Roleplaying/story regardless of consequences

[Weregrognard]

A. The player whose excuse for game-disruptive behavior is: "I'm playing my character."

B. The GM whose excuse for running a disaster-prone campaign is: "I'm all about the story."

How are they similar? How are the different? Discuss

 

[Odhanan]

I think both are justifications of behaviors harming the game with the pseudo-sacrosanct "drama" in mind.

I do not play "stories" with RPGs. I play out actual fictional events as they occur. There is thus no expectation as to the way the game's supposed to unfold. Drama, if it ever were, is the byproduct of the events as they unfold in the fictional "present" of the game, not some sort of ephemeral Grail tainting pre-written plots stacked upon sub-plots railroading the PCs into an end the DM wants to see happen.

Big, big nuance in my opinion.

 

[William drake]

A. The player whose excuse for game-disruptive behavior is: "I'm playing my character."

B. The GM whose excuse for running a disaster-prone campaign is: "I'm all about the story."

How are they similar? How are the different? Discuss

The player sounds like an ass, or atleast, playing one "I play one on TV"
and the DM sounds like he just wants to put players through the ringer,
which is also an ass-like thing to do.

I don't like either, or maybe I'm not getting your meaning.

Game On

 

[Chimera]

For the first one, the player's PC;

I've been in a couple of campaigns where someone is so fixated on playing a particular character that it doesn't matter how wildly inappropriate the character is for the campaign flavor or how much people try to convince him to play something else.

A good example was my last, short lived campaign. Three players who are not big on participation and role-play. One guy who is. Guess who is going to be the group leader, whether he likes it or not?

So this guy decides to play a Halfling Rogue/Wizard (in a land where no one has ever seen a halfling) who is an escaped slave and very child-like.

Ya think that worked well?

Ah, but he was just playing his character!

 

[Raven Crowking]

A. The player whose excuse for game-disruptive behavior is: "I'm playing my character."

B. The GM whose excuse for running a disaster-prone campaign is: "I'm all about the story."

How are they similar? How are the different? Discuss

An ass is an ass regardless of the seat he sits in.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

A. The player whose excuse for game-disruptive behavior is: "I'm playing my character."

B. The GM whose excuse for running a disaster-prone campaign is: "I'm all about the story."

How are they similar? How are the different? Discuss

The DM is not setting out to ruin the fun of everyone else playing and hiding behind a figleaf. IME, that's what disruptive players are doing -- the game to them is ruining the game for everyone else.

 

[Graybeard]

I played in a game where one of the players played a strong silent type of character. The player kept remining us that his charatcer didn't talk much (unlike the player) and just liked to fight and kill things. It got reall annoying really fast. Sometimes people that roleplay their characters well work out great. It just depends on what type of personality the PC has. that is up to the DM to work with the player ahead of time.

 

[Chimera]

The DM is not setting out to ruin the fun of everyone else playing and hiding behind a figleaf. IME, that's what disruptive players are doing -- the game to them is ruining the game for everyone else.

IME, it's more a Power Thing.

Saying "I know he said that this is going to be such-and-such type of campaign and I technically agreed to play that style.... But if I insist on playing this certain type of r33ly kewl character, he'll be forced to change the game to suit me, because the original style ain't going to work when I'm playing Fubar Clusterfrak!"

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Disruptive is disruptive.

However, the DM has the final say in which PCs get played in his campaign. I've had DMs ban classes (Paladins, Monks, Assassins), races (Gnomes, Half-Elves, Half-Orcs) or alignments (any Evil) from their campaigns based upon potential for disruption of the game. If the PC concept doesn't fit, he shouldn't allow it.

(For the record, I've made that mistake at least once- allowing a psycho-killer archetyped lycanthrope in a superheroic 1900's campaign. It would be one thing if the guy was trying to redeem himself, but the PC was 100% about racking up a body count.)

If, OTOH, the PC is "disruptive" by playing his character the way it was meant to be played- say, a Paladin who refuses to go along with the party's plan to torture an NPC- the disruption is, in reality, being caused by the other players, not the one sticking to his guns.

As for the DM, I suppose you're talking about railroading? I set up a framework and try to run the campaign within it, generally allowing the players to go and do what they will...hopefully with realistic consequences.

However, I have been forced to use the occasional plot them on rails to get a campaign going in the right direction. Usually, its a once in a campaign kind of thing, such as when I had a party kidnapped to another dimension- the one where the entire campaign was set.

Railroading is bad when it becomes transparent, like when party hirelings are unable to climb a tree to set up an ambush because that would interfere with the DM's planned flanking maneuver.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I have two basic rules for my players when I run a game.

Rule one : you should play your character.

Rule two : you should come up with a character who you can play without ruining the other players' fun or preventing them from playing their characters.

Running a game smoothly is, to me, a combination of accepting a bit of metagaming and making choices which allow the metagaming to be minimized.

For the DM's side, I agree that saying "this is just the way the world is" is no more an excuse for obnoxious behaviour than "I'm just playing my character" is for the players. By all means run your game consistently, just don't run it in a consistently unfun way then claim consistency as a mitigating factor.