Spat
So on the off chance you weren’t aware, The Handbook of Heroes is a double act. I may be in charge of words, but this site would just be a bunch of nerdy ranting without all the hard work of my illustrator. I bring her up because, in addition to breathing life into Handbook-World, Laurel was also kind enough to cast ceremony with me a few years back. In other words, we are married. And insofar as we game together, certain issues tend to creep into play.
Don’t worry. I’m not going to bring up any unpleasant scenes like today’s Thief/Wizard argument. I have too much of a sense of self-preservation. (And also our couch isn’t very comfortable). On the contrary though, I do tend to worry about the opposite sort of problem.
Take our latest megadungeon session for example. The party was staring out of a sea cave on a foreign coast. They’d just come in through one of those standard-issue glowing green portals, so no one had any idea where in the world they’d been spat out. Imagine their surprise then when they saw a familiar shape rising out of the water. As per Monte Cook:
The temple seems like a terrible white tumor growing up out of the sea. Vaguely a windowless dome, the misshapen, twisted, and rounded walls are punctuated by what seem like massive stone tendrils thrust down into its foundations. The white stone used to build the structure is stained with black slime streaks across its surface. An open doorway waits at the front of the temple like an obscene maw.
“Wait a minute… Isn’t that the weird Cthulhu temple from way back at Level 7?”
“You mean the one with all the ties to Laurel’s retired dark tapestry oracle?”
“Ah yes. The same dark tapestry oracle whose backstory has been haunting us all this while, despite the character having left the game over two IRL years ago.”
“Gee, I wish my backstory came up freakin’ ever.”
“Come on gang, let’s see what’s waiting for us inside the Temple of GM’s Girlfriend.”
Thankfully, none of that stuff was actually said out loud. In fact, I’m pretty sure none of my players even thought it. But you’d better believe my own internal neuroses were playing that shit on loop.
It’s irrational, but the whole GM’s Girlfriend thing pokes me in the back of the head every time I sit down to write up content for my significant other. Am I giving her too much attention? Or am I overcompensating and giving her too little? Am I making too many rules calls in her favor? Does she have too much loot compared to the others? Maybe I should kill her character just to be fair.
Clearly, it is possible to overthink this sort of thing. That’s why I’m hoping for a little perspective in today’s discussion. When you’re GMing for your partner, do you ever second guess yourself about how much attention they’re getting? And for all the players out there, have you ever seen your GM give “most favored player” status to somebody else? Was it egregious, or did it manifest subtly? Tell us your tales of GM favoritism down in the comments!
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While i dont think it was intentional favoritism, the GM for our last campaign was one half of the couple who traditionally hosts our party, and his girlfriend ended up with a LOT of extra backstory stuff over the rest of us. But like i said, i dont think it was favoritism exactly, i think she just had a lot of opportunity to talk to him and say “hey, wouldnt it be cool if X?” And im pretty confidant of this because both of them have, to a lesser degree, come to the current DM (ie me) about stuff for their characters that they think would be cool. The rest of us were also able to ask for and get cool backstory stuff, we just didnt ask as often.
I think that just might be it. Remember the successful in-character romance I mentioned back in this one?
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/fade-to-black
That was between Laurel and a former roommater of ours. When it comes to pulling off convoluted character stuff, incidental communication and “hey, I was just thinking” type conversations can go a long way. And that only happens when you live with someone.
I’ll actually posit a slightly different perspective on that effect:
When you have a partner who shares your hobbies, you wind up funneling all your random ideas into them. Satisfied, you no longer feel the need to send random ideas out to your group unless you have already decided you specifically want to add that idea to the canon.
If you didn’t have your partner, or didn’t share this hobby with them, those ideas would end up with nowhere to go until you finally decided to toss them out to your group, or someone in it. With internet access, particularly on smartphones with mobile data, it’s a lot easier for those incidentals to find their way out into the world.
