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Did you not say
"As DM, I generally don't want players who are too deferential."
The quotation is literally what I said. Your interpretation of what you think I must have meant by it is not. Even if it were totally accurate (it's not, but never mind that for now), it still wouldn't be literally what I said.
"Literal" doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. It's not an all-purpose emphasis word.
The difference is, in a rpg ... The ice cream WILL get mixed into the other food. They are in fact playing wth each other and constantly interacting. They aren't each individually playing the game in separate partitions shut off from everyone else.And if the dinner was served, and the person demanded for hours that everyone else should have ice cream fondue, or at least ice cream fondue in the tex mex food, and called you a bad host because you didn't get him that, would you take that complaint seriously? Would you invite that person again?
I'm guessing no.
But that isnt what I am talking about. I am not talking about someone being a jerk. I am talking about someone who comes to me and says, hey I'd really like to play a dragon rider in your game next week. Can we work something out?
Like I said I play with my friends. No one comes to my game demanding anything. They ask, BEFORE the game. And we work something out. Your example doesnt exist in my group of FRIENDS playing a GAME together.
The person in your example would come to me before the dinner gathering and say, 'hey I have this new fondue set, can I bring some to your tex mex party next week and share with everyone?' And I would say yea, I like Icecream, go for it. Just make sure you get there early to set it up, (assuming such a thing needs setup, I've never made fondue). No one is a jerk, the person in question gets their ice cream and even if I dont want any fondue, it in no way affects my enjoyment of my meal. I dont have to eat it. I just need it to be in the same room as me.
(by the way what the heck is ice cream fondue? I've heard of chocolate and cheese fondue, but ice cream?)
I dont agree. To me its more like tolerating the smell at most. Its not some kind of significant contamination of my experience if someone includes something odd in it. I dont feel like someone else's ideas touching mine, or interacting with mine will somehow contaminate them and ruin what I am working on.
If someone wants to play something odd in my world, yes they will interact with it, but I dont have to let it somehow warp my world. They deal with the consequences of it, and they are the one dealing with the actual mechanics of playing the weird things. I am more or less just tolerating it being in my presense (unless I decide to include it as a larger part of my setting ofcourse). And the fact that they talk to me about it ahead of time means we can work out how those interactions might play out.
Its at most having to tolerate the smell of the other person's food, not having to mix it in with my stew or something. This is ofcourse my opinion, but again, it seems some people are really extreme with their desires to be inflexible when someone might want to do something they arent enthusiastic about. And that like I said is really counter to what I believe a host (and consequently a DM) should do.
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Resticting PCs to standard races eventually leads to a universal metagame detect evil ability: "Ah, he's a half-lizard. Must be a bad guy, because heroes are only humans, elves, swarves, or hlaflings. Kill him!"I doubt this will ever happen on a meaningful scale.
You know, oddly enough some people say that's how it should be?
That's why it's best if player and DM expectations match up. Most of the DMs here wouldn't want players who granted them less authority than they say they "deserve." As DM, I generally don't want players who are too deferential. To me, the correct question isn't "here's the campaign(s) I'm offering, are you in or out?" but rather, "Here's the amount of authority I want, are you offering substantially more or less?"
I'm more along the lines of "Here's the vision I have for the campaign, can you play in a compatible manner for that vision?"
I'd prefer it not to come down to authority, simply because if I find players with a similar enough vision it'll never become enough of an issue for authority to enter into it.
You keep talking about who you want at your table and who you want to game with, but you criticize people who are saying what they want at their table...
The difference is in "want." I'm talking about what I'd prefer, and they're talking about what they demand. The only hard line I draw on players is that I don't invite people I wouldn't want to spend my free time with, and that has nothing to do with game restrictions.
If I noticed that nonstandard races never became heroes, but were always villains, would I not start wondering why that is?
You're forgetting 'neutral'.
No. I don't think this will ever happen on a meaningful scale. It's 2013, and I think groups that have restrictions in place have gotten along fine up to this point.
