade or anything)

"My older brother, are you? I've heard about you, though long ago; and I suppose you kinda look like him. {verify a few family facts} As for the sword, I'll yield it to you ::hand over sword:: with this reminder: as I am honour-bound to give it to you as you are the elder son, *you* are now honour-bound to defend me with it, even unto cost of your own life.

You sure you know how to use it? Or should I be using it to defend you?"

Lan-"this very thing, without the sword, just happened in my game!"-efan

 

[Raven Crowking]

If your "style of play" requires you to do things to other players that make them uncomfortable, absolutely it should change.

Gee whiz, though. Your player says to you, "I'm uncomfortable with my character losing. I'm uncomfortable with my character not having a gazzillion gold pieces. I'm uncomfortable with DMs using modules, playing in a published campaign setting, or not designing their own monsters from scratch. In fact, I am uncomfortable with using published rulesets; I expect my DMs to recreate the rules from scratch."

Now, my question is, is it still true that "It does not matter. If you are doing something to a player and it makes them uncomfortable, you cease doing it."?

And, hey, if "This is the basic rule of social engagement" why isn't is it applicable to forums? Why is that a straw man? If you are going to say that "Do not be a creep" is not a difficult social rule, and is "the basic rule of social engagement", where being a creep is -- apparently -- making someone uncomfortable......Well, we all know that any mention of D&D makes some people uncomfortable. There are people out there who think the game is Satanic or otherwise problematic.

It doesn't matter. If you are doing something and it makes them uncomfortable, you cease doing it. Really?

It doesn't matter why Player 2 asks you to stop. It's really none of your business in the slightest.

It doesn't matter why Jack Chick asks you to stop playing D&D. It's really none of your business in the slightest. You don't need to know why they're uncomfortable - it has no bearing on the issue at all.

You are implying that D&D games all have to involve PC romance.

Out of left field much? Where did I imply that?

What I am saying is that a basic social rule, where the person who is making someone else uncomfortable must stop, and where why that person is uncomfortable not only does not matter, but has no bearing on the issue at all, can be applied to other circumstances.

But let's do change the context, albeit in another way. The entire argument is similar to my saying that my character habitually steals from other PCs. Every night I try to steal their items, their weapons, and their armor.

It is never unreasonable for the other PCs to tell me to cut it out.

Ah, but no one is arguing that it is unreasonable for the other PCs to tell you to cut it out.

All that is being argued is that the most appropriate first response is that the PCs deal with the behaviour. Personally, I would advocate sending the stealing PC away from the party, or killing him and taking his stuff. IF that is not sufficient, it is then discussed. Perhaps the solution is to drop the player. Perhaps the PC is, unknown to you, acting under impulse of a curse or geas, and needs help.

Oh, wait, the reason doesn't matter, and has no bearing on the issue at all.

I can't even decide whether or not I'd prefer an "offensive" D&D game, or a game which is Jack-Chick-Approved?

Certain topics are pretty much never ok

Wrongbadfun?

Never okay in the foreground, never okay in the background, or never okay in the deep background?

If anyone is doing something that makes you uncomfortable they must stop? It doesn't matter why ProfessorCirno asks you to stop? It's really none of your business in the slightest?

I can't even decide whether or not I'd prefer a game with the "offensive" material, or if I'd prefer a game with ProfessorCirno?


RC

 

[MrMyth]

Again, I am advocating against suffering. Going through an unpleasant situation does not necessarily lead to suffering.

Not always. But you still shouldn't get to decide that for someone else. And... yeah, if they aren't enjoying the experience, they will have to suffer through it.

I said I do not think it is useful to assign blame. If making the situation someone's "fault" unfairly bothers you, I wonder why it doesn't bother you that Player 1 is being blamed for Player 2's emotions.

Again, no one is blaming Player 1 initially! We're blaming Player 1 for continuing with unwanted behavior after being made aware of Player 2's feelings.

