Embellishment
I told you guys back here about my father-in-law’s group. They were the old-school gamers who taught me the ropes, putting up with my extreme noobness despite my natural inclination toward being an obnoxious little shit. (My first character was a goblin cabin boy rogue named Terrance Gilliam. I dunno why they kept me around, honestly.) But in an effort to help you avoid similarly obnoxious play, allow me to give you an example of what not to do.
We were just starting out on our first ever Pathfinder game. Because the module was all about some local rite of passage, we decided to roll up teenage characters. And because my father-in-law has had to put up with all manner of IRL teenagers as a substitute teacher, he decided on a more reserved sort of protagonist.
“My cleric is a quiet kid. He’s gangling and shy, with unkempt hair. He has a self-serious expression that—”
“Wait a minute,” says I, smelling the opportunity for obnoxiousness. “What kind of hair exactly?”
“Well I mean, it’s dark brown and straight. He’s tried to part it, but it’s too long and hangs down in his face, so….”
I start cackling. After a few quizzical expressions from around the table and furious googling from yours truly, I turn my laptop around to display this image. What followed was a solid five-minute laugh break while we all took turns draping our hands over our faces like ridiculous bangs, pretending to blow them out of the way. The poor guy hadn’t got through his character description before he was forever branded “Emo Cleric.” You can see Laurel’s sketch over here.
Now my father-in-law happens to be a good sport. We all had a laugh and moved on with the game. But I’ve since found myself on the receiving end of similar shenanigans (“You rolled a natural one? I bet you hit yourself in the nards! You probably vomit and fall over into a puddle of your own sick!”) I can tell you that it’s no fun. You don’t have to be a self-serious cleric to resent your fellow players describing your actions for you. So no matter how good the goof or how amusing your one-liner, I advise you to keep it to yourself. Keeping a clear mental image of your character is difficult enough without the goblin cabin boys of the world sticking their noses in and trying to do it for you.
What about the rest of you guys? Have you ever had a fellow player try to describe your character or their actions for you? Was it harmless fun, or was it actually obnoxious? Tell us your tales down in the comments!
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I usually consider it reasonably fine if it’s something that’s just a quick joke that no one is actually thinking happened in character, or if the action described could be a reasonable accidental action on the part of the player, like letting out a long drawn out fart during a diplomacy check, or accidentally pushing a characters ribs in while performing cpr on a heal check. I don’t like it when they try to get in character something that would have to show something seriously wrong with your character, like actually cutting off a patient’s arm, or acting like a racist ass. I have either seen or been the player effected by all of these, and that’s just how I generally feel about them.
I am also more fine if it’s something insanely stupid on a character that isn’t built to be good at something. Having your dumb luck cleric think that the name acererak applies to a halfling goddess of bunnies, farming, and love instead of a powerful lich, is a lot more fine than making a wizard believe that there is no way for someone to lift something magically.
And that’s my struggle. It’s the sort of thing that’s funny until it isn’t, you know? You rip on each other until somebody actually gets annoyed.
As so often happens in RPGs, it seems that “read the room” is the key advice.
Not with a fellow player… but during one of my first D&D campaigns, we were fighting some monsters, and the druid got the death blow, but instead of the DM describing the death, I decided to for some reason. Then I did it a few more times for other stuff, and it wasn’t until after the session that I should probably leave the DM’s job to the DM.
Eventually, however, since I clearly liked the idea of DMing, we decided that every so often the DM would ask me to describe something, or let me run a one-shot with him as a player, so I could learn the ropes of DMing.
You’re missing a word in there, and I’m curious. Was it that you “realized” you should leave the DM’s job to the DM, or were you “told” that? In other words, did somebody call you out on it, or was it something you picked up on?
What you mean I miss word? grammar perfect! (… I should probably not write these things when I’m about to fall asleep)
I realised it, rather than being called out. We were all quite new, so it was quite hard to call people out on mistakes when you don’t know the rules yourself. The DM and I were the only two of the entire group who had been to a D&D session with experienced players, so even if the other players had memorised the rulebooks, we were the only people who had experience with the etiquette of gaming.
