I'll put this bluntly. What if you are DMing and your players are dumb or horribly uncreative?
When I say dumb or uncreative think of this scenario;
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Thread Topic: Do bad players have the right to have fun?
Query: What if you are DMing and your players are dumb or horribly uncreative?
Scenario: Players overwhelmed by choice.
I don't see the connection between the Thread Topic, your Query, and the Scenario given. The Scenario given doesn't demonstrate stupidity or lack of creativity. They were just, well, overwhelmed. The Paradox of Choice analogy seemed appropriate. On my days off, when I have a large number of choices of things I need/want to get done, sometimes I just shut down and do very little. I don't consider that stupidity or being uncreative. I just don't know where to start, so I don't. The players could have a brainstorming session where they weigh their choices with pros and cons. Not being there, it is tough to suggest the "right" course of action.
As to your Query, I might get offended as a player if I find my DM is calling me and/or my friends dumb or horribly uncreative just because we couldn't make a decision based on a large number of choices with very little info. Your definition of dumb/uncreative seems to be subjective and based on your players not meeting your expectations. Players rarely do what the DM planned. (Just experienced this again last night in my Star Wars game). Players are wiley like that. Just my two cents.
As to the Thread Topic, it depends.
Social Gaming: Does a bad Monopoly player have a right to fun? Isn't the whole point of gaming to engage in an enjoyable social activity? So I guess it depends on your "social contract". Playing a competative game, for example, if I am a more experienced player I tend to offer suggestions. (My friend, don't trade away Park Place. He has Boardwalk and will then have the only Monopoly in the game. Two hotels later, we all suffer.)
Competative Gaming: Being the guy that gets constantly ganked in a multiplayer FPS (like Unreal Tournament, the last multi-FPS I played) isn't much fun. Unless it drives you to improve, but that can be hard to do when you get 10 seconds out of respawn and are blown to bits. I would suggest setting a handicap for the less experienced players (UT had an adjusting handicap for losing players to scale damage and such). Or play on teams and balance the experience levels of the team. Otherwise the inexperienced player will probably get frustrated and quit, depriving you of a potentially more enjoyable social experience.
Athletics: A lot of competative gaming applies here. But the "worst" players are often sitting on the bench and not getting much game play experience. As a youth, I was a bad baseball player. I accepted this. But my coach did his best to find a place for me on the field during game time. And I did assist in two double-plays that year. So perhaps a good coach can help turn "bad" players into good players. It's too bad youth sports nowadays are getting so competative that all the attention seems to be given to the "future stars", and the kids in it for the fun are just overlooked entirely (your experience may vary, but here in the midwest this seems to be the norm).
TL;DR--In my humble opinion, if you all sit down to play a game, which is meant to be an enjoyable social experience (otherwise why play), everyone has a right to have fun.
*Finding a Kickstarter cool enough to back after it has closed.
*Finding a cool TV series after it has already been cancelled (ex. Firefly, Dresden Files).
*Other people's crappy driving.
*Of time, money, and energy, never having all three and rarely having two at the same time.
*Elitist jerks in general, but especially in gaming.
*People who are offended by "foul language" yet seem indifferent to the injustices of life (ex. starving children). I am far more offended by the horrors we choose to let happen to one another than I am of any word.
*Extremists, be they religious, political, etc.
*People who present opinion as fact (and cannot tell the two apart).
*Anti-intellectualism.
*People who regard the expression of emotions as weakness.
*The treatment of military veterans in the U.S. They are people who gave their life to defend our country, not disposable assets to be given the most substandard care possible.
*The pay disparity between professional athletes and teachers, fire-fighters, law enforcement, etc.
*Bigotry, racism, sexism, and all other -isms that are an attack on equality.
*People who love to criticize but offer no constructive ideas or solutions of their own.
*Cell phones.
*The arrogance of the U.S. that the rest of the world should think it the best nation in the world and everyone other country should be just like it.
*Clowns.
*That tabletop RPGs seem to get less enjoyable the older I get.
*Not being able to find a gaming group that is playing the RPG I want to play.
*Being the default GM in most of my gaming history.
*Anxiety disorder and depression.
*How mental health issues are dealt with in the U.S.
*Watermelons.
*The fact that this list makes me seem like an old, bitter curmudgeon, when in fact I am happy and grateful for lots of things.
I will agree that you can game at any age. It’s never too late to start or restart. All it takes is desire and imagination.
That last bit is where I struggle. I am in my late 30s, starting RPGs at the age of 10 with the Moldvay/Mentzer Basic D&D game. Since my start, I have been primarily GMing. After 25+ years of being a GM with dozens of systems/genres, it is getting difficult for me to want to GM anymore. But no one else wants to GM; that’s pretty clear. If I don’t run something, my friends don’t play. So I am burned out. But it has nothing to do with age, just lack of ideas and desire. Add time to that list; being a full-time worker, husband and father really cuts into time to prep games.
I am looking forward to a local gaming convention, where I can hopefully play a lot and GM very little. Hopefully that will recharge my batteries.
