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This seems like a more specific application of the "don't be a jerk" principle. As such, the thought has merit.
There is a social contract between the players that all the characters will adventure together. And that it is a job of each player in the party to figure out how to make that happen.
There should be nothing wrong with an unmotivated character... so long as the other players know that is only a character trait, not the player, and something that can be changed in character. Such as providing a motivation.(Could be as simple as, "Come, Reginold the drunk, we have a job to do. But I'll buy first round after we collect our pay!")
But I once ran a game that included someone who wrote a character which refused to trust anyone and caused so much friction in the party(characters and players) that we did not even finish the session. He was never invited to another game again.
The question I pose to a player with one of "those" characters is: the members of this party will be risking their lives (and maybe souls) in suicidally dangerous places, why would they put up with your shennagins?
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Their answer will usually be "I have the right to play any way I want, this is only a game, and you have no right to judge me." They will never get further than that, sadly.
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So, an anecdote...
For my homebrew (AD&D 2nd Edition) world, I had established that casting spells on people (in general) without permission was considered a form of assault, allowing the subject to retaliate in self-defense.
A new PC entered the bar and cast know alignment on the party from the doorway.
The party refused to have anything to do with him after that. Shortest PC career ever.
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Yep, this is part of why I get pickier about players in my games as I get generally older and crankier...
I do think that groups can tend to be insular at times though. I remember being invited to play in a group once. We were making new characters but all of the other people in the game were told what the campaign was going to be so they had backgrounds to explain their relationship with other members in the group. I wasn't told any of this and died that first day because they didnt care enough to heal an elf that they didnt know.
Groups ARE insular, once constituted of people who know each other and their quirks, they tend to settle, even if the same group runs several campaigns... getting a new guy in can be a VERY serious affair (and the foreigner had better show he's good on first session, he might not get invited again if he fails the test game)... and conversely, a player who gets booted can find himself up s*!# creek without a paddle if he's not appreciated by other elements of the local gaming community, assuming there IS a larger local gaming community to try and tap...
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Tervalis,
I can't speak to any personality conflicts, wasn't there, but there may be more sides to it. You not being read into character creation expectations puts you at a loss, and reinforces your outsider status. As an outsider, you are going to be lowest priority. Personality can certainly exacerbate this. If they allowed you to join the group, you should have been able to expect some support from them.
And when joining an ongoing game, asking what would the best concepts to roleplay instead of trying to force a character that might not fit the group. It's harder to incorporate a new player when the game is already on.
In a Dragonlance campaign that I GMd I had a new player when half the story was already told. I had wanted to have a knight from the beginning but my players didn't want to roleplay it. The new player asked me what would be better for the group, I suggested a knight and he loved it. He became one of the most memorable PCs I can remember, who played a great role in the campaign and fit perfectly in the group (better than some of the characters who had been there since the beginning).
Making an effort to fit the group and the story is often more rewarding than being stubborn and insisting on playing a character who doesn't fit the group. Even if you don't like some of the suggestions, there's always place for finding a concept that the player likes and fits the group at the same time.
P.S. Yes, sometimes I talk of my players to praise them too, even if mocking them from time to time is funny ;-D
I'm moderately fond of the 'incorporate a character who fits with the existing group' at any cost philosophy... that way, I(ve seen DMs turn NPCs who were never meant to be player material into PCs, and that can lead to weird dramaz... even when you don't put into player hands powerhouses that were never intended to be aught but DM tools.
I'm tired of seeing new players changing a NPC completely disregarding of the basic concept and veteran players becoming completely confused because of the NPC's change, so now I always introduce new characters. Easier for everybody.
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I have had at least 3 pbp campaigns fall apart partly due to "gruff loner" syndrome and another I was in had a difficult time because of a "Why are you even here if you keep complaining about not wanting to be" character.
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That keeps amazing me: why do people want to play a character who doesn't want to be in the campaign? Isn't that a bit masochistic?
I guess some players like the idea of everybody trying to convince his character to stay, I don't know.
That keeps amazing me: why do people want to play a character who doesn't want to be in the campaign? Isn't that a bit masochistic?
I guess some players like the idea of everybody trying to convince his character to stay, I don't know.
More non-sensible than masochistic. After all, the player in question has to enjoy the game in order for them to be considered masochistic. In most cases, when said player is booted, they will most likely say the game wasn't fun (and most likely because they were booted).
