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I've played with largely the same group of 6 - 8 people for nearly 20 years. We don't often bring in new players or DMs, and I have rarely played any one-shots at conventions or game stores. That leaves me wondering how my experiences as a player compare with other people. I'm just satisfying my curiosity here, since I often see descriptions of activities that seem quite different from my experiences. I have a few questions, for both players and DMs.
1. Our group tends not to allow PCs to die, because campaigns are often designed around a specific group of characters, and the players in the group often become very attached to those characters. I don't have much experience of character death.
--How often do PCs die in your group? Does the DM make it hard to die, or does the DM seem to be out to kill the PCs?
--How do you handle it when they do die? Resurrection, bring in a new character, there's a last-minute "divine intervention", or the player of the dead PC bows out of the game?
--Does the way the death is handled depend on who the player is, or who the character is?
2. I've been involved in a few campaigns that just quit, usually due to scheduling problems or personal issues. I've also been involved in campaigns that didn't really have any specified goals, so they ended when we lost interest in playing them. And some campaigns have a story arc that reaches a conclusion and comes to an end, like a book or a tv series.
--Which type of campaign do you favor?
--How often do you start new campaigns, and how long do they usually last?
--How often have you been involved in a campaign that was unexpectedly canceled?
3. My group typically has several campaigns running simultaneously, sometimes in different rules systems. We usually play each campaign once a week, for about 4 - 6 hours per session. Sometimes we alternate campaigns, one campaign twice a month on Sundays and the second on the alternating Sundays.
--How often do you play?
--How long do your sessions last?
--Do you play in multiple campaigns during the same time period, or only one at a time?
4. When I play, I tend to describe my character's actions and dialogue in third person, rather than speaking as if I am my character. I have particular speech patterns I sometimes use, but I don't do accents or catchphrases as a general rule. My fellow players tend to do the same thing, though occasionally someone will insist on a special character voice.
--Do you speak in third person or first person?
--Do you use accents, catchphrases, or other speech patterns that are specific to your character?
5. We tend not to worry much about things like the effect of encumbrance except when it's difficult terrain, or keeping track of spell components unless they're rare and expensive.
--Does your group worry about encumbrance at all times?
--Are spell components tracked? Do you have to replace them when you've used them all, or otherwise you won't be able to cast that spell?
I'm interested to see how others respond. Will it turn out that most people play the way my group does, or will I find that we're an oddity in the tabletop RPG world?
Our current group has been together for more than 10 years, but past that...I'm really had about remembering dates...we predate D&D 3.0, so we must have been together at least 14 years. We have had additional players come and go, but for some time now we've been a core group of four, plus two more that now live 90 miles away and cannot play in most of our games any more. All six of us have been DM/GM; five of us multiple times.
Dire Elf: Our group tends not to allow PCs to die, because campaigns are often designed around a specific group of characters, and the players in the group often become very attached to those characters. I don't have much experience of character death.
That's pretty much our experience. Characters do die, but if we are able to get them raised, we'll do that rather than just bring in a new one, because "it's what our characters would do." We had multiple PC deaths in Rise of the Runelords, but only one was permanent. Whoever's handling the DM/GM chores at the time has been known to occasionally fudge outcomes to allow survival if no one did anything stupid or reckless, and someone just had massively bad dice luck. Doesn't matter whose character it was. But we all agree that it's not fun if PC survival is always guaranteed.
Dire Elf: Which type of campaign do you favor? How often do you start new campaigns, and how long do they usually last? How often have you been involved in a campaign that was unexpectedly canceled?
We tend to favor long-running, continuity-heavy campaigns. Some of ours have run for 3-5 years, others have wrapped more quickly, or been dropped due to various factors. Generally this is because several of the players weren't those in our core group, and all dropped out, or because the DM/GM ended up deciding it was too much work for the time he/she had available.
Although I'd had many years experience DMing AD&D 1st & 2nd Ed before I came to this group, for a long time I couldn't call myself a DM here because several of my games ended after very brief runs. The shortest was a near-space homebrew setting for Hero System where two extrasolar colonies existed and Mars was slowly being terraformed. The campaign was starting on one of the other colonies and I'd only done the groundwork for that planet. The player who had the role of ship's captain insisted he wanted to go to Mars. "Mars isn't ready to receive you." But I wanna go to Mars! I think we had two play sessions.
Dire Elf: How often do you play? How long do your sessions last? Do you play in multiple campaigns during the same time period, or only one at a time?
In theory, weekly except when there's a scheduling conflict. In practice, over the course of a year, I'd guess 35-40 weeks out of 52. But sometimes it's just board games. Sessions are generally about 6 hours. It's fairly common to have two lengthy campaigns going at a time, sporadically interrupted by a board game weekend.
D&D, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, Hero System, Harn, Palladium RPG....and then Settlers of Catan, Munchkin, Nodwick, Quiddler, Rail Baron....and if we have 14 hours to spare, AH's Advanced Civilization. :)
Dire Elf: Do you speak in third person or first person? Do you use accents, catchphrases, or other speech patterns that are specific to your character?
Rarely first person; my wife is more likely than most of us to use first person, as she's a writer, but even she does it much less than half the time. Accents are almost never used. Speech patterns and catch phrases are pretty rare. We know our characters' personalities but don't tend to vocalize them. An exception to this is the Campaign Journal. Traditionally one PC in each campaign will keep a record of the adventure(s) in character as a series of letters home, or a personal diary. Some effort it made to give the character a recognizable "voice" there. I've written as a Cajun paladin in one game and (briefly) as the raven familiar of my human wizard in another game. (Zeki dictated to his master, who was amused by the whole thing.)
Dire Elf: Does your group worry about encumbrance at all times? Are spell components tracked? Do you have to replace them when you've used them all, or otherwise you won't be able to cast that spell?
