So, an anecdote...
For my homebrew (AD&D 2nd Edition) world, I had established that casting spells on people (in general) without permission was considered a form of assault, allowing the subject to retaliate in self-defense.
A new PC entered the bar and cast know alignment on the party from the doorway.
The party refused to have anything to do with him after that. Shortest PC career ever.
Don't you technically cast know alignment on yourself or am I thinking of something else? one would assume accidentally sweeping party with a detect magic wouldn't count or something like that.
I could see anything involving a saving throw being totally fair to treat that way.
So, an anecdote...
For my homebrew (AD&D 2nd Edition) world, I had established that casting spells on people (in general) without permission was considered a form of assault, allowing the subject to retaliate in self-defense.
A new PC entered the bar and cast know alignment on the party from the doorway.
The party refused to have anything to do with him after that. Shortest PC career ever.
Don't you technically cast know alignment on yourself or am I thinking of something else? one would assume accidentally sweeping party with a detect magic wouldn't count or something like that.
I could see anything involving a saving throw being totally fair to treat that way.
It has been 20+ years since the actual incident.. and 2 generations of the rules have come since then. The point was that affecting others with magic was illegal.. regardless of the how (spell, spell-like ability, etc., or how it is targeted).
The OTHER part of the point is that the other players role-played as citizens of this setting and objected to his casting even a "harmless" spell without their permission. They did not cut him any slack on the point "because he's a PC", and treated him just as they would any NPC doing the same thing.
Regardless, after things like charm person, detection spells are the next most scary things to be abused in the eyes of political entities. The collateral damage that could be caused by evocations ranks up there, too, fires especially are a big danger in a medieval-like setting. So magic in this setting is regulated.
My very first adventure in Arduin, my mage ended a bar fight casting Rosy Mist of Reason. He was arrested for illegal magic use (within the city). It made perfect sense after Dave explained it. You can never be sure that you know exactly what is happening when magic is being done, so it is safer for everyone if magic just doesn't happen.
At first, we couldn't believe he was being serious. I think we spend a full minute staring at each other before we could say anything.
After that, he played through the session with a cohort and he become the (in)famous Rack Guy from another post.
Then we went to a bar to relax and chat... and that is the last we heard of him.
Their answer will usually be "I have the right to play any way I want, this is only a game, and you have no right to judge me." They will never get further than that, sadly.
"Yeeeeeeah nah mate", the problem isn't the persons character, it is THEIR character.
In game, your characters wouldn't tolerate it either, some sack who doesn't pull their weight or stay switched on gets everybody killed, or just acts like a morale vampire.
It's the equivalent of the real life statement «I'm just being myself» as a justification for poor behavior. As it explained everything."So...you're an a-hole?"
Twenty years ago I played a D&D 3rd-Edition character who was an a**hole. To be precise, he was a racist bigot. He was an elf cleric and believed that elves had superior culture, beliefs, and abilities over humans. I didn't initially intent for him to be that way; instead, he started fairly generic. But the in first game session the other players make a bunch of bad rolls. That first session was so bad that afterwards my younger daughter decided that her character concept did not work and brought in a halfling rogue to replace that character, and my wife decided that her human bard had a bad habit of overextending himself. My elf started griping, "I am surrounded by bunglers! Let me heal you so that you will survive your incompentence." Weariness about the inadequecies of others became his trademark. Due to his high Wisdom, he tried to be polite about it, but due to his low Charisma, it came out wrong, "We elves have an obligation to help you lesser races." Other than the complaints, he was a reliable Lawful Good high-Dex archer cleric.
Ironically, he once tried to leave the party and couldn't. A high-level human wizard had appeared to the party with a quest to stop a great evil that would be releaased soon. When my suspicious elf asked too many questions, the wizard temporarily turned him into a sheep to shut him up. The rest of the party accepted the quest. The elf refused, and I was ready to roll up a replacement character. But the DM told me that when my elf cleric returned to his temple, the chief priests told him that the quest was important and he had to return to the party.
I play Pathfinder with the old friends from that D&D group and they remember the elf, "Yeah, he was an a**hole." But they also say that he wasn't that bad.
Interesting probably a little extreme but I do approve of treating NPC's and PC's pretty well the same.
Looks like he did it on purpose.
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That's still doing it on purpose. Not for a bad purpose, but on purpose anyway.
