Just kinda looking for other opinions here. What happens in your campaign when the rebellious, anti-hero, anti-establishment, lone hero tough-guy, Wolverine wannabes actually outnumber what's considered "normal"? Do any DM's here have players who predictably make the same character over and over and over again? When's the last time your players willingly went on adventure, battled the bad guys(instead of joining them), and didn't turn around and try to fork over the npc's that hired them?
Sorry for the rant, it's just something I've seen in almost every single campaign I play in. Everybody wants to be "the badass", Snake Pliskin, Wolverine type. After a while, there's not much of an establishment left to go against. I just miss the good ol' days, when you adventured for riches, glory, AND to save the kingdom.
Here how to fix this.
1) Make a whole lot on NPCs just like the PC(s) in question.
2) Have them meet.
3) Have and NPC insult the PC(s) or wait for the PC(s) to insult the
NPCs.
4) Let them kill eachother.
5) Repeat as needed.
If you do not find this a constructive post, please realize is is made in jest.
I think it is time to find a new group.
I think it is time to find a new group.
Thats what I had to do.
And sweet zombie jesus it makes a game so much easier to run when the players want to do the right thing and be heroic.
It can be easier to motivate a 'good' group. And there is a difference between an 'evil' or even 'mercenary' group and one full of loners.
If you can not be bothered to be part of my campaign or group, why should I be bothered to create a campaign or group for you?
Not at all what I am saying, kyrt-ryder.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I'd recommend checking out the new Wolverine and the X-men cartoon. At first, my reaction was "uh, he's wolverine. He doesn't lead the X-men, he can barely be bothered to follow them." But, they got rid of Professor X, had Scott go super-emo after the disappearance of Jean Grey, and basically made it such that the only person left to run the team was wolvie. So, now he's dealing with being the one in charge and responsible for everyone else.
See if you can't get at least one of your players in that role. Or maybe all of them. Give them a tribe of orphans to care for or something. They might just sell them into slavery, but giving them something they have to protect could help ground them a little. Or a holy spot. Provide a situation where they are the authority in a small pond and others will pay the consequences of their anti-authoritarian streak in the larger pond.
That said, the hard part is getting them into that situation and having them care enough about other people in the first place.
please clarify for me CourtFool.
I do not expect the group to be without dysfunction, I have gone against the group plenty of times when I believed it was appropriate. However, if you are not even going to make the effort, why should the GM or the rest of the group for that matter?
I agree with you completely; If I hear one more Christian Bale Batman impersonation from the "urban ranger" at the table I'm going to choke. Then there's invariably the rogue battling with him to be the grittiest.
"my parents were killed when I was a kid".. oh yeah? "my parents, siblings, aunts and uncles were killed and I was forced to watch"...oh is that all? "I was forced to kill my whole family while a basket of puppies watched"
"Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah."
Paraphrased badly, but you get the point. Yeah, I've been in groups where everyone wanted to be the bad ass, or a Drzzt clone (intentionally misspelled). You can try to have someone show them there is more to gaming that pretending to be a horrid stereotype. Or have the NPCs make fun of them. "There is no way someone dressed as badly as YOU could defeat me!" though this is better from another player, who breaks them out of it. Or find another group.
Generally, let them see how ridiculous they are being. Mirror them with BBEGs who play off the stereotypes they are. Urban ranger thinks he's batman? That Sorcerer has green hair and white skin. If nothing else, it'll be funny.
...The 'Sixth Ranger' so to speak.
And every character you make is just like this? No changes, nothing different, always the loner? Isn't that dull?
...dwarven ninja...
For one, do you realize how vast and sweeping the variations on this can be?
So you'd be fine playing in a group of wannabe badasses all the time because they are variations of a theme? Sorry, if it came across accusatory, it wasn't. I was just curious.
I am the opposite end of the spectrum as a player. I never make a character of the same class back to back. And I never play similar personalities for them. Oh sure, they begin to overlap some over the years (been playing for over 20 years). For me, playing the same thing, even variations on the same theme would bore me silly.