Imagine a group of five players. Player 2 doesn't like PC-on-PC romance, Player 3 doesn't like same-sex player-on-player romance roleplay which includes the GM in a number of pairings, Player 3 doesn't like remorseless slaughter of creatures for loot, Player 4 doesn't like moral justifications for using force against others, and Player 5 doesn't think violence should be glorified at all. Player 1 wants to play a little romance, a little adventure, a little of this, a little of that; they don't like scheming.

Again, no one is advocating that each person should be able to veto the full nature of the campaign for all players. Just, generally, have a stronger voice where it concerns their own.

So in the above scenario? Those attitudes aren't ones I'd especially support. But the following, however, are much more what we are talking about:
-Player 2 doesn't want to be involved in PC-on-PC romance that they aren't interested in.
-Player 3 doesn't want to be involved in same sex PC-on-PC romance.
-Player 3 doesn't want to personally be the one to kill enemies for loot.
-Player 4 doesn't want to personally use force against others.
-Player 5 doesn't want to be claim any glory from any battle they are involved in.

Now, those last three are pretty hard to handle in many games. Player 3 and 4 might build pacifistic characters who focus on healing/buffing their friends; or who use attacks that hinder but don't damage enemies; or who fight, but to subdue their opponents. As a whole, they will probably have a group that tries to avoid fighting where necessary, and rarely kills opponents unless they have no other choice.

Now, if you have a player that says, "I forbid anyone in our group from ever killing an enemy" - yeah, that's a problem, and not a reasonable thing to demand. But saying that you personally don't want to kill people, and will try and take captives where you can? I've seen plenty of players make that approach work.

there is no "universal law" that says Player 2 is allowed to glom onto an existing game and insisting the group change play styles. That's not a real social rule. That's like a football player joining a soccer club and picking up the ball.

And, again, no one has argued that someone should walk into a new game and demand they completely change their style of play. And yes, we've acknowledged that sometimes Player 2 should just leave the group if whatever bothers them is a core part of the experience. If I join a group, and am promptly told that a requirement of playing is having my PC sleep with other PCs whether I like it or not, I will gladly pick up my stuff and back away!

Do you really see no difference between "I don't want your PC to romantically pursue my own when I am not interested" and "I don't want this game to have any PC-on-PC romance"?

The position you are arguing for has been phrased as something along the lines of, "Any time you do something that makes someone uncomfortable, withdraw." But someone who simply stated that position would make some people uncomfortable. There is simply no way to square such a rule with logic. It's a "rule" based on very limited experiences. It makes no admissions of context.

Ok. I can't speak for everyone, but I certainly have never said that. I think most of us involved in this debate have had several posts indicating that: yes, there are times and places where Player 2 doesn't have the right to tell Player 1 how to act, and that yes, there are times when the actions that bother Player 2 are central enough to the game that the best option may be for Player 2 to leave.

And you know what? For myself, at least, I'm not trying to lay down any sort of "rule". I'm not worried about the legal issues of this. All I've been trying to say is, basically, how I would act, and how I would expect any decent person to act, in this sort of situation.

Look, context absolutely does matter. From the start, we've said that Player 2's request should be respected if it is reasonable.

And I think that is the core of the debate - there is no absolute definition to what is or is not reasonable. So Celebrim and others keep pulling back to the general debate, and insisting we can never make a general rule over whether Player 1 or Player 2 is the one who should back down.

Which is true - if Player 2's request is that all other PCs should give them all of the treasure, I don't think anyone in this thread would consider that a reasonable request.

And no one was ever trying to say that is the case. What we've said is that we expect, when someone does raise an objection, that there is a greater likelihood that it is a genuine issue. And the person causing that should usually respect their friend's boundaries. I've focused on the specific example that sparked this - romantically pursuing the PC of an unwilling player - because that is a situation where I feel Player 2 is absolutely in the right. And where I feel the response suggested by Lanefan - to respond by griefing the person who complained - is not one I'd like to see in any game I would ever play in.

I'm not sure what more to say. I feel like people are really starting to just talk past each other here, or getting pushed more and more to the extremes.

