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I need some advice, I have a player who seems to go against the adventure often, and example would be 'The party has selected to be pallbearers in a funeral for an old friend' the party agrees except for one player. In this case the funeral was held in another settlement so everyone left to attend the funeral, but the player who refused stayed behind. The issue with this for me was two problems, 1) The player just sat there and did not participate and 2) He was left out of a main plot line in the adventure as well as loss of XP.
The player enjoys playing with our group, and attends all sessions, I want them to play the character the way they want, and I don't force players to to do things they don't wish to in game, if there is a way of dealing with this please give me your suggestions.
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Tell the player that APs are fixed so it's very hard for the GM to adjust for players who do not wish to participate in the story.
I believe the introduction to that adventure also said you had to have friendly relations with that old friend, so I do not know what in game reason he could give not to participate?
Too short? Ok, just march around with the rest(don't have to carry the coffin), or carry the coffin lower..
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Part of the nature of Pathfinder is player's willfully buying in to the adventure. If they come up with a character that wouldn't be interested in the adventure the GM is running, then that character can choose not be a part of the story. If the player would like to be involved they can either tweak their character, or come up with reasons to be involved and stop being difficult.
It's difficult enough to be a GM, trying to run separate "sessions" for a single player vs the rest of the group isn't a fair expectation for a player to have.
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I find generally "I'm going to find some in-character excuse to pass up on a plot hook" is generally a player feeling that they're outsmarting the story by avoiding traps that will get them in to trouble. Generally, the "I'm smart, so nothing bad will happen to me" is eventually overcome by the desire to actually do something.
If an adventure has an inciting hook like "you're asked to be pallbearers for an old friend" I generally try to give them that information when they're coming up with their characters so that they think about "how they knew this person and what their relationship was like" and work that into their backstory. One thing a GM who runs APs in my group likes to do is to hand out an appropriate campaign trait for free to people who worked out "what they're doing here and why they'll participate in the inciting event" into their backstories. Sometimes a carrot works better than a stick.
Once the game actually gets running though, players who knowingly pass up on obvious plot hooks face the problem that if they don't intercede somehow, bad things are going to happen, and they're going to keep happening until *someone* saves the day.
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Just let boredom be its own reward. No rewards for splitting the party; no side quest just for him, he just gets to sit there and watch everybody else play. Any other response just encourages this behavior.
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I feel that if a GM is going to be luring PCs into false adventure hooks and misleading them into traps, I wouldn't be playing at their table.
An adventure takes cooperation on both GM and Player part. I will promise not to be a cynical b@stard if the GM promises not to screw me over at every occasion.
I do NOT read people well. I do not pick up subtle undertones of what people might be saying. It is something that bites me in the @rse in RL. I am unsuited for any kind of politicking. I don't want to come to a world where I have to be reminded of my failures in RL.
Most APs are railroads. Some more, some less. The Railroadish nature makes the AP easier to run for the GM. If the players want to do as they like, then that's more in Homebrew territory.
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The beginning plot hooks are the most set in stone part of the story, and what the players have to adapt to the most. The players joined the campaign to be in the story, not apart from it. During my character building instructions to my PC's I tell them, they need to have a reason to want to be here written into there backstory. I usually give the story setup and a few specifics they need to work with. I'd tell him he has to make a PC that wants to participate, though he has complete freedom as the reasoning why he wants to participate.
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I feel like "the Carrion Crown book is on the table" would be a pretty dead giveaway that the adventure hooks aren't false or traps or anything.
If you don't have the treeware version, you could just let people know "it's an AP that I'll be modifying as appropriate" so stuff like *the very first thing that happens* can be safely assumed to not be a clever trap.
Talk to the player. Don't try to handle this in character. Find out what they expect to happen and why they're not participating. Maybe he can suggest better ways to hook his character. Maybe he needs a different character or some tweaks to this one.
Exactly, sit down with him and talk it out like adults.
I am really curious about why (IC and ooc) they decided to sit it out. Talk to the player.
Even in 'open' games I've had players at a tavern, take up the dragon slaying quest but then someone says "I stay in the tavern"
Okay great, you stay in the tavern. Everyone else leaves and they never see you again because you remain unnoticed and uneventful for the rest of your life. Meanwhile on the road towards the dragon cave...
It's like killing their character except more reasonable.
