Gatekeeper
Were you guys ever in debate club? I spent a few months amongst that quarrelsome tribe back in high school, and while I can’t say I enjoyed the experience, I did manage to learn two very important lessons. Firstly, making faces at your opponents during debate is frowned upon. Secondly, you should always have a way to entertain yourself. As it turned out there were some very long periods of tedium between debate rounds, and I found myself bored to tears. At the one and only competition I attended I remember doing my homework, finishing my novel (thanks Piers Anthony), rehearsing my poetry pieces (thanks Tennyson), and still needing to kill four hours. As it happens, four hours is about how much time you need to play a session.
Some kids from another school were poring over these weird hardcover books. They were mottled green, had a rose on the cover, and said in big silvery letters Vampire: The Masquerade. I was intrigued. I struck up a conversation.
“Is this like D&D? I always wanted to try D&D.”
“Dude, it is so much better than that generic fantasy trash.”
I began filling in little circles with a #2 pencil.
It wasn’t the first time I’d encountered the Vampire IP. I had stumbled across a review of a video game called Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption in InQuest Gamer magazine a month earlier. I was already into Magic at this point, but since I was a bit starved for contact with fellow hobbiests, I read those things cover to cover. Anywho, this video game featured a French crusader-turned-vampire who gets a castle dropped on him and wakes up in the 20th century. I copied the idea verbatim. Because my dude was a knight (and because I couldn’t figure out what all those other weird skills did), I decided to focus on melee. And since it should already be obvious to you that high school Colin was a paragon of originality, I named him Bayle Domon after some obscure Wheel of Time character.
I don’t remember much about the plot. What I do remember is being accused of “making a boring combat monkey,” “ripping off the video game,” and being called a “Wheel of Time asshole.” Suffice it to say that, when my character died while driving across town (“You didn’t put any dots in Drive. Your car falls off the bridge.”) I wasn’t too broken up about it. It did, however, take me a few years to give role-playing another chance.
What about the rest of you guys? Did you ever run into a “gatekeeper” type when you were first starting out? What was the encounter like?
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Discussion (37) ¬
I personally never have run into one, but I play mostly with friends.
We do hash out some characters with eachother to make sure they are viable, and the rest of the party doesn’t get stuck with a permanent escort mission. This is done with constructive criticism and not childish name calling (one could only wonder how bad those guys were at debating if that’s how they treated someon just starting out, with no knowledge of the rules and not enough time to sit and hash out a lengthily character idea).
That aside, we actually have fun coming up with character ideas based on or copied from currently existing content.
I think that characters “based on or copied from currently existing content” are some of the most fun. Very few of us are good enough actors to really nail an impersonation, so it’s not as if the “clone” is going to be a 100% copy. And IMHO, the upside of having a strong template to draw upon outweighs the negative.
One of my favorites was a mechanic I played in a Savage Worlds Firefly game. I was doing my best Danny DeVito impression the whole time, and it worked great.
Nice!
Most of what we try to figure out is mechanics.
What class would this person be in this setting? What stats would they have? What is their base alignment? Etc…
That said, what class was DeVito?
It was a Savage Worlds game, so I believe my class was “PC.” Dude had a very high “Repair” score as well as the “obese” hindrance and a custom “too ugly to notice” stealth edge. He fought with a battery-powered angle grinder.
Also of note, the character sheet in that game was gorgeous:
http://s11.postimg.org/bze1o0r2b/SW_Character_Sheet_tall.jpg
Dexterity fighters are pretty cool though?
Fighter: “But you didn’t take weapon finesse. You took Skill Focus: Profession (farmer).”
Not-Samwise: “Well… My guy is from a farming community, so I thought–”
Fighter: “Your character is stupid and I’m burning your character sheet.”
I feel like gatekeeping never actually disappears, it’s just the difference is how loyally we guard our chosen gates.