I think that in general, some topics are absolutely sensitive ones, and you probably want to clear them with the group before introducing them. (Rape, for example. Excessive brutality or horrific moral choices. Etc.) Even these limits may change from one group to the next.

Beyond that, I think people should in general be willing to stop behavior that bothers their friends, especially where it directly involves someone. Whether in-game or out-of-game. If someone wants to have their PC pursue mine, and I say no, the appropriate response really should be to have them back off. If I find myself cramped into one corner of the table and ask if people can make some more space for me, it would be nice if they can do so. If someone keeps dropping their dice, and grabbing and using mine with cheeto-stained fingers without asking me, and I ask them to stop - or at least to clean their hands first - I think it would be reasonable for them to do so.

Now, this doesn't mean one is guaranteed these things will be possible. Maybe there just isn't more room available at the table. If you are the only one who brought dice, you can't really avoid other people borrowing them.

But one would hope people would still make an honest effort to respect your wishes. Try and make as much space as they can. Try and remember dice next time. And not insist on an uncomfortable roleplaying experience for you if they can easily shift away from it.

This is not some universal rule or law or requirement. No one can force you to behave like this. But it is how I would try to act in such a situation, and how I would hope my friends would act as well.

 

[Celebrim]

By all means, try new things at the table. But, don't ram them down my throat please. If I say no, then that should be the end of it.

Let's turn it around a second. Can I declare that my character is your character's long lost older brother? I want to do a whole Cain and Abel sort of thing. Not only that, but, that family heirloom sword that you have? That's not really yours. You are honor bound to hand it over to me, thankyouverymuch.

Is this acceptable behavior?

I'll play, because this illustrates I think exactly how amorphous the complaints, and to be frank silly, I think they are getting.

1) Would this make you 'uncomfortable'? We've spent alot of time focusing on this issue of whether not player #2 is uncomfortable with something, but this example doesn't seem to have anything to do with the sudden on set of post-traumatic stress syndrome or something. This is precisely a player objecting to a scene that harms his 'prowess' in the game or makes some difficulty for him. This to me is fundamentally no different than objecting to a trap, a villainous scheming bureacrat, or a band of ogre barbarians. Let's turn this situation around again, what if the character who claims to be your long lost brother is an NPC? If the DM introduces such a character, do you have a right to shout the DM down and demand a retcon? Do players have a right to be immune to role-playing complications, and especially do they have a right to be immune to them when they don't involve situations that as others have identified them 'make someone uncomfortable'?

2) Most of this is going to be handled at character creation time. Generally speaking, I'm not going to approve a character concept that involves being a part of another player's background without consent of both parties. If this actually happens in a game, then player #2's problem isn't with player #1 - who is I think fairly innocent here unless this motivated by actual OOC dislike of player #2 - but with the DM who introduced this plot into the game.

3) But, I would like to heavily emphasis that the case we have been discussing is entirely different than this. We've been discussing the case of a PC that is - as a result of secret feelings of love for another PC - fanatically loyal to them. This might be a part of player #1's backstory (but it doesn't have to be, it could just as easily be invented in play) but it is certainly not part of player #2's backstory. It is a part of player #2 forestory, that is, not who the character _is_ (which I think should be something largely under the control of the PC) but rather what happens to the PC (which is not something anyone has full control over). I can't promise to protect a player from what happens to the PC. Bad things may happen to the PC. Things may and almost certainly will happen to the PC that were they to happen to the player would be terrible, traumatizing, and yes deeply uncomfortable. That's implied by any RPG. If you set down to play an RPG you understand that bad things may happen your character. And what makes focusing on whether something is 'uncomfortable' so absolutely silly IMO, is that on a scale of traumatic and traumatizing things, finding out that another character has secretly held you in the deepest of affections and that has been the motivating force in that character's life is not very high on them.

