Interview Arc: Red Flags
While Gunslinger is busy Kermit Arms-ing his was into the middle distance, we thought you might enjoy a break from the usual pseudo-intellectual shop talk. In its place, the Anti-Party have agreed to release a partial transcript from their selection committee’s final meeting. If only all such group selection processes were so transparent!
Sorcerer: What are our feelings on candidate A?
Barbarian: Let’s start with the pros. With Paladin MIA, we’re gonna need a replacement diplomancer. Assassin obviously has proficiency in face skills.
Oracle: You mean he tricked you into drinking poison. Or were we not doing cons yet?
Barbarian: I saved, didn’t I? Besides, it just shows that he’s got balls. I like balls.
Oracle/Sorcerer: [sniggering]
Sorcerer: Moving on to candidate I. I’ll just throw this out there, but it would be nice to save spell slots on fly.
Oracle: Is he one of those hypoallergenic aarakocra though? I get hives.
Sorcerer: Didn’t occur to me to ask. If we’re talking merit though, I’ll be honest. It wasn’t the strongest interview.
Oracle: You said he showed up drunk and spewing non sequiturs. That’s unacceptable. Plus Barbie is already covering that niche.
Barbarian: I got chicks stealing my gimmick left and right already. If this guy asks to share my Vice (ale), we’re going to talk about sharing his wishbone.
Sorcerer: That brings us to Candidate P.
Oracle: Guy was a bit stiff.
Sorcerer: True. But speaking as a magic user, I would remind you of the advantages of a colleague that counts as an object. For example, they are immune to domination effects. Plus they can ride in the portable hole without fear of asphyxiation.
Oracle: Pretty sure I don’t have to heal him either.
Barbarian: Look, I’m here for it if we want Psychic on the team. But one of you spell jockeys is gonna have to study up on the psychic magic rules if—
Oracle/Sorcerer: Blackballed.
[Awkward silence.]
Sorcerer: Which leaves us with Candidate G.
Oracle: You mean the no-show? Real unprofessional, I got to say.
Barbarian: Too bad though. I talked to Gunslinger in the lobby. He gave me an updated copy of his build. There were hand-drawn illustrations, color-coded backstory notes, a gunpowder-scented cover letter… The kid seemed eager to be a part of the team. Here’s a guy who’s bright, young, full of energy and ranged touch attacks. If he’s unreliable though, maybe it’s a red flag?
Sorcerer: I supposed we could reschedule his interview. Honestly though, if the kid is a flake I can’t see him ever getting a spot in a party.
Barbarian: Sounds like we’re decided then. Investigator is struggling with a serious substance abuse backstory. Psychic is double blackballed (and also dead). Gunslinger is out of the applicant pool. Any last thoughts before we give Assassin the good news?
Oracle: Heh. Just occurred to me… I bet Assassin could have got that door open.
[Committee members pause to drink deeply and stare into space. Inarticulate whimpering sounds from all.]
Well there you have it, folks! The Anti-Party’s hiring process. Seems reasonable enough to me. How about the rest of you guys though? When it comes time to fill the ranks of your party, how do you decide which friends, coworkers, and randos from the internet get the nod? Are there any red flags that you’ve learned to look out for? Tell us all about your own selection committee process down in the comments!
THIS COMIC SUCKS! IT NEEDS MORE [INSERT OPINION HERE] Is your favorite class missing from the Handbook of Heroes? Maybe you want to see more dragonborn or aarakocra? Then check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on the The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. You’ll become part of the monthly vote to see which elements get featured in the comic next!
Dammit, Gunslinger… Next time, TAKE THE SHOT!
[/Debra Jo Rupp-voice]
Heh. Voice acting.
I wonder if I could pull off DJR as an NPC?
Only if you play her awesomely.
I thought the immortal words were “Run, bitch, ruuun!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8oTlWwAPFI
Characters I’m now allowed to RP for 5,000, Alex!
No… not scary movie!!!!
I’ve had something like a 90% success rate with inviting friends to my games, and a 50% success rate with randos – not including the ones who bailed immediately because they applied without reading the game description. The problem, of course, is that my friends’ time is in limited supply. Sometimes, if I want to run something truly out of the box, I have to turn to the internet.
Luckily, the types of games I put out there have proven a good filter in themselves. If I’m turning to the internet, I’m not out for a standard game of DnD – I’m doing something a bit more experimental that requires a lot more buy-in from the players. Unfortunately, there’s still no way to tell who’s going to ghost you on the day of. It’s just a gamble you’ve got to live with.
