Would this bother you?

[Crothian]

My question is would it be an issue for you to play in a setting where one player knew the setting and the others did not?

No, it has not. Every setting we play some players know it better then others. I think it would be impossible for players to know a setting the same unless they all just knew nothing. I've been the person that knows the setting best like with Thieves World. I've been the person that just kind of knows the setting like when we play Eberron. And when we played Forgotten Realms, I knew nothing. It was always fun and we all enjoyed the game. No one had an advantage because they knew more.

 

[Gundark]

I don't think this player quite understands the purpose of cooperative role play.

QFT...this just seems to be so trivial

 

[Templetroll]

IMy question is would it be an issue for you to play in a setting where one player knew the setting and the others did not?

No, it would not bother me at all. I'd see it as a second person to ask questions of so the DM doesn't get bothered all the time. Is there something the other players see happening that would have you mess them over by using info about the game setting? can't they read up on the setting while waiting until gameday?

 

[Elf Witch]

I do know players who will use any and every advantage to be a prima donna. I don't play with them when I can avoid it. A person who knows the setting better could recognize what's happening first, and then more frequently be th eone to com eup wiht the plan that saves the day, and generally manage to keep themselves center-stage with their knowledge. Kind of like having one player memorize the MM, and constantly using that knowledge to allow them to be the one that knows how to best kill the monsters.

If these players have had bad experiences with such players, they could be a bit gun-shy. It is also possible that they're feeling some weirdness because they are used to thinking of you as a GM, and haven't gotten it into their heads that you don't need to be in control all the time.

The usual way to deal with this would be to talk to them. Talking to us only gets you speculation.

I have talked to her but all she will say is that she does not think the game will be fun when I ask for examples she has done. I came out and asked are you afraid that I will steal the spotlight or that I will argue with the DM over the setting.

She siad no. But she really couldn't give me an example other than to bring up Shadowrun.

She joined our Shadowrun game we had been playing for awhile. She says she often felt ill at ease and unprepared on how to play or what to do because she did not know the world or the system.

I pointed out to her that her husband, my roommate and me were in the same situation as this Kalamar situation. Only the GM and the other player knew the world and the system.

I pointed out to her that when she joined my game she was the only player who had never played in a 3.5 game and she didn't seem to be having any issues.

I posted this here because I was wondering if I was missing something because it would not bother me to be in this situation.

We have been friends for over 20 years and I could tell she was not being upfront about her reasons.

 

[Elf Witch]

I wouldn't have any issues with that. Please tell me that the person complaining isn't the wife of the problem husband from your other game.

Olaf the Stout

LOL yes she is. Though this time the husband is really happy about the game he has played with my roommate before with her DMing and I think he prefers her style over mine.

One of the problems we have is finding players down here. I have had signs up at the local game store, I have posted on every looking for gamers sites I could find I looked at Meet Up.

There is a lack of gamers in the broward county area. I know other groups having problems my one player plays in a different group on the other Saturday they have been looking for a fourth player for months.

 

[Elf Witch]

I assume from what you've said that she's played lots of other games with other people? Has she seen or been in a campaign ruined by someone who insisted on using metagaming knowledge of the setting to snatch the spotlight or to undermine the other players? She might be afraid that's going to happen again. Has she ever been in the position where she was the one with the special setting knowledge?

she used to play a lot back in the early 80s and then stopped for a long time. She didn't game much at all during the 90s.

I am not sure how those early games went all I know is that is was a shared game with different DMs coming in and running for awhile. I know the games were different than the ones we play now.

It was not uncommon for evil PCs to slay all the good PCs. The party always had a wide variety of levels in play at one time.

Her recent play has been in groups that I play in as well or that she DMed. I never saw anyone run roughshod over character or steal the spotlight. in the Shadowrun game I know she felt left out. Part of that was the dynamics of the group. She was the newcomer who was working with another group she betrayed them. We took her in but there was some suspicion on our part we were not sure we could trust her character.

We are role players and we don't do the whole you look trust worthy join us. In the game for example we did not share the secret location of our bolt hole.

she designed the character and took the flaw bad reputation. She also designed a character that half the time she touched any technology it broke. So you can imagine the characters with cyberware running through them didn't want her to touch them.

She left the game after awhile. She told me that it was because she hates modern world play and only wants to play fantasy.

Maybe that has something to do with all this. I will have to ask her.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

No, it would not bother me to play in a campaign setting with which other players in the group were much more familiar. That said, the details given by the OP suggest to me that the problem she faces has more to do with general social dynamics than with gaming-specific concerns. Scarcely informed speculation and unsolicited advice follow.

Elf Witch, you are likely correct that your friend simply doesn't trust you and your roommate to run a game that fairly allows all the players to shine. For the sake of your friendship, I suggest that you don't take this lack of trust as a personal slight but as a symptom of a problem that you can help her to overcome. It sounds like she has had bad experiences in the past with being an outsider in her gaming group, in particular with the Shadowrun game you mentioned. Maybe she could have chosen a different character background, but maybe she simply didn't know that your group cared more about the integrity of the role-playing than the meta-game concern of building team cohesion among the players. Regardless, she had a bad experience; once bitten, twice shy.