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The quotation is literally what I said. Your interpretation of what you think I must have meant by it is not. Even if it were totally accurate (it's not, but never mind that for now), it still wouldn't be literal.Did you not say
"As DM, I generally don't want players who are too deferential."
You aren't literally describing the type of players you want...
Dude, you are now arguing that people recognizing certain races as evil will cause problem in the game in the long term.
Because Demons, undead, etc...
Is the better approach that the game become an intricate legal drama where rather than kill monsters, we capture them and have courtroom scenes where we determine if the BBEG is in fact a BGGG?
You are telling people what type of game they should play while criticizing people for telling people what type of game they should play.
I am (and I think many of us are) arguing that if the group agreed to play a game in a style, expecting people who want to be in that particular game to play in that particular style isn't unreasonable to ask.
And if they don't, no one is making them. They have the right to not play.
But if you ever find yourself telling someone they must play something they don't want to play, on either side of the screen, you are wrong.
The player can leave the game, the GM can ask the player to leave the game.
Those are the powers each side has. A game can't happen without players, and a player who doesn't want to play what is being offered isn't helping anyone involved.
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You keep talking about who you want at your table and who you want to game with, but you criticize people who are saying what they want at their table...The difference is in "want." I'm talking about what I'd prefer, and they're talking about what they demand. The only hard line I draw on players is that I don't invite people I wouldn't want to spend my free time with, and that has nothing to do with game restrictions.
And you play only in closed home games where you restrict who can play.
What is the difference?
You know, oddly enough some people say that's how it should be?Resticting PCs to standard races eventually leads to a universal metagame detect evil ability: "Ah, he's a half-lizard. Must be a bad guy, because heroes are only humans, elves, swarves, or hlaflings. Kill him!"I doubt this will ever happen on a meaningful scale.
Maybe so. Then that's their preference, it works for them, and it's not a problem to be "careful" of that Kirth Gersen says. Again, not a problem.
Dude, you are now arguing that...
Not accurate, but I don't think I can get you to see what I'm saying in 200 words or less, because your starting assumptions won't allow you to process it and come up with anything you can articulate.
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I dont agree. To me its more like tolerating the smell at most. Its not some kind of significant contamination of my experience if someone includes something odd in it. I dont feel like someone else's ideas touching mine, or interacting with...
The difference is, in a rpg ... The ice cream WILL get mixed into the other food. They are in fact playing wth each other and constantly interacting. They aren't each individually playing the game in separate partitions shut off from everyone else.
I agree with both of you.
You play the game different ways, and get your enjoyment out of different things. Neither of you are wrong as long as you can accept the other player's preferences exist and that they'll likely be in a different group to you due to compatibility problems.
When I GM a campaign, it's to create a story. The wrong character being in that story can ruin it for me. It would ruin the best part of the game for me, so no I can't tolerate their presence just for the sake of their enjoyment as it'll ruin my own. That is not me saying my enjoyment is more important than theirs, it's me saying that we will both enjoy the game if we play different games.
If I'm playing, it's a bit different. I'm probably focused more on my own character's role in the story, and less on the others. There are settings and styles of campaign I'll be happy to be a player in but not a GM, for example. It's also different if it's a one-shot as I'm more likely doing that just for a laugh than to weave a serious long-term story.
Oh, and I also can't tolerate the smell of mint sauce, and if someone eats it at a meal I have to leave the room ;) However, I don't think everyone should hate mint sauce, or hate it to the degree that I do and have to leave the room if it's brought out. I do, however, have a problem with anyone who tells me I shouldn't be leaving the room.
That is the entire point.
That is your point, but it's not applicable in my case, because you have no idea what you're talking about in my case.
Me: "I hate dwarves, but half my players are running them, and I'm glad, because..."
You: "See, you don't allow anyone who will run anything you don't like!"
Me: ??????????
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Dude, you are now arguing that...Not accurate, but I don't think I can get you to see what I'm saying in 200 words or less, because your starting assumptions won't allow you to process it and come up with anything you can articulate.
Since the discussion isn't you and me.
That would be e-mail.
