Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doctor Shaft" data-source="post: 1998606" data-attributes="member: 25737">Fascinating thread.  Two things have become clear to me in this thread.  1.) Playstyles in D&D vary a great deal. I'm with the camp of "world-immersion".  I still constantly play with a group, online, with my little monk character, in a world where if said NPC was a good ole buddy, and said PC was just some acquiantence, our player group would very likely raise the NPC over the PC. There's a million ways to play D&D.  You can all list your examples of "player is hindering me under the guise of roleplay," but this is all apples and oranges. We all respect different kinds of play. Personally, if I were the dead PC, I'd be totally cool with the other PC's decision (if we're just looking at the decision itself, not all the personal garbage on the side).  Other people would say that ruins the fun. That's great... but at the end of the day you can't prove to me which is better except within your own microscosm.  That's all there is to it. Keep your beer and chips, our group runs just fine and dandy playing the other way.   2.) There seems to be a running trend here on these forums concerning DM debacles. They always start like this:"I did something, and then my players started making decisions. Suddenly, we all had conflicts with each other.  Please tell me your opinions about how to play D&D, and maybe I'll get a majority concensus."  I'm going to admit freely, that I haven't ever DMed a session in my life, although I'd really love to. But it becomes painstakingly clear to me, as a player, that alot of DM's forget that D&D, and subsequently every other pen-and-paper game, gives players only mechanical rules!  They don't give you social rules at all.  And yet, the DM doesn't set these social rules up with the group before the start of the game (at least the DM's that post their social problems on these boards).  The Player's Handbook tells me what to roll when I attack the evil bad-guys. But it doesn't tell me if I should raise my buddies PC over an NPC at all times. The DM, as moderator, needs to make sure we're all clear on those outside rules. If aren't, then it's just too easy for Timmy to get upset when Bobby metagames a situation, and Bobby to freak-out when Timmy roleplays in a way that eliminates Bobby from coming back.  The best way to keep your sessions from breaking into anarchy is setting up your list of ground-rules from the start of a campaign (I'm sure many of you already know this).  When I play online, our group functions one way, and there are RULES posted on the forums at all times to support this.  That way, when someone comes on with "The Controversial Paladin" "wink-wink", if the DM doesn't like it, he can point to the rules sign and respectfully inform the player that said paladin doesn't fit the mold, that this decision isn't so much DM power-hogging as much as it is an established, world-rule.  When I play with another group on a table-top, all of that "Character-Immersion" gets thrown out the window. So I've actually regularly played in both types of "Roleplaying-styles" at the same time.  At the table-top, we meta-game for the sake of the PC's all the time. We fudge rolls regularly, we just group up because it's for the sake of grouping up, etc.  Online, we play the whole mistrust angle, etc.  But the big difference is that the expectations are always put on the table BEFORE the campaign starts.It really sounds like HK's campaign had a small oversight in this department, as now you've got DM and player arguing, and who knows what the other players are thinking. Point is... if you can't point to a consistency in the world, or the playing-style expectations, how do you expect to fix any problems when there's mass disagreement?And, while it's cool to discuss this on the forum, you'll NEVER get a real solution here. The only thing we can do is give you OUR gaming group's expectations.  And, as can be seen, all of them are only as valid as the gaming groups allow them to be.  Bottom Line:If it was already understood in the social rules, there'd be no issue.  If I say "No enlargement spells" in the beginning, no one takes issue with it later. If I say "Character immersion" and people agree to play, then no one takes issue when I decide to ressurect a stupid tree over someone's beloved PC.  Set the expectations before you play.</blockquote>

Verification