Oh and thanks for the image of a sorcerer running around in a tuxedo and mask with a rose in his teeth. I could not help but laugh at the Tuxedo Mask reference. In part because you made it, and part because i got it. :P
When's the last time your players willingly went on adventure, battled the bad guys(instead of joining them), and didn't turn around and try to fork over the npc's that hired them?
A very, very long time. Pretty much when I told them I wasn't interested in DMing a loner, evil, or mercenary campaign. However, if that is something they enjoyed, then I will happily turn over the DMing duties to one of them so they can do so (Take my game... Please!).
Of course, that was when the invariable screeching and whining of "DM? That's too much woooooooork!" came out. Yeah, no f+%~ing duh, guys. Turns out they weren't all that interested in those types of campaigns/characters after all...
I've had no problems in the decade+ since I told them how it was going to be if they continued to insist that I DM.
Just a question, Kyrt-Ryder - how do the other players feel about your frequent role as outsider/alleged bacon-saver? Do they like how you're not really part of the team, but just using them for your own ends?
A group of individuals travelling together, but each with their own aims, that I can understand. In fact, that can lead to great roleplaying and tons of character development as backstory is revealed and subplots/main plots revolve around the characters and their choices. But if everyone else is acting as part of a cohesive group, and you're the sharp, pointy stick stirring the s#?t all the time, doesn't it get divisive?
Not trying to pile on, it just seems that playing the badass loner/ anti-hero trope must grow tiring after a while.
So you guys are saying that it's not fun for you when the PC's turn on the good guys, become the badguys, and end up having to deal with a whole different side of the game when the good guys come after them, or when the REALLY bad guys decide their usefulness is over, etc etc etc?
Seriously, I could GM for years on things like that, every time the PC's change, the game changes. So much more fun than just a static "save the cheerleader,save the world" campaign, where everybody's always trying to 'do the right thing' and 'protect people' bla bla bla bla
It can be fun. But it gets very boring and sometimes very frustrating when you (as the GM) are trying to run a game were this interferes with the story.
I have no trouble running pure good campaigns, money grubbing campaigns, morally ambiguous campaigns, villain campaigns, rebel campaigns, monster campaigns, etc.
But I can tell you I don't like running the same campaign type all the time. And players that will not vary their character type, just the character stats and backgrounds, are not that appreciated after awhile.
The non-standard evil/selfish campaigns can be fun but only in contrast to standard good campaigns. Without the positive campaigns the negative ones just become tiring.
I'd recommend checking out the new Wolverine and the X-men cartoon. At first, my reaction was "uh, he's wolverine. He doesn't lead the X-men, he can barely be bothered to follow them." But, they got rid of Professor X, had Scott go super-emo after the disappearance of Jean Grey, and basically made it such that the only person left to run the team was wolvie. So, now he's dealing with being the one in charge and responsible for everyone else.
See if you can't get at least one of your players in that role. Or maybe all of them. Give them a tribe of orphans to care for or something. They might just sell them into slavery, but giving them something they have to protect could help ground them a little. Or a holy spot. Provide a situation where they are the authority in a small pond and others will pay the consequences of their anti-authoritarian streak in the larger pond.
That said, the hard part is getting them into that situation and having them care enough about other people in the first place.
My biggest problem with that show was how they basically took elements from Cyclops' character and shoved them into Wolverine and vice versa. Scotty-boy does brooding really well, but when they turn him into super emo Logan-Light, it doesn't make for good watching.
More keeping in topic, I do find that this is an issue in a lot of games, are a lot of other stereotypes that come up often. If more than half the players have the same background, then maybe it's time to create characters as a group with everyone getting one and only one draw from the motivation hat.