Your premise on that line of discussion was flawed. There are presumed evil races in the game, currently. It is a large part of how it isn't traveling murder hobos that when you see a group of demons, you can go ahead and kill them without discussing if they are "Good demons or bad demons"
Your premise on that line of discussion was flawed. There are presumed evil races in the game, currently.
Yeah, kitsune bad guy. By the rules, a not "presumed evil" race. By standard-races-only rules, a race that cannot be heroes (PCs), but they do show up as villains. Ergo, you've essentially MADE them into a presumed-evil race.
Just like in Order of the Stick, "The captain says he knows what level you are, based on how powerful those sea monsters that just attacked us were."
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That is the entire point.That is your point, but it's not applicable in my case, because you have no idea what you're talking about in my case.
Me: "I hate dwarves, but half my players are running them, and I'm glad, because..."
You: "See, you don't allow anyone who will run anything you don't like!"
Me: ??????????
That because you have pre-screened your group to not allow people who would create things that would disrupt your games doesn't mean others can't decide things at the tables they are at would be disruptive.
People play in open games at FLGS, people play at Cons, people give people a chance who they don't know to see if they will fit into the group.
Not every game is Kirth's pre-screened home game.
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Your premise on that line of discussion was flawed. There are presumed evil races in the game, currently.Yeah, kitsune bad guy. By the rules, a not "presumed evil" race. By standard-races-only rules, a race that cannot be heroes (PCs), but they do show up as villains. Ergo, you've essentially MADE them into a presumed-evil race.
That is ridiculous.
I saw an Asian guy was evil in a movie I watched the other day...
Only evil creatures appear in games?
That because you have pre-screened your group to not allow people who would create things that would disrupt your games doesn't mean others can't decide things at the tables they are at would be disruptive.
That's not my screening process at all. I even described it and you either didn't read it or subconsciously edited it out.
I saw an Asian guy was evil in a movie I watched the other day...
OK, but you have Jackie Chan as a hero in other movies. But what if Asian people WERE NEVER, EVER HEROES, even though they can be cast as villains? Wouldn't you start to think there's some sort of bias going on?
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That because you have pre-screened your group to not allow people who would create things that would disrupt your games doesn't mean others can't decide things at the tables they are at would be disruptive.That's not my screening process at all. I even described it and you either didn't read it or subconsciously edited it out.
You pick people who you think you will enjoy playing with. You don't play with people you don't think you will enjoy playing with.
When others don't share your criteria as to what that is, they are close-minded.
You pick people who you think you will enjoy playing with. You don't play with people you don't think you will enjoy playing with.
I pick people I think I will enjoy spending time with. Has nothing to do with their game preferences. (And I'm not enjoying these threads anymore, insofar as I can't reach most of the people in them, some of whom keep telling me I'm "literally" saying things that I'm not, so I'm screening myself out.)
I played a Shadow-infused Skeleton once, it was pretty cool.
You pick people who you think you will enjoy playing with. You don't play with people you don't think you will enjoy playing with.I pick people I will enjoy spending time with. Period. And I'm not enjoying these threads anymore, insofar as I can't reach most of the people in them, so I'm screening myself out.
Don't let Ciretose get to you. I always enjoy your post.
And yes, you should play with people you enjoy time with. One off games at cons are a really different situation and I'm not sure if that's a good example of a normal situation. Personally I don't just reject everything that comes to play, there are somethings I'm just not interested in(Ponyfinder), but I'm not going to turn away someone's dwarf based entirely on me not liking dwarves, even if the guy is totally new and I've never met him. A dwarf won't likely ruin the game. A six armed mutant with +24 strength might, but not a dwarf.
When others don't share your criteria as to what that is, they are close-minded.
I think that closer describes yourself.
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What is the difference?The fact that he will run things he doesn't prefer for the people he allows into the game.But he won't let anyone in the game who would run something he wouldn't be ok with running.
That is the entire point.
This is an outright falsehood. I could play a fullblade-using dwarf in his game if I wanted.