In theory, sure. But I find that the kind of “wouldn’t it be neat if” discussions we’re talking about are too speculative to bother with posting. For example, if I were out for beers with my GM, I could fill him in on the backstory I have worked out for our upcoming D&Doggies session…
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56728f72a128e6b1e548ec55/t/5ca1d631c83025bf8a26e1cd/1554110019688/D%26D-Rules-Companion+%281%29.pdf
Apparently my “boy and his dog” shtick is going to come up in game. But as it is, I’ve been putting off writing the email just because I’m lazy. That’s going to be different for different dynamics (some people post everything informally in Discord), but I think that the effort of typing things up is a more substantial barrier than it seems.
I played in a campaign that centered the entire story around one of our players characters. At first it just seemed to be a nice tie in of a background, then after a year… it was hard not to notice. I just kept playing, trying to fit in… then I got kicked out of the game for “taking away player agency” (it is a bit of a long story I will not bore people with here, but I cast Greater Restoration on our Paladin who had been cursed by an evil artifact, thinking I was doing a good thing for everyone involved… apparently he wanted to remain cursed, but instead of saying something in game and hashing some things out, I was instead kicked out of the game. c’est la vie)
I suppose it would not have been so bad if they did not have an entire other game going on without me involved on the side. And I don’t mean a second campaign (tho they also had that). I mean, I would come to the game and they would have done a bunch of private RP between sessions. In a year, I was never involved in that.
I was bitter (am bitter?) about it, but I also have tried to move on, found a new game, and am in a better place. I still think they were the jerks in the scenario, but I am biased in a lot of ways. That being said, yes, a DM absolutely can angle a scene too far in one direction toward a single player, but more egregious from personal experience is angling a game away from a single player.
Talk to your people. If not every session, at least once every couple months or so. See how people feel about the game. Ask what people want or think they want out of it. Then at least, if no one wants to engage in the awkward conversations that can bring up, well, at least you tried. (that was the other issue, no one… including myself, ever talked to each other, so nothing came up early enough to “fix”. If that would have been possible)
I follow the Groucho school of group vetting:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/bf/45/48/bf454886c82e31cb1303497f87b7f20e.jpg
On a not-unrelated note, it’s been a while since I joined a new group.
I wonder if Prestidigitation over and over again would be faster/slower or easier/harder than physically cleaning.
It’s the learning curve that gets ya.
Crazy thing is… retraining commoners into PC classes only takes 3 days. And you only need a 10 int to cast cantrips (a higher int is likely anyways).
What sourcebook is that?
…Also, what edition?
From Pathfinder 1E Ultimate Campaign retraining rules. This isn‘t deduction or implication by the way, it literally says “it takes only 3 days to retrain a Npc class into a Pc class.” I am pretty sure this mechanic was even used as a plot point in an Adventure path (town guard was retrained into polearm master fighters to challenge the PCs).
It would be 1000% easier and faster. Cast the spell on the average area of a sink and you have effectively done in less than a minute what would have taken like 10 min and a lot more effort to normally. You have obsoleted the dishwasher AND the washing machine.
The irony is that anybody who can cast prestidigitation doesn’t even need indoor plumbing or a shower; he can just pull a Harry Potter on his chamber pot, and yet the people who can cast spells are the people who can (most easily) make indoor plumbing or a facsimile theirof.
don’t add that evil to the universe. i don’t need wizards describing their magical craps in my game. 😛
This would depend on what happens to the dirt when prestidigitation cleans something, is it destroyed utterly, or is it merely removed like when you clean something mundanely?
In the latter case casting prestidigitation on your chamber pot might leave you with a sparkling clean chamber pot and a newly soiled floor.
(personally I like the middle option where it’s cleaned in the mundane sense, but including the bit where you put the dirt in the appropriate place. So cleaning your clothing moves the dirt to the trash-can and cleaning your chamberpot puts the nightsoil wherever you’d normally put it, in which case you might still want some plumbing just to make the streets cleaner).
Personally I take the stance that the stuff is whisked way to some strange demiplane full of garbage (that, incidentally, is also the place the spell accesses to soil things).
That does seem like a reasonable headcanon, but does raise some questions.
Back when Prestidigitation was first invented, was it incapable of soiling things because the demiplane of garbage didn’t have any trash yet? Or does some off the garbage there predate the first magical cleaning? Is it perhaps truly a semi-elemental plane and therefore a fundamental part of reality?
Clearly some magical academy or another should found a research expedition to find out.