In this case, that player made a move that isn't exactly kosher with the other players who don't understand the type of roleplay they're going for (the person who didn't ask to be an adventurer, but became one anyway because X happened).
And it's not like that roleplaying is bad, it's just a lot like playing Evil characters; it requires collective understanding and maturity that some players just can't accomplish.
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It drives me crazy when a player thinks he can say whatever he wants - to the point that another player is offended - because its the character doing it. If you consider that even a non-evil aligned adventuring party habitually kills other sentient creatures and robs them, it is not a stretch of the imagination that they would would not be afraid to use force with one another (although they might stop short of killing). "I'm role-playing and thats how my character talks" seems as logical as "My character would break your nose".
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It's the equivalent of the real life statement «I'm just being myself» as a justification for poor behavior. As it explained everything.
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It's the equivalent of the real life statement «I'm just being myself» as a justification for poor behavior. As it explained everything.
"So...you're an a-hole?"
In a home game I had a player that his character actively provoked the other PCs on a constant basis. He also would get the party in trouble for no benefit wasting resources cleaning his messes he often fled so the party would fix.
One day his character gets removed play and one of the PCs has a wish they have been sitting on that can cure him. He tells the group his next character will be worse if they do not save his current character.
Now as the DM this is where I spoke with him about being needlessly being antagonistic. That he created these problems and showed him why.
Since then he has cleaned up a lot and realized he was a problem.
As a side note, I do not just say players have to accept a new PC into the group. I make the player think of a reason why they would join this group, why the group would use them, and then work them into the story.
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It's the equivalent of the real life statement «I'm just being myself» as a justification for poor behavior. As it explained everything."So...you're an a+$$$~*?"
Exactly my thoughts when I hear someone saying it.
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I remember that... let's call it the "Evil Wizard". He was the shortest lived player we had in our group. I don't know the exact details of what happened (Kileanna was GMing), but it was something like this:
We were already in the middle of a chronicle and we were all playing good-aligned characters. Extreme good-aligned characters. The kind of characters that had problems with minor encounters because they kept selling the loot and using the money to feed the hungry and help rebuild cities. And this player wanted to play an evil wizard.
Kileanna tried to persuade him to play another character, but he was adamant: he wanted to play an evil wizard. Kileanna finally agreed and she worked very hard to find a way in which it could work. When the player finally appeared, Kileanna was nodding her head and telling him: "That won't work."
What was his plan? First of all, he tried to sneak in our campment. Bad move: we knew we were being followed by our enemies and we had a strong vigilance system. We caught him. A wizard displaying profane symbols of an evil god. We tried to be open-minded, so we asked him politely to explain his actions.
Wizard: "I have come to save you all. Your enemies are following your steps and they are going to attack you." Then he casted Minor Image IN FRONT OF US and make appear the ilusion of a red dragon. He procceed to nuke the ilusion with a Fireball.
"I have saved you all with my powerful magic. All of you owe me your lifes, but don't worry: I will lead you into victory! You just have to obey me and..."
We: "Have you killed a RED dragon with a Fireball?"
Wizard: "Uhm, yes. Mi magic is very... uhm... powerful"
We: "And the body?"
Wizard: "Uhm... desintegrated! The Fireball was VERY powerful"
We: "And that dragon appeared when you cast that spell in front of us, right?"
Wizard: "Uhhh..."
We: "That was a Minor Image spell, right? The dragon didn't made any noise. And we identified your spell"
Wizard: "No!! It was... uhh... something... uhhh... different!".
At that time we didn't know if he was going to be a friendly PC or an enemy PC (sometimes we give an enemy character to a new player to test him before introducing his PC), so we tied him up and proceed to question him about his story. He contradicted himself a lot of times and we caught him in a lot of lies. (The player couldn't improvise a good story and the character had -1 or -2 in Bluff).
The Wizard player finally broke out of character:
"That is my PC. I was going to be your new partner, but after the way you treated my character, he won't do it unless you apologize to him."
We: "We don't want that kind of character traveling with us. We can't trust him: he lied to us and tried to fool us every time he spoke. And he worships an evil god."
He was dismayed. We tried to persuade him to reflavour his character so he could join us, but he was adamant: His character was sheer perfection and we had to accept it or he wouldn't join the game. We refused, so he left and never came back.
