The druid is not fighting!!! LONG!

[mmu1]

mmu1 you remember me of a player .
This Player stood with his Char with 2 hp or so in the frontline, (fighter/cleric) and took a twenty which means he get a -12 or so.
He whined because i shouldn`t let NPCs made dangerous attacks when the PCs are wounded.
I answred him, i don`t made accounts of PCs hit points.

And a Fianna of mine had executed your Barbarian in the most dishonoring way a honorable warrior would use against a honorless creature, the feed him to the carrioneater, and made his name known as honorless Nidung, not worthy to be remembered.

Huh? I try not to come down on people for making mistakes when using a second language, having exerienced that sort of thing first hand, but if you don't have the ability to understand what's being talked about, perhaps you shouldn't post, because I have no idea what the hell you're about - aside from the fact that you'd probably be better off using Babelfish to make your posts...

 

[Arnwyn]

Well, I've read through all 6 pages of this thread and (no surprise for ENWorld) there's a load of people trying to place blame. Heh.

Anyways, to the original post and question: as the DM, you should do *nothing* about this current situation. What is happening is clearly in the purview of the players, and not the DM. This is something that does not need DM intervention - in fact, shouldn't have DM intervention.

The DM has enough to do, and surely the players are competent enough to police themselves, and rectify the situation themselves.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Re: Re: And the original poster's take is?

Well, he could have posted it on a certain other rpg board...

My hat of messageboards no know limit.

Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

Why, what message board could you possibly mean?

d20 takes the beating because it's the big dog, plain and simple. Not the best but does the job well.

What really bothers me though, is your post is probably 110% accurate.

 

[Pielorinho]

My question, why should the druid's player be able to determine what kind of character I want to play? Why should I have to play a character who travels with people he doesn't like, and who aren't willing to help him in his times of need?

I think this is a good point, but I'd answer it slightly differently.

One of the central conceits of most roleplaying games is that everyone creates a character and then the characters hang out together. This puts two responsibilities on each player:

1) Create a character that will want to hang out with everyone else and that everyone else will want to hang out with; and
2) Give other players every benefit of the doubt that they've done #1, both in-character and out-of-character.

In your example, Pendragon, the druid's player created a character whom not everyone would want to hang out with, abdicating his first responsibility.

But then if you kick the character out of the group without talking to him about the problem, you've not given him every benefit of the doubt, thereby abdicating your second responsibility.

I do find that a lot of gamers aren't aware of these rules. Heh -- I once created a character in a game who had no reason to hang out with the group, and who ran away at the first opportunity. My first session in that campaign was my last . I learned about responsibility #1 from that experience.

Other gamers I've encountered see no problem with creating a character specifically designed to be annoying. BIG breach of responsibility #1.

Responsibility #1 doesn't mean that every character has to be a swell, smiley, friendly chum. You can have ornery, smelly, insulting PCs who nevertheless contribute a lot to the group; as long as everyone's having fun, you've not abdicated your responsibilities.

I'd suggest making sure that everyone in your group knows about these two responsibilities. It can help you avoid a lot of potential problems.

Daniel

 

[JoeGKushner]

So what is the druid going to do?

Some things to make him more effective in combat were mentioned:

Long Bow use (elf so it's a base)

Long Spear use (10' range is good)

XP concerns were mentioned about the scrolls. Have him seek out power components that suck up the xp cost. Special inks, papers and other things can insure that the druid has an adventure in and of itself just getting the scrolls written.


Druids & Druidism by Bastion has some interesting spells that might make the player a little happier.

One bottleneck is going to be the healing though. Due to the druid's inability to swap out spells, his own 'useful' spells have to be sacrificed before hand.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Now, to address some of this “role-playing” drivel…
First off, the people that believe that this Druid should be allowed to make whatever character choices he wants to and the rest of the party should just deal with it…. You are wrong!

Secondly, to the crowd who likes to type “ROLEPLAYING” in all caps, if you find the idea that playing a fighter who has optimized his combat prowess though intelligent feat and weapon selection is somehow anathema to good role-playing, you should be bludgeoned with a ball-peen hammer.