For example: I feel like there’s no reason to have a dedicated healer. I’d rather have a person making the monsters dead with the option to heal if it’s what’s needed. If someone says ‘I want to be the best healer in the Ever.’ then I am justified in guarding my gate by saying ‘are you sure you want a -3 to hit bonus at level 10 with that character?’ and offering an alternative solution that might get them what they want.
The two situational modifiers here are as follows: 1) If they’re determined to play that character exactly as it is, then experience is a way better teacher than I’ll ever be. They’ll never discover that mud is annoying if you don’t let them slog a bit and realize it themselves. 2) If I don’t have an alternate solution that gets them what they want, then I’m unqualified to be arguing against their chosen method of attaining their goal with their PC.
Critical distinction:
Advising new players = good.
Belittling new players = bad.
The closest experience I have would be myself. But I’m more on the advice side of things, not the telling people they’re bad. I do groan about stupid reference names though. Generally I limited that to one or two groans and then if said person hasn’t gotten the hint I just straight up suggest to them that maybe they should make up a name of their own because we all get the reference and it makes it harder for everyone to distinguish their character from the referenced character and thus breaks immersion.
What do you have against my original character (do not steal) Drazzt Yo’Urden?
Argh.
Also I may in fact actually steal that. I plan to throw in a joke village of above ground drow into the D&D game I’m running at some point and all the people living there are going to have names like that and have “surprisingly” similar emo backstories.
I feel like the villain of the session should go around literally stealing everyone’s character, draining their Charisma and taking parts of their backstory for himself. Then he can introduce himself as the most interesting man in Faerun, who escaped from the Underdark and is the last of his tribe and has demon/dragon/angel parentage and needs to avenge his master and etc. etc. etc.
Gilderoy Lockheart?
“He’s swooned queens with just his flashing smile. He’s made dragons flee with just a glare. He’s beaten Dwarves in a drinking contest without even drinking. He is…The Most Interesting BBEG In The Realm.”
His Official Party-Bestowed nickname would be “Yo” in my game.
Yo! Go take out those gargoyles!
My name is Drazzt!
Sure, Yo!
I read that in Rocket Raccoon’s voice. I think maybe your group were born to play an all-Ysoki party:
https://starfinderwiki.com/sf/Ysoki
Well, first time I played was this PbP game on a small forum. And, of course, there was this one Guy who was infamous for hating on everyone’s character sheets. In particular, there were several gmless games in progress, and in order to join one you had to get your PC approved by 3 other players. As you may have guessed, the Guy always had a field trip with those. Mind you, I’m not saying he was always talking out of his Least Pleasant Orifice – a lot of his critique was perfectly valid. It’s just that, on a scale of Rule of Cool vs Realism, he was a “to the right of me only wall” sort of guy.
Let’s just say it was very cathartic when the Shiny New Campaign thread finally arrived and everyone else got a chance be unreasonably nitpicky for a change 😀
As a GM, I realized that a few of my PCs were missing a few key rules, and so I decided to institute a Character Audit. They picked up a boost to hit, a forgotten feat, and hated the crap out of the experience. As it turns out, people don’t like being targeted by audits. I don’t know if there’s a way to make that an easy pill to swallow. :/
Of the top of my head, the only idea that comes to my mind is to have a “Session 0” specifically for character creation – everyone comes with just a character concept and an empty character sheet. That way you get several additional pairs of eyes looking out for those missing +1s. It also have a potential to improve party synergy. The main problem being that most people don’t get to play all that often, so sacrificing a lot of the precious gaming time on something that could have been done earlier at home isn’t likely to get a warm reception… Which sends us back to square one.
Fortunately when I got into Pathfinder half the group was as new as I was so we couldn’t actually have a Gatekeeper and successfully play. Now-days the group has grown, a lot, but I still don’t think we have any Gatekeepers. If anything we bend over backwards to help newbies figure out what’s going on.
Good on ya. Whether it’s gaming or anything else you love, taking the time to be cool to a newbie is ✓++ Good.
Well, you were dealing with White Wolf players. They tend to be the worst sort of people in our hobby.
