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Since it is on these forums I will try to keep my examples within the realm of gaming, but it bugs me all the time.
[rant]
A) GM complains the players won't role play, but he always skips right to the next fight if there is even the slightest delay.
B) Players are upset the campaign is a linear series of combats, yet they ignore every potential side trek and don't bother with anything except charging to the next fight.
C) Player is upset that his PC's constantly fails will saves, his builds always dump wisdom, 2-3 classes with poor will saves, and never spends the money for anything to protect his mind.
D) Player/GM says combat takes too long, however never has anything ready and every time have to wait on their turn while they figure out what to do.
Grr!!! If you don't like it, stop doing it!
[/rant]
Sorry, had to get that off my chest before I said something inappropriate to several in-duh-viduals I interact with on a regular basis.
I'm sure you have more examples you can give.
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I hate one-sentence posts!
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These are the sorts of things that must, MUST be resolved, here in this discussion. We need to focus our energy on addressing these travesties, today gentlemen
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These are the sorts of things that must, MUST be resolved, here in this discussion. We need to focus our energy on addressing these travesties, today gentlemen
I hate one-sentence posts!
Nope.
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How about someone who complains that nobody ever trusts their characters, but in every campaign they betray the party.
Likewise the player that gets upset that other players don't trust their characters, when they introduce themselves to the party via via theft of other character's items or picking fights with the party.
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If "betray" is enabled then pvp is enabled. Party should just kill the character and say "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Or in this case, us."
Then kill his next character just so he gets the message and knows what the path of vengeance will lead from this time forward. Then welcome him back and adventure together with conviviality.
On odd events like this, we had one character that would sometimes turn allegiances to the other side, maybe it was due to their anarchist politics? Alas, you could never trust them as they would sometimes just flip or refuse to help your side. Lol, he was a temp bodyguard to my character once and let me die to enemy vampires without lifting a finger. Hilarious in retrospect. We also had fellows that heavily identified with the monsters and were very sympathetic towards them, overlooking their murder and aggressions. One raised broods of abominations as a nanny. I always found that a bit odd, but my othering is +10. ; )
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If "betray" is enabled then pvp is enabled. Party should just kill the character and say "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Or in this case, us."
Then kill his next character just so he gets the message and knows what the path of vengeance will lead from this time forward. Then welcome him back and adventure together with conviviality.
Or perhaps rather than encouraging this behavior from anyone, the GM can just step in and say "I'd like to run an adventure, not a PvP tournament. How about everyone cooperate like a successful adventuring party? Otherwise, those that aren't interested can leave and I'll make some calls to fill the empty seats."
Culpam poena premit comes.
The player has a habit of doing this, so they should be punished. You could prevent punishment, but then you have allowed them to get away with it if one only steps in after the betrayal (hence my idea of redressing betrayal with betrayal and execution).
I take what you say though, and for it to fly in the past a dm has had to allow it, to the detriment of the party. A dm could have outlawed betrayal and that may have solved the problem, but since a player does want to run betrayers 1 through 3 the simple solution of murdering his character into line could work and set an example (do not or you will live not) as well as blow off a bit of stress and allow some to get vengeance for dead characters, if they lost chars to past betrayals.
Murder them into line, or the murders will continue until there is group loyalty. ; )
How about someone who complains that nobody ever trusts their characters, but in every campaign they betray the party.
I actually had one player in particular complain when NPCs do this. It got to the point where that player did not trust any NPCs, no matter what. I asked him why, and he said that it seems like none of the NPCs were ever really on their side.
I mentioned that each NPC will have his/her own goals. Sometimes those goals mesh with the PC's goals, and sometimes they do not.
As an experiment, I ran a campaign where every NPC was either obviously good, or obviously bad. It took a while for that player to trust even the obviously good characters.
Overall the campaign ended up being somewhat boring IMO.
How about someone who complains that nobody ever trusts their characters, but in every campaign they betray the party.I actually had one player in particular complain when NPCs do this. It got to the point where that player did not trust any NPCs, no matter what. I asked him why, and he said that it seems like none of the NPCs were ever really on their side.
I mentioned that each NPC will have his/her own goals. Sometimes those goals mesh with the PC's goals, and sometimes they do not.
As an experiment, I ran a campaign where every NPC was either obviously good, or obviously bad. It took a while for that player to trust even the obviously good characters.
Overall the campaign ended up being somewhat boring IMO.