…it might be though to find enough learned wizards without a sense of smell to actually go on it through.
Definitely faster, cleaning a 1 foot cube every 6 seconds is a lot, and you only need to cast the spell once an hour
I’ve been playing in a campaign ran buy my wife for over two years now, and I gotta say. . . I don’t know, man. It’s been some of the most fun I’ve had in a campaign, and I certainly did feel like sometimes things just kinda went my way, but there was a hidden cost. . being my wife, I’d say she knows me pretty dang well. When it comes time to manipulate my character for the sake of dramatic plot and traumatic events, she knows exactly how to manipulate the man behind the avatar as well.
Best example would be a changeling that was going around trying to frame our ship’s captain for a string of murders. My character had gotten super paranoid, always asking his various npc friends probing questions when they were out of sight for more than a couple minutes. . . THREE times, she pushed just the right buttons to make me, the player, trust it when it was right within my grasp.
So I think any special treatment was may with an equal and opposite amount of special treatment, but Damn does it make for good storytelling
I hear ya on the “manipulate my character” bit. It’s the phobias that you really have to watch out for.
For example, Laurel hates needles, things beneath peoples skin, etc. Cue the scarabs:
https://gfycat.com/totalhonoredbug
I have never played with a group that had a significant other in it, but my current group might have a couple developing based on campaign characters being involved and players getting involved outside. I dunno if this is a good thing or not, but it sure is cute to see.
On a side note, I just started a very much in game only relationship with another character and that has been really interesting. We are playing a married couple at the start of our next campaign (assuming we have one) and to get us to the point of being married, we started RPing the dating and getting to know you part of our backstory. It has been weird and fun at the same time.
Are you doing this in PbP?
Just as in IRL relationships, the important thing to remember is communication. Decide where you want this character arc to go, make sure the other player is on board, and then work together to make it happen in-game.
Good luck, and happy gaming!
We are playing in discord and zoom privately. In theory, the couple we are playing will be a part of the next campaign for the same group we are both a part of. Everyone already has characters ready to go, we just have to finish the campaign we are doing now first 🙂
Could be awhile, but by then, depending on how things go, our characters might actually feel married XD
I really dig the fact that you’re establishing character relationships this far out. And even better, you’re doing it in a way that doesn’t require one of those very-long personality quizzes:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/wizard-quiz
Sorry Wizard, having prestidigitation available defaults you to cleaning duty. Even in systems where it’s not at will, an hour duration to clean 1 cubic foot per 6 seconds as well as minor telekinesis to move things back into place all with just a thought means it’s way easier for you.
With great power comes great domestic responsibility?
I’m facing the possibility of GMing for a group made up of Grindr hookups (Possible podcast name: D&D&D) so there’s that. In the past I’ve played in a group with a husband and wife who usually try to kill each other and defiantly show no preference when one’s DMing.
I suspect that the pod’s logo would be magnificent.
The opposite of favoritism is still prejudicial. So are stabbings. 😛
I mean, as partners, they could show enough interest in one another to take a level or two in each other’s class, right? That should fix everything!
I have a story about a GM/SO situation that I had noticed in our IRL gaming group, and then had noticed it amplified considerably louder in the MMO guild we were all a part of. I don’t really want to get into it save that it became an IRL social disaster within which there was no safe zone, destroying the MMO multi-game spanning guild and possibly damaging the gaming group.
It’s one of those things I actually feel bad about, but also one of those things that I feel was resolved correctly. I received quite a bit of feedback from other players to the effect of ‘finally somebody said something.’
Naw, we already did that joke. 😛
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/multiclass
Well then in general terms: How was it resolved? What worked about the approach?
I said ‘correctly,’ not ‘peaceably.’ But I was blocked, which prevented me from resolving things peaceably, especially since no one was willing to advocate for me. We always talk about treating each other like adults, so pro tip. If you have a problem with someone in your circles, you might want to deal with it like an adult before what I describe here. I’m not proud, but I was younger, and looking back… if nothing else, I stood up for myself, and that is something I’m ok with.
I called her out in front of the entire guild to the effect of:
“Hey everyone. Due to being a and refusing to invite me to guild activities, I have decided to leave since I can play the game solo on my own terms and not feel like . Thank you all for the good times. I wish you all luck with drops!”