We observe encumbrance, food and ammo consumption and inexpensive spell components only in a very general way. Too much bookkeeping gets in the way of the game. We try to keep on top of movement due to encumbrance but once in a while someone will forget he can no lounder move at 30'/rd. Expensive spell components (say, 25gp or more) are carefully tracked and yeah, you can't cast your spells without them.
1. I let players die, but not when it's through a mistake of mine (enemy is far to strong, I misread a rule, etc.). If someone does something stupid or rolls a 1 on a save... I'm not going to change that. The dice fall where they will.
2. I generally like to create campaigns along with the characters. Make an adventure all the guys would normally go on. When they end, the PCs throw in the towel and the player bring in a set of newcomers. Sometimes the PCs will be reused as NPCs (one barbarian became an Animal Lord to replace the one the players overthrew midway through the adventure) and/or the new PC is a son or daughter of the previous PC. My players love this since it makes them feel like their characters are really a part of the world and that what they do matters, so they don't really mind giving up their dudes.
3. I've run games once a week or every other week, with sessions lasting anywhere from 4-7 hours, depending on schedules. I rarely run more than one game in a single week, but I might play in another, or do a one-shot game if I have more free time that week (rare during the school semester)
4. I use 3rd person, my players typically do as well, but not always. It depends on the mood and how in-character they are.
5. I don't make my players list of their carrying weights every time they grab a new item, but I do enforce encumbrance. When the player throws a extra set of armor over his soldier and picks up a few of the longswords that were lying around, he's going to be encumbered and I'll tell him so.
I have been gaming with roughly the same group for about 20 years. The games have changed and D&D has not been the focus until recently. Character death is never like what I see on this website. We make an effort to bring the character back instead of making new ones.
Even in the Gurps games, death of characters never happened. I have lots of Character sheets for all the short games that were played.
I also lived in a house full of gamers for a couple of years so it was almost day to day gaming! :D
One guy said "We game more than we should and not as often as we'd like."
For the past 20 years I have been involved in sporatic (sp) gaming i.e. the games have not lasted more than a few weeks. Only in the past year or so have my friends started a Pathfinder game that started at 1st level and seems to promise to go to 20th.
I have played all the editions of D&D and never done that. I have had games start out at 7th and go a few levels and I have had a character start at 15th and play for a few weeks.
Then there's Champions where there are no levels and just lots of characters....
I haven't had the lots of games at once thing, even when I was living in the gamer house. My friends do play multiple games per week, but I live at the other end of the county, so I only play one of them. :(
As far as time per session, if every one shows up on time (and they don't) we can have a 3hr game. Someone usually has to work the next day. If we are (un?)lucky we (can?) have a 4 hour game. Usually that's because of some (un?)avoidable combat.
--How often do PCs die in your group? Does the DM make it hard to die, or does the DM seem to be out to kill the PCs?
--How do you handle it when they do die? Resurrection, bring in a new character, there's a last-minute "divine intervention", or the player of the dead PC bows out of the game?
--Does the way the death is handled depend on who the player is, or who the character is?
2. I've been involved in a few campaigns that just quit, usually due to scheduling problems or personal issues. I've also been involved in campaigns that didn't really have any specified goals, so they ended when we lost interest in playing them. And some campaigns have a story arc that reaches a conclusion and comes to an end, like a book or a tv series.
--Which type of campaign do you favor?
--How often do you start new campaigns, and how long do they usually last?
--How often have you been involved in a campaign that was unexpectedly canceled?
--How often do you play?
--How long do your sessions last?
--Do you play in multiple campaigns during the same time period, or only one at a time?
--Do you speak in third person or first person?
--Do you use accents, catchphrases, or other speech patterns that are specific to your character?
--Does your group worry about encumbrance at all times?
--Are spell components tracked? Do you have to replace them when you've used them all, or otherwise you won't be able to cast that spell?
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1. No PC has plot armor. We tend to have a style often referred to as "fantasy Vietnam". We also rotate with games like call of cthulhu and traveler So PC death is nothing new. Recently we started using hero points and its allowed us to hold on better to our PCs. Get one point every level, you can bank 3 at a time, 2 points fend off a death. We tend to frown on raise dead and resurrection unless its fitting the story. When a PC dies the player makes a new one.
2 and 3. I prefer sandbox games unless the GM is really sold on the campaign story arc. My two groups currently are really stable. It took a long time for me to find groups that didn't fall apart easily. One group rotates GMs so we tend to shift between two different campaigns/games. Due to that nature it takes quite a bit of time accomplish much. Second group I GM the CC AP. We are closing in on two years and almost finished with the AP. Both groups are 2x a month.
4. I am similar to you. We often speak in third person and we dont do "once you sit down you are ragnor the viking" style gaming. However, during the right moments in the sessions we will act in character if the conversation or story allows an interesting interaction. Not all the gamers are comfortable or confident though. We make good use of catch phrases and accents for fun!
5, Similar again. When it calls for it we track thirst/hunger, environment, encumbrance type issues. Spell components not usually tracked until higher levels with some of the more problematic spells.
I first started playing in June of 2006, so I'm not nearly as experienced as a lot of the people on the boards, but I'm not some teenager either. I'm approaching 30 and just grew up in a part of the country that never really broke out of "D&D is EVIL!" thing until fairly recently. In that time I've played in 3 different groups, and it has always been 3.5 or Pathfinder.
--How often do PCs die in your group? Does the DM make it hard to die, or does the DM seem to be out to kill the PCs?
--How do you handle it when they do die? Resurrection, bring in a new character, there's a last-minute "divine intervention", or the player of the dead PC bows out of the game?
--Does the way the death is handled depend on who the player is, or who the character is?
As a player, there has been one death in any of my groups, and it was planned by the DM and the player who died. The character was burned at the stake as a heretic and came back as a blackguard. As a GM I have had a single TPK, and it was planned. It was the kickoff to a campaign where the characters were revived by the god of death to hunt down one of his underlings that had gone rogue. In return they got their lives back. I usually try not to kill PCs as a GM, but I usually am crafting the story around those characters. If those characters die, then there is no reason to continue the story. I am currently running RotRL, and have pulled punches a couple of times, but looking back I don't think those encounters would have resulted in a character death in any case.