I had the opposite problem one game, a player absolutely did not trust an NPC despite having no experiential reason not to. Said NPC was an a Elder being that was grateful for having been (unwittingly) released from binding.
Of course it's perfectly reasonable not to trust an Elder being, but it was amusing to see that everyone else in the party was trusting.
What did the players think of it?
The impression I got from them was that it was okay. Not great but not terrible.
You can't tell what those goals or motives are and it comes out to you can't trust anyone. Because you can't. Or at least you can't tell who to trust.
To me that is half of the fun. I really enjoy complex characters that aren't totally good or totally evil. That makes the game world feel more real to me.
To me this seems to fall specifically in the "complaining about what they do to themselves" category, but from the GM side.
Well, each PC that is created should be its own unique character, not simply an extension of the player. If the player chooses to make one character who is not trusting, then not trusting the NPCs makes sense.
However most characters would trust some NPCs after a sufficient amount of time and good will. Not doing so for out-of-game concerns detracts from the roleplaying experience, IMO.
If the GM constantly has these NPCs that the players think they can trust turn on them, then I would agree that the GM is encouraging non-trusting behavior in the players.
In my particular situation, however, the PCs may meet, interact with, trade with, or potentially adventure with dozens and dozens of NPCs over the course of a campaign. If out of all those NPCs that they come into contact with, they end up butting heads with two, then it doesn't seem like I'm encouraging this behavior.
In my current campaign the BBEG is a shapechanging & illusion master, intent on sowing discord in the PC group. The PCs have been warned about this from a trusted source, so they're on their guard. I gave the BBEG a sort of "tell" that they can pick up on if he happens to be masquerading among them.
Even with that type of situation (which is pretty extreme), I'm expecting that like real individuals, they'll try to sort out their friends from their foes. If they simply assume everyone is a foe, and don't accept help from any NPCs, it will make the challenges they have to overcome much more difficult.
On the plus side, the one paranoid player that I mentioned before is not a part of this current campaign, so the non-trusting aspect has been reduced significantly.
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Or perhaps rather than encouraging this behavior from anyone, the GM can just step in and say "I'd like to run an adventure, not a PvP tournament. How about everyone cooperate like a successful adventuring party? Otherwise, those that aren't interested can leave and I'll make some calls to fill the empty seats."If "betray" is enabled then pvp is enabled. Party should just kill the character and say "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Or in this case, us."
Then kill his next character just so he gets the message and knows what the path of vengeance will lead from this time forward. Then welcome him back and adventure together with conviviality.
We took a third way. Anticipating the player's betrayal became a running joke. If a game ran long enough, he might end up switching sides two or three times.
What did the players think of it?The impression I got from them was that it was okay. Not great but not terrible.
You can't tell what those goals or motives are and it comes out to you can't trust anyone. Because you can't. Or at least you can't tell who to trust.To me that is half of the fun. I really enjoy complex characters that aren't totally good or totally evil. That makes the game world feel more real to me.
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I would agree to a certain extent. However, some GM's (I'm not necessarily saying you are one of them) are pretty predictable.
If the NPC is complex (meaning the GM has put a bunch of effort into it), is extreme (even extremely good and noble), scales up in level/power with the party, has an emotional connection, etc... We can almost guarantee the GM will have that NPC in conflict with the party at some point. Maybe not out-n-out betrayal. But at least severely obstructionist.
Yes, generic NPC's that he hasn't put a bunch of effort into the development we can almost always trust OR it is terribly obvious that we can't trust them.
So the GM did get kinda upset with us. Because as soon as he would give a detailed description of an NPC, we interact with it a few times, obviously more powerful than the last time, etc... We would start distancing ourselves from the at NPC, not telling them everything, make plans to neutralize them, and especially start investigating them.
There were a total of exactly 2 occasions where we didn't trust someone who actually didn't end up getting in the way or attack us. And to be personally honest, I'm pretty sure the only reason they didn't is because the GM realized we were making detailed plans for when they did turn on us. So he changed the campaign plot to make someone else the bad guy. I can't guarantee it. But I'm about 80% sure of it.
We did (or at least I did) try to not let that player meta- knowledge influence my PC too much. But it is really difficult sometimes to act like you think should maybe be trusting when you are pretty certain it will turn out badly. If I didn't know this GM would I be more trusting of this individual? Hard to say.