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Just kinda looking for other opinions here. What happens in your campaign when the rebellious, anti-hero, anti-establishment, lone hero tough-guy, Wolverine wannabes actually outnumber what's considered "normal"? Do any DM's here have players who predictably make the same character over and over and over again? When's the last time your players willingly went on adventure, battled the bad guys(instead of joining them), and didn't turn around and try to fork over the npc's that hired them?
Sorry for the rant, it's just something I've seen in almost every single campaign I play in. Everybody wants to be "the badass", Snake Pliskin, Wolverine type. After a while, there's not much of an establishment left to go against. I just miss the good ol' days, when you adventured for riches, glory, AND to save the kingdom.
Great question!
To quote Evil Dead (movie name I think), "Its a trap! Get an axe!"
The best way is to recognize that the "brooding fighter", the "drow assassin", and the "CN thief" is a common player archetype I've seen at tables since 1983. Its fine to have 1 of these. Eventually that person "grows out of" that role and tries something else.
The trouble you describe is when the whole culture at the table is like that. Well, you might try just playing an evil campaign. This works very well. But, before you resort to this, here are some other options for you to consider.....:
>Replace your players (talented players are the key to a great game)
>Keep your players but isolate the lynch-pin and over some time guide them back to normalcy in-game through the art of rewarding behaviors you approve of.
>TPK ? You can show that character choices have led to a series of poor decisions.... A good GM knows resistance is futile! Mwaaahaha.
>Have a talk with your players - and hand out a "Campaign Prospectus". This is usually 2 pages long. I do this religiously at the "bull session" I hold prior to the campaign's start. During this meeting. I convey what I'm looking for from the players, and the players share with me the type of game they like to play. This is a near flawless way to begin because it involves good communication and level-sets the playing field (pardon the pun!)
In the end - remember your players WANT to play. Don't be intimidated by them. You are the GM. The game belongs to YOU. Let nobody tell you otherwise.
And, don't forget, plain talk amongst friends goes a long, long way. Good luck!
P.s. At my table I always keep (and have patience for) at least 1 munchkin/min-maxer/dark badass character. It is a study of contrasts and good story telling that makes me very tolerant here. The glory of those truly out to save the kingdom is made all the more sweeter when some contrast exists at the table! Good luck.
I've not played a PC in years, but I'll take the player's defense for this one:
Many player's have a "shtick", something that feels natural for them to play. Sometimes it lasts only for a year or two, sometimes it really sticks. Even when these players are encouraged to play something else, they might slowly migrate back to their old habits of roleplaying.
Does that make them bad roleplayers? I don't think so. These people know what they like to play, and they are truly comfortable around the table when playing their archetypal role.
Now the bad-ass loner type character can be problematic if it means that the player is uncooperative with the game, the DM or the other player; in which case this issue should be addressed. But sulking players because of what they like to play is a bit harsh IMO.
A few years back, every second character was a Drizzit carbon copy, except that this character was a girl, this one had hand axes instead of scimitars and this one could TRANSFORM into a panther as opposed to own one...
Believe me, on a large scale the concept was overdone, but it didn't prevented us from having fun around our gaming table. On the contrary, some of my most memorable characters (of mine or of my fellow players) where from that era. Would my character be different now? Perhaps, but regardless of the new character, it would still bend toward the roguish too-good-to-do-harm wizardish-thief that I played for so long and that I enjoyed playing so much because it provided to most natural, instinctive RP.
So in the end, if you really can't stomach it so bad; find a new gaming group. If you enjoy the players more than their characters, take a deep breath and give them the best villains you can think of to give your players the most satisfaction playing their bad-ass loner type characters...
'findel
And, don't forget, plain talk amongst friends goes a long, long way. Good luck!
...and that too!
Now the bad-ass loner type character can be problematic if it means that the player is uncooperative with the game, the DM or the other player; in which case this issue should be addressed.
I agree; I don't have a problem with "bad-ass loner" characters, as long as the player comes up with a compelling reason to work with the rest of the party. What drives me nuts is when one player's PC is acting like a jerk all the time and the other players are wondering "Why are we hanging out with this bozo?"