--Which type of campaign do you favor?
I like games that have a definite story arc to them, preferably that integrates the PCs background into them in some fashion.
--How often do you start new campaigns, and how long do they usually last?
--How often have you been involved in a campaign that was unexpectedly canceled?
My campaigns get started so sporadically, that it is hard to put a time frame to how often I start a new one, but I suppose if you were to average it out, about once a year. And the typical campaign falls apart in 6 months or less, either due to in-fighting amongst the players or scheduling conflicts. There have been 2 "successful" campaigns so far. The first one came to its natural conclusion, having gone from level 1 to 17, and transitioned from my first group to the 2nd. There has been numerous attempts to continue this campaign, with the old characters "coming out of retirement" and starting from level 1 again, but it always falls apart, usually because people aren't getting along. The second successful campaign is the Runelords game I'm currently running. It has been running for approaching 2 years now, and they are almost done with Hook Mountain. We take a lot more extended breaks in playing this campaign, but we are all adults with full time jobs, and our hosts have children. Our old group was all late teens to early twenties, and generally would rather drink than game.
--How often do you play?
--How long do your sessions last?
--Do you play in multiple campaigns during the same time period, or only one at a time?
We try and play once a week for 4-6 hours. Sometimes it winds up being once every 2 weeks, and sometimes once a month. Last year we wound up more or less taking the entire summer off from playing. I have experimented with multiple campaigns, but have yet to get it to work out due to schedules. Trying to start up a once a month campaign soon. We are doing character gen for it next week, and having the first session next month.
--Do you speak in third person or first person?
--Do you use accents, catchphrases, or other speech patterns that are specific to your character?
As a player, I usually speak in the first person. If I am running a DMPC, I will speak in the third person. I use accents for my characters about 50% of the time. My most recent character, everyone has gotten a kick out of because he talks with a heavy Russian accent, and I do a pretty good Russian accent. For some of my other characters, while I don't use an accent, there is a definite pattern to their speech. I've played a changeling (Eberron) rogue that had a measured, almost cadence like pattern to everything he said. Another was pretty much a rip-off of Brad Pitt's character Mickey from Snatch, complete with unintelligible Irish/English accent. My first character, was more or less just me with my cockiness and sarcasm turned up to 11.
--Does your group worry about encumbrance at all times?
--Are spell components tracked? Do you have to replace them when you've used them all, or otherwise you won't be able to cast that spell?
I dislike encumbrance rules, and don't use them. If one of my group ever wants to GM, and they want to use them, I won't complain. Spell components have never been tracked in my games, unless there was a listed cost for them (example: powdered gems worth 500 gp).
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1) We play with the "hero point" system, which mostly allows PCs to dodge death once per adventure - if your character was going to die *twice* within the same adventure, well... it's a tough world. Also, we decided as a group to "soft - ban" resurrection magic, to increase effect of death in the story. That means resurrection is very rare and always requires nothing less than a 9th level spell, and usualy much more. We have about 2, 3 permanent deaths per campaign.
2) We play story focused campaign, latley usaing Paizo's APs. I find capmpaigns without stories to be dull. Usualy though we run smaller adventures, not capmaigns. We had a campaign that lasted two years before stopping due to fatigue. We have been playing a new one for the last half year, having more fun.
3) We live far away from each other, meaning we usualy play once a month, in long marathon weekends. We focus on a single campaign at a time.
We sometimes speak in third person, sometimes first. We never worry about the tiresome rules like encumberance and spell components because we don't care about such stuff.
I've played with largely the same group of 6 - 8 people for nearly 20 years. We don't often bring in new players or DMs, and I have rarely played any one-shots at conventions or game stores. That leaves me wondering how my experiences as a player compare with other people. I'm just satisfying my curiosity here, since I often see descriptions of activities that seem quite different from my experiences. I have a few questions, for both players and DMs.
I have two groups to compare to. One was a group that started live, then moved to online play via Ventrilo and Maptool when people started moving away. That group lasted about two years before various things caused the game we were playing to die and the group to break up. With the exception of one player, though, it was all on good terms and if the opportunity arose these members (those who aren't already, and aren't That One Guy) would probably be swiftly and eagerly incorporated into my new group. There were six, sometimes seven of us in that group.
My current group is half refugees of that old group and half newbies that I personally introduced to the game, most of whom are still learning, though most have caught on well enough. There are seven of us in that group, with a prospective eighth who may join if he ever comes back stateside so that we don't have to fight with time zones as much. Like the first group we play over Maptool online, though we've upgraded to Skype for communication. I live in Tennessee, one player lives in Texas, one in Kansas, one in Alberta, one in California, and two in Arizona; the prospective eighth is another Californian who is currently stationed in Germany.
1. Our group tends not to allow PCs to die, because campaigns are often designed around a specific group of characters, and the players in the group often become very attached to those characters. I don't have much experience of character death.
--How often do PCs die in your group? Does the DM make it hard to die, or does the DM seem to be out to kill the PCs?
--How do you handle it when they do die? Resurrection, bring in a new character, there's a last-minute "divine intervention", or the player of the dead PC bows out of the game?
--Does the way the death is handled depend on who the player is, or who the character is?
My group lets death happen, but we're usually pretty eager to keep PCs alive through any means necessary. We dislike having to revamp the story or catch new characters up on OOC-available information lost IC with the death and replacement. That said, sometimes a player just isn't interested in the dead character anymore; in that case, I'm not averse to working in a new PC as needed.
I'm not a meat-grinder GM, but I do play the NPCs and monsters as deadly as they're supposed to be, and try to play them intelligently if they are intelligent. I don't pull punches, and sometimes the dice just fall against the player or the cards aren't stacked in their favor. I've been heavily considering using Hero Points or a similar resource in the future, as well.