If for no other reason than because, I've learned to not be all that trusting in my RL professional experiences. Which is what the PC's are involved with. Their profession is going out and solving problems (or whatever) even the 'social situations' in most gaming is just another side of their professional objectives. We call it 'social' because it is not combat. But it is really rarely a few guys sitting around drinking and playing cards.
If the NPC is complex (meaning the GM has put a bunch of effort into it), is extreme (even extremely good and noble), scales up in level/power with the party, has an emotional connection, etc... We can almost guarantee the GM will have that NPC in conflict with the party at some point. Maybe not out-n-out betrayal. But at least severely obstructionist.
That's definitely not the case for me. I would agree that there are different tiers of NPC status - random potentially unnamed shopkeepers, NPCs that are not adventurers and have no real power, and then NPCs that are adventurers or do have some power.
The unnamed NPCs generally don't do anything of consequence (though occasionally they get named and are then elevated to the 2nd tier.)
2nd tier NPCs have a name and may interact with the PCs, but can't contribute much aside from knowledge or occasionally resources.
3rd tier NPCs might have as much or more power than the PCs. I tend to use a lot of these types of NPCs and then allow the players to determine which ones get more screen time based on player choices.
We did (or at least I did) try to not let that player meta- knowledge influence my PC too much. But it is really difficult sometimes to act like you think should maybe be trusting when you are pretty certain it will turn out badly. If I didn't know this GM would I be more trusting of this individual? Hard to say.
I know what you mean - roleplaying a character distinct from yourself can definitely be challenging. If I was a player and sure that an NPC was going to betray me, I would try to analyze my reasoning for that. If it is due to something the NPC did or the scenario surrounding things, then its fair to use that in-character.
If the only reason is out-of-character knowledge (like the fact that they're leveling up alongside you as you previously mentioned) I'd probably instead have a conversation with the GM and explain that things have gotten too predictable.
A good GM does a long way.
You can obviously reverse metagame it and decide to trust the NPCs your metagame experience makes you think are suspicious, but that's still metagaming - the equivalent of putting away your usual mace when you meet skeletons and fail your know(religion).
I think there's a lot of area between metagaming and reverse metagaming though. I think a good example is the whole "No weapons allowed in this room" type of situation. You might trust an NPC completely, but still not be willing to relinquish your weapons.
Using your example, there's no need to put away your mace if that's your typical weapon.
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We took a third way. Anticipating the player's betrayal became a running joke. If a game ran long enough, he might end up switching sides two or three times.Or perhaps rather than encouraging this behavior from anyone, the GM can just step in and say "I'd like to run an adventure, not a PvP tournament. How about everyone cooperate like a successful adventuring party? Otherwise, those that aren't interested can leave and I'll make some calls to fill the empty seats."If "betray" is enabled then pvp is enabled. Party should just kill the character and say "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Or in this case, us."
Then kill his next character just so he gets the message and knows what the path of vengeance will lead from this time forward. Then welcome him back and adventure together with conviviality.
Curse his sudden yet inevitable betrayal!
Curse his sudden yet inevitable betrayal!We took a third way. Anticipating the player's betrayal became a running joke. If a game ran long enough, he might end up switching sides two or three times.Or perhaps rather than encouraging this behavior from anyone, the GM can just step in and say "I'd like to run an adventure, not a PvP tournament. How about everyone cooperate like a successful adventuring party? Otherwise, those that aren't interested can leave and I'll make some calls to fill the empty seats."If "betray" is enabled then pvp is enabled. Party should just kill the character and say "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Or in this case, us."
Then kill his next character just so he gets the message and knows what the path of vengeance will lead from this time forward. Then welcome him back and adventure together with conviviality.
Just so. Seeing how he'd do it was half the fun. Find a villain and offer his services? Trap important NPCs related to the party in a Hell dimension? "Accidentally" set up a friendly fire situation?
The possibilities were endless. Also messy.
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Speaking of betrayal - I will also mention. One time as GM over the course of a couple weeks I gave every single PC a secret contact that was trying to bribe them to sell-out, betray, or swindle the party. I tried real hard to make the offer good enough and the action not too horribly awful, so that it would be very tempting. To the point I wasn't really sure which way the player/PC would choose.
I was surprised that not one single PC accepted the offer. But what I thought was really hilarious, none of them flat refused either and none of them told any of the others about it, because they didn't want it known in case they changed their mind (even the LG cleric).
They were trying to keep the option open incase they changed their mind or the situation changed and they needed it. They were all astonished at the end of the campaign when they started talking about it found they had all been approached and none of them told any of the others.