I want to insist on three things as being highly important here:

a) A role-playing game is inherently the exploration of themes of conflict, and as such it is impossible to protect everyone completely from feelings of discomfort. How much a group intentionally seeks out uncomfortable themes for exploration is a matter of taste, but depending on how sensitive a player is, any game may be potentially overwhelming. This is directly related to role-playing being, before it was most commonly associated with leisure activities, most commonly associated with psychotherapy.

b) What's really at issue here isn't something vague like whether player #2 feels uncomfortable. Naturally, the rest of the group should be trying to take those feelings in to account, but the group should not be expected to necessarily see those feelings as being overriding in any situation. I have previously written at length about how I feel player #1 should respond in situations like this, and it should be clear from that is that I don't agree with how player #1 has chosen to respond to player #2. I have previously tried to spark conversation on how we should expect player #2 to behave in this situation, but no one really seems interested in discussing that in any depth. I think it would be instructive, because my conflict in this situation is partly over the fact that I don't think as described player #2 is behaving appropriately either - and that's absolutely true in the case of the 'stubborn uncomprimising' version of player #2 that seems to be implied by some people model of idealized player behavior at the table.

c) Rather than being about a question of player #2's feelings, this is and has always been an issue about the ability to separate the IC frame from the OOC frame. And, rather being about than evaluating how legitimate someone's feelings all, resolving this is always about the question of playing in such a way that the IC and OOC frame remain intact and aren't easily confused.

To emphasis how important these things are, let's back up to that wierd conversation where some asserted that if we don't give in to player #2 we are openning ourselves up to a lawsuit.

And to think, some apparantlly thought I was being and unreasonable when I said one side of this had a judicial/legalistic mental model of this event, or when I asserted that the entire scope of this thread was a question of what consituted moral behavior.

If you want to insist that uncomfortable situations aren't an inherent part of RPG's, and that this is not both implicit and explicit to any RPG's, then I think you have to accept that DM's need to take out liability insurance policies lest a player sue them for intentionally causing extreme emotional distress. The full range of nightmarish sitatuations that a player character can find themselves in, in many cases quite without any sort of planning on the DM's part, is too extensive to be listed here. It is sufficient to say that everyone who has ever played D&D (and probably any other RPG) has a 'funny story' about about what happened to their PC which would be anything but funny if it had really happened to the player. We don't normally respond to those situations as being uncomfortable, because they don't normally leak from the IC frame into the OOC frame. We label them 'part of the game' and we don't think too deeply on them. We normally label them as 'just fun'. And that is fine, because they are. But it is also perfectly fine to think deeply on the issues raised by what is going on in the game. It's perfectly fine to find part of the fun in being emersed deeply enough in the game that it can scare you or make you uncomfortable in some other way. Playing an RPG contains the inherent risk that you are going to think deeply about something (intentionally or accidently) and suddenly find yourself uncomfortable. If that happens, you have only limited ability to blame someone else for it.

The situation that makes player #2's feelings about this particularly relevant isn't that those feelings are strong or that player #1 caused the feelings, but that it can be very difficult to separate pretending to have a romantic affair from actually having one. And to the extent that it becomes difficult to separate the game from reality, we always have a problem. To the extent that it we can find a way to separate the game from reality or the feelings and beliefs of the character from our own feelings and beliefs, we never have a problem.

And that lies at the heart of why I think player #2 is going about this wrong and so shares the fault with player #1. In fact, from my perspective as a DM, it's not player #1 that is most likely to be the 'instigator' but player #2. It's player #2 that is most likely making that division between player feelings and character feelings less clear and so creating 'the problem' . Now, if I had reason to believe that player #1 actually secretly did desire romantic involvement with player #2 and was acting out those feelings in proxy, then yes player #1 is the 'instigator' here, but even then speaking as a DM I really don't want to see player #1 and player #2 iron out there feelings for each other at my table and while I'm even more sympathetic to player #2 in this situation than otherwise I still don't think its a fair way for player #2 handle player #1's feelings. If player #1 and player #2 have a consensual blossoming romance either started at the table or else being acted out at the table, that's a different matter and I've seen it happen before and that's fine. The worst I might have to say there is (jokingly), "Get a room."