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Kirth, your point about metagame delineation is completely bunk and I ask that you stop defending it because I think more highly of you than that.
Why bunk? What determines a player race is a metagame construct, but there are never any limitations on the role of races in the campaign. By your logic, all planetars could be assumed to be evil, because players can't play them.
I'm sure there's a snappy name for the logical fallacy you're exhibiting here, but I hate that stuff.
So please kindly admit that it is nonsense I can resume respecting you.
Basically, I have come to the conclusion that there are a select few who expect to play what they want and if they are told no, the DM is considered to be the bad guy and isn't a good DM.
I'd imagine there are, and its a very select small number who have trouble getting GMs to let them play what they want, even a game, I'd imagine. Probably safe to say its not the norm or a good conclusion to make about other people you don't know very well.
Basically, I have come to the conclusion that there are a select few who expect to play what they want and if they are told no, the DM is considered to be the bad guy and isn't a good DM.I'd imagine there are, and its a very select small number who have trouble getting GMs to let them play what they want, even a game, I'd imagine. Probably safe to say its not the norm or a good conclusion to make about other people you don't know very well.
The only problem I have is that tiny percentage manage to inspire threads like this, where we'll proceed to tear each other apart over hypothetical situations that we'll likely never run into because we either kept those type of players out of our games or just never have the misfortune to meet them - or in some cases just wouldn't have an issue with that situation in the first place.
So of course we keep on exaggerating our examples (and I'm just as bad as anyone else here for it) to the point where those of an opposing view have no option other than to get inflamed and point out why we're wrong to think that, when in reality we're all right in our own personal preferences of how we prefer to play.
Meeeeehhhhhhhhh!
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Thing is, I don't mind snowflake characters but what I do mind is when someone expects to be able to play one any time they want or feel they don'r have to abide by the restrictions set forth by the GM.
I'm very light on restrictions, but I won't disagree with you. When I'm in someone else's games I know I need to abide by their rules though, for whatever reason. Talk about them and ask why to understand them maybe, but I never have the right to just outright ignore them.(can't guarantee I'll like his reasons or that they won't reflect on him though, but that's just human).
Thing is, I don't mind snowflake characters but what I do mind is when someone expects to be able to play one any time they want or feel they don'r have to abide by the restrictions set forth by the GM.
Same here. If someone really wants to play something that normally wouldn't/shouldn't exist, I'll go out of my way to find a way to work it into the game. It may come with some extra baggage, but somehow, someway we'll try to make it work.
I think the only character I outright said no to, was someone wanting to play a Kender in Ravenfloft, simply because they were immune to fear. At that point, why even play Ravenloft? I offered to handle Kender the same way Paladins got altered; no longer outright immune to fear, but have a nice bonus against it. They declined.
Frodo was not optomised, and was pretty weak. Anyone faffing around as frodo would likely have big shoes to fill and could easily leave frodo behind by doing anything of real note not related to rings, or being carried through dungeons by a Sam character.
Movie Frodo, sure. Book Frodo was kinda a hobbit paragon, though--often described as somewhat elf-like in his wisdom. He alone of the party had the guts to stab the Witchking when they met face-to-face.
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We keep slamming into the same wall in all of these discussions: the dislike of the word No.
Oh, posts are made that are wordy and try to move around it, but in truth the idea seems to be that if you say no, you are somehow taking away someone's freedom to play, to have fun, to enjoy themselves. If you defend the .. what is the term that keeps getting slapped around .. "sanctity" of the setting and not finding a way to include the player's idea, you are a bad GM.
That smacks too much of wrongbadfun to me, and of being dismissive of the GMs efforts in a way that posters are vehemently defending the right of the player to want something.
Conversation is important here, and some compromise. As a GM I'm more than willing to talk to the player in question and see what they have to say and what we can work out, but there are no automatic "well, Steve thinks it is OK and it'll make his day funner, so he gets it automagically."
In short, I'm willing to bend, but I am not bending over for you.
