Players that just don't *get* the genre

[DumbPaladin]

Some of my worst:

... and a Marine Commando with a gauss rifle.

... Plus one player who came with a lady-in-waiting character, and wanted to have all sorts of romantic entanglements ...

... an acquatic elf character ...

... And their cat, who wasn't a magical cat and didn't talk and was in fact a perfectly normal cat in every way ...

Omigod. Four perfect characters for my next Doctor Who RPG game.
I must begin work on this immediately.

 

[hopeless]

At first I was a bit reluctant to tell my tale of pain, but here goes.

In late 2009 I asked the D&D gaming group that I DM if we could take a brief break and have one of the players run a game of Classic Traveller for me. You see, back on Christmas day of 1979 I got a copy of Traveller. That was my start with RPGs, so I thought it would be great to play a Traveller game in honor of my 30th year of gaming.

My roommate wanted to run the game, and I gave him whatever help he needed to get the game going. We pre-rolled the characters, made a nice character sheet for everyone, and even prepared a briefing paper to get everyone into the feel of a classic 70s era space opera style game.

The problem was that three players just did not understand the style of game we were playing. One could not understand that the game was not a futuristic view of the universe viewed from 2009, but a view of the future from 1979. We tried telling her that she should look at the Buck Rogers series or the Flash Gordon movie (both of which she is old enough to have seen first run), but she just couldn't get it. She thought her comm unit should be as small and versatile as her cell phone, for example, instead of being more like an old Star Trek communicator. That is just one example.

A younger player also had tech issues. She could not grasp that there was no galaxy-spanning faster than light communications system. Instead, Traveller has a data transfer system more like the Pony Express and sailing ships. She kept expressing frustration when she was told she could not send an email from one star system to another and expect an answer within a day or less.

Finally we had one player who had been messed up by someone who ran a pseudo-MegaTraveller game in a very messed up fashion. The player came to our game with a strange and distorted vision of what is Traveller. We tried to explain that what happened in the other game was not what Traveller is about, and that he should listen to the background for this game. He really did not pay attention, did not read the info given to him, and just did not get the theme of the campaign. We told him that he could have equipment found in the Traveller books (all of the LBBs). He wanted a device that was available in his other game. When he was told that it was not available in the game he kept bugging the Ref to let him build and/or invent the device (an overpowered scanning/vision enhancement device). Both the Ref and I finally had to tell him that if he can find the device in the books we gave him to read he could get it, but if it is not there it is just not available in this universe. He still wanted to invent it, and that is when the Ref had to tell him no, it is not possible.

After we had several sessions, and people working hard to not revert to their usual D&D Hack & Slash style, the adventure came to a close. I then packed all my Traveller books into a box, dated it, and put a label on it to NEVER play it again with this group.

Any chance of linking into that explanation or whatever document you set up to explain the setting?
I would love to see what you came up with!
Presently STILL trying to get a traveller game up and running however one player still hasn't bothered to send me any details even though I've lent him the intro to traveller book mongoose released might have something to do with him wanting to play exalted but he won't even send his character for that either so I can't go ahead with either game since having an idea on what they want to play would make running the game easier and more enjoyable for them too!

 

[sjmiller]

Any chance of linking into that explanation or whatever document you set up to explain the setting?
I would love to see what you came up with!

I will see if I can find it. I was a player and it is what the Ref used to give background. I think it came from one of the adventures, possibly Secret of the Ancients.

 

[hopeless]

Thanks my original idea was inspired by the Lost Fleet book series where instead of the x-boat route there was a series of extra stellar gates linking various systems however 14 years prior to the start of the game they inexplicably blew up demolishing much of the spinward marches.
The players have so far gone for a Fulacin field researcher and former scout, a Sword Worlds Marine, a Beck's World Adept and the last character was described as a Sword Worlds prodigy.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

In their defense L5R's genre is a tough one to grasp your first time out--especially coming from D&D. I was guilty of not getting the genre in my first L5R campaign when a fellow player made a slight against my character. I didn't get the genre's concept of honor so I thought I had to defend my honor against the slight and ended up killing the other character. (Then getting killed for it myself.) It's definitely the most egregious roleplaying I've done and had I understood the genre better it would have been completely avoided.

Having 2 PCs die from fighting over a social slight means you were playing correctly.

[MENTION=21087]pneumatik[/MENTION], I appreciate the sentiment and I think that can be true in some cases. But in my situation I reacted too extremely and I compounded the not-getting-it-ness by killing the other player through an assassination because I thought that's how a Scorpion clan samurai would act.

 

[Saeviomagy]

So, in the game about 10 years ago, my fomori ex-Secret Service agent worked much, MUCH better. Not only was I able to soak damage a lot better, and was able to put stuff down quickly, but that let me develop his personality and background much more.

My current mantra (and how I learnt to play shadowrun) is that when faced with a new system, ask someone who knows the system "what is the toughest, most unkillable character that I could possibly make in this system" and then make that. And then play them as though they were a normal cautious human being.

That way you (probably) won't be unexpectedly killed in the first combat. You might not be able to DO much, but you'll at least get to participate long enough to find out how to play, at which point you can retire Daisy the well-'ard troll sammy and make guy smiley the social butterfly with a body of 2 and know enough that you might not die then either.

 

[kitsune9]

Have you had a Player who just doesn't *get* the genre for the game you're playing? What kind of mistakes did they make? Did they ever come around to getting the idea? Did the whole game/campaign suffer for the Player's misunderstanding?

Bullgrit

Your examples are very good. I don't think I had any players like this though.

 

[pneumatik]

[MENTION=21087]pneumatik[/MENTION], I appreciate the sentiment and I think that can be true in some cases. But in my situation I reacted too extremely and I compounded the not-getting-it-ness by killing the other player through an assassination because I thought that's how a Scorpion clan samurai would act.

If it didn't feel right and screwed up the game then I won't disagree with you, but even with this additional detail it still doesn't seem out of place from how I've played and run the setting.

 

[Bullgrit]

I just remembered this: I played in a one-shot Paranoia game in which no one died. Is this a case of the GM not getting the genre?

Bullgrit

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I just remembered this: I played in a one-shot Paranoia game in which no one died. Is this a case of the GM not getting the genre?

Bullgrit

I did too...but it wasn't the DM's fault we survived*, we were just über-paranoid.





* How is THAT for an unlikely phrase?