When a Player really just doesn't get the genre

[Bullgrit]

Have you ever tried to game with someone who just didn't understand the genre of the game? I'm not talking about someone who understood the genre but didn't *like* it. I mean someone who just totally didn't *get* it.

What strange, funny, aggravating situations came of their not understanding the basic idea of the genre?

Bullgrit

 

[Mallus]

What strange, funny, aggravating situations came of their not understanding the basic idea of the genre?

My group is pretty savvy, in quite a few genres, natch. But that doesn't stop us from generating weird, funny and aggravating situations deliberately and with malice, or perhaps satire, aforethought.

Like our D&D 4e campaign, which eventually became the story of a group of religion-founding Communist revolutionaries who once starred in a hit musical and went to Hell for a wedding.

I imagine some people stumble into nonsense (quasi-sense?) like this, but we do with intent.

 

[Thotas]

I have yet to try an espionage genre game like Top Secret or Spycraft that the players didn't approach as if it were D&D.

 

[Deset Gled]

I've had semi-similar experiences. Sometimes it comes down to bad communication, sometimes to a lack of understanding the subtler points of setting, sometimes it's just someone being a jerk.

The time I had players tell me they wanted a woodland setting, then have them proceed to destroy huge chunks of forest and ignore the squatting orc clans in favor of killing the bigger pretadory species was bad communication; what they really wanted was a campaign where they just fought monsters and not NPCs. The time I created a new setting where the warring nations were chaotic-vs-lawful and the PCs spent most of the time trying to figure out which side was evil was a case where I just couldn't get the players to understand some of the subtler points of the two-axis alignment system. The time when I hosted a battle royale where all the players created multiple characters and fought each other to the death, then had one player throw a fit and quit when his first character (a joke character; a barbarian with no strength) died, that was just a case of someone being a jerk.

 

[TerraDave]

I have yet to try an espionage genre game like Top Secret or Spycraft that the players didn't approach as if it were D&D.

Ya, I think you could get a lot of answers like this. And Deset Gleds cases...of gaps between the PCs and DMs...also pretty common.

I also see people not understanding how RPGs work in general. (and have in fact seen that many times).

But I have a hard time imagining someone not "getting" D&D once they had the general idea of how to play. It appeals to very basic and ingrained archetypes and elements of human nature. In fact, it would be refreshing if players didn't fall into its very comfortable tropes.

 

[Bullgrit]

Marvel Super Heroes game: Unknown to the GM, the Player had little to no knowledge/history with comic books, and made a mutant character with passive and deadly powers, (and no fighting ability, normal or super). For example, touching her infected the toucher with a fatal disease.

And then the character was pretty much completely neutral, not caring to help anyone. On at least two occasions, she personally witnessed crimes and did nothing. During some group battles, she literally did nothing but walk around the scene.

Bullgrit

 

[Jhaelen]

I remember quite a few misunderstandings regarding what constitutes anachronism in games. Since most players aren't history professors, some amount of anachronism is unavoidable, but in the most drastic case, a new player wanted to buy an iso mat in a medieval setting.

It's worse, though, when the GM has a bad grasp on anachronisms.

Not getting the genre might be a misunderstanding between real-world grim & gritty knights (e.g. as they're portrayed in the Ars Magica rpg) vs. romantic aka Arthurian knights (e.g. as portrayed in Pendragon rpg).
These are usually caused by the GM, in my experience because he didn't supply sufficient details about the setting beforehand.

Apart from these two cases, I've rarely seen it.

 

[rkwoodard]

Miscommunication

Guilty.

Our groups 1st Mage campaign. The GM and I hammered out what we wanted and expected....An X-files style investigation game.

I meant early X-files with episodic adventures where we uncovered and stopped the bad guys.

He ran a late X-file style dark conspiracy where sometimes we would spend a 4 hour session tracking down a single clue that would help us subvert a small part of the evil power's dark plan.

It took us over a year to realize the disconnect. All the while grumbling at each other about style of play/story.

RK

 

[SkredlitheOgre]

In my D&D 3/3.5 campaign, I had decided to throw some Ravenloft/Lovecraftian elements. I set the scene with the Mists and everything you're 'supposed' to do in that situation, but I think this was a disconnect between my players and me, because none of them 'got' it. There was no dread or apprehension on the part of the characters. It was simply more D&D to them. It didn't matter that the enemies now had tentacles instead of arms or that people they were chasing were able to outrun them so easily (especially the Monk, since his movement was something like 70 or 80 feet a round...and he was a power gamer, so it might have been even higher) due to magic or plot convenience.

After about a session and a half of 'Can we kill it?' instead of 'Holy crap! What is that?' I decided to just end the idea and sent them back to their base city without trying it again. It would work a lot better with my current PF group, though.