I think you’re forgetting about FATAL players.
Yay, my first post is going to be about my complicated relationship with While Wolf games. HI, COLIN!
I think the main problem with White Wolf games is that they attract the high school drama student crowd (and a lot of players never really move past that stage). The trick to running a great World of Darkness game is to cut out half the angst, preferably replacing it with gonzo hijinks. For example, I have run:
-Werewolf Buddy Cop
-Vampire Vice City
-A Princess: the Hopeful game(!) in which I (among other things) have a giant robot, a character named Neff Wright, an expy of Gumshoe from Phoenix Wright, and a giant bread monster summoned by a baking-based cult. (This one may be a little too goofy for stock WoD. :p)
-A Vampire game where every single player has (in and out of character) a deep dark secret and thinks they’re the only one who does. (That coterie had a Salubri AND a True Brujah AND no less than two ancient conspiracy members AND A CORAX, and had the game gone on long enough they would have learned that their quest giver was Malkav.)
… So, yeah, doing that tends to temper the excessive drama factor of the WoD, while discouraging the type of person who takes the game way too seriously. And it’s surprisingly easy to snap the game into serious mode, too. (Like by having the giant robot pilot give your magical girls a Breaking Speech about how their power will turn them into CS Lewis’ omnipotent moral busybodies.)
The trick to running Exalted, of course, is not to run Exalted, lest you be crushed under the weight of its infinitely complex lore.
HI VOIDPOINTER!
– I would play the shit out of a Werewolf Buddy Cop game.
– I’m pretty sure Vampire Vice City PCs get free dots in Sunglasses at Night.
– Giant robot is best princess.
– *yakety sax*
even before the first session with new DM during the introductory email avalanche: he dissed my Barbarian and his backstory. Didn‘t have enough immigration to think a Bbn could be anything other than „Thog smash!“. It was going to be a Bbn4/Sor1/Dragon Diciple. With enough Charisma to be the face of the group and plenty space for character development, especially with the transformation of the Prestige Class going on. By the time an other player explained that „he can actually role play quite well with that“ I was fed up left the group.
Ouch. Super lamesauce. I mean, I understand that certain classes come with trope baggage (just look at this comic.) But I don’t get how you could look at any individual character and demand that it conform to the stereotype, especially when the PC has prestige class aspirations. Probably a good idea to 86 that group.
it wasn‘t a demand to conform to the stereotype, it was his prejudice that it would be following the stereotype: „oh a Barbarian“ /eyeroll „we want to role play not roll play, har har“
What a tool.
My first GM, my Aunt, would have 1,001 goblins appear and tickle me and my brother to 1 hit point each time we did something really stupid. Onlyone session, decades ago, but it stuck in my head!
Makes me think things really through, now.
I appreciate that your superego takes the form of 1,001 goblins. That’s some Neil Gaiman “Sandman” malarkey right there.
As I revealed in my previous comment that when I began DnD I was an obnoxious two-faced shite who played at despising nerdcraft, and gave the other gamers every reason to spurn me, suffice to say I somehow never met a gatekeeper.
I really deserved to, though – I needed a good throwing-out-on-my-arse, it would probably have done me a world of good.
Mandatory Monty Python reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6pZuAJjBa4
I vaguely remember my dad introducing me and my brother to TRPGs after hearing about an alleged video-RPG we were playing. So I guess that’s kind of like reverse gatekeeping.
(Incidentally, my opinion on the VRPG thing is that a decent VRPG has more role-playing than most tabletop campaigns, but that most of the free Flash games I played way back then barely qualify as games. Especially AdventureQuest.)
In a sense, there’s only roll playing game, and not role playing game. Live Action Role Playing focus too much on safety rules that is why ranged attacks and polearms are nerfed in RPGs.
I play in a close group with friends so there’s no gatekeeping at all, also we play 5e which is pretty flexible on character creation, so it’s dificult to make an inviable character unless you try to make a wizard putting the big stat on charisma and some of the lowest on int.