I try to provide an NPC early on who can raise or reincarnate if the party can manage to scrape up the cash. Sometimes, if the story is appropriate for it, I'll have something else happen - an intervening outside entity or divine operative, a freebie magic revival or some such in a nearby chest, or other means. I'd never even thought of having the player of the dead guy leave - I can't think of why anyone would do that to their players.
2. I've been involved in a few campaigns that just quit, usually due to scheduling problems or personal issues. I've also been involved in campaigns that didn't really have any specified goals, so they ended when we lost interest in playing them. And some campaigns have a story arc that reaches a conclusion and comes to an end, like a book or a tv series.
--Which type of campaign do you favor?
--How often do you start new campaigns, and how long do they usually last?
--How often have you been involved in a campaign that was unexpectedly canceled?
I am most certainly in the camp of people who want a long ongoing story with some depth, involved and invested characters, NPCs with depth and personality, and a plot that ties everything together.
I typically start one campaign and run it until its story is complete or until outside events or circumstances make it inconvenient or impossible to continue. Sadly I've yet to finish a campaign, but I'm hoping to fix that with the Kingmaker game I'm currently running. My three campaigns in the past have run about a year to a year and a half each; my KM game passed its one-year mark back about two months ago.
Several times.
3. My group typically has several campaigns running simultaneously, sometimes in different rules systems. We usually play each campaign once a week, for about 4 - 6 hours per session. Sometimes we alternate campaigns, one campaign twice a month on Sundays and the second on the alternating Sundays.
--How often do you play?
--How long do your sessions last?
--Do you play in multiple campaigns during the same time period, or only one at a time?
My group has two set nights of play each week - I GM on Friday (sometimes Saturday, originally Thursday and we'll be moving back to Thurs in June) and another player GMs on Monday. Sometimes we'll have extra sessions if everyone can make it, almost always for me to run.
About three hours, give or take. We start at 8.30 my time (or aim to) and end around midnight.
One campaign for each night. I'm running the Kingmaker AP, while my other player is running Council of Thieves. We have a third player interested in running Rise of the Runelords and I want to run Savage Tide again, but both are waiting until the current campaigns reach their conclusions. CoT will likely finish first and be replaced by RotRL, whereas I will pick up STAP afer I finish KM.
I've tried running multiple campaigns at once on different nights, and the lack of prep time available in the week made me quit the second game before it got very far.
4. When I play, I tend to describe my character's actions and dialogue in third person, rather than speaking as if I am my character. I have particular speech patterns I sometimes use, but I don't do accents or catchphrases as a general rule. My fellow players tend to do the same thing, though occasionally someone will insist on a special character voice.
--Do you speak in third person or first person?
--Do you use accents, catchphrases, or other speech patterns that are specific to your character?
I speak in third person when describing actions or appearances, in first person when actually speaking in-character.
I try to do voices, with varying degrees of success. I have a few characters (mostly NPCs, but occasionally a PC I've played) that my players can recognize the voice of instantly, so I don't have to announce switching between NPCs when multiple conversations are going on.
5. We tend not to worry much about things like the effect of encumbrance except when it's difficult terrain, or keeping track of spell components unless they're rare and expensive.
--Does your group worry about encumbrance at all times?
--Are spell components tracked? Do you have to replace them when you've used them all, or otherwise you won't be able to cast that spell?
Not really. I tend to forget about it until the party finds something stupidly huge and heavy (like a big statue or something).
Heck no. We also don't track ammunition unless it's something special. I just tend to assume that as a caster you'll have a component pouch, and refill it any time you return to a town/city, same as arrows/bolts/bullets.
We typically don't care for getting bogged down in minutiae unless we're playing a hardcore survival type story... which we typically don't because we don't find that kind of thing all that fun.
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So far based on the available responses - which I appreciate - it seems my experiences with my group aren't too unusual. But I've thought of some additional questions.
In our group we don't have any trouble playing characters of opposite gender to the player. Most of the guys in the group have played females at least once, and the female players feel comfortable playing male characters. We all really enjoy using miniatures and tend to be inspired by them, so if one of the guys picks a female mini, that's what he'll play.
--How does your group handle characters of opposite gender to the player? Is it allowed? Do the other players make fun of anyone who does that? Is everyone more comfortable playing their own gender?
--What about PC romance? Does that happen? Or is it something the players would rather not get into?
I'm one of those players who really likes a particular character archetype, and I tend to stick with it. Probably 90% of my fantasy PCs have been the same race, and I also usually gravitate toward magic-user classes. My fellow players and DMs kindly indulge my obsession with my favorite race - it's become so traditional that when I chose not to play that race in one recent campaign, everyone kept forgetting what race my PC was.
--Does your group have a player or players who always play the same race or class in every campaign?
We tend to work together to create characters that will satisfy our preferences, while at the same time advancing the goals of the campaign. We don't end up having one player who wants to play a blackguard, for example, if we're playing a campaign where all the PCs are heroes on the side of good.
--Do the players in your group focus more on playing the kind of character they want to play even if they don't fit well with the rest of the party, or do they prefer playing characters that will support the group dynamic?
--If someone wants to play something that doesn't fit comfortably, do the other players or DM try to talk them out of it, or do you just put up with it in the interest of that person having fun?
--How does your group handle characters of opposite gender to the player? Is it allowed? Do the other players make fun of anyone who does that? Is everyone more comfortable playing their own gender?
I've only had one game where this has happened. It was our "guys night" group, and 2 guys played female characters. They weren't made fun of for it, but one of them was made fun of for how promiscuous his character was (example: "Wow, Luke, the old lady not been giving you any lately?"). I personally am more comfortable playing a PC of my own gender. As DM I have no problems roleplaying females, but when I'm a player I really tend to go very deep into character, and I just can't get into it as much if it's a female character.
--What about PC romance? Does that happen? Or is it something the players would rather not get into?
I've tried it at the request of players, but it makes me a bit uncomfortable as a DM, especially if it is a male player. It makes me feel very awkward. With female players, it's not as bad, but since my wife is usually part of the group, it still feels kinda awkward.