I've had a few characters like this in my campaigns both those I've played in and those I've DMed, but they always end up either smoothing out and meshing with the party eventually (almost all our parties are pretty disjointed to begin with, with the one exception of the time when we played a group that the DM specified had been working together for some time) or frustrating the PLAYER of Mr./Ms. BadAss that the story kept leaving them out because they were an outsider and either tweaked their character's personality a bit or had them leave/killed them off and replaced them with someone less troublesome.
I like my group for that, they're generally a self-solving sort.
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I have to agree that while it isn't necessarily badwrongfun to play a rebellious anti-establishment loner type, tabletop RPGs are by definition group events (solo campaigns excepted). It's sort of an unspoken rule that players whose chosen style of play "breaks the game" for the rest of the group have a responsibility to change their behavior for the sake of the game. At my table I make that an explicitly spoken rule: I hope my players will roleplay their characters well, but I expect them to have character concepts that are compatible with the kind of game I want to run, and with those of the rest of the players. That covers a lot of ground. I wouldn't allow a gnome monk who runs around in a rabbit suit in a Ravenloft-style gothic horror game, nor would I allow a brooding LE assassin antihero in a picaresque heroic high fantasy knights-and-castles game. Nor do I permit roleplaying ("that's what my character would do") to be an excuse for game-breaking behavior. It's up to you as a player, a smart roleplayer, to figure out motivations for your character that will work toward the game instead of against it.
But to answer the original question: what do you get when the rebellious, moody, anti-establishment loner types become so numerous that they're the mainstream? TEENAGERS and MTV
Nor do I permit roleplaying ("that's what my character would do") to be an excuse for game-breaking behavior.
Agreed. 'Roleplaying' is not an excuse to be disruptive.
I should like to add that being disruptive within the story is different than being disruptive to the game.
You can be a "solo adventuring" character all you want. Just make sure you do it when it's just you and the GM.
If you're constantly taking up the GM's screen time by doing your own thing, that is quite possible the worst thing you can do to the 4 to 5 other people that took time out of their busy schedule to sit down and play.
Do ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING you want. But DO NOT monopolize the screen time by constantly going against the grain. If you going against the grain INCLUDES the rest of your party, fine. But if it ALIENATES and EXCLUDES your party, stop. Please!
Maybe. And maybe the rest of the group grows tired of having to jump through hoops just to get you involved.
I don't mind it sparingly. But more often than not I find it giving me a headache, as a DM. I have problems just when the group pulls a "Let's Split Up, Gang!" maneuver.
A little in-party conflict? Sure, that's fine. But I don't want it to dominate the campaign. If it becomes a choice between constant in-party strife and getting the focus back on the story, I'm not going to hesitate to tell my players to come up with new concepts.
But to answer the original question: what do you get when the rebellious, moody, anti-establishment loner types become so numerous that they're the mainstream? TEENAGERS and MTV
I concur!!
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I should like to add that being disruptive within the story is different than being disruptive to the game.
OTOH, sometimes being disruptive within the story IS disruptive to the game; for example, if your DM is running a published adventure and you decide to say "screw this, let's go do something else entirely." I try to avoid railroading my players, but if I'm running a published adventure it's because I don't have the prep time to have an adventure ready for whatever unrelated lark the players want to go on. I always tell my players if I'm running published material that "hey, this is the adventure, if you guys decide you want to go do something else, that's cool, but somebody else has to take over DMing if that's the case cause I just don't enough prep time to come up with my own material right now." That way everybody understands the expectations up front. Within the parameters of the published material there's a whole helluva lot of wiggle room and I hope and expect my players to use every bit of it, but if they wiggle all the way out of the basic framework of the adventure, it's time to do something else. If you know you are playing in a published adventure you gotta be prepared for a certain amount of plot railroading, but the DM should ideally work to minimize that kind of thing.