 

[Celebrim]

-Player 2 doesn't want to be involved in PC-on-PC romance that they aren't interested in.
-Player 3 doesn't want to be involved in same sex PC-on-PC romance.
-Player 3 doesn't want to personally be the one to kill enemies for loot.
-Player 4 doesn't want to personally use force against others.
-Player 5 doesn't want to be claim any glory from any battle they are involved in.

Then they shouldn't.

In all five of those cases, the player has the opportunity to play the character the way he wants to.

If he doesn't want to be involved in an IC romance, then he shouldn't.
If he doesn't want to be involved in a same sex IC romance, then he shouldn't.
If he doesn't want to kill enemies for loot, then he shouldn't.
If he doesn't want to use force against others, then he shouldn't.
If he doesn't want to claim glory from any battle, then he shouldn't.

Nothing allows another player to force you to play a character in a certain way. You always have the freedom to respond and shape your character.

Technically, though, it isn't a question of what the 'player wants', but what the character wants. It's called a role-playing game because while I might personally be a pacifist, I have the freedom in game to play a violent criminal. While I might personally be a person prone to or approving of violence, I have the freedom to play a pacifist. My IC stance doesn't necessarily reflect my out of character beliefs, and on some level shouldn't reflect my out of character beliefs. That's why it's called RPing.

So the real question that should be raised in the mind of a player confronting a situation is, "How should I play my character?" That's both a IC and OOC question, where the IC question determines what the character does and the OOC question determines the in game communication path for sharing that information - personally, impersonally, by summary, by dwelling on the details, first person, third person, meta-game, or whatever seems appropriate to the content and standards of the group.

It's highly important that you don't get player and character confused.

Let's jump back to Hussar's very instructive example:

Can I declare that my character is your character's long lost older brother? I want to do a whole Cain and Abel sort of thing. Not only that, but, that family heirloom sword that you have? That's not really yours. You are honor bound to hand it over to me, thankyouverymuch.

Is this acceptable behavior?

Let's suppose that this has happened and let's pass for now over the question of whether it should happen. You find yourself in this situation as a mature role-playing gamer. What is your internal mental state like? If it is immediately moved to blame another player or the DM and to start negotiating the situation OOC raising points of fairness or some such, then I can say nothing more clearly and compassionately (though not tactfully) to you than move back to remedial school please and stop playing with the adults until you are willing to act like one. Your surest path to happiness, growth, and contentedness with the game will be to accept a reprimand and correct your behavior because you are fully in the wrong here.

Your proper responce is to put yourself in the shoes of your character and handle this in game event in the way you'd really handle it if your long lost brother was suddenly found. That's going to depend very heavily on the nature of your character, their character, and and the relationship between them, but virtually anything could happen here.

Possible responses:

1) You? I thought I killed you? *draw sword* I guess I'm going to have to do a better job this time.
2) Where have you been? I've been working for the past 12 years to take care of mother and our sisters after dad died, and now all the sudden you show up and think you are part of the family again? I don't think so. Dad gave me this sword on his deathbed with his own hands. You forfieted your right to it when you left the family to go on that damn fool crusade. It's mine by right of inheritance and I don't owe you anything.
3) My brother died at sea 5 years ago. He was murdered by pirates that never take prisoners. I don't know you stranger.
4) John!! *rushes up and hugs him* We thought you were dead!
5) Brother? I'm an only child, stranger. Go about your business, or I'll give you more of the business end of this sword than you'll find to your liking.

No one controls your character, or can (or even should) be able to browbeat you into playing your character in a certain way no matter what they say OOC. You have a right to play your own character. You have a responcibility to play well and with full consideration toward the other players, but that is the result of your right not the means of abbrogating it.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Generally speaking, I'm not going to approve a character concept that involves being a part of another player's background without consent of both parties.

So if my character's background was the secret admirer and protector of another player's character without their knowledge or consent, you would disallow it? So basically you acknowledge that you were 100% wrong in your positions on this argument. Good of you to tell us.