--Does your group have a player or players who always play the same race or class in every campaign?
In my old group, we had two players who had a preference for martial dwarfs. Sometimes they were fighters, sometimes barbarians, but martial dwarfs. They both switched it up on occasion, but one especially liked his dwarven characters better. I personally really like rogues, but it isn't the only class I play. In fact I think I far prefer alchemist to rogue now. One of my players in my current group told me that nearly every character he played before he started gaming with me was a rogue, but the 2 characters he has played in my games have been an oracle, which he didn't like so we recently revamped it as a paladin with oracle flavor, and a gunslinger.
--Do the players in your group focus more on playing the kind of character they want to play even if they don't fit well with the rest of the party, or do they prefer playing characters that will support the group dynamic?
Some players are going to play what they want to play, regardless. Others will "bite the bullet" and play something that supports the group better. The player who is playing the oracle/paladin previously mentioned is an example. He wanted to play a rogue, but his wife was playing one and the group didn't have anyone who could cast any heal spells, so he chose oracle. Much later in the campaign, he came to me asking if he could roll up a different character, because he really wasn't enjoying playing it. Instead, I let him revamp the character as a paladin, and swapped detect evil (which was going away anyways, I don't do alignment in my games) for the oracle curse. It retained the flavor of the oracle, and still lets the character heal the others, but is much more fun for him to play since he can get in the thick of combat.
--If someone wants to play something that doesn't fit comfortably, do the other players or DM try to talk them out of it, or do you just put up with it in the interest of that person having fun?
In my old group, we just let anyone play whatever they wanted, and weren't worried about whether they meshed well with the group or not. This led to a lot of drama and hurt feelings in the group at times, and heavy use of the DM bat. Since we moved, I've learned a lot about being a DM, and learned a lot from my mistakes with that old group as well. Before a campaign starts I have an intro to the campaign, either as a group, or with the players individually. All characters must be cleared through me to ensure they aren't broken, and to see if they fit with the tone of the game. Usually this takes place over several weeks leading up to the game, and it works pretty well.
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--How does your group handle characters of opposite gender to the player? Is it allowed? Do the other players make fun of anyone who does that? Is everyone more comfortable playing their own gender?
--What about PC romance? Does that happen? Or is it something the players would rather not get into?
--Does your group have a player or players who always play the same race or class in every campaign?
--Do the players in your group focus more on playing the kind of character they want to play even if they don't fit well with the rest of the party, or do they prefer playing characters that will support the group dynamic?
--If someone wants to play something that doesn't fit comfortably, do the other players or DM try to talk them out of it, or do you just put up with it in the interest of that person having fun?
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And when I say I have ways to get in a full 8 hours of crafting even when I'm 'out adventuring' you better believe it's not 'manipulating RAW' wink wink, nudge nudge. Saynomore, saynomore. I feel sorry for GM's that don't allow 'crafting'...
I think they're just jealous. :P
See. Now its not just creepy. Its metacreepy. It's trying to break the 4th wall. It has a mind of its own!
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1. Our group tends not to allow PCs to die, because campaigns are often designed around a specific group of characters, and the players in the group often become very attached to those characters. I don't have much experience of character death.
--How often do PCs die in your group? Does the DM make it hard to die, or does the DM seem to be out to kill the PCs?
--How do you handle it when they do die? Resurrection, bring in a new character, there's a last-minute "divine intervention", or the player of the dead PC bows out of the game?
--Does the way the death is handled depend on who the player is, or who the character is?
- They die usually during crucial combats, because this is the time where i really let the dice fall as they may with no fudging. And it sometimes feels heroic and appropriate.
- They're dead. They go to the boneyard/fugue plane and wait for judgement. Usually other PCs pay for raise dead or reincarnation if they like the character enough. If not, well, you look trustworthy.-Both
2. I've been involved in a few campaigns that just quit, usually due to scheduling problems or personal issues. I've also been involved in campaigns that didn't really have any specified goals, so they ended when we lost interest in playing them. And some campaigns have a story arc that reaches a conclusion and comes to an end, like a book or a tv series.
--Which type of campaign do you favor?
--How often do you start new campaigns, and how long do they usually last?
--How often have you been involved in a campaign that was unexpectedly canceled?
- I favor campaigns with a story. Not really railroaded but with a clear beginning and an end with clear goals in between. I do prefer open ended campaigns sometimes and i played in one awesome sandbox.
- We start a new campaign when we finish a previous one. Usually once every 8-9 months or so. And they last about 8-9 months.- Too many times to count
3. My group typically has several campaigns running simultaneously, sometimes in different rules systems. We usually play each campaign once a week, for about 4 - 6 hours per session. Sometimes we alternate campaigns, one campaign twice a month on Sundays and the second on the alternating Sundays.
--How often do you play?
--How long do your sessions last?
--Do you play in multiple campaigns during the same time period, or only one at a time?
- Once a week with breaks.
- Anywhere fromk 4 to 10 hours- I have time only for one. I have a job, go to college and have a girlfriend, so spare time is a premium. In my heyday (single, unemployed not going to school i was playing in four weekly games)
4. When I play, I tend to describe my character's actions and dialogue in third person, rather than speaking as if I am my character. I have particular speech patterns I sometimes use, but I don't do accents or catchphrases as a general rule. My fellow players tend to do the same thing, though occasionally someone will insist on a special character voice.
--Do you speak in third person or first person?
--Do you use accents, catchphrases, or other speech patterns that are specific to your character?
- First person. I detest when someone speaks in third person. It kills my immersion incredibly.
- Sometimes. Mostly for distinguished NPCs.5. We tend not to worry much about things like the effect of encumbrance except when it's difficult terrain, or keeping track of spell components unless they're rare and expensive.
--Does your group worry about encumbrance at all times?
--Are spell components tracked? Do you have to replace them when you've used them all, or otherwise you won't be able to cast that spell?