[This post should absolutely NOT be considered to advocate railroading in general. I have run campaigns in the past where the action was entirely player-driven; as a party they decided what they wanted to do and I ran with it, and it could be ANYTHING that they could do within the limits of their characters' abilities. That was when I had much more prep time on my hands so if they went into X Forest I already knew what they'd find there, such that it made sense within the larger context of the world. They ended up starting a crusade, founding a barony in some unexplored map space, and establishing a knightly order, among other things.]
OTOH, sometimes being disruptive within the story IS disruptive to the game...
Oh absolutely. There are more than two dimensions to this debate. I guess what I was getting at is that I am far more tolerant of disruption from within the story, you could even label it roleplaying in this context, than I am of someone who just wants to be disruptive of the game.
In my own experience, players who want to be disruptive within the story are more willing to compromise with the GM. A little communication gets everyone on the same page. The other variety get defensive and are usually not worth the effort.
I am sure my experiences are not the norm as I rarely use published material as is, so my own GMing style is far more forgiving of the players doing whatever they want. In fact, I would go so far as to say I expect it. However, I feel it is one of my responsibilities to ensure everyone is having fun. If I have to run a solo adventure for one player while everyone else is twiddling their thumbs, I feel that is a failure of that goal.
If you want to be Mr. Look-at-me-I-am-cooler-than-everyone-else, great. Solo with a GM willing to do that for you. I have a table full of other people willing to engage one another.
Oh absolutely. There are more than two dimensions to this debate. I guess what I was getting at is that I am far more tolerant of disruption from within the story, you could even label it roleplaying in this context, than I am of someone who just wants to be disruptive of the game.In my own experience, players who want to be disruptive within the story are more willing to compromise with the GM. A little communication gets everyone on the same page. The other variety get defensive and are usually not worth the effort.
(...)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to like when players take the game in their own hands; which isn't what I consider being disruptive to the story. But at this point, it's a question of semantics and we can all agree to agree...
'findel
It is disruptive if you already have a story planned out. It is not disruptive if you are simply reacting to your players.
Even if I do not really have a story planned out other than I want a group of heroic individuals to battle evil, then someone who creates a character to be little more than a mercenary is disruptive to the story.
If the player is willing to compromise with me somewhat and at least be willing to want to protect one or more of the other characters, I can work with that.
If they just want to go out on their own, they just wrote themselves out of my campaign.
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good stuff
Agreed, and I think it comes down to a matter of trust between the DM and players that the DM is going to provide the kind of fun the players want, and the players are going to reciprocate by respecting the DM's game (because it's their game, too). For the DM, seeking player input and setting out clear expectations up front can solve a lot of problems before they appear.
And if a player really, really wants to go off and "scout ahead" or something that's going to take the rest of the party out of the game for an extended period of time, that's when his character stumbles into a serious ambush... and the rest of the party becomes involved again to rescue him. Stopping the game for everybody else is just rude.
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Running in a published adventure is kind of like life. You don't get to pick your circumstances, and your freedom is restrained both by those circumstances and your desires. You can do whatever you want within the parameters of the choices available to you, but even so, you're limited by what you actually want. Paradoxically, you can do whatever you want to do, but ONLY what you want to do. At the most biologically deterministic level, that's what is most likely to ensure the continuation of your genes, aka get you laid. Funny that that isn't a major motivator for most PCs, except insofar as power/money (levels/treasure) help you attract the opposite sex. I could riff about this for hours but that's a conversation over coffee not a messageboard megapost.
Just kinda looking for other opinions here. What happens in your campaign when the rebellious, anti-hero, anti-establishment, lone hero tough-guy, Wolverine wannabes actually outnumber what's considered "normal"?
Back at my old meatspace hack&slash table? This repetitive style of campaign was the only item in the menu (all campaigns were anti-establishment). I decided to band with different GMs who liked different things, never looked back.
Do any DM's here have players who predictably make the same character over and over and over again?
Back at my old meatspace hack&slash table? This kind of players was the order of the day. Got myself new and better players, never looked back.
