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When volatile characters get turned bad..
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<blockquote data-quote="phindar" data-source="post: 3365054" data-attributes="member: 37198"><p>It sounds to me like this is already spilled over into player conflict, maybe not the bad poisonous kind, but it sounds like its the players who are in conflict, more than the characters. Games aren't generally at the mercy of unstable CE characters, they're at the mercy of the players. Its a matter of wanting to play with the other players, rather than against them.</p><p></p><p>This is how I feel too, but its not an alignment, or even a character thing. Its an attitude that the players bring to the table. I'd rather play in an Evil game where it was the characters against the world (for example) rather than a Good game where the players bickered or didn't work together as a team. (Evil characters, I can handle. Evil players, not so much.)</p><p></p><p>The reason I see these things go off the rails most often is that players want something to happen, and they try to make it happen with their characters. Characters don't have a lot of control over the game world, so this is frustrating, the game starts going in a direction you don't want it to, the other players are working against you (because they are doing the same thing you are, using their characters to get what the player wants), everybody ends up mad, frustrated, and complaining. </p><p></p><p>(If two players are getting angry with each other at the table, its generally a good time to put the character sheets and dice aside for a few minutes and try to figure out what's really going on. There's no point in having real people getting snippy with one another over an made-up conflict between imaginary characters in a fantasy game.) </p><p></p><p>Most likely (unless one or more of the group is crazy), the playes don't <em>want</em> to be in conflict with each other, so it seems like these problems should be easier to avoid. The Psion is probably not out to wreck the game, but you and her might have different ideas about what's fun. Two minutes of talking as players can save two hours of character combat. </p><p></p><p>But its very important to separate player and character motivations. The players are probably anxious to get their alignments reversed, because if they wanted to play CE they would have made CE. The characters have gone maliciously insane and probably want to kill a lot of people. A lot of the time, players get locked into this "This is what my character would do" attitude as a way to justify being a (four letter word of your choice). Ideally, these sort of issues would be settled before the group sat down to game together. You'd know right off the bat if mind control amongst the party members was verboten or not, and you wouldn't have to figure it out three months down the line when the game comes crashing to a halt and half the group hates the other half. (This is I think part of the reason its hard to add new players to a group that has been plaing for awhile, because the group has already sussed out the big issues, usually on an unspoken level, and new players don't know any of the taboos.)</p><p></p><p>Summing up. Character conflict: cool. Player conflict: uncool. I'm way too tired to dig up the link, but there was a good quote about this sort of thing, to the effect of: <em>We should be able to behave like adults, and dream like children.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="phindar, post: 3365054, member: 37198"] It sounds to me like this is already spilled over into player conflict, maybe not the bad poisonous kind, but it sounds like its the players who are in conflict, more than the characters. Games aren't generally at the mercy of unstable CE characters, they're at the mercy of the players. Its a matter of wanting to play with the other players, rather than against them. This is how I feel too, but its not an alignment, or even a character thing. Its an attitude that the players bring to the table. I'd rather play in an Evil game where it was the characters against the world (for example) rather than a Good game where the players bickered or didn't work together as a team. (Evil characters, I can handle. Evil players, not so much.) The reason I see these things go off the rails most often is that players want something to happen, and they try to make it happen with their characters. Characters don't have a lot of control over the game world, so this is frustrating, the game starts going in a direction you don't want it to, the other players are working against you (because they are doing the same thing you are, using their characters to get what the player wants), everybody ends up mad, frustrated, and complaining. (If two players are getting angry with each other at the table, its generally a good time to put the character sheets and dice aside for a few minutes and try to figure out what's really going on. There's no point in having real people getting snippy with one another over an made-up conflict between imaginary characters in a fantasy game.) Most likely (unless one or more of the group is crazy), the playes don't [i]want[/i] to be in conflict with each other, so it seems like these problems should be easier to avoid. The Psion is probably not out to wreck the game, but you and her might have different ideas about what's fun. Two minutes of talking as players can save two hours of character combat. But its very important to separate player and character motivations. The players are probably anxious to get their alignments reversed, because if they wanted to play CE they would have made CE. The characters have gone maliciously insane and probably want to kill a lot of people. A lot of the time, players get locked into this "This is what my character would do" attitude as a way to justify being a (four letter word of your choice). Ideally, these sort of issues would be settled before the group sat down to game together. You'd know right off the bat if mind control amongst the party members was verboten or not, and you wouldn't have to figure it out three months down the line when the game comes crashing to a halt and half the group hates the other half. (This is I think part of the reason its hard to add new players to a group that has been plaing for awhile, because the group has already sussed out the big issues, usually on an unspoken level, and new players don't know any of the taboos.) Summing up. Character conflict: cool. Player conflict: uncool. I'm way too tired to dig up the link, but there was a good quote about this sort of thing, to the effect of: [i]We should be able to behave like adults, and dream like children.[/i] [/QUOTE]
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