- We usually begin by monitoring it very closely. Usually by session 9 we forget all about it. Although the GM does take our sheets from time to time and says:"You can't carry six greataxes. Drop several."
- Nope. Spell component pouch that is refilled whenever possible (say a gp a week) and of course money for more costly components.In our group we don't have any trouble playing characters of opposite gender to the player. Most of the guys in the group have played females at least once, and the female players feel comfortable playing male characters. We all really enjoy using miniatures and tend to be inspired by them, so if one of the guys picks a female mini, that's what he'll play.
--How does your group handle characters of opposite gender to the player? Is it allowed? Do the other players make fun of anyone who does that? Is everyone more comfortable playing their own gender?
--What about PC romance? Does that happen? Or is it something the players would rather not get into?
- It's allowed. If they feel comfortable portraying another gender properly. Of course we make fun of that player. Incessantly. But in a friendly manner.
- With an NPC, sure. I throw them a bone occasionaly. Never had a PC-PC romance yet, since i don't have any female players.I'm one of those players who really likes a particular character archetype, and I tend to stick with it. Probably 90% of my fantasy PCs have been the same race, and I also usually gravitate toward magic-user classes. My fellow players and DMs kindly indulge my obsession with my favorite race - it's become so traditional that when I chose not to play that race in one recent campaign, everyone kept forgetting what race my PC was.
--Does your group have a player or players who always play the same race or class in every campaign?
Yes. His character is always a half-elven rogue called Miron Sheol. Now it's an internal joke that every world and every dimension and plane has a Miron Sheol.
We tend to work together to create characters that will satisfy our preferences, while at the same time advancing the goals of the campaign. We don't end up having one player who wants to play a blackguard, for example, if we're playing a campaign where all the PCs are heroes on the side of good.
--Do the players in your group focus more on playing the kind of character they want to play even if they don't fit well with the rest of the party, or do they prefer playing characters that will support the group dynamic?
--If someone wants to play something that doesn't fit comfortably, do the other players or DM try to talk them out of it, or do you just put up with it in the interest of that person having fun?
- I don't allow loners as a rule. MY rules are simple "Work with your fellow players, take plot hooks when offered them and no PvP."
- If it's killing our fun, we don't put up with it. The player is offered to change the concept to something still fun but less annoying to us. If he/she refuses, the player is shown the door. Plenty of players want to get into my weekly game, and i don't need players who don't play well wit others.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My group is 8 people, 3 college kids and 5 high school kids, so definitely younger and newer than most of these boards. It's also 90% female, which is apparently abnormal. The GM is an adult, the father of 3 of the players. Half of them grew up playing, and the other half have joined over the course of the past year or so. I'm in the latter group. I'm also in a smaller group of 5 that's just the high school students, but that one's still figuring itself out. The main group has been going for about nine months now, and I've only been gaming for about a year.
--How often do PCs die in your group? Does the DM make it hard to die, or does the DM seem to be out to kill the PCs?
--How do you handle it when they do die? Resurrection, bring in a new character, there's a last-minute "divine intervention", or the player of the dead PC bows out of the game?
--Does the way the death is handled depend on who the player is, or who the character is?
Nothing prevents PC's from dying (unless the GM messed up an encounter CR, which occasionally allows the rules to be bent), but as a rule, they always get resurrected. We usually have to go on a quest to find diamonds to repay the church after being resurrected, but sometimes we just find a scroll. My paladin has died three times so far (mostly because of impossibly high CR's), but she always gets brought back in the same session or the next one.
Our old party was TPK'd by "lettuce monsters". We switched to Pathfinder the next week.
--Which type of campaign do you favor?
--How often do you start new campaigns, and how long do they usually last?
--How often have you been involved in a campaign that was unexpectedly canceled?
The main group doesn't campaign, per se. The GM gives us mostly one-shot adventures and occasionally character-based adventures that last 2-3 weeks at most. There's kind of a loose storyline going on, but it's only an excuse to tie the random adventures together.
The smaller group is new and just started RotRL. No telling how long that will last.
--How often do you play?
--How long do your sessions last?
--Do you play...
The large group meets every saturday for about 5 hours, excluding certain busy seasons like finals time. The small group meets less frequently, usually on Sundays or the rare Saturdays when the main GM is busy. Both groups stick to one adventure at a time.
I've played with largely the same group of 6 - 8 people for nearly 20 years. We don't often bring in new players or DMs, and I have rarely played any one-shots at conventions or game stores. That leaves me wondering how my experiences as a player compare with other people. I'm just satisfying my curiosity here, since I often see descriptions of activities that seem quite different from my experiences. I have a few questions, for both players and DMs.
1. Our group tends not to allow PCs to die, because campaigns are often designed around a specific group of characters, and the players in the group often become very attached to those characters. I don't have much experience of character death.
--How often do PCs die in your group? Does the DM make it hard to die, or does the DM seem to be out to kill the PCs?
--How do you handle it when they do die? Resurrection, bring in a new character, there's a last-minute "divine intervention", or the player of the dead PC bows out of the game?
--Does the way the death is handled depend on who the player is, or who the character is?2. I've been involved in a few campaigns that just quit, usually due to scheduling problems or personal issues. I've also been involved in campaigns that didn't really have any specified goals, so they ended when we lost interest in playing them. And some campaigns have a story arc that reaches a conclusion and comes to an end, like a book or a tv series.
--Which type of campaign do you favor?
--How often do you start new campaigns, and how long do they usually last?
--How often have you been involved in a campaign that was unexpectedly canceled?3. My group typically has several campaigns running simultaneously, sometimes in different rules systems. We usually play each campaign once a week, for about 4 - 6 hours per session. Sometimes we alternate campaigns, one campaign twice a month on Sundays and the second on the alternating Sundays.
--How often do you play?
--How long do your sessions last?
--Do you play...
If they cannot die, the stakes are never high, and the pressure is never truly on.