I’m interested in this “self-filtering” business. What kinds of games tend to have that effect?
For randos, like any job interview, their focus needs to be what they intend to contribute and not what they get to do (not saying they can’t mention it, just not the focus) I also want to see questions asked that show they are trying to understand the party/game style they would theoretically be fitting into. Creativity is also a plus, though that’s hard to tell just from an interview.
As for friends/family/coworkers, I would have to believe I already have a candidate before I ever even bring up the idea of inviting them into a game, and that would be based on how I observed their behaviors towards the people they interact with, the games they play and enjoy/complain about (and how well that lines up with what D&D offers) and general sense of humor/banter.
Mixing hobbies with RL people is a sensitive thing, I don’t want to have something I enjoy messed up because I accidentally brought someone into it that I can’t easily remove if they become a problem. I need to be almost 100% certain they wont be a problem or at the very least are mature enough to have a conversation if they are a problem.
> Mixing hobbies with RL people is a sensitive thing, I don’t want to have something I enjoy messed up because I accidentally brought someone into it that I can’t easily remove if they become a problem.
I come at the hobby from a more traditional side. IRL is preferred, and you scrape together whatever friends you can to get rolling. From this, I wonder whether you’re hobby is mostly virtual?
Speaking as someone who’s hardly played any TRPG campaigns without a family member or multiple classmates in the party, this is an interesting perspective. And given the red-flaggy* friend-of-a-friend I games with for a couple of years, I can definitely sympathize with it!
*At least he was mostly red-flaggy in a way that’s entertaining in retrospect instead of, like, sexually harassing female players. (On the other hand, the only female player in the same party as him would have probably punched him, and that might also be an entertaining story!)
Damn that man really wanted the job… I’m betting backstabbings who’s in?
If some gunslinger showed up at my table with a scented cover letter, I’d have a real hard time telling him, “Firearms aren’t allowed in my setting.”
Sudden new use for those old, expired fireworks lying around in the garage… just don’t handle my application around any open flames to be safe aight?
(It might sparkle if you do…)
For us, creating a “well-rounded” party is nigh-impossible:
I know two people who attempt to always play a version of the same character each created in college–regardless of the setting, genre, or rules system.
We have another who will happily play anything you throw at him–but RPs all of them as though it’s a) male b) Chaotic Neutral c) Gnome d) Rogue. It doesn’t matter if it’s a gladiator, Bard, Fighter, Paladin–nope, it’s all the same. Pick silly play-fights with party members and try to steal something. (I just assume that if X is playing, count on a Rogue with no skill points in Roguery.)
When I’m not DMing, I find that I’m frequently assigned Cleric duty these days. I dunno why. Maybe nobody else wants it? Consequently, I try to liven things up with the whackiest character concepts and Domain choices I can so as to thwart their expectations of whatever a vanilla-cleric ought to be.
So long as they let you out of the med kit from time to time: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/band-aid
I guess murdering all the competition that bothers to show up is an effective interview strategy!
(I’m kinda sad Gunslinger didn’t stick around—a proper high-noon showdown between him and Assassin sounds pretty fun.)
Mostly, I game with either people I already know or people my gaming buddies already know. Perk of gaming in a small town I guess.
Downsides are that A. there aren’t a lot of other people to game with and B. I’ve never learned to identify red flags before starting a game.
What if the red flags are ALREADY IN THE HOUSE!?
“When it comes time to fill the ranks of your party, how do you decide which friends, coworkers, and randos from the internet get the nod?”
Basically anyone who isn’t a complete jerkwaddle. We reserve the right to boot jerkwaddles.
“Are there any red flags that you’ve learned to look out for?”
There are a handful, like people who whine about not being able to make their favorite build, people who are late to the Session Zero (they’ll be late to most sessions – which if they tell us in advance and it’s a small amount of time is fine…), not bathing… there are others but those tend to the most immediate and easily discernible Red Flags.
last vacancy we felt needed filling we just took the first applicant (to agree on playing a cleric)
Heh. Laurel just talked herself out of Sorcerer and into War Cleric in our upcoming pf2e campaign. I hope she doesn’t regret the “for the good of party composition” choice!
In real life, I try and avoid the people with a ten page backstory before they know what system we’re playing. I also try and find someone willing to fit into the group both mechanically and in terms of roleplay.
In game, we always have the regulars who want to deal damage and very little else. Even if they play a spellcaster, they don’t want to cast Glitterdust or Create Pit or stuff like that, just Fireball. Therefore, if you do something that isn’t damage in combat, you can join the team immediately. Control Wizards or Support Clerics very welcome.