When's the last time your players willingly went on adventure, battled the bad guys(instead of joining them), and didn't turn around and try to fork over the npc's that hired them? Sorry for the rant, it's just something I've seen in almost every single campaign I play in.
Oooooooooookay... I sense someone is close to fill his "all I can take" bar... Okay, I guess this is something I must ask: do your players actually try to RP? Or are you the B.A to your Knights of the Dinner Table? If your players just use RP as an outlet to their sociopathic fantasies then don't even bother, get a new gaming table.
... now, if they're just a case of misguided roleplayers, keep on reading...
If what you're sick of is your players dropping the ball and joining the side they're supposed to fight then perhaps you and the players aren't -quite- on the same wavelenght. As you design your campaign, do it in concert with your players, tell them what you want as campaign premise, and take their input regarding the niche they might fill.
Also, are you portraying the "good guys" well? I have had the misfortune of playing in a couple of games where 'good' was portrayed in such an odious, cliched, contrived way that technically pushed me to the dark side: the "heroes chosen by destiny" are the classic example, make that count double if all good guys wear immaculate white/blue/green, triple if you were "spirited away" or otherwise "felt compelled by a strange feeling" to answer the summons of 'good'... finish making me vomit if GM wants the PCs to be the players' self-insertions.
Many will feel compelled to help a cute damsel in distress, but nobody cares about a fastidious holier-than-thou that expects you to fight an equally cliched, mustache-twirling villain.
The best way to motivate PCs to protect something is for them to -care-. As a GM you need to get the PCs involved with the village and people. Other than paladins and mercs, nobody puts his neck on the line for a bunch of people they don't know (and mercs are only loyal to money, so they are subject to be likewise bought by the bad guys for the right price).
Now, if what you're sick of is your players playing the same character over and over and over again, here's what a friend did for a game of Vampire he ran: Before character creation, he specified that none of the players was allowed to pick a clan they had played in the past. For your next game specify that any concept goes -except- for spawn-clones, which will be strictly forbidden.
But to answer the original question: what do you get when the rebellious, moody, anti-establishment loner types become so numerous that they're the mainstream? TEENAGERS and MTV
And like six different series either starting or ending with the words "ninja turtles".
Many will feel compelled to help a cute damsel in distress, but nobody cares about a fastidious holier-than-thou that expects you to fight an equally cliched, mustache-twirling villain.
The best way to motivate PCs to protect something is for them to -care-. As a GM you need to get the PCs involved with the village and people. Other than paladins and mercs, nobody puts his neck on the line for a bunch of people they don't know (and mercs are only loyal to money, so they are subject to be likewise bought by the bad guys for the right price).
Alternatively, getting them to hate the villain beyond anything they've ever hated in their lives sometimes works. But with your group I wouldn't risk it.
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good stuffAgreed, and I think it comes down to a matter of trust between the DM and players that the DM is going to provide the kind of fun the players want, and the players are going to reciprocate by respecting the DM's game (because it's their game, too). For the DM, seeking player input and setting out clear expectations up front can solve a lot of problems before they appear.
And if a player really, really wants to go off and "scout ahead" or something that's going to take the rest of the party out of the game for an extended period of time, that's when his character stumbles into a serious ambush... and the rest of the party becomes involved again to rescue him. Stopping the game for everybody else is just rude.
** spoiler omitted **
No defense - however, disappearances in the middle of the night would have my PC hunting as well, especially if the previous PC was dependable and nothing like this ever happened before....
"Get Past It" has always seemed a cop out to me. When those words are invoked by anyone - a player, or their spouse, it usually means the story got wonky somehow, and the suspension of disbelief was shaken somehow. This is one of the effects that happen when meta-game decisions make a story change - I'm not defending anything with this comment, merely pointing out there is a relationship here, and tropes aside, many players would prefer the player not make a munchkined character in the first place (that suddenly compromised the story and affected the game's believability). Heind-sight though is 20/20.