My group is 8 people, 3 college kids and 5 high school kids, so definitely younger and newer than most of these boards. It's also 90% female, which is apparently abnormal. The GM is an adult, the father of 3 of the players. Half of them grew up playing, and the other half have joined over the course of the past year or so. I'm in the latter group. I'm also in a smaller group of 5 that's just the high school students, but that one's still figuring itself out. The main group has been going for about nine months now, and I've only been gaming for about a year.
--How often do PCs die in your group? Does the DM make it hard to die, or does the DM seem to be out to kill the PCs?
--How do you handle it when they do die? Resurrection, bring in a new character, there's a last-minute "divine intervention", or the player of the dead PC bows out of the game?
--Does the way the death is handled depend on who the player is, or who the character is?
Nothing prevents PC's from dying (unless the GM messed up an encounter CR, which occasionally allows the rules to be bent), but as a rule, they always get resurrected. We usually have to go on a quest to find diamonds to repay the church after being resurrected, but sometimes we just find a scroll. My paladin has died three times so far (mostly because of impossibly high CR's), but she always gets brought back in the same session or the next one.
Our old party was TPK'd by "lettuce monsters". We switched to Pathfinder the next week.
--Which type of campaign do you favor?
--How often do you start new campaigns, and how long do they usually last?
--How often have you been involved in a campaign that was unexpectedly canceled?
The main group doesn't campaign, per se. The GM gives us mostly one-shot adventures and occasionally character-based adventures that last 2-3 weeks at most. There's kind of a loose storyline going on, but it's only an excuse to tie the random adventures together.
The smaller...
My latest group is 3/4 female amongst the players. College and post college.
Good times, I am glad more women are giving gaming a go in all its forms.
So far based on the available responses - which I appreciate - it seems my experiences with my group aren't too unusual. But I've thought of some additional questions.
In our group we don't have any trouble playing characters of opposite gender to the player. Most of the guys in the group have played females at least once, and the female players feel comfortable playing male characters. We all really enjoy using miniatures and tend to be inspired by them, so if one of the guys picks a female mini, that's what he'll play.
--How does your group handle characters of opposite gender to the player? Is it allowed? Do the other players make fun of anyone who does that? Is everyone more comfortable playing their own gender?
--What about PC romance? Does that happen? Or is it something the players would rather not get into?
I do so very frequently - all of my currently active characters are female. (My Witch from the game that just ended, my Sorcerer from the game currently active, and my Crusader for the game to start soon-ish.) Most of my characters in the past have likewise been female, while I can't remember a male character I played for longer than a month.
I tend to pick my characters' genders similar to you - I have a massive folder full of pictures, and when I find one that jumps out at me as "this is who I want to play", that's typically what I go with. I'm not sure if having more female characters resulted in me having a much larger majority of female pictures or vice versa (finding pictures for male NPCs that the adventure doesn't provide for me when GMing has started to become difficult).
Four of my fellow players have done so at least on temporary terms, either for one-shots or games that aren't active anymore, but at the moment I'm the only one. Nobody has given more than a one- or two-time gentle ribbing about it, and certainly no open mockery.
PC romance happens, but semi-rarely. I think the last time it went full-on romantic relationship in-character, it was between the two players who were married OOC anyway. The closest thing we have right now is my sorcerer and the rogue in her party are on-off with flirting with one another, and the cleric in that party keeps trying to encourage the sorceress to become less prudish.
That said, it's not common at all. And a lot of the romantic stuff, as well as all of any sexual stuff should it happen to come up, is off-screened.
I'm one of those players who really likes a particular character archetype, and I tend to stick with it. Probably 90% of my fantasy PCs have been the same race, and I also usually gravitate toward magic-user classes. My fellow players and DMs kindly indulge my obsession with my favorite race - it's become so traditional that when I chose not to play that race in one recent campaign, everyone kept forgetting what race my PC was.
--Does your group have a player or players who always play the same race or class in every campaign?
Thankfully no, but my old group did. To the point where we could no longer tell any of his characters apart, because in addition to always picking from the same pool of classes (Monk, Sorcerer, or Psion) and race (always Human or something Draconic), he had a limited pool of only three or four names that he constantly reused, and all the characters had basically the same personality (which was basically him with superpowers). That player also had several other issues, though, and is thankfully no longer with the group.
I personally tend to lean heavily toward melee types or spontaneous casters, and away from prepared classes like wizards and clerics. I also dislike most of the standard races, especially humans and elves, and would love to see much less of both (and more of the short races and orcs! If I have to play a standard race, my preference is usually Halfling, Dwarf, Orc/Half-Orc, Gnome, in that order). Thankfully we usually play in my homebrew setting which has a wide variety of more monstrous races as "standard" PC acceptable races; in a campaign without those options, I'm usually the odd one out with something "weird" compared to the rest of the party.
I have one player who has about five different concepts she wants to play for Bards, one who has played several Rogues in the past, one who really seems to like Magus, and one who likes martial classes or Warlocks. But we've all been able to mix things up - either by trying new stuff or multiclassing - so it's managed not to become stale.
We tend to work together to create characters that will satisfy our preferences, while at the same time advancing the goals of the campaign. We don't end up having one player who wants to play a blackguard, for example, if we're playing a campaign where all the PCs are heroes on the side of good.
--Do the players in your group focus more on playing the kind of character they want to play even if they don't fit well with the rest of the party, or do they prefer playing characters that will support the group dynamic?
--If someone wants to play something that doesn't fit comfortably, do the other players or DM try to talk them out of it, or do you just put up with it in the interest of that person having fun?
A little of both. We do try to discuss in advance and work things out to see what we all as a group expect from the game. There's been some culture shock though, and we have one player in particular who's not quite learned to mesh with the group yet and has a tendency to (not sure if accidental or intentional, so benefit of the doubt assuming former) create concepts that step on other peoples' toes. We're working it out, though.