Heh. Opposite issue at my table. Seems like we get nothing but support casters these days.
You missed the opportunity of quoting Gandalf on the alt-text 🙁
Also totally glad and happy Assassin got the job. Assassin’s are a good addition to any party as long as you let them keep their Creed 😛
Heh. There was a time when Laurel was all about Assassin’s creed. I think I bought her a hoodie, the board game, and an art book as X-mas and birthday presents before that obsession ran its course.
Then she defected to the Templars 😛
Can see she played the games on Assassin’s outfit. Dye it white, add a hoodie and Assassin do is an assassin 🙂
LoTR be mad overrated imo.
When it comes to red flags for the pbp scene the most notable is “joined the forum within the last month” as the biggest concern is people flaking out. Which happens A LOT… and even more often with new people. (Who I assume quickly change their minds on this being the way they want to enjoy games. Hard to say for sure since these are also the same people who just completely ghost so it’s not like they’re around to ask.)
After that I’d check for general activity. Not *how much* they post, just that they seem to be reliably active. Because again…. biggest issue is people flaking out… which includes the segment of the population that will flake out on individual games (with or without ghosting it) but *not* the forum the game is on itself.
After that it then, for me, usually comes down to “how much effort will they put into making a backstory and other extras aside from just the minimum raw numbers required”. Now I’m not saying there’s any like “novela length” requirement or anything. But if someone shows up with a character sheet that has all of two sentences combined on the details and someone else shows up with at least a paragraph of backstory, some personality and/or appearance details, etc. Well… you’ve got at least *something* to judge how much effort they’re likely to put into a game.
And the last thing I tend to recommend is…. odd. Which is start recruiting a few weeks before you plan to actually start the game. Very often a lot of the people who will flake out (whether that’s the people who say they’ll make a character and then don’t or even the ones who will slam down a character within a day but then vanish a week and a half later even though the thread still has activity) get weeded out that way. Then you just check for who’s left that has completed character sheets and responds to a “final check in”.
You might notice that that’s all four points that’s just about “will they flake out of the game”. And that’s because in pbp there’s really no way to judge anything much else about who people are or how they’ll interact with a particular group until you’re actually doing it.
Though sadly there’s still not much to do about the equally frequent problem that GMs will flake out too. *sigh*
> When it comes to red flags for the pbp scene the most notable is “joined the forum within the last month” as the biggest concern is people flaking out.
Oof. Yeah, I could see that being obnoxious. There isn’t really a way for a newcomer to check out the hobby aside from “tried it, decided I didn’t like it.” Makes me wonder if there should be some kind of a “not commitments” game so that they can get their feet way before committing to a long-term campaign?
I honestly don’t know how to solve the issue. The problem is more that people ghost than that they leave. It’s often possible to replace someone, especially early on. The bigger issue is that games stall out waiting for someone who nobody knows is not coming back. Then players or the GM lose interest and… there goes another game. And this behavior maybe convinces the occasional player or GM to not bother anymore.
And there’s often a good number of “one shots” being proposed. The issue is that even the shortest of quests can take multiple weeks (or more usually still a few months) of IRL time unless you have an entire group of extremely unusually active players/GM who are *all* posting multiple times a day.
I guess people on a particular forum would have to acknowledge it’s a problem for people to be behaving like this and actively try to do something about it. But then you run into the whole issue of…. well trying to convince a large often changing group of strangers on the internet they need to cooperate to solve a problem from a position of no authority (and perhaps the authorities might view your attempt as an issue itself). *shrug*
just remembered a Red Flag:
Bad logic while discussing … well just about anything.
Specifically I got bad vibes when discussing which domains to take as a cleric.
My suggestion included „Travel“ because speed increase for the character and teleport spells.
Reason not to take the domain: „Well if I can run faster, I can get into danger faster.“
This sort of „logic“ kinda makes my brain hurt.
Before someone gets invited to RPG night, I prefer to invite them to board games. That’s a safe one-shot way to see if there are any issues.
The biggest thing I watch for is attention span. If someone is going to constantly miss what’s going on, then I don’t want to invite them to a long-term campaign. It’s frustrating as heck to play with someone who doesn’t pay attention.
On my end, I almost always play in person. However, if you are checking out people on a forum, check their recent campaigns to see how they operate. No one wants to accidentally invite “that guy”, and you can pretty easily get a half-decent picture of at least if they are “that guy” or not via doing some basic investigation.