Why do I alwaus get one player......

Ellie_the_Elf

First Post
......who insists on playing a completely inappropriate character for the campaign I'm running?

In my last campaign, we were just starting a big mostly dungeon adventure, and one PC got killed. He decided to make a new character, and chose a rogue. Fair enough since the party didn't have one- until they get to their first locked door, which he fails to open after numerous attempts- Why? 'Oh, I'm a wilderness-based rogue. I didn't put points into open lock or disable device' When he knew they were going to be dungeon crawling for at least 5 or so levels!?! :eek:

Now we're starting a new campaign. It's linked to our previous campaign in that a couple of Lathander worshipping NPCs from the old campaign are starting an organisation to basically search for their church's lost artifacts and battle the Shades and followers of Shar.

So I start talking to my players about character creation. One paladin of Lathander- no problem. One rogue, devout follower of Selune -fits fine, since Selune's worshippers tend to be very anti-Shar, one cleric/rogue of Oghma -also fits, because of the whole searching for lost knowledge angle. Then we get to player 4....

'I think I'll play a necromancer. I'll raise lots of undead and get them to fight for me. Will you let me be evil if I promise not to attack the other PCs' (paraphrased a bit, but that was pretty much the gist of it)

So you plan on joining an organisation, run basically by the church of Lathander- who really hates undead. Not only that, but you know you'll be adventuring with a paladin. And you see no problem with playing an evil character who's creating undead left and right?!? <bangs head against table>

(For the record, he's been told no undead-raising necromancers, and is now considering a different type of wizard)

I always try really hard to talk to the players about the type of game I'm planning and make sure it's one that they'll want to play. For the most part, I have great players, who give me a lot of input into what they'd like to do and where they'd like to take their PC. But I always seem to get one who says he/she likes the sound of the campaign, then wants to make a character that's completely unsuitable.

Does anyone else have a group that does this, or are my players just on a mission to drive me insane?

Ellie
 

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Ellie_the_Elf said:
Does anyone else have a group that does this, or are my players just on a mission to drive me insane?
Consider yourself lucky. Most of the time, as you go (say) for an Arthurian-like campaign, you have this player who wants a half-dragon-celestial-ninja-monk... but with a perfectly appropriate background though (the PC got lost in his travels and ended here, and being amazed by the knights of the round table wanted to stay with them).
 

There's one in every crowd.

Turanil said:
Consider yourself lucky. Most of the time, as you go (say) for an Arthurian-like campaign, you have this player who wants a half-dragon-celestial-ninja-monk... but with a perfectly appropriate background though (the PC got lost in his travels and ended here, and being amazed by the knights of the round table wanted to stay with them).

For me it is a Half-Dragon Drow dual-scimitar-wielding Ranger. I have one player who always wants to play that. Not sure why...

DM
 



I've got a player who always want's to play angels and definitly sucks at it (some of em definitly evil/vile and he doesn't even noticed it) and if I don't want him to play an angel he want's to play something with wings and plays it out like an angel.
 


KenM said:
Thats called a ranger.

He didn't really many have points in what I would consider ranger skills (search, spot, listen, wilderness lore) either, that's the thing. They were in stuff like Hide and bluff. He just had some feat or class ability that gave him +2 to various skills if he was in a wilderness area, which was what made him decide he was a 'wilderness rogue'. I didn't really get what he was aiming for, to be honest.

Turanil- at least he tried to fit in :lol:

I haven't had much problem with weird races ,except one player once asked me if he could play a Curst (an undead which is basically immune to everything unless you cast remove curse anywhere near it, which kills it permanently). We used to have a player in our old group who at various times asked to play a thri-keen, a shade (which he tried to convince the DM didn't have an ECL) and some sort of angel with a +20 ECL in a low level game, with a very strict (PHB races and classes only) DM.

And no Drizzt clones, thank goodness. At least, not yet.

Ellie.
 

......who insists on playing a completely inappropriate character for the campaign I'm running?

LOL. Yeah it happens.

There are preventive steps to this. As a DM, try to be clear on the style and form the campaign is likely to take. For instance, I'm just starting a Banewarrens game and told the players that this was a mostly urban/dungeon crawling module, and that druid/ranger/wilderness characters would be inappropriate before they created their characters.

If a player still comes up with an inappropriate concept, then discuss about it. Just tell them "Nah, I don't see this in the campaign. Do you remember when I told you [this] would be inappropriate? That's the kind of stuff I was thinking about. But we don't need to discard the entire character! Perhaps if we modified [this or that] that could be fine, don't you think?"

Usually that works pretty well for me, because I still let the player play what he wants while "filling him in" on what the game's about. The player feels empowered instead of weakened by my ruling.
 

Personally, I question the player's mental stability. Does it happen EVERY time?

Or his knowledge of FR--he KNEW that Lathander hates undead, right?
 

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