D&D General What is an Adversarial Player?

[Thomas Shey]

So in your opinion if I play a cleric I'm required to heal a party member without fail or question?

At the very least it should be the default expectation. Otherwise, the whole group is constantly negotiating with each other just to do their damn jobs in the group.

 

[Mordhau]

What it comes down to is what does the player want?

So the player doesn't want to work in a cooperative group? Would they be happy with a game in which their PC does their own thing and they get to be on screen 20% of the time, while the GM focuses on other players and what they are doing for the other 80%? Yes? Well then, so long as everyone else is happy to do so too, then I'll go on. No? Well then they have to take responsibility for creating and playing a character that maintains a workable group.

I've run games in the past, usually with small groups where PCs spend a considerable time apart and actively working against each other (D&D wouldn't be my anywhere near my preferred game for this, but it could happen organically, in theory at least; in practice I've always found that most players of D&D want to play D&D)

What I have no patience for is the player that refuses to work constructively with the group but relies on the social pressure among everyone else to keep the group together to avoid their character facing the consequenes of their actions.

 

[turnip_farmer]

*although 13 points of damage against a 12th level character, when attacking with complete surprise, isn't very threatening; in this case I think Jim's character might be just fine on his own ...

Jim's got a negative Constitution modifier and rolled a 1 for HP at every level. They should probably stop letting him wander off by himself.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Another favorite adversarial player is the metagamer.

DM: Jim, your character takes 13 damage from the assassin’s backstab.

Player 01: I run across town to where Jim’s character is and...

DM: Why?

Player 01: Uh...Because I’ve suddenly remembered that I have a book of his I should return.

DM: And it has nothing to do with Jim being attacked? That your character knows literally nothing about.

Player 01: I’m offended you’d suggest that.

DM: How long have you had Jim’s book?

Player 01: Since 1st level.

DM: So now, miraculously, at 12th level, in the middle of Jim’s character being attacked, now you decide to return the book?

Player 01: Yep.

DM: Do you happen to have any items belonging to any other characters?

Player 01: Of course. Just in case.

Okay. By coincidence, another powerful NPC shows up, teleported in by a mage.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Okay. By coincidence, another powerful NPC shows up, teleported in by a mage.

In the case of the more perverse adversarial players, they'd consider that a win; you had to use force majeure to respond to them.

 

[Scott Christian]

This is a sort of counterpart to the Adversarial DM discussion.

What traits would you say define the "Adversarial Player"?

I've seen two flavors of this. Some player seem to play as if they were in competition with the other players, and strive to make the most powerful character. I had a player who wouldn't be satisfied unless his character had an AC at least five points higher than anyone else in the party, and hated the fact that his character could actually fail a Saving Throw.

The other sort is adversarial towards the DM. That is, they seek to "beat" the DM, often through rules-lawyering or flat out cheating. Some go so far as to try and derail the campaign, to prove that they're "better" than the DM on some personal scale.

You, of course, are free to supply definitions and/or examples of your own. That's kind of what this discussion is about, after all.

I would define an adversarial player as:
Any player that conscientiously ruins the fun for the DM or other players. This includes players that unknowingly ruin others' fun, then are shown the how and why, but then continue even with a bit of ignorance.

 

[Mordhau]

In the case of the more perverse adversarial players, they'd consider that a win; you had to use force majeure to respond to them.

Yeah the determination to avoid being railroaded at any costs, which I mentioned earlier, basically bleeds into the need to prove that the DM will always railroad you.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I've only seen a handful of players this bad, but yes, I can confirm that to them, that would count as a victory to them. To their way of thinking, it's like they're playing a game of chicken where the DM is the one that swerved first. Nevermind that the entire game is getting tanked because everyone else's fun is draining away by the moment.

The one particular example that comes to mind, believed that a good DM could handle that sort of monkeywrenching without resorting to brute force solutions. That it was a sign of his skill as a player that he could challenge the DM by attempting to derail the campaign. Sure enough, eventually that player got the boot.

In the case of the more perverse adversarial players, they'd consider that a win; you had to use force majeure to respond to them.

 

[Greenfield]

Oddly, I used to sort of pride myself for creating what I called "Module Destruction Alerts".

Example: Playing Shadowrun, we were in a module called Mercurial. The plot was that we were hired to bodyguard a rock star until her contract with her current manager expired. She wanted to sign with a new one but was afraid of what the old one would do.

Game took place in Seattle WA., My character wanted to call Alaska Cruises and book us all a week long sea voyage, which would make it all but impossible for the bad guys to set up ambushes or assaults: If they weren't on the ship when we left port there would be no way for them to get to us without us seeing them board: They'd have to be air-lifted in.

This, of course, blew the entire pre-written adventure to pieces. DM had to halt and reset, essentially telling us that, yes, that would work, but if we did it the adventure would be over.

I didn't think I was being "adversarial", in that I wasn't abusive of DM or players, I was abusive of the module itself. I just didn't like pre-written modules. They're too inflexible.

In my defense, I was playing a Coyote Shaman, whose job description is to be tricky and unpredictable.

Looking back though, it does ruin fun by forcing the DM to "Break the fourth wall".

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, that's more an issue that a lot of modules being, on the whole, linear as hell.