We usually try to find a way within the desired concept to work the character into the group in a way that doesn't disrupt the dynamic while still maintaining whatever the player originally wanted out of the arrangement. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
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How often do PCs die in your group? Does the DM make it hard to die, or does the DM seem to be out to kill the PCs?
We've been playing our current campaign for a little over a year now, and we've lost three characters, one of which was mine. :( Our DM doesn't really seem to be out to kill us, he's definitely fair, but you can always see just a hint of glee when he's rolled a twenty.
--How do you handle it when they do die? Resurrection, bring in a new character, there's a last-minute "divine intervention", or the player of the dead PC bows out of the game?
Usually dead is dead. Resurrection is always an option in the world, but we generally seem to have time-sensitive quest stuff going on, and can't really take the time away to get that done. Most of us like making charactes, so that's okay. (And nobody's really all that excited about the level loss.)
--Does the way the death is handled depend on who the player is, or who the character is?
Hmmmm... usually it's handled the same way all around.
--Which type of campaign do you favor?
I like the campaigns that usually have a story arc that runs a little more towards the "epic". I like spanning continents and sometimes dimensions. As DMs, we like to throw in stories about or mentions of past heroic deeds (performed in different campaigns by different characters) in the lore and tales of current campaigns.
But one-shots can be super fun, too.
--How often do you start new campaigns, and how long do they usually last?
On average we start a new campaign every year or so. And they last about that long.
--How often have you been involved in a campaign that was unexpectedly canceled?
It happened with more frequency when we first started... holy moley! over a decade and a half ago... Now, not so much.
--How often do you play?
Every Tuesday, and the occasional Saturday or Friday.
--How long do your sessions last?
Usally about 4 hours.
--Do you play in multiple campaigns during the same time period, or only one at a time?
One at a time.
--Do you speak in third person or first person? Do you use accents, catchphrases, or other speech patterns that are specific to your character?
First person, accents, catchphrases, speech patterns and look askance at my fellow players who use anachronisms or "otherworldy" speech in-character.
I am that annoying. :)
--Does your group worry about encumbrance at all times?
Not too much. We're kind of a "Rule of Cool" group, within limits. We figure, if you can carry around 20,000 gp without too muich of a strain, you'll do okay with an extra longsword or two.
--Are spell components tracked? Do you have to replace them when you've used them all, or otherwise you won't be able to cast that spell?
Same thing. Outside of the big game-breakers, we're pretty lax with components.
--How does your group handle characters of opposite gender to the player? Is it allowed? Do the other players make fun of anyone who does that? Is everyone more comfortable playing their own gender?
A few of our players randomize their gender (even: male, odd: female, because females are "odd". Grrrrrrrrrrr!). I think everybody in our group has played at least one opposite gender character, except for one of us. She just likes being a lady. :)
But nobdy makes fun of anyone for anything they play. That'd be silly!
--What about PC romance? Does that happen? Or is it something the players would rather not get into?
One of the players decided his fighter was kind of falling in love with my wizard. He never mentioned this, inside of game or outside. He was pretty sure his character was going to die a few sessions ago, so he blurted out: "Hari (my wizard's name), I love you!" Game play stopped. It was hilarious.
Even more hilarious, he survived, and is now dealing with the backlash. My charcter was currently involved with a paladin NPC, and it made for some awkward nights around the fire. :P His RL fiance' plays with us, as well, and her character does the most teasing.
--Does your group have a player or players who always play the same race or class in every campaign?
One of our guys can't be bothered with anything that's not a fighter, and another has a penchant for dwarves. I really used to love rogues (still do), but I haven't actually played one in Pathfinder.
--Do the players in your group focus more on playing the kind of character they want to play even if they don't fit well with the rest of the party, or do they prefer playing characters that will support the group dynamic?
Generally speaking, we all kind of run with the group dynamic thing. Nobody really shys too far away from "good", but we've had some moments where there have been some iffy neutral decisions made.
--If someone wants to play something that doesn't fit comfortably, do the other players or DM try to talk them out of it, or do you just put up with it in the interest of that person having fun?
When we started, one of our players was all about monstrous characters. He really didn't like the normal races. Our DM let him play a few monsters, but he also didn't hold back from role-playing out the weirdness of monsters in civilized (also rural and rustic) areas. After a while, I think the combination of the novelty wearing off, and the hassle of the mobs with torches and pitchforks kinda brought him around to conventional races.
This was fun! Thanks for posting this, Dire Elf!
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--How does your group handle characters of opposite gender to the player? Is it allowed? Do the other players make fun of anyone who does that? Is everyone more comfortable playing their own gender?
--What about PC romance? Does that happen? Or is it something the players would rather not get into?
Our party is usually about half male and half female, even though most of the players are female. Some girls always play males, some only females, and some both. I've only played one male character so far, but he was fine. So far the one boy has only played male characters, but we'd probably praise him if he played a female in the future.
Romance doesn't officially happen, although we have a certain player who makes a point of shipping most of the characters with someone or something. She ships my paladin with a random silver dragon we met once.
--Does your group have a player or players who always play the same race or class in every campaign?
We've got a new-ish player who only plays female rogues. Nobody else wants to be a rogue, so it works out.
--Do the players in your group focus more on playing the kind of character they want to play even if they don't fit well with the rest of the party, or do they prefer playing characters that will support the group dynamic?
--If someone wants to play something that doesn't fit comfortably, do the other players or DM try to talk them out of it, or do you...
We usually have a no evil PC's rule and are restricted to the core races, aasimar, and tiefling. No base classes, either. Other than that, we're pretty much allowed to do whatever we want, and the GM will make it work. We usually cover all the necessary party roles automatically.
My latest group is 3/4 female amongst the players. College and post college.
Good times, I am glad more women are giving gaming a go in all its forms.
Sounds like fun. We're all video game-playing pals already, and tabletop rpg's are a lot more fun so far. I think the fact that there's a lot of roleplay helps it immensely. Most of us get bored with games that are nothing but fighting, but PF can be as combat-heavy or story-heavy as the group desires. It's the perfect fit for us.