Later, Kileanna told us that they had spent 1-2 hours together trying to find a way to include that character in the story. Then, in the last minute, the player blow it up and come with his "masterful plan".
He won't be missed.
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Wizard: "I have come to save you all. Your enemies are following your steps and they are going to attack you." Then he casted Minor Image IN FRONT OF US and make appear the ilusion of a red dragon. He procceed to nuke the ilusion with a Fireball.
"I have saved you all with my powerful magic. All of you owe me your lifes, but don't worry: I will lead you into victory! You just have to obey me and..."
LMAO
That's so pathetic and stupid I would have been almost tempted to keep him around. As soon as I got done laughing.
This guy was totally new to roleplaying but he had watched The Gamers a hundred times and read a lot of roleplaying magazines and played RPG videogames. He had developed a very disconnected idea of what real roleplaying was and wasn't willing to change his mind to fit a real roleplaying group.
I remember that I had given him some clues about how to approach and address the group (he was sent as a representative of his order of wizards to help the PCs to hunt renegades of his order).
They were near an enemy city. The first thing he asked me to do was to go to the city to buy supplies and to visit a tavern to research rumours. I had already given him all the supplies he wanted when creating the character.
Gods know I tried to help him. I really tried.
I can offer advice but I can't play my players' PCs. The rest is up to them.
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I allowed a character to humiliate mine because the player was new. Once. I gave him the worse lesson ever, because since then he thought he could do anything he wanted without consequences and his actions escalated until he got his character killed. Then he learned. Tolerating awkward behavior from other PCs just because they are PCs might seem like helping the other players to integrate, but is often more negative than positive.
Exactly my thoughts when I hear someone saying it.It's the equivalent of the real life statement «I'm just being myself» as a justification for poor behavior. As it explained everything."So...you're an a+$$$~*?"
"I yam what I yam."
(In all seriousness, when I started reading the original EC Segar "Thimble Theatre" strips with Popeye, the character drove me nuts because of his aggression problem. He would just go up to someone - often a complete stranger - and punch him for no reason, and get arrested for it. When his friends tried to reason with him, he would justify himself with the statement "I yam what I yam and that's all I yam." After a while of this, I quit reading that stuff in disgust. And had Popeye been a PC in a game, I would have quit that game.)
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Thing is, it's not even that hard to take a character that might normally never mix well with a party and make it work. I've recently become the FNG for a game where Evil Characters are strictly forbidden and even races that leaned Evil were not allowed.
I had planned to join as a Zen Archer but had developed a character concept (CN-Borderline CE Tiefling Rogue) that I threw together the day before my first session (before I knew about either of those rules). When I learned the details of the party composition and either character would fit roles in the party, as they had a couple characters that could do traps but weren't specialists and didn't have much else in the basic rogue skills. And of course DPR based characters are nearly always welcomed. But the kicker for which one would be easier to integrate into the group under the current circumstances was that the party was in the plane of shadow and had just defeated an evil demon at the end of the previous session, The GM could more quickly/easily say the Tiefling had been cursed/transformed into this creature than find a practical solution for why the zen archer was there.
So I'm playing a character that by multiple standards really shouldn't be part of this adventuring party, but because I designed the character character to have been evil and has seen how evil alliances often tend to degrade once common purposes are no longer the strongest driving factor, he has decided that it may be more beneficial for his survival in the long run to become good, or at least NOT be evil or allied with evil beings. So I'm playing this character who still may periodically do things that toe/cross that line, but the evil acts are more rare instances of succumbing to impulse, not planned events, and they are not going to be directed at the party, as currently the party and the quest it is on is clearly my most direct path towards further shifting my alignment.
Additionally I understand that just being part of this group isn't a free get out of jail card for any acts my character may take. (I've actually already tried to negotiate for one of those from the local authority, didn't really work out. YET.) The GM wanted general questions answered to be able to build some character specific plot points into his story, one of which included "How do you think your character will die?" My response was "To a Lynch Mob, wrongfully accused" So I'm clearly accepting that my actions (or even the suspected actions, as viewed by others) May result in the character's death.
