Wanting players to take in-game religion more seriously
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EN World has a "no politics, no religion" rule. We don't allow commentary on real-world religious beliefs.
We don't care what you think of those who have religion, but if you want to take insulting potshots at people, you will do it elsewhere.
This goes for *EVERYONE* in the thread - keep it clear of the lines, please. Thank you.
Wow!
WHOOOSH! Where did that come from all of a sudden?
It's an analogy. When you compare like situations to illustrate a point by removing a specific context and showing how similar actions in a different context are similar.
Imaculata
Hero
Yeah, but there's a difference between an analogy that makes sense, and one that is way over everyone's head. Yours is the latter.
How so? It is an example of someone imposing their view onto another person. You have given no reasons why it's a bad analogy, other than to say that it doesn't make sense. What trips you up about it? How is it a bad analogy?
In the context of this thread, the DM is trying to impose in-game values onto real-world players. It's absolutely accurate.
MechaTarrasque
Hero
I would make a religious NPC that the party interacts with on a semiregular basis who is basically a nice guy/lady. Think Father Mulcahy from M*A*S*H or Shepherd from Firefly. Make use of the PC's back stories--if one of them has (still living) parents, significant other, siblings, children or even pets, have the NPC regularly ask how they are doing (have fun with the paranoia that will follow the first time your NPC does this), give a PC some homespun good advice that "coincidentally" happens to help on a quest, or give them a free meal after a particularly hard adventure, and after a while that NPC will have a life of his/her own in the players' minds and that will probably solve the issue.
I want to make a meat-grinder style megadungeon setting now and have that guy be like Cain from diablo, but know crap about the PCs he shouldn't (I love the idea that this total stranger is like, "Hey Jim, how's Marcy and Dale?" so the player can be like, "HTF do you know Marcy and Dale? How did you know my name, I just got here? Are you a spy? Have you been spying on me? Where's your scrying tools, I'm breaking that crap!"), and then have them have to interact with him every time they come back to town; he's just there, at the city gates, asking them questions about specific events from the dungeon that he couldn't possibly know about, and the whole point of the character is just to mess with the players...
Eh, in that case, it goes both ways, as the players are imposing their own values.
Look, it is perfectly okay for anyone at the table - be they GM or player - to have some base desires of tone and content for the game. It is okay for anyone at the table to talk about what they want out of a game, and to stop playing when it becomes clear that the game isn't going to suit their needs or desires.
This is not bullying - this is talking about things like mature adults, and coming to agreements and compromises and choices for yourself. That's what good people do.
This is not a matter for passive-aggressive behavior on anyone's part. So, the GM shouldn't be mucking about with in-game pressures and, "hope the players/PCs catch on". This is a good time to have a simple conversation with the players, and let them know that the current table style doesn't suit the GM's needs, making the game no fun to run. If the game isn't fun to run, well, then the game won't run. If the game is no fun to play, well, then the players won't play. Maybe these people shouldn't be playing togethger, as they may have fundamentally conflictign desires.
On the other hand, if they talk about it like mature people, maybe everyone wins.
Not wanting to get into a politics/religious discussion regarding this, but who you are attracted to isn't a choice, so I don't see how the player could impose their "values" (I don't think sexual preference is a value, it's a fact of a person's traits) in this instance. In this analogy the DM is trying to punish the player for the player's choices.
Absolutely, but the OP was looking for ways to compel his players to, effectively, enjoy his style of play. I think that's wrong and an inappropriate way to do things.
But he's not having this discussion with his players, he's asking for advice from us. He said he already talked to his players and they made no progress in this regard, and so now he wants to find a way to, effectively, punish them in game to change the player's behaviors out of game. Clearly this is not a well-functioning group with different goals for play.
I agree.
That's kind of the point I'm getting at; the DM has one idea of how it should run, and the players have another. If the DM wants to continue running the game, he should adapt his expectations or not run the game with that group. I understand he has a desire to tell a particular story in a particular style, but desiring something is not justification for imposing something the players clearly don't want on them.
From my understanding they already have had a talk, and the players have continued the behavior, which to me, is a clear indicator that they're not interested in that style of game. If the DM is determined to tell that type of story, he should seek a more agreeable audience, or, he should produce content that his current audience wants. Justin Beiber doesn't perform at metal clubs for the same reason that Megadeath doesn't tour churches; the audience is not appropriate for the content.