You pick people who you think you will enjoy playing with. You don't play with people you don't think you will enjoy playing with.I pick people I think I will enjoy spending time with. Has nothing to do with their game preferences. (And I'm not enjoying these threads anymore, insofar as I can't reach most of the people in them, some of whom keep telling me I'm "literally" saying things that I'm not, so I'm screening myself out.)
And when you said that I was only presenting the single campaign to my players and no other when I had been saying LITERALLY the oppsite all thread? Never saw an apology for that, if you want other people to not misrepresent you you might at least wqnt to recognize when you misrepresent them?
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In short, I'm willing to bend, but I am not bending over for you.
Funny, I feel the same way as a player.
Then you don't play even though the game may continue?
When necessary.
On Saturday there was only one scenario I hadn't played, and it had six players. I chose to sit out.
In short, I'm willing to bend, but I am not bending over for you.Funny, I feel the same way as a player.
Yup, works both ways. If you think the GM is out to get you or is being unfair, you have choices as well.
I'm willing to be considered a "Bad GM" because I don't rubber stamp concepts or give way one hundred percent of the time. I'm willing to be considered a bad GM because if something doesn't match the world I've presented to the players, I don't allow it. I'll toss it into a kitchen sink land that I let players bash around in and go from there.
I'm willing to be considered a "Bad GM" because I don't rubber stamp concepts or give way one hundred percent of the time.
Hey look, common ground!
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You pick people who you think you will enjoy playing with. You don't play with people you don't think you will enjoy playing with.I pick people I think I will enjoy spending time with. Has nothing to do with their game preferences. (And I'm not enjoying these threads anymore, insofar as I can't reach most of the people in them, some of whom keep telling me I'm "literally" saying things that I'm not, so I'm screening myself out.)
It has everything to do with game preference.
I have lots of friends who don't game, I have lots of friends who play things I don't like to play, but I only game with people I will enjoy gaming with.
That you enjoy gaming with people who play a certain way does not mean anyone who doesn't enjoy the way you play is closeminded any more than it means you are close minded for not gaming with anyone.
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This line of argument is why I hated the new Alien-esque movie I mean come on! your a xenobiologist but apparently you've never watch a sci-fi movie in your life and do not "know" automatically that cute little alien xenoforms will eat your face at the first opportunity
If the characters were genre savvy, most movies would be very short and very boring.
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I saw an Asian guy was evil in a movie I watched the other day...OK, but you have Jackie Chan as a hero in other movies. But what if Asian people WERE NEVER, EVER HEROES, even though they can be cast as villains? Wouldn't you start to think there's some sort of bias going on?
Because in your games the only things the players interact with are bad guys?
There are no good NPCs? No one in the game is good except the PC? Who are the heroes working to protect? If we run an evil campaign, are the players races evil now?
The whole argument is absurd.
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I know you did, but what is I?
I mean, um...I know I do, but...uh...
*Shuffles out*
I have lots of friends who don't game, I have lots of friends who play things I don't like to play, but I only game with people I will enjoy gaming with.
I think this is an important paragraph to highlight.
For some of us, doing the right activity with the right friends is important. Sometimes that right activity isn't playing an RPG, and sometimes RPGs just aren't a "friends" option.
I do specific activities with specific groups of people. If they're not invited to a game it isn't because I dislike them, it's because I know they'll not enjoy the game I'm planning. I may invite them to a different game another time, when it's one closer to their tastes. I may invite a friend who I'm unsure about, and leave it to them to decide whether it sounds like something they'll enjoy. Often I'll be inviting people I don't really know that well at all.
Now, other people may get together on night X with a specific circle of friends, and decide to play a game. It's fairly obvious that a game under those circumstances is going to lean towards a more democratic process.
It's important to recognize there is a difference between those two types of game. Not all games are the same. You cannot apply the same guidelines to both (you can't even say there's two types of game and therefore two sets of guidelines, because of all the other variables that may be involved) because they were formed for completely different purposes.
Different types of personality are involved. That personality may be wildly different to your own. "Can't we all just get along" sometimes needs to defer to "Can't we all just admit we can't get along, and each do our own thing."