Part of the nature of Pathfinder is player's willfully buying in to the adventure.A lot of GMs set traps for players, luring them with false adventure hooks, misleading them into traps. GMs do that to my adventuring groups all the time. A player who doesn't just go for what the GM dangles in front of him may be demonstrating nothing other than long, bitter experience.
If they come up with a character that wouldn't be interested in the adventure the GM is running, then that character can choose not be a part of the story. If the player would like to be involved they can either tweak their character, or come up with reasons to be involved and stop being difficult.A lot of the time, a player just draws different, but reasonable conclusions from the story elements presented. Maybe a good GM should follow the players' leads sometimes.
It's difficult enough to be a GM, trying to run separate "sessions" for a single player vs the rest of the group isn't a fair expectation for a player to have.Fair to say!
If the GM really is running a railroad plot, though, he should just level with the party about that.
And maybe the OP's player is just being a petulant, stick-in-the-mud jerk.
To that I say that the character (if they actually care about the party) should try to convince their friends that it's unsafe to go on the adventure and should instead search for something else. The problem isn't that the group isn't going for the GMs plot hook, it's that one player isn't while everyone else is. As a GM I can always make up new random plot hooks (though they might not be as good as other prepared material). Also, this sort of behavior based on previous experience (that the character hasn't had) is metagaming behavior that should be avoided. Yes, parties get drawn into traps. That's sort of a staple of the genre.
As far as following the players lead...the GM is. The 3 others player that are going along with the story.
I feel that if a GM is going to be luring PCs into false adventure hooks and misleading them into traps, I wouldn't be playing at their table.
An adventure takes cooperation on both GM and Player part. I will promise not to be a cynical b@stard if the GM promises not to screw me over at every occasion.
I do NOT read people well. I do not pick up subtle undertones of what people might be saying. It is something that bites me in the @rse in RL. I am unsuited for any kind of politicking. I don't want to come to a world where I have to be reminded of my failures in RL.
Most APs are railroads. Some more, some less. The Railroadish nature makes the AP easier to run for the GM. If the players want to do as they like, then that's more in Homebrew territory.
I set traps for my players with adventure hooks frequently. I have people lie and cheat the PCs, but I also reward them for making checks. Sense motive, perception and an assortment of skills or abilities can see these coming. A DM should set ambushes for the players, but also give the players a fair chance to notice them. Now if the player can not notice undertones, that should not matter. You are not your character. Your character may be able to notice them well. That is why I reward the checks your character makes not the skills you have in real life.
If I had a player not want to go I would try to convince them to go, but not participate. They do not have to carry the coffin. Just be in the area.
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"You know, I think I'll just go to Tosche Station. Following mysterious hologram women to parts unknown feels like a trap."
*a few months later*
"Everyone I know and love is still alive. Sure, I don't much care for the government, but how much do they really interfere way out here in Tattooine anyway? This is the life. Workin for Uncle Owen puts a little bread in my pocket and I think that Twi'ilek over there is given me the eye, alright alright alright..."
*Literally nothing changes for trillions of life forms in the galaxy, and no one dies over some kid's weird space Oedipal issues*
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and no one dies over some kid's weird space Oedipal issues*Alot of people die from an oppressive, galaxy spanning, totalitarian regime though.
I have a lengthy rebuttal to that, but it occurs to me the best course of action is to quietly back away from the thread before someone spoils Rogue One for me.
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Sadly, there are no power converters available at Tosche station, because the shipment from Alderaan is late for some reason...
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I have a lengthy rebuttal to that, but it occurs to me the best course of action is to quietly back away from the thread before someone spoils Rogue One for me.Lol, fair enough.
On the other hand, I'm more than happy to share my screenplay treatment for The Hobbit Who Sold His Uncle's Ring In Bree For An All-You-Can-Eat Buffet... :)
Take the player aside privately and talk to them about it. The GMs and the PCs sign a certain contract when they go into a campaign, whether that be homebrew, or a pre-written AP. That being, generally, you will play along with the trail left for you. Explain to them the issue it's having, and the problem with them basically volunteering their character to sit on the bench, and ask if they would prefer playing a different kind of character that fits the events. But if they're playing a character who wouldn't participate, they should honestly roll a new character.