That kind of stories can be nice if done good, but the drow player should have asked the dwarf player if he was OK with it.
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"So I was thinking of playing a drow and--"
*flip*
"Ok, I know you said no evil characters but I have this Skinsaw cleric of Norgo--"
*flip*
"Your campaign preview document said infiltrating the upper crust of human society would play a key part in the story. I've built this ratfolk tumor familiar alchemi--"
*flip flip flip flip flip*
And that's the story of how I threw out my lumbar spine
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Twenty years ago I played a D&D 3rd-Edition character who was an a**hole. To be precise, he was a racist bigot. He was an elf cleric and believed that elves had superior culture, beliefs, and abilities over humans. I didn't initially intent for him to be that way; instead, he started fairly generic. But the in first game session the other players make a bunch of bad rolls. That first session was so bad that afterwards my younger daughter decided that her character concept did not work and brought in a halfling rogue to replace that character, and my wife decided that her human bard had a bad habit of overextending himself. My elf started griping, "I am surrounded by bunglers! Let me heal you so that you will survive your incompentence." Weariness about the inadequecies of others became his trademark. Due to his high Wisdom, he tried to be polite about it, but due to his low Charisma, it came out wrong, "We elves have an obligation to help you lesser races." Other than the complaints, he was a reliable Lawful Good high-Dex archer cleric.
Ironically, he once tried to leave the party and couldn't. A high-level human wizard had appeared to the party with a quest to stop a great evil that would be releaased soon. When my suspicious elf asked too many questions, the wizard temporarily turned him into a sheep to shut him up. The rest of the party accepted the quest. The elf refused, and I was ready to roll up a replacement character. But the DM told me that when my elf cleric returned to his temple, the chief priests told him that the quest was important and he had to return to the party.
I play Pathfinder with the old friends from that D&D group and they remember the elf, "Yeah, he was an a**hole." But they also say that he wasn't that bad.
Reminds me of this:
http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/get-to-know-solas-they-sai d
I linkified the link above. I have no idea why the forum code adds a gratuitious space to text without a space.
The snooty elf who looks down on other species is a well-established trope.
My elf did respect one character: the halfling rogue. She was amazing at sneaking and scouting, had Str 18 due to a luck roll so excelled in combat, and displayed loyalty and a likeable personality. Unlike that elf in the comic who decided that the companion he respected was a rare exceptional member of an obviously inferior race, my elf decided from that one halfling that halflings were a race equal to elves in their own different way. Which made his complaints about humans all the more biting. He wondered whether humans were an attempt to breed a taller halfling that destroyed the natural compentence of the original species.
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My elven cleric is part of a mostly elven party (all elves and a half-elf). She is a noble (a very snobbish noble) with a passion for archaeology and secretly envies less sophisticated cultures because she sees herself bound by some elven traditions. She sees them as fascinating and likes learning about them, but still sees her kind as superior.
The fun fact is that she has such a low opinion of what is common among humans that she has made some mistakes.
She was in a party who degenerated into a total chaos, and as it was thrown by human nobles, she just joined the chaos thinking it was normal among humans and wanting to blend. In the morning, with a terrible hangover, she learned that it wasn't so normal, but at least she had fun.
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My opinion on the topic:
The party is definitely under no obligation to adventure with you- as this topic has illuminated with quite a few examples. However, I do want to point out that if a player DOES make a reasonable attempt to make a character that is compatible with the party, even if not 100% what the party would like, it's best if the party would compromise a bit. If nothing else, a new player can add texture to the story.
If the new guy wants to play a Paladin, for example. Let's use Paladins. A Paladin usually wants to work with a party, but may not gel 100% with that party's playstyle if they, uh, lean towards the murderhobo. Nevertheless, there is potential here, and if both sides are willing to communicate, discuss RP difficulties and how to maneuver around them, this can be a rich rp experience. But if the party recoils and attempts to alienate the paladin, and by extension the player, that's going to lead only to pain. Especially if the group decides to passive aggressively harass the character until he leaves (don't do this. ever. if you're going to drop a character from the group, do it and get it over with.) Or maybe in bringing up the difficulties, the new player decides to play something else -which is preferable to being forced to play another character, either directly or indirectly.
The way I see it, if the new player rejects the group's advice and opportunities to discuss the situation, and plays in an antisocial fashion, no problem, get rid of him. But if the new player is open to discussion, then it's much better for the party to work with said player than to seek to drop the character from the party, or harass the character until they leave.