For the time being I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience. At least a few others at the table that have verbally stated they are greatly enjoying some of the questionable/raunchy (Deity is Socothbenoth) issues that have come to light with my character, and no one has expressed any dislike, beyond the understandable disagreement that the LG characters would have with some of my character's choices.
I have played evil characters in good campaigns at least twice and it's never been an issue. You have to know your party and the setting so you can make it work.
The issue is when a player doesn't even try to make it work and expect the story and the other PCs to bend to fit the character.
My two main evil characters:
-A ninja who worshipped the cycle of life and death. She was a cold blooded assassin but would never take a life who didn't have to be taken and could take some risks to protect lives who weren't meant to be taken. She'd protect the balance of life and death above all things.
-A selfish Enchanter who saw the benefits of having a lot of allies so they could protect her and help her reach her goals. She valued friendship a lot because she loved to feel praised and liked. She was always a charming and nice person who valued her allies because it's always easier with someone to help you. She wouldn't mind betraying her allies for her own goals but she'd rather not to, as she liked them and they were useful.
There are a lot of evil concepts that can fit a non evil party. Just make sure you can have goals in common and that you don't act like an idiot.
I've run a bunch of evil characters... back in my AD&D days, and even then they mostly tried to boost the party rather than play agains them (except of course when it turned out to be a PVP evil party, a gaming style I don't favor), but I've had little opportunity to play evil in the last few years, even my demonic pact drow warlock in D&D5 is True Neutral as he got disgusted with his patron and is trying to find a trick to get his soul back.
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Players and their characters that are truly disruptive are never welcome of course, but otherwise I expect everyone at the table to compromise.
The PC mix doesn't need to be especially realistic, in that of all the characters possible the group is exploring the story of how their particular group came together, somehow stuck together and adventured together. Generally people with character concepts that demand certain other personalities aren't welcome are the problem, generally people should be bringing a concept to the table that can somehow rationalize away various conflicts.
@Rysky, I'm on the opposite side. My characters tend to go good even if I don't try.
When my players develope their characters I give some guidelines of what is better for the story, but if they want to play something different I work to make it fit without making it seem forced. Only when I cannot I suggest the player to choose a different character.
Something that I have experienced is that kind of players who, no matter how hard you try to implicate their backstory into the main plot they'll keep refusing, because they don't want to have any previous ties or to develope new ones as the story goes on.
These are the kind of players who then complain about their characters lacking motivation to stay, or not to have enough personal quests for their characters.
As a GM, my duty is to get the characters involved and to give them some personal hooks, but it only works when the players actually want to get involved. If you are played an unmotivated outsider, then you shouldn't complain because the story is not personal enough while avoiding to catch all the personal hooks.
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There's a character concept I've had for some time: A neutral evil or chaotic evil character who truly believed a prophecy that sticking with the party would lead them to greatness, and *only* really cared about the other PCs, who they feel are true friends and will listen to and risk their safety for, but otherwise feels no compunction about murder, assassination, theft, whatever, *if* it served their goals (they wouldn't kill orphans for kicks, but would burn down a church if it was an expedient method to reach their goals).
I've yet to run across a group/game where I thought it'd work, since it'd rely on the other players driving things to an extent, and a lot of the point would be the contrast of friendship and evil with the friendship being more dominant. So, I doubt I'll ever use the concept.
I actually just did this in our Iron Gods game - sort of.
My character was an extremely intelligent goblin alchemist that ran away from his tribe as soon as he became aware that he'd be killed as a result of his intellect. He ended up bonding *hard* to his party, because they accepted him and didn't judge him (plus the whole party was kind of a gang of misfits, so he didn't stand out as much.)
Despite that, he was an amoral little monster, though more in that Dr. Frankenstein/Dr. Jekyll kind of way. The superscientist for whom laws and morality are distractions and impediments to SCIENCE!
He was a lot of fun, though occasionally was a bit challenging for his party members - like when he unveiled near the end of the game that he'd been collecting blood and tissue samples of the party the entire game and gifted them each with a greater alchemical simulacrum of themselves. And didn't understand why that creeped them all out.
From your mouth to god's ears
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Gulthor, I like how you dealt with your alchemist. That's a great way of playing an evil character while fitting a group and remaining loyal to your concept.
Even if you did something debatable without other PCs knowing I think it was a cool thing to do and not disruptive at all but just a bit... creepy. The kind of thing that players find amusing even if the characters are creeped.