Just wanted to add my agrement here with some of the ideas presented here. The player role playing the druid may have to accept the fact that his character, for purposes of this party, is ineffective. Nothing wrong with that but if the party is gun-ho off to fight and the druid knowingly doesn't do his job, there will be repercussions.

Second, just wanted to note that as I've quoted Steve Long, while it's good to have an interesting character concept, that character better be able to pull it's own weight. You're not making a character for a novel, movie or solo game but one where group participation is necessary.

I've been in several games where people have made great concept characters that were terrible in combat and almost got the whole group killed. We have a little 'interview' period now in the group so that just not anyone, player or not, can join.

The second you put the party in danger because you're not doing your job is the second you have to worry about getting yourself put in danger from the party.

 

[dsfriii]

Deep Breath

Okay everyone take a deep breath and a step back.



Heck it sounds like the DM and players are handling this issue very well and more mature than some of these posts have. Let us see what has happen since they were going to address the issue last night.

 

[Kugar]

Anyways, to the original post and question: as the DM, you should do *nothing* about this current situation. What is happening is clearly in the purview of the players, and not the DM. This is something that does not need DM intervention - in fact, shouldn't have DM intervention.

The DM has enough to do, and surely the players are competent enough to police themselves, and rectify the situation themselves. [/B]

I disagree. An average or even good GM would just let this slide, but a great GM recognizes that there is a problem with the game and seeks to find a solution. There are definitely options GMs have in these situations:

I think the first step is what most people here said -

Talk about it
Talk about any problems with the game in an impartial way. Make sure that everyone knows that THEIR opinion counts. Saying - "Hey, Druid Player! You should have healed the PsiWar back there. Shape up in the future!" is not as effective as opening every game with "Are there any issues anyone has before we begin? Is the campaign going in directions you guys like?" This brings me to the second point -

Know your players ...
I find the most revealing part of this quandary posed to the board is what was not posted. Are your players happy? You can pick up on the attitude of your players fairly easily. Is the Druid PLAYER happy? I've played with/GMed with a lot of casual players who really are there to be with friends and the social aspect of the game and never really get into combat tactics. What does the Druid's player look for in a good game? What was his favorite moment in the game so far? Knowing the answers to these questions is important so you can throw more "Druid" stuff into the campaign. If the player is not a tactician and 90% of the time in game is spent positioning fireball blast radius templates on a battlemat, there will be friction. This could cause the player to lash out in subtle ways like casting a Barkskin instead of CSW

And let them play the game ...
I have found that most people who roleplay for any length of time get REALLY ticked when they are overshadowed/overlooked/or told what to do. I played with one guy who was really laid back but got very upset when it came to his turn and someone told him what to do. If the druid never gets to make decisions, is never asked input, and never has scenes that "star" him how fun would it be to play? Was this incident the last in a line of "I don't care what you want to do just heal me!" type of encounters? I would have a hard time having fun playing a wand of CSWs too.

There is more you can do, but this is a start. As a GM it is NOT your job to make someone have fun and control their characters. It IS your job to present a world and set of challenges, which are 1) fun for and 2)involve everyone - including yourself.

Check out the following for some more advice on what you can do in situations like this:
Johnn Four's Roleplaying Tips Weekly
Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I dunno... Sounds like we might not be the only ones grasping at straws here.

If you think poking holes in wild speculation is the same as wild speculation, I suppose you are right.

 

[Arnwyn]

I disagree. An average or even good GM would just let this slide, but a great GM recognizes that there is a problem with the game and seeks to find a solution. There are definitely options GMs have in these situations:

I do agree with the options you presented. But to be perfectly honest, *not one* of them needed the DM's intervention - all those options could be handled quite fine and well by the players themselves (well, maybe not "know your players" - but I'm not entirely sure what that particular solution solves in the problem presented originally in this thread).

But then again, I can only speak from experience with my players - who are all smart, mature, and articulate enough to handle such problems amongst themselves.