Today we had an encounter with three dire weasels cuddling up in an empty dungeon cell. The ranger says he’ll try his Wild Empathy ability to befriend one of them and makes it. The druid tries to do the same thing but fails. The two remaining weasels attack and attach themselves, draining blood. The barbarian starts raging, the monk joins the fight, the two weasels are killed, and then the barbarian and the monk want to attack the weasel the ranger had befriended. The ranger says: “No! Don’t do it! I befriendet it!” But the barbarian says: “I don’t care. I’m raging!” and the monk’s player says: “If you had told us what you were planning to do, the monk might have reacted differently, but we didn’t see what you did in the cell; all my monk knows is that two weasels attacked our druid and with all the shouting and confusing of combat, there’s no way for the monk to know what is going on.”
There’s some shouting at the table (!) and the ranger draws his bow and readies an attack. The monk attacks. The ranger shoots and hits. The barbarian attacks. The ranger tries to grapple him. Within seconds we’ve managed to turn this into a party fight, and some players don’t know whether insults are hurled in-character or out-of-character. This kind of confusion has happened before, where the barbarian’s player and the monk’s player – on two different occasions – managed to baffle the rest of the group (including the DM).
To further confuse the issue, the monk’s player declares angrily “I’m out!” and it turns out that not only is the monk leaving the party, but the player is leaving the group as well. “Nothing personal, it’s just that our gaming styles don’t match.”
Fine with me. But what a *lousy* way to end a session. I’ve seen a much better way to end your involvement with a group: Play along for the rest of the session, go home, write a friendly good-bye email, and be done with it.
Before introducing conflicted characters into a group, players need to ask themselves whether this makes the game more fun for other players. I don’t find that party conflict makes the game more fun. I also don’t believe that realism is more fun than metagaming. And I don’t think that **role**-playing is more fun than **roll**-playing. We just want to have fun at the table, all factors need to be considered. The end of today’s session was decidedly not fun. I’m sure there’s a way to enjoy party conflict at the gaming table. But this was not it.
I wonder whether this has anything to do with player types. My current guess is that we’re having a very hard time fitting method actors into our groups. I’ll have to mull this over, and perhaps I’ll add a line or two to my Roleplaying Social Contract. Or I should create a page called Know Your DM.
#RPG #thoughts
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Make that two resignations - the second was just announced. And to be honest, I feel rather crap about it. Actuall crap is a little to general so I’ll elaborate. I feel guilty because I feel I’ve caused group members to leave, inaquedate because my playing style conflicts with the others, confused because I don’t have a freakin’ clue why people are leaving, and finally victimised because it *feels* like it’s my fault but I don’t know what I’ve done wrong!
And now, I feel a little better.
I had a coffe with Alex Z today and tried to figure out what the hell went down last night. Apparently I really didn’t offend Kirsten. She just realised that her playing style conflicts with the group and announced her departure. She explained that last night in german, but I didn’t understand any of it at the time. I’m glad that now I know it’s not personal. At least I really hope not. I’m not sure why Alex Z has decided to leave and I won’t speculate on it, though I also find it a shame.
Well I brooded on it and come up with a couple of resolutions. I’m going to be honest. First, I’ve identified a couple of in-game pet hates which are burning little holes in my keyboard. Racial-based (or any unresolvable) hatreds create unnecessary tension. Unnecessary character quirks interrupt the game flow and slow down the game. Not being listened to irritates me just as much as others get irritated when I don’t listen to them. (Did I ever claim to be perfect?) And the biggest, baddest one of these is not knowing whether characters are in-character or not. When someones character shoots an insult or provocation at my chracter, my feathers can be ruffled in and out of character if I don’t know whether it’s OOC or not.
The quirky player thing is a going to be an ongoing issue for me I think, because I’m signed up for a game where player quirks are *definately* going to be part of the game. The only consellations are that character flaws are involuntary (ie. they’re in the rules), and that there will be a common goal to keep the party together (I’ve been assurred). I really hope it works out.
I’ve also tried to figure out what I could have done better. So far I’ve come up with communication. Maybe if I’d explained to the party I was looking for animals to domesticate, and explained that I was going to try and befriend the weasel, maybe everybody would have understood what was happening and been more supportive. And maybe I would have spent a lot of breath. I don’t know. At any rate, if it makes a difference that’s what I’ll work on.
– Marco 2007-09-10 15:27 UTC
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Again, Marco I was not offended out-time. Frustrated probably because the night had not been going too well. And I get the feeling that there was a ton of misunderstandings involved. The way that I have treated roleplaying so far was that one would separate player knowledge from character knowledge. In retrospect, I should have been a little less pushy about it and taken more time to explain my approach to the rest of the group, see what yours is and so on. From what I see now there was some degree of unspoken frustration on many sides. With additional knowledge on the other factors to be taken into account (e.g. what the rest of you enjoy about roleplaying), things would have taken a different turn. But what it boils down to (and what I apparently failed to get across) was that I LIKE the group a lot out-time. I am not at ease with two player’s gameing style but again, question of taste. So I am sure that - even in AD&D - but definitely in a new system, we’ll do better, right? Apologies if I crossed people. I’m honest to the point of being blunt most of the time but never intended to put anyone down nor am I found guilty of holding grudges. I wish you all well from the bottom of my heart and would be pleased to see you again, maybe in a different gameing constellation. And this time, we make sure that we know each other and the DM.
– Unbekannt 2007-09-10 16:16 UTC