I’d say this is a cautionary tale at best.
Huh. Can’t use greater than/less thans in these posts.
So that SHOULD read:
“Hey everyone. Due to ‘person’ being a ‘bad word’, I have decided to leave the guild since I can play the game solo on my own terms and not feel like ‘bad word.’ Thank you all for the good times. I wish you all luck with drops!”
Oof. I’ve never done the full-on guild thing, but I’ve heard that the drama is real.
Yeah. It sucked, but I will say this. As someone who has lead guilds, raids, been an officer under another player, on and on…
I prefer people stand up for themselves, even in an explosive situation like that then just harbor intense feelings of anger and hate.
The funny thing though. You mention the drama… normally drama is over loot. I just wanted to hang out with my friends, but I was being excluded. Why be in a guild with friends if you can’t even hang out with them?
I didn’t expect the fallout, but like I said… I got probably 20-50 messages to the effect of “DAMN, somebody said it!”
The worst case I saw of the GM giving too much to one character and not to another had nothing to do with IRL relationships. It was because one player had a cool backstory that the DM really liked, so everything in the campaign became related to it. And it didn’t bother me. They were on a common creative wavelength, the kind of synergy that’s fun to play or to watch.
I only wish the GM had worked as well with the group as a whole. You could tell he wasn’t actively thinking about everyone, he would forget big backstory details and miss obvious ways to tie things together. If he had bothered to reach out with suggestions, I would have gladly changed my character if it meant the GM would start caring about him.
So yeah, if you want to avoid favoritism, worry less about giving someone too much and more about if you’re giving anyone too little. Check in to make sure you’re on the same page.
Could it have worked the other way? Could you have reached out with those suggestions first? Or is there something about the GM role that means they need to take the first step?
That’s the thing, I did reach out, but it takes two people to have a conversation. The response was usually that he would follow up later, and then he wouldn’t.
I would give him the benefit of the doubt and say he probably wasn’t deliberately ignoring me. If he didn’t like me that much, he could always ask me to leave. Instead, it was probably juggling a lot of players and characters that made it easy to forget the less interesting ones.
That’s the only reason I would put this on the GM, that it’s usually GMs who are busiest in the time between sessions, and thus they are the ones who would need to set aside time. Almost like a professor setting office hours.
Yo… Don’t put that mess in my head more than it already is! I’m already trying hard not to think of gaming as work. But with the parallels to my day job…. Hell, I have a colleague in my inbox with an essay about “why GMing is like teaching.” I really ought to give it a once over for the poor guy. :/
it’s a lot less of a dillemma when it’s a solo campaign XD my previously mentioned magus game was just me and ran by my fiance. granted, there was an npc party and im not the kind of player to treat npc party like they arent a real party and i hear that happens in some places. but in the case of a solo campaign it’s ok to make the literal whole plot revolve around the one PC and you get to be THE hero who is fated to do the thing. did i get a lot of cool stuff just for me? kind of yeah. and most of the best roleplay moments. and a lot of stuff was personal ((like finding out your foster father is a god)) but it worked out well enough. we wouldnt have had the same game if there were other players.
i have had previous a ton of experience with being The GM Girlfriend and he tried to keep favoritism under the table, and sometimes offered to give me a special thing and i would refuse it…..and sometimes not. im human i get tempted lol. most of the time it wasn’t a huge deal though. or someone could get a similar small favor in game by buying the group all pizza. honestly in-game relationships got rewarded better than out of game ones- two other players who had chars hook up got some SUPER epic moments in one game, and i felt kind of sidelined when my char had a backstory with her lover being a big deal and her wanting to meet back up with him and it really kind of blew over. probably better overall though that it ended up that way.
which reminds me that the magus game from last few years is perhaps the only game in recent memory with no pc romance…..feels kind of odd.