● Easier to GM, IMO. XP budget made more sense than Encounter Level/Ratings of 3.x. Re-skinning and/or creating new monsters were a whole lot easier. Adventure building was easier for me.
● Casters, especially wizards, didn’t feel useless in low-level combats. No more “one-spell and I am spent” classes.
● Rituals freed up a caster’s allotment of powers/spells for things they commonly used.
● Fighters weren’t outshined by casters at higher levels.
● Parties without clerics were viable. Clerics could go in different directions without feeling like they were the party’s sole source of healing.
● Converting adventures from prior editions was fairly easy (though sometimes you had to get creative; Return to the Tomb of Horrors comes to mind).
● Monsters followed their own rules rather than be PC-in-monster’s-clothing.
● I prefer defenses (i.e. Reflex, Will, Fortitude) to saves.
● I loved the Essentials line more than the “original” 4E. Classes seemed less homogenized but still played in a similar manner. I really liked how fighters got “stances” and rogues got “tricks” instead of the usual At-Will/Encounter/Daily power suite. I also really liked the Slayer, a Striker Fighter class.
● The variety of classes and builds allowed for a lot of options for characters.
● I did not experience a lack of role-play in my 4E games. We ran several small campaigns, including part of Curse of the Crimson Throne, and there was plenty of RP to be had. Role-playing (i.e. pretending to be other people) doesn't even require a rules set; children and actors have been doing this for millenia.
It wasn’t a perfect system, but I certainly liked it a lot more than not. I like other systems as well, each for their own reasons.
This is something that's been on my mind for awhile... ...I just want to know how you tackle the situation in your campaigns in a mature manner.
I'm late to the party, per usual, but to approximately echo what others have said:
I handle homosexuality* the same way I handle heterosexuality. That is, like a mature adult. It can be part of the story, as much as the players choose for it to be.
Now my players... some of them handle it very differently. When it came out, I wanted to run Blue Rose , a romantic fantasy RPG that was the precursor to True20. I figured this particular group, 3 guys, loved L5R. Blue Rose his would be, basically, an Occidental version involving similar themes: nobility, courtship, intrigue, etc. Plus I liked the look of what would become True20.
However, they all read the section on homosexuality and bisexuality in Aldea (the campaign world) and said "no thanks" in the most homophobic way possible. They basically interpreted Blue Rose to be an erotic homosexual RPG, which it is not. They took one small facet of the world and blew it way out of proportion. It told me a lot about these players. Very sad.
I guess the above tale can be a lesson: know how comfortable your players are before introducing mature topics like sex.
I really liked how they did that system. Now that the Star Wars part is gone (because the license has expired), they have this fairly decent rules set just sitting around. Sprinkle parts of 4E, Gamma World, and Pathfinder into it, and voila: 5E.
One of my favorite parts of SAGA was how armor worked. At low levels, it was useful. Once you got to be an experienced hero, armor didn't matter anymore because your reflexes were better protection than most armors.
Code of Conduct: A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class features except proficiencies if she ever willingly commits an evil act.
Additionally, a paladin's code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.
I see the need to punish the guards coming into direct conflict with respecting the legitimate authority. If the paladin acts as he did, he disrespects the "law". If he does nothing, he lets the guilty off the hook. Had he spent the time appealing the decision up the chain, as had been suggested, maybe the guards would have used the time to complete their murdering of the victim or commit additional rapes/murders. It's a bit of a Catch-22.
Lawful Good: A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. She combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. She tells the truth, keeps her word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished.
Lawful good combines honor with compassion.
LG wants to see those guards punished because it is the good and just thing to do. The alignment does not demand that the law of man be followed at all times in the pursuit of this justice.
In the end, it is all between the player and the GM. I'd try to use the RAW as leniently as possible. It's not like the paladin went all Jigsaw on the guards. (That would be spooky, to see in the middle of the night the paladin kick down the door of the barracks, wearing a crimson-trimmed black robe, and declare to the guards, "I want to play a game.")
Discussions like these really pique my interest. Good and evil are not as black and white as the rules would have you think they are.
What would happen if the story was altered slightly? Change “guard” to “orc”. Almost no one would question any LG character (or even a paladin) for killing and mutilating an orc for raping and beating a human woman, even if the circumstances and evidence were less clear than in this case. It’s what adventurers do.
The “guard” aspect, as well as the circumstances, makes this change. The “law” has pretty much had its say in the matter: stern warning and that’s it. But I don’t think a champion of virtue and righteousness would let that stand, especially considering the defiling and attempted murder of an innocent. And I don’t think any LG deity would be too upset with his/her champion putting these vile guards to the sword. The fact that the champion was impassioned and went a little too far with the ‘beheading’ part may not even be an issue, depending on the deity. The putting them on display part... maybe a bit excessive, but the bodies would have been found anyway.
As a GM, I would say, “Hey, don’t make a habit of this sort of thing. Go spend some time in prayer to meditate on your actions.” and be done with it.