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I have ambiguous feelings about vague posts that relate to non sequiturs.
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I have ooc reasons to distrust someone, but nothing in character to suggest it, I can handle that just fine. If IC, there's a question about trusting him and I know OOC I can't, that's a lot harder.
Bingo.
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I have ooc reasons to distrust someone, but nothing in character to suggest it, I can handle that just fine. If IC, there's a question about trusting him and I know OOC I can't, that's a lot harder.
Harder to not react too? If you have IC reasons, you should be able to react to it in anyway that makes sense for your character.
I'm more talking about:
NPC: "Hi, I'm Niceo, a cleric of the god of Niceness and Healing and Kittens. You look hurt, could I use my magic to heal your wounds?"
Player: "I don't know about this one guys, seems fishy."
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people complaining about things they do to themselves seems like human nature to me. "ugh I'm so fat" "my job sucks" "my boyfriend/girlfriend is such a B". You ate that extra slice of pizza, you took that obviously crap job, you said yes to that man/girl. People have been doing this outside of game forever why stop in game? But for real people don't want to take responsibility or they are not ready to take it. Either way you can't change them its up to them.
I'm more talking about:NPC: "Hi, I'm Niceo, a cleric of the god of Niceness and Healing and Kittens. You look hurt, could I use my magic to heal your wounds?"
Player: "I don't know about this one guys, seems fishy."
I think it could be because it´s the "n" cleric who is hidding something. You can change cleric with;little and obviously innocent kid, who´s not a kid and definetly not innocent at all. Or with dumb blond who needs be protected but it´s trying to sacrifice you, etc.
The situation in which one of your trustworthy friends/allies/harmless being, turns to be one of your enemies is, in my opinion, an overused cliché. (I even read about one PFS scenario in which the harmless kid is just a kid. People swear about him not being an enemy)
So, when you try to "surprise" the party the same way the had been suprised in the previous games, it loks predictable.
Of course this reasonng can be done not only for GMs and adventures, but also for the player who plays his 8th character of "dubious moral", and the party distruts him (Yes, the party has no way to know this rogue is going to steal them things as have done the previous seven characters, but...)
I have ooc reasons to distrust someone, but nothing in character to suggest it, I can handle that just fine. If IC, there's a question about trusting him and I know OOC I can't, that's a lot harder.
Harder to not react too? If you have IC reasons, you should be able to react to it in anyway that makes sense for your character.
I'm more talking about:
NPC: "Hi, I'm Niceo, a cleric of the god of Niceness and Healing and Kittens. You look hurt, could I use my magic to heal your wounds?"
Player: "I don't know about this one guys, seems fishy."
My players grew suspicious of really helpful convivial cleric hippies. They worried about being converted.
Hypocrisy, thy name is human.
Your other game group stressing you out, Ago? Hopefully we won't stress you our tomorrow night. Though I have to say that the number of draconic entities is beginning to stress me out.
I agree though with the issue of people complaining about the problems they bring onto themselves.
I'm still in contact with some of the guys in group I used to play with in Michigan. They have tendency to complain to me about their game/campaign/players/GM/builds/roles/whatever instead of doing anything to change or talking to each other.
I had gotten about 4 text messages from them and then some of the folks at work start doing almost the same thing. I was about ready to explode and curse at someone too important to curse at. Or slap someone.
People complain primarily because people like to complain.
The fact that billionaires complain shows that it isn't situations, but human nature that leads to complaints.
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Self-inflicted gets no sympathy.
I love when the party complains that they aren't getting any useful treasure when the arcanist built his character around crafting magic items.
Another player complaint that they do themselves: "Why is it everyone is always playing the same kind of character?! This is getting boring, there's not variety!"
Then why do you keep building Bob the Zen Archer Monk the 59385068284068th every campaign who mysteriously has all the tactical knowledge of a 20th level mythic Zen Archer despite the fact he JUST now left the farm!?
Okay, that was kind of a rave for people complaining about no variety, but always building the exact same thing over and over and over themselves... And against the fact that it seems that when someone plays the same character over and over and over, they wind up adding such extensive metagame knowledge their PC would NEVER know because they're attached to that particular character and wind up playing it like it was still 40th level.
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A) GM complains the players won't role play, but he always skips right to the next fight if there is even the slightest delay.C) Player is upset that his PC's constantly fails will saves, his builds always dump wisdom, 2-3 classes with poor will saves, and never spends the money for anything to protect his mind.