What? No. Never.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/watch-the-horses
I’ve had the good (?) fortune to DM for a partner only once, in a cross-over battle royale thing between her group and mine which required minimal effort to keep going. I’ve also DMed for a couple of people I was attracted to, but it was never enough to make an enormous difference to how I played. My biggest problem has been some of my older and closer friends in the group: on the one hand, they tend to be the best in their various fields (one’s a schemer, another a tactician and the last an excellent and forceful roleplayer,) and they all have characters that play into those strengths. On the other hand, to what extent am I over-emphasizing that in order to hide my obvious tendency to favour them? Oh God… am I actually deliberately penalizing the newer players? Oh no! Maybe their next plan needs to fail due to totally unforseen circumstances that they cannot possibly control?
Good… Good… Let the paranoia flow through you!
Colin one of the rules we go in our table is this: Don’t mix cheese with Coke. But a rule that matters more for the theme at hand is the one that says: Thou shall not bring your mistress to the game. We don’t take girlfriends, boyfriends to the table to play unless they are prepare and it’s agreed between all of us. A new person can disrupt the flow of the game or be a dead weight. Also we have the rule of having all of us friend-zoned everyone else on the group. No upgrading of relationship that may break the group. It’s a rule we accorded even when we are four guys and just only a girl. But since she goes after any boy her eyes catch, and one of us is gay, we made it just in case. And i am of the in-the-work-they-don’t-know-i-have-a-wife-and-my-wife-don’t-know-i-have-a-job kind of person. Once our DM broke the “don’t bring your mistress” rule, we made him pass such humiliation. We keep speaking about his past girlfriends, we made him look as a bad DM in front of his girl and we keep making lots of bad jokes about him. He understood that was a bad idea and later broke with the girl but for other reasons i can’t nor i will address. So all in all we are strict about this. We are lucky to have each other and no other group will accept any of our antics. So we don’t wanna ruin the party for everyone 🙂
Had a long-running group bring a girlfriend in once upon a time. I enjoyed gaming with her. It the sudden “oh by the way there’s a new person joining” that bugged me.
We don’t accept anyone new without close examination and even less out of nothing. No offense, but even you and Laurel appear on the door while we play to come join us, we would close the door in your face. Mostly because of the rules of our group, but also a little for the plague 😛
Possibly also vampirism. You can’t just invite anyone inside!
Oh, vampirism wouldn’t be a problem. My blood tastes awful, its like sucking a cooper wire with an after taste of mercury and some notes of cyanide and lead 🙂
When dealing with an enraged or miffed SO, you have the option of either diplomacy or animal handling, opposed by their intimidate checks. Failure causes relationship damage, according to the nature of the argument.
In the event you suffer relationship damage to your loyalty, love or fun stat, you can heal 1 point of damage for every day spent placating your S.O. as per the ‘long term care’ rules for heal checks.
I’m pretty sure opting for animal handling causes relationship damage automatically.
Depends on what kind of saddle/riding crop you (or the SO) use.
Oh, I thought you meant using a cute puppy or something.
No, Zarhon! That was a negative example!
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/fade-to-black
Bonk!
https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/033/758/Screen_Shot_2020-04-28_at_12.21.48_PM.png
There was some RPG. Hopefully another nerd around here remembers the name of it, because it has a great mechanic. It fixes itself like some kind of TV show. At the start of the campaign the GM uses playing cards to generate an episode structure, basically assigning certain cards to certain players and drawing them into a few even piles. This serves to show who will “feature” and when. When your card is in a pile, it means you’re a main character for that “episode”. We all know those shows where we follow the same three guys, but there are always a cadre of other supporting members. Then along comes an episode where the main three are nowhere to be found. This episode were following a brother/sister pair, and it’s awesome. Next episode, we’re back to the main three.
This RPG sets it up like that, but in a more balanced way, ensuring everyone gets an episode to feature in. The GM can also use this to plan, seeing who “features” in the “season finale”, and can make their roles line up with that.
I’m butchering this description, I really hope someone can name the RPG.
Me too. I’d be interested in hearing more about that spotlight mechanic. It could go a long way to solving this business:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/diva
After refferring to the collective, i have been informed I may be thinking of “primetime adventures”. So there is that.
I’ve experience a few notable cases of this (and several others that weren’t notable at all because nothing came of it). I’ll show off three wildly different varieties.