I happen to have the view that the DM, in exchange for control and authority, is responsible for telling a story that the players want to participate in, and if they are behaving disruptively then the story being presented is likely not one the players are interested in. When I play or run, I try and gauge the people I'm playing with to see if we're enjoying ourselves. If we're not enjoying ourselves, I will work (as a player or DM) to make things more interesting (whether that means I start taking actions that push the narrative in a particular direction as a player, or I work to alter the story as a DM). I just feel that the players start from a point of disadvantage (subject to DM whim, ignorance of the plot, etc.) and so the DM should cater to his audience.
A better accounting of the table's play would probably help shed some light on this situation, as I tend to assume people attempt to minimize their own fault when describing things, so when I read that the players are mocking his content (making jokes about the actions of NPCs or the setting itself) I infer from that that the mocking is fairly serious (I will mock something I think is ridiculous in a game, especially published adventures when it's not the DM's special pet project, but a single incident every once in a while isn't going to put someone off) and that the DM is being put off by it because it happens consistently, rather than sporadically. Maybe the party isn't joking as often as it'd take for me to get annoyed (I run fairly lax table talk rules, sometimes people just want to talk about something else, it's not the end of the world) or the DM is not particularly good at taking criticism, I can't really make great assumptions since all we have are a few posts by the DM, which also color my opinion negatively in the sense that the posts appear to me to be antagonistic towards the players ("These players don't take MY game seriously enough for my tastes, and are making too many jokes at my expense" which may or may not be an accurate representation of the situation).
Like I said in my other really stupid long post, I would totally play in that story and I would enjoy it, even being an atheist pretending to be a devout follower, I'm cool with that, other people not so much, and I think he may have chosen the wrong story for the audience he has, like a DJ at a metal club dropping "Baby" by Justin Beiber or the sound guy at a church throwing out "New Faith" by Slayer in the middle of mass. It's not that either one is inherently bad (ok, beiber is probably inherently bad, I just can't prove that empirically...), it's just not something the audience is going to be interested in.
Ahrimon
Bourbon and Dice
[MENTION=6855137]l0lzero[/MENTION] Jump to conclusions much?
The DM has one expectations, and from what he has said, his players have a different expectation of the game. This is causing the DM some frustration and he came here looking for advice. Instead he gets a bunch of people jumping all over him telling him that he's bullying them, forcing religion down their throat, or forcing them to play "lip-service" to things that are badwrongfun. Have you considered that not everyone ponders every possible solution before asking for help. He was frustrated and asked for help. Whether that help is "here are some ways that may get your players more involved" which fits more inside the box he was asking about; or more about "have you considered that your players want a different style of game" which is more outside the box that he may have considered.
Regardless, he asked for advice. If your advice is perhaps you should try a different style of game, that is great. But calling him a bully or saying that he's forcing things down his players throat is an over-reaction at best and very bad advice at worse.
OP,
Talk to your players and if they don't want a more serious game but that is what you want to run, then perhaps you could simply step down from the the DM chair and let someone else run a game for a while. If the players decide they want a more serious game then you can take the reigns again. Either way, don't try to DM a game that isn't fun.
The DM has one expectations, and from what he has said, his players have a different expectation of the game. This is causing the DM some frustration and he came here looking for advice. Instead he gets a bunch of people jumping all over him telling him that he's bullying them, forcing religion down their throat, or forcing them to play "lip-service" to things that are badwrongfun. Have you considered that not everyone ponders every possible solution before asking for help. He was frustrated and asked for help. Whether that help is "here are some ways that may get your players more involved" which fits more inside the box he was asking about; or more about "have you considered that your players want a different style of game" which is more outside the box that he may have considered.
Regardless, he asked for advice. If your advice is perhaps you should try a different style of game, that is great. But calling him a bully or saying that he's forcing things down his players throat is an over-reaction at best and very bad advice at worse.
OP,
Talk to your players and if they don't want a more serious game but that is what you want to run, then perhaps you could simply step down from the the DM chair and let someone else run a game for a while. If the players decide they want a more serious game then you can take the reigns again. Either way, don't try to DM a game that isn't fun.