Alternatively, if you want to handle it IC, maybe if he goes off to do his own thing, the other party runs into an ambush they would have been able to handle with the absent PC there, and they get beaten; badly. Drive home how there's just too many for the PCs to handle, and if they had only been a full force. Maybe the bad guys jumped them because they KNEW the PCs were weakened without their other member. If you want to play hardball, you might even kill one of the PCs, really nail it in how this wouldn't have happened if only the absent PC had been there. And, though I've found the peer pressure option works best when corralling absent PCs, have THEM be the one targeted. They'll think twice about sticking places on their own when it's made clear how much danger that puts them in.
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I would have encouraged him to go be a pallbearer, but if he was really set on not doing it I would just let his activities during that time take up the absolute minimum amount of time. Most of it would simply happen off-screen. There should be no reward for not being a team player in a team-centered game (unless your group's play style is condusive to that of course). There is a difference between railroading a group into your story and dangling carrots. A GM has enough to handle without catering to players that want to go against the grain. Players need to be good sports, and in your case accept the consequences of parting ways with the group.
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Talking to the players about your expectations for the campaign before they create their characters really helps. When I'm GMing I always give my players some clues to create suitable characters. Also, I don't allow any character concept that wouldn't work in a team, would easily betray the group or is willing to do so, or doesn't have real motivations to go on with the adventure.
A character that, despite any kind of hooks, would only think on his own unrelated to the game motivations is often a player crying for attention. There are some kind of players who need to live their own story aside from the one the GM is talking. I think a GM must know how to catch each character into the game and make the story be personal for everybody. But even if you do there are some players for which this is not enough.
We had this player who wouldn't catch any hooks. He did it because he wanted to be the main star of the game and run it his way. He constantly tried to make decissions for other players and if he couldn't he just watched and did nothing while other players solved the situations.
He was constantly taking his own path, completely unrelated to the game and often unnecesary, as searching for random NPCs to interact with being totally bossy and cocky.
Once he just said: I'm not going to go with you. I'm picking my horse and travel to the other side of the land to start my own quest .
So GM replied: OK, make a new character. This one is out.
He was truly shocked. He really expected to get his own story aside from the party or maybe other party members to leave with him.
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If the player enjoys playing that way, leave it, but do not spend too much time with him while the other adventurers do what they should. Divide time according to the number of players, if there are four and one is out, spend 3/4 of the time with the three players and only 1/4 with the one remaining outside. Give him a chance to get information by talking to npcs or something but reward him with less experience and gold than others.
Eventually he will be bored to always do the same and will join the group, or leave it directly.
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Once he just said: I'm not going to go with you. I'm picking my horse and travel to the other side of the land to start my own quest.
So GM replied: OK, make a new character. This one is out.
He was truly shocked. He really expected to get his own story aside from the party or maybe other party members to leave with him.
I was that GM. First of all, I talked to the player. I told him that I was not interested in splitting the party that way and running a special story only for him. I also told him that I didn't have any quest for him on the other side of the country and that the travel he was speaking of would be a very long one (several months, as a matter of fact) and that he would be out of story while he traveled.
What did he do? He smiled at me and said: "I do it anyways. I like the story, but I don't want to hang around with the other characters. My character doesn't respect them. I want a solo story"
I tried to speak to him again, but he was adamant. Finally I had to ask him for a new character who could hang around with the other PC. He was shocked, but he agreed... until I told him that he was not going to have all of the prestige the former characters had earned. It was a little piece of bait: You see, he was being bossy and cocky with everyone (PC and NPC alike) all the time and I wanted to check his reaction. I could have been persuaded very easily. He didn't complain. He just quit.
My advice? First of all, talk to the player. Always. Try to be flexible. And if that doesn't work, keep in mind that some men just want to watch the world burn.
I was recently in a game where I was pretty close to being "that guy".
The party had traveled to an area were a group of barbarians were being pushed around and having their wilderness suffer from gentrification. The local "civilized" people were oppressing the barbarians.
My character's background (SUPPLIED BY THE GM!) included nothing but reasons to dislike the barbarians. But when we get there we find that the civilized people are jerks too, on top of it, evil snow queen wants to spread ever lasting winter over the area - since I couldn't convince everyone to just leave the area, I'd half convinced the rest of the party that going to work for the snow queen was the best plan...until the unaffiliated ice pirates attacked...and not the kind in a space ship.
I ended up playing along to be on the adventure with the other players, and disliked almost every moment of it. I would have rather been making the rest of the players a nice dinner and sat in the "tavern" then go on those adventures. Good thing I died in the middle of going looking to rescue some people that my character didn't like (blames them for the death of his mother) going into a place he told the rest of the characters not to go into - but one of them insisted.
