Players that just don't *get* the genre

[jonesy]

...and a guy who gained his "fabric powers" from a "freak textile plant accident." After some massaging, I allowed "fabric powers..."

Wow. I'm trying my best to imagine what that accident would have been like but it's coming apart from the corners.

 

[pawsplay]

Its good you were able to weave that into your campaign.

It was a bit of a stretch. I think we decided that he had fallen into a vat of toxic glue being used to make unwholesome furniture fabric swatches.

The dark demon guy just wouldn't budge, and ended up sulking his way out of the campaign. I gave the KGB assassin guy the choice of being either an assassin, intangible, or capable of killing with a touch, but not all three... he simply made a new character, I think a telepathic telekinetic.

 

[Janx]

Its good you were able to weave that into your campaign.

Ha! Best pun in this thread!

 

[pawsplay]

Wow. I'm trying my best to imagine what that accident would have been like but it's coming apart from the corners.

Off-beat characters were a common thread with this guy.

 

[Elf Witch]

I have noticed that some players lack the ability to transition to different genres.

Our group took a break from our long running DnD game to play Stargate.

We made our characters one was the military leader, another was military specializing in linguistics, I was Russian military assigned to the Air Force team and was a nurse/medic, the last was a civilian scientist who understood alien tech.

The guy who played the civilian tends to play characters with secrets, who has issues in trust ,and always questions the other characters. Have a paladin or cleric in the party he will spend time debating religion trying to show them they are wrong or find holes in their beliefs.

So he plays his civilian the same way. He questions and argues with everything the military leader a LT Colonel was doing and ordering. He got very upset when the Colonel dragged him by his collar and tossed his butt back through the Stargate with a message to Gen Hammond that the guy was no longer a member of our SG team.

 

[Magesmiley]

I've had this happen, strangely enough with Paranoia. I've GMed Paranois for probably 30-40 players over the years, and until the last time I dusted it off, I'd never had a problem.

I needed a break from my regular D&D game that I ran, and as it happened to be around April Fool's Day, Paranoia seemed appropriate.

Everyone made characters, and I set them on their mission. Most of the group of 8 got the idea by the time a half dozen clones or so were vaporized. But one guy and his wife just never really got it.

I think that they couldn't understand anything, least of all why their characters got killed repeatedly, by the NPCs, the other players, the vehicles, and even their own equipment. They couldn't quite make the leap to "we're screwed, so let's have some fun on the way out."

Everyone else out of the eight or so playing had a blast (especially when the plasma generator melted down), so I don't think it was my GMing style. But the two disliked it so badly that they said they never wanted to play it again.

I was actually really surprised as the guy was the most notorious hack and slasher our D&D group had. He was also notorious for doing foolish things and getting his D&D characters killed regularly (we play weekly, and he managed to do in 5 characters in a month one time, with no other party losses).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Ha! Best pun in this thread!

Well, IME, you needle to keep sharpening your warped pun skills or you'll soon be weft behind.

 

[jonesy]

Well, IME, you needle to keep sharpening your warped pun skills or you'll soon be weft behind.

In a completely unrelated vein, is there a scifi setting that uses weftdrives instead of warpdrives?

 

[Neonchameleon]

The spectre of this thread devolving into puns is looming. And I can't think of a yarn to spin - in the groups I've been in even Jenny has followed the thread of the scenarios.

Edit: And Jonesy, I think that that idea was weft on the cutting room floor.

 

[Saeviomagy]

So when the entire group sits down together and discusses what they like and dislike in a game and then agree to play in a style that everyone can enjoy and then one player ignores all of that and tries to kill other PC's whilst they're asleep and steal their stuff... this is the GM's fault?

If we continue with the project management theme, you'd probably fire the guy before he did too much damage.
Continuing further on that theme, you'd probably give new hires less critical items before you put them into a crucial project.

ie: agree on the style then run a one-shot or two to weed out the jerks.

Hmm, that was extremely informative. Groups I put together rarely get past the Storming stage. I'm happy enough to take my share of the blame as the 'Supervisor', but I've also had management experience and gotten commendations from my bosses and praise from my employees (some of whom I'm still friends with) so it can't all be me.

Well, part of the storming stage is that people have to not give up on it. In a job you have some pressure to stick with it and resolve things. In a gaming group it's very easy to simply not show up because you're not really losing much. People don't like confrontation, and being able to passively avoid it is often going to be the more appealing choice.

I think I might take this to the next group I put together as a reminder to myself. Although, I'm now curious as to what would happen if I gave everyone a copy of it...

If everyone knows that they're going to have a storming stage, they may feel more willing to suck it up.