Not exactly my actions, but I had a Mutants & Masterminds character called Marrow who had osteokinesis. Bone-manipulation, basically, though just her own bones. She was meant to be a bit unsettling, at least in terms of her powers, and could do stuff like make her own ribcage rip out of her chest and skitter around on it like centipede legs. I recall she once had to say “Oh, well I’m so sorry that the evil mad scientist who created me didn’t give me happy rainbow sunshine powers” when someone called her too creepy to be a hero.
Anyways, Marrow had a motorcycle to get around the city fast and respond to problems. She had a bone theme going on, so I made it an awesome skeletal thing, meant to be intimidating and cool in a Ghost Rider sort of way.
I didn’t even finish describing it before it was dubbed “The Bonercycle”. It was referred to as-such by everyone else, including in in-character dialogue, from that point onwards. It had no dignity.
“Bonercycle.” Freaking perfect! This is exactly the shit I’m talking about.
I mean, here I am laughing about it even as a third party, but the real question is whether you thought it was funny. So let me ask you: Was the amusing joke worth your motorcycle’s dignity?
It was funny, but it was kind of annoying that it ended up stuck with that name permanently, and in-character.
The group where most of the table would poke fun at the Int 7 character is luckily long dead.
Poor dumb Mongo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKRma7PDW10
Huh, I guess SS does have robutt arms. What else on her is robotic, and how does Unspecified domain Cleric feel aboot this unfamiliar technology?
Whenever a player in heavy armor rolls badly on stealth I have a compulsive urge to add the sound effects “Clank clank”
I suspect you would enjoy this one: https://www.renegadegamestudios.com/clank
One of our rules is that only the player performing the action or the DM can say in what an action results. And about the description of the player characters we just hear what the other say and we made our own mental image of the pc. As a matter of fact we only made art of our characters, if we made art at all, once the campaign is finished.
In other news, today comic was really funny. It reminds me of that time my pc killed an important NPC by fumbling the healing rolls 🙂
Thanks for the kind words! I think we’ve all had that “healed to death” moment in one campaign or other. It’s those common experiences that bind us together. 🙂
Thanks to you, it’s a good moment when you discover that your pc can make more damage when he fails a simple skill roll than when he make a critical attack 🙂
One of the guys in our group has written his own system and we’ve done a couple of little campaigns as playtesting (in between playing PF and 5e).
An important core mechanic is that there are 5 degrees of success:
Critical Success, Success; Success With Complication, Failure, and Critical Failure.
He has said that during playtesting he has learned that the players’ suggestions for “Success With Complication” and “Critical Failure” are more interesting than anything that he (as GM) could come up with (also often crueller than him).
He was decided that this is a natural consequence of the fact that there are 5 of us brainstorming and only 1 of him.
Oh and in this system, the only healing spell that the players have been able to get their hands on requires a medicine/healing/anatomy skill check to work properly. A critical NPC died to that spell. Hilarity ensued.
A couple of critical differences there. Player input is incorporated into play, and they are understood as suggestions. If framed properly, this kind of thing can absolutely work. 🙂
I got into the habit of asking “Can I make a pitch” for character actions because I have a few friends who are a bit light on the description. Most of the time they say yes, but a few times they say “No, wait, I’ve got it.” or something to that effect.
I like that a lot, actually. Permission is a big deal in this kind of interaction.
We actually all do it in our games.
Some great “Why didn’t I didn’t think of that?!” Moments can come out of it, but we are all pretty chill about it.
I can see how some might disapprove and others might take it too far though… :/
I am personally fine with it, so long as the other person knows I am final arbiter of my character.
True that. The problem in my example was that it was so early in the campaign. Hard to make the correct first impression when everyone’s mental image is still being formed.