As for "book on the table" I NEVER have a such a thing when I'm running - its all on my laptop ready for review in .pdf form - players dont need to know what adventure they're going on - and most likely I've modified lots of stuff anyway.
Sometimes the character is a bad fit for the campaign.
Sometimes the player is actually TRYING to complete the adventure plot but not in the way that the flow chart is designed to work.
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I need to ask, was there any reason for the character not to go? Did he have a beef with the NPC being buried? Is it early in the campaign? Does he have a point in deciding that his character wouldn't want to attend?
There are certainly players who have a trend of just being the odd person out, but sometimes it's also a player who have a reason to feel his character has been overlooked or overruled in the past.
In short, talk to your player. It's rare players do contrary things that aren't based on past experiences, often perceived slights.
Not OP, but I have played the pallbearer encounter in question. It is pretty much the first event in a particular AP, and the campaign traits are all about how you know the deceased and how you certainly don't have a beef with the dead NPC. Attending the funeral is literally why the party meet and the all important hook to kick off the adventure.
So in this case, the player is being an ass, or the character is being an ass. It's like playing Skulls and Shackles and refusing to board a boat.
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I suggest letting them read this and the part of this that's spoilered below:
"Have you ever had a party break down into fighting over the actions of one of their members? Has a character ever threatened repeatedly to leave the party? Often, intraparty fighting boils down to one player declaring, "That's how my character would react." Heck, often you'll be the one saying it; it's a common reaction when alignments or codes of ethics clash.
However, it also creates a logjam where neither side wants to back down. The key to resolving this problem is to decide to react differently. You are not your character, and your character is not a separate entity with reactions that you cannot control. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a player state that their character's actions are not under their control. Every decision your character makes is your decision first. It is possible and even preferable for you to craft a personality that is consistent but also accommodating of the characters the other players wish to play.
When you think about a situation, ask yourself, "Is this the only way my character can react to this?" Chances are, the answer is, "No." Try to refine your character so that you can deal with situations that conflict with your alignment/ethos without resorting to ultimatums, threats, etc. This will often mean thinking in terms of compromise and concession to your fellow players, or at the very least an agreement to disagree.
Here's another example: In a campaign I DM'd, the party's bard lifted a magical sword behind the back of the party's Lawful Good monk. The monk had basically decided that the bodies of several fallen knights would be buried without looting, and rather than argue, the bard just grabbed the sword. The bad news was, the sword was cursed; it was the blade that had belonged to a ghost that roamed the castle, and whenever the bard drew it, the ghost materialized and attacked him (and only him). Eventually, the bard 'fessed up that he had stolen the sword. The monk (and the monk's player) became furious, and declared that he could no longer travel with the bard. Either the bard had to leave, or he would. It became a huge argument between characters and players, and it was entirely unnecessary. The monk did not have to react with an ultimatum; the monk did not even have to be angry, no matter what his alignment was. The bard had already suffered the misfortune of having his Charisma drained by the ghost repeatedly; the monk could have chosen (for example) to lecture the bard on how his theft had brought him nothing but misery. He chose to create player conflict when it was just as easy to not.
Personally, I blame the paladin for this. The original paladin class created the precedent for one player thinking he has the right to dictate the morality of other players. That drives me nuts. Ever since, players who select a Lawful Good character automatically assume it is up to them to police the rest of the party, and too often, the rest of the party lets them. As far as I'm concerned, no player has the right to tell another player how to act. Lawful Good is not the "right" way to be, and it is unacceptable to push your character's ideals on other players whether they want them or not.
Another useful application of this concept involves accepting story hooks your DM gives to you. Try to never just say, "My character isn't interested in that adventure." A lot of people mistake this for good roleplaying, because you are asserting your character's personality. Wrong. Good roleplaying should never bring the game to a screeching halt. One of your jobs as a player is to come up with a reason why your character would be interested in a plot. After all, your personality is entirely in your hands, not the DM's. Come up with a reason why the adventure (or the reward) might appeal to you, no matter how esoteric or roundabout the reasoning.