The proposed Kalamar campaign no doubt gave your friend some qualms. She may fear being in another situation where she's not a member of the ingroup, and must wait for you and the DM to dole out knowledge that you two already share or to explain in jokes you have developed. The fact that you and the DM are roommates immediately creates an explicit ingroup that your friend simply cannot join. The fact that you developed your character so quickly confirmed her fears that you two are going to do your own thing, that you two will have several conversations about the game that naturally exclude her. No matter you intentions, living with the DM will probably give you many more opportunities to shape the campaign than your friend will have. Finally, the fact that your chosen character will be the face man and have all sorts or in-character knowledge about the world confirms that your character will probably call the shots for the group, and she'll just be along for the ride.

Or I could be completely wrong. However, if I have guessed more or less correctly, confronting your friend and forcing her to admit her lack of faith in the fairness of the proposed Kalamar game will only establish an adversarial relationship. Allow her to save face, and take steps to ensure that she feels fully included in the group, instead of a second-class citizen. (Important: I do not mean to suggest that you have treated her like one, but such treatment is evidently what she fears. And if our friends don't make allowances for our weaknesses, who will?)

 

[Arnwyn]

My question is would it be an issue for you to play in a setting where one player knew the setting and the others did not?

Absolutely not. I can't imagine why it might be an issue.

(No idea what an "unfair advantage" might be or might lead to... is their some sort of weird "roleplaying competition" going on here that you neglected to mention?)

 

[Elf Witch]

No, it would not bother me to play in a campaign setting with which other players in the group were much more familiar. That said, the details given by the OP suggest to me that the problem she faces has more to do with general social dynamics than with gaming-specific concerns. Scarcely informed speculation and unsolicited advice follow.

Elf Witch, you are likely correct that your friend simply doesn't trust you and your roommate to run a game that fairly allows all the players to shine. For the sake of your friendship, I suggest that you don't take this lack of trust as a personal slight but as a symptom of a problem that you can help her to overcome. It sounds like she has had bad experiences in the past with being an outsider in her gaming group, in particular with the Shadowrun game you mentioned. Maybe she could have chosen a different character background, but maybe she simply didn't know that your group cared more about the integrity of the role-playing than the meta-game concern of building team cohesion among the players. Regardless, she had a bad experience; once bitten, twice shy.

The proposed Kalamar campaign no doubt gave your friend some qualms. She may fear being in another situation where she's not a member of the ingroup, and must wait for you and the DM to dole out knowledge that you two already share or to explain in jokes you have developed. The fact that you and the DM are roommates immediately creates an explicit ingroup that your friend simply cannot join. The fact that you developed your character so quickly confirmed her fears that you two are going to do your own thing, that you two will have several conversations about the game that naturally exclude her. No matter you intentions, living with the DM will probably give you many more opportunities to shape the campaign than your friend will have. Finally, the fact that your chosen character will be the face man and have all sorts or in-character knowledge about the world confirms that your character will probably call the shots for the group, and she'll just be along for the ride.

Or I could be completely wrong. However, if I have guessed more or less correctly, confronting your friend and forcing her to admit her lack of faith in the fairness of the proposed Kalamar game will only establish an adversarial relationship. Allow her to save face, and take steps to ensure that she feels fully included in the group, instead of a second-class citizen. (Important: I do not mean to suggest that you have treated her like one, but such treatment is evidently what she fears. And if our friends don't make allowances for our weaknesses, who will?)

You may be right. I always knew that she prefered fantasy to modern stuff for example when the Star Wars game was mentioned as possible other game she was totally against it.
But I also had a feeling that she was not happy in the Shadowrun game for other reasons. Sometimes it is hard to be the new one in the group.

There was a rather nasty isssue a few years ago in the group I played 3.0 with it was made up of the same Shadowrun players which included her husband and a new DM. She wanted to join that group and the other players including her husband did not want her to play. I was the only one who voted for her to join the group. She never knew the real reason the DM told her that he thought six players was big enough. She knew there was more going on and came out and asked me point blank so I tld her the truth that a couple of the players had issues with her from the Shadowrun game. I didn't tell her my roommate and her husband voted against her. I know she was hurt and maybe it has festered all this time.

She plays in the game I DM and so does my roommate. And now something she has said in passing is starting to make some sense. My world is a homebrew my roommate drew the maps for it becuse I suck at it. She took my rough design and made beautiful maps.

I also did some changes in the cleric instead of a generic one size fits all like in the players handbook I made changes to make them fit their god better. As an example clerics of Ehlona can't wear heavy armor but they get an extra starting feat of point blank shot and they get access to some of the druid spells. My roommate who is very good at building balanced prestige classes helped me with this.

This was before we started playing. The player in question said to me in passing one day when I mentioned my world she corrected me and said no its both yours and roommates world. I laughed and said no only some of the crunchy bits and didn't think anything more about it until now.

In my game my roommate does not play the face nor does she play a character who knows the world. The player says she can't wait to play and loves my game. The only dissatisfaction she ever expressed was that her ranger was not as good in combat as the monk, and cleric so I helped her build a kick ass sorcerer.

I want her to have fun in the game and I don't want her to feel left out and she is a great friend who I usually have a great time with.

I do have major issues with the passive aggressive way she is handling this. As friends we have shared so much we had I thought a great deal of trust in each other. She should open her mouth and just tell me the truth of what is bothering her. It is very hard to handle things if I have to guess what is really bothering her.

 

[Crothian]

Is it possible they they are just using this as an excuse to not play settings they just don't want to play? People come up will all sorts of off the wall excuses for something to cover their real reasons.