I'm sure most people here agree- willingness for compromise is often considered an important quality for a group to have on this forum. However the topic has been a tad one sided in it's construction, so I wanted to make sure this was brought up- it's a two way street.
I linkified the link above. I have no idea why the forum code adds a gratuitious space to text without a space.
Because spambots and black magic babaji.
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Having a character concept that excludes an entire playable race is pretty much unacceptable in my view and killing them on sight is very bad form.
Generally in my experience these conflicts are really player conflicts being hashed out in game, and generally the more liked player wins, sometimes by having the unpopular player be kicked out. That's human nature, so it isn't exactly surprising, but dressing it up as some high minded RP differences is disingenuous.
Trimalchio,
I came from an Arduin Grimoire background, where you could have allies that would make a Drow look pale. (Deodanth anyone?)
This isn't Arduin, nor even Forgotten Realms most likely. Unreasonable hatreds are rather par for the course. The Drow player was warned, yet did not work out a less controlled introduction. The character's death did not seem to break up the party. Dropping all the blame on the Dwarf's player is hardly fair.
Tervalis,
I can't speak to any personality conflicts, wasn't there, but there may be more sides to it. You not being read into character creation expectations puts you at a loss, and reinforces your outsider status. As an outsider, you are going to be lowest priority. Personality can certainly exacerbate this. If they allowed you to join the group, you should have been able to expect some support from them.
I actually had played with the DM and his brother for several years. There were 2 other people, or maybe 3, that were in the game. The DM's brother and those other players made up the backgrounds.
My elven cleric is part of a mostly elven party (all elves and a half-elf). She is a noble (a very snobbish noble) with a passion for archaeology and secretly envies less sophisticated cultures because she sees herself bound by some elven traditions. She sees them as fascinating and likes learning about them, but still sees her kind as superior.
The fun fact is that she has such a low opinion of what is common among humans that she has made some mistakes.
She was in a party who degenerated into a total chaos, and as it was thrown by human nobles, she just joined the chaos thinking it was normal among humans and wanting to blend. In the morning, with a terrible hangover, she learned that it wasn't so normal, but at least she had fun.
I was once in a very successful party of all elves/ half-elfs and one tallfellow halfling. We played them like a military troop. This was in 3.5. We had an half elven ranger with a cooshee animal companion. A half-elf scout, an elven rogue/cleric, I was an archer/wizard and the Halfling was a druid. We were a really great group. It was a lot of fun too.
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Cool. This was a plot related with elves, so we were limited to playing elves. Not that I cared, we made a very varied group anyway.
It was Dragonlance adapted to Pathfinder, I played this Silvanesti noblewoman, and I had a Silvanesti bloodrager, his half-elven sorcerer brother and a Qualinesti rogue in the group.
Many years ago, I ran a lot of different World of Darkness games, including a LARP. We would invite players from that game to join us for tabletop from time to time.
There was one player that asked if he could join. I, and my room mate/best friend/co-conspirator, said yes.
The game was Mage: the Ascension. Long running chronicle, spun off from other long running chronicles. Characters were all trusted mages, vetted by their Chantries, and put together for a major offensive against the Technocracy.
He wants to build a character using the Sorcerer rules. Odd, but OK. He gets squirrely upon meeting the cabal. But its a player character, so they give him the benefit of the doubt.
He gets all the info on the overall mission, the organization, etc. Then goes to a local police station, starts using buzzwords, until the Technocrats find out and show up so he can tell them everything.
Long running campaign destroyed. He left. The rest of us sat there for an hour, stewing. Finally, the brain trust (meaning me and my best friend who I shared a brain with) said in unison "the Matrix". (Tells you how old this story is.)
The whole session was a VR test of the new guy to see if he was suitable for the mission. None of it happened. Campaign saved. YAYY!!!
He couldn't understand why we didn't ask him back.
****
On the subject of characters that just don't work with the party. I've spent hours building a character. I love it. I'm excited to play it. Then I hear what others are making, and realize this character will not work.
I've got several characters sitting on shelves, in folders, etc. And someday, I'll find a campaign and party that they will be suitable for.
the one game I was in where a true fist fight broke out was a mage game. It just seems to draw...certain folk to it.
I still need to read the rest of the thread, but just reading the title made me think...if you're going to be an a&&, expect to be left behind.
<<looks around nervously for pun police>>