If the paladin is to blame for the last problem, this one belongs to the druid. Druids have such a specific set of principles that players often mistake them for being a free pass to demand that each adventure revolve around their goals. Raiding a dungeon for gold doesn't appeal to the druid mindset, so what are you to do if you play one and are presented with that goal? You improvise. Maybe the gold will enable you to purchase magic items that will let you protect the wilderness. Maybe the ruins contain unnatural monsters that need to be killed regardless of the treasure. Maybe, just maybe, the other PCs are your friends and you are willing to help them just because. Too often that last part is forgotten; I don't think anyone reading this has never spent the night doing something they'd rather not because a friend asked.
So if you're really paying attention, you may be thinking, "Hey, don't those two points contradict one another? First he says to separate what your character thinks from what you think, but then he says your character doesn't have its own reactions." Well, no. Separate your character's thoughts from your own thoughts, but don't forget who is in control of both personalities. The division between your personality and that of your character only goes so far as it helps the game; once it begins becoming a disruption, a player has a responsibility to alter his or her character's decisions in the interest of the group. In the end, your relationships with the people you are sitting in someone's living room with are more important than your character's internal consistency."
- Rich Burlew
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** spoiler omitted **** spoiler omitted **I have a lengthy rebuttal to that, but it occurs to me the best course of action is to quietly back away from the thread before someone spoils Rogue One for me.and no one dies over some kid's weird space Oedipal issues*Alot of people die from an oppressive, galaxy spanning, totalitarian regime though.
No bothans were harmed in the making of this movie. They died getting the information about the second death star.
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I've never liked the "it's what my character would do" justification for disruptive behavior. Sorry, you get to decide your character's personality, so if your character is a jerk, you are the one who made it that way. You don't get to absolve yourself of responsibility in the name of "roleplaying."
Maybe, if you're at a one-shot convention game and the pregen writeup you're given is that of a jerk, you have some excuse - but in that case the GM should have known whet they were inviting by providing that pregen. Otherwise you chose your own roleplay restrictions.
This example seems especially egregious as with published APs, the Player's Guides provide campaign traits designed to give you an easy hook into the start of the adventure. The adventure starts with your character attending a funeral, so don't make a PC who wouldn't go to the funeral. It's not hard.
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The whole "it's what my character would do" excuse reminds me of a story from when I was teaching. A student turned in a paper very much not on the course subject matter. When I pointed that out in conference, they said "Yeah, well, (Subject) just isn't my thing."
To which I calmly replied: "Hey, I get it. And you gotta do your thing. Now my thing, as it turns out, is giving you an F for not doing the assignment. So I'm going to do that thing."
The look of incredulous horror on their face as they realized the implications of the reciprocity of 'thing-doing' warms my heart to this day...
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To make that relevant to the discussion, I point out that the GM's characters are literally everyone else in the cosmos who isn't a PC. And our characters will do stuff like ignoring PCs who aren't part of the narrative.
While I'm generally all for player driven adventures, there's a point when the goal has been set where the players have to be all in for the long haul. And this is especially true for an adventure path, where there is a set adventure hook and goal. You have to set aside your player, ask them why they aren't interesting in the adventure hook, and work out something. Perhaps it's because they are more used to sandbox gaming, or maybe they are confusing "refusing adventure hooks" for "in character roleplaying". BEst advice is to really just talk it out.
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If your character wouldn't go along with the adventure hook, then you need to make a new character that will. The first requirement for a character's personality and motivations is that they should be motivated to co-operate with the campaign, for whatever reason, whether out of altruism or friendship, because the BBEG killed their mother/best friend/entire hometown/beloved puppy, or out of desire for a reward.
Since it seems like this is a reoccuring problem with this particular player, I'd say the problem is with the player rather than just the character, and the player just wants to be the center of attention.
How old is the player? "Dumb teenage rebellion" can happen while role playing. It is usually in the form of "since every sign say go right, I go left." It could be a maturity thing. If so, hopefully it will be temporary. But again, have a talk with this play, preferably outside of the usual game time and place if possible.
I will say that some conflict between characters (not players) is healthy for the game (note some). But be careful of it escalating too much. This recently happened within the game i am playing.
We managed to capture a mage, we did not trust her and did not want to leave her behind us, but did not want to kill her (well some of us...)
We decided to tie her up, strip her items from her (she had clothes on, get your mind out of the gutter) and leave her (planning on freeing her on the way back).
One character decided to take her gear, I would not allow it. It got ugly there...To the point where I will not play with the guy anymore (He has been being a jackass for months, this was the last straw). Neither will the rest of the group. having the characters argue, trying to kill my character and then storming out of the gaming room....