I agree; I don't have a problem with "bad-ass loner" characters, as long as the player comes up with a compelling reason to work with the rest of the party. What drives me nuts is when one player's PC is acting like a jerk all the time and the other players are wondering "Why are we hanging out with this bozo?"
This is a lot more along the lines of what I was getting at. Then they defend their actions by saying "Hey, that's what my character would do...", which is kinda difficult to defend against. It's just that when a couple player's at the table consistently make the anti-establishment, self-serving jerk of a character (regardless of actual class and backstory) it just gets old. The kicker is though, they actual role-play it pretty good. Not just power-gaming or anything. But yeah, on several occasions, the players all look at each other and say "Geesh, there's really no explanation as to why these characters would be traveling together. We would've killed each other long ago."
To clarify, I have no problem with evil characters. I don't like running or playing in evil-themed games, but when it comes to alignment, to each their own. One tactic I've used that typically helps is to remind them of how badass they really are, or aren't. This only comes up when the a-hole equivalent reaches critical mass, but I'll introduce a "loner, against the grain, Batman/Spawn/Wolverine/ad nuseum archetype npc, leagues more powerful than the pc. I don't kill the PC though. The the player starts trouble and gets this guy's attention, they are usually deposed in some humilating way to remind them of just where they stand on the totem pole. I don't like employing this tactic, but sometimes it's the only thing that can get the game back on track. I've only had to kill a pc once. I didn't want to, but the situation escalated to the point where it would be out of character not to kill the pc. Hidden for those who wish to view:
Talk to your players. Explain that the same characters over and over again is starting to drain your inspiration. They can either try something new or someone else can run a game.
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If they just want to go out on their own, they just wrote themselves out of my campaign.
It's a team sport. They suffer the same fate a linebacker would suffer if he went up against the entire opposing team *by himself.*
Encounters are balanced for four people as tough as your character to fight all at once. If you decide to leave the party to go play moody loner, expect to be eaten.
I like playing one on one games, but solo-ing in a team game? I don't get it. That's like being invited to an orgy and going off to wank alone...
I ran a campaign where the party was evil. After only a little while, they complained to me that the whole world seemed to be against them. I explained:
GOOD: Helps Good, Destroys Evil.
NEUTRAL: Helps/Destroys/Ignores Good/Evil.
EVIL: Destroys Good, Destroys Evil It Can't Subjugate.
When you play evil, there's more things lined up against you. So, yeah, you're going to be running the gauntlet a lot more.
Interestingly, my players stopped playing evil characters after that.
Loner/Brooder: Usually has something in their past that keeps them from trusting others and/or that they're brooding over. RESOLVE THAT ISSUE! Let Wolverine nail Jean Grey, have Eilistraee's NPC Good Group destroy Menzoberranzan and bring drow to the surface in a major public relations campaign so not every Mickey Mouse farmer goes screaming for Martha to get his pitchfork when Drizzle comes waltzing along, have God dispatch a batallion of angels commanded by the Arch-Angel Michael to wipe the floors of Hell with Lucifer ("I did this once, I'll do again, and again until Eternity ends, Satan!") thus freeing Spawn's soul from condemnation.
The more players choose this archetype, the earlier you should resolve it. Hey, take care of it by 3rd level if you have to. Then, in character, they've no reason to be brooding/loner!
PC: "I'm a loner. I'm not going to help the group!"
DM: "Why are you a loner again?"
PC: "Because my wife betrayed me by seducing my brother, killing him, and then killing herself."
DM: "But last session you learned that a wizard, bitter over losing to you at hop-scotch in the 2nd grade, killed your wife and brother, polymorphed himself into your wife and cast an illusion of "her" having carnal relations with your brother. You tracked this wizard down, and avenged your wife's and brother's death in a bloody, public display of retribution. So, it turned out that your wife had been faithful all along."
PC: "Oh, yeah, guess I'll help this group that helped figure that all out."