Have you been gaming with me? We had a really good DM for RotRL, but he was always hurrying us, to the point he'd time us between combats and take that off spell duration. Obviously then, you dont do RPing. But then he complained all we wanted ot do was Kill, kill, kill.
Yep, that's one of our Players all right. Never took a defensive feat, dumped stats. Complained bitterly.
If "betray" is enabled then pvp is enabled. Party should just kill the character and say "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Or in this case, us."
Then kill his next character just so he gets the message and knows what the path of vengeance will lead from this time forward. Then welcome him back and adventure together with conviviality.
)
You can't solve OOC issues IC. He'd just do it again or resent the fact you preemptively killed his PC and then sulk.
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people complaining about things they do to themselves seems like human nature to me. "ugh I'm so fat" "my job sucks" "my boyfriend/girlfriend is such a B". You ate that extra slice of pizza, you took that obviously crap job, you said yes to that man/girl. People have been doing this outside of game forever why stop in game? But for real people don't want to take responsibility or they are not ready to take it. Either way you can't change them its up to them.
Last statistic I saw claimed that 85% of people surveyed hate their jobs. It's a bit harsh to say ALL of those people are irresponsible whiners.
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Trust is something people expect too much. In a somewhat complex world, the people the heroes meet will have differing motivations. This may be taken by some to mean they are all untrustworthy. However, there is a deeper issue here. If you make a shades of gray world, you really need a different plot than "you need to save the world from the Evil Dark Lord of Dark Darkness and Eternal Darkness". I mean, obviously every vaguely sensible person would be prepared to sacrifice quite a lot to prevent that guy from taking over. If they do not (due to inscrutable motives) they will quite rightly be seen as untrustworthy. Don't make betrayals massive and unexpected, and absolutely do not deny the heroes their entire victory because of betrayal, such a setting is random and mainly one-up-manship. Be satisfied with little betrayals, and if you aim for bigger ones, give warning. By the same token, make some NPCs fight unexpectedly hard for the heroes, give them victories enough to keep fighting.
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C) Player is upset that his PC's constantly fails will saves, his builds always dump wisdom, 2-3 classes with poor will saves, and never spends the money for anything to protect his mind.
Oh, I've seen this a few times. Unfortunately, it's usually a sign that the player has a low Wisdom. They honestly don't understand that what they're doing doesn't work. Some guidance--and occasionally some flat-out designing the character for them, in extreme cases--is necessary.
I love when the party complains that they aren't getting any useful treasure when the arcanist built his character around crafting magic items.
Oh my gosh right? So a couple games ago I'm running a homebrew megadungeon/sandbox based in this big, wicked city. I made sure to give days to weeks in between adventures. My players are ranting that the treasure I'm giving is:
a. too little
b. too generic
Bear in mind that I've got 3 of 5 players for whom Int was well above average. Also they have 1 free rank in any Craft, Profession or Performance skill of their choice. Lastly they've got plenty of bonuses; contacts with shops and masterwork tools, spells I gave them on scrolls for crafting, a Make Whole scroll and plenty of interesting broken gear (that they chose to leave behind) and I'm using the alternate rules from Ultimate Campaign so crafting is a little cheaper and they can use Capital for even more bonuses.
Not ONE person crafted anything.
One guy had Scribe Scroll as a bonus feat; I had to remind him once to use it and then I just stopped saying anything. While running the game I'd meet their objections with advice on how crafting worked and reminders to really explore the dungeon environments and think outside the box (or chest as the case may be) for treasure.
After the game ended I showed a couple players how they missed tapestries, lavish dungeon fixtures and broken gear that could've been loot. I also showed them how some of the places I mentioned that had historic significance could've been drawn, mapped or otherwise recorded for wealth.
Everyone reading this thread that is frustrated with loot remember: crafting mundane items may be slow and boring, I get it, but it's still a decent way to get loot. Craft is a class skill for everyone. Get the wizard/arcanist/smart guy character to put one rank in one Craft you think you might want; say, Weaponsmithing.
Now pony up the cash for masterwork tools. If the GM is using Ultimate Campaign, start earning Capital or build a shop or even both. Heck just using Aid Another from 3 PCs, the smart guy's level 1 ability (figure at LEAST a +1 rank, +3 class skill and +2 Int bonus for total +5) and a simple Guidance spell spammed over and over into the mix and you've got a +13 to your Craft skill check at least.
Take a 10; you're making masterwork items at half cost and you're only 1st level.