In the one case it was quite egregious. Game was billed as a normal game, but everything was just about the GMs girlfriend to the point of distracting from the game itself. NPCs were only interested in them, they got obviously unfairly good items, they suffered no consequences from terrible rolls while everyone else did. The game did not last long because nobody had any tolerance for this business.
In another the GMs girlfriend was always tired (college reasons) so while they ostensibly had a place in the plot of the game 50% of the time they didn’t show up, and the other 25% where they did they were extremely inattentive (causing us to have to recall entire large chunks of what had just happened repeatedly) or would actually fall asleep at the table. The GM did an adequate job of handling it, but it would have been preferable if they’d just had an honest conversation and agreed that if she wasn’t capable of attending and being active she shouldn’t feel obligated to be part of it. (To make matters worse, this was actually in a trilogy of games so we had to deal with this for three entire (~school year length) campaigns. The games were still great overall, but this was the worst thing about it.)
And for my final case, from the get go we knew the game was going to be centered around the GMs girlfriend. It was a game of Cyberpunk. The GMs girlfriend was a rock and roll musician and the rest of us were her supporting staff. My character was her manager. Another was the main bodyguard. Another her doctor. Etc. Despite there being a spotlight character, everyone shared the spotlight pretty evenly and the GMs girlfriend character’s career was the B plot rather than the A plot. The game was fantastic and lasted about a full year and actually completed it’s story.
Love that Cyberpunk example. I’d be down to be a roadie for Gem and the Holograms or whatever.
Had this once, with my favorite RQ GM. Was not a great succes, as he was giving her a lot of attention, and stuff, during sessions, which we did not really like. She disappeared rather quickly, after we made our dislike known to the GM, and then the campaign gather some steam before being abondend for other reasons.
Because of the afermentioned episode, one of the players in that campaign, who then became a Star Trek (FASA) GM, had the rule that he did not allow relationships within his player group (between characters was diffferent, and there were quite a few). Me and this girl were part of this group, and about a (RL) year into the campaign we hooked up. But we both knew the rule about couples, and we both loved the campaign. What to do? Well, we phoned the GM and explained to him that we had this problem. And he said: Don’t worry, both of you are probably the only people that I trust to NOT do anything remotely clingy, or show favoratism, or anything else during the game. So we showed up for the next game and the one after that and etc., and it was actually several sessions before the whole group had even a clue that we were in any way together. Although, several years later, they were all invited to the wedding, and the GM was the best man. We’re still together, and have spawned the next generation of gamers.
My wife (see above) and I, having met during gaming, and having a large group of friends and acquaintences who also game, play and GM frequently in each others goups. And as that above mentiond GM already noticed, the game is more important for us during game time than the relation. So I do not think, and my wife agrees with that, that we have any noticeable bias during gaming. Trying to give, and have, a good time to\for everybody is more important than pleasing the SO in game.
Wow. Did they actually break up over it? Was it a true “games before girls” moment?
Nope, she just did not appear in our games anymore. Although I do think they broke up some time later.
I sometimes wonder whether it takes an outside party for us to see this stuff. I mean, you and your buddies had to talk to the GM before he could recognize his own unfair treatment.
And maybe that’s the key when it comes to battling one’s own GM neuroses. If your friends think it’s a problem, they’ll come to you and tell you it’s a problem. Otherwise…
…Sounds like a good enough measuring stick to me.
LOL.The way you quote me in your reply comes out totaly the opposite of what you’re trying to say 😉
I have the opposite problem with my brother, especially since he’s the main person the group picks on (now that our old trouble player is long gone). Am I messing with him too much? Should I be nicer to him? Maybe I should encourage the others to stop making fun of that one time he dumped an oil lamp in his backpack and got set on fire?
It always bugs me when there’s the one guy that the group picks on. I’ve seen it a couple of times out in the wild, and the poor guy usually tries to be a good sport. But for my money, it’s way too easy to cross the line from friendly ribbing to actually hurtful.
It sometimes makes me wish our old trouble player was still playing with us, because he deserved the mockery and would shield the people who don’t.
Then I remember everything else about him, including both why he deserved the mockery and the specifics of his criminal record.
Yeah. Maybe don’t invite that one back. O_O
I’m worried I might have accidentally become such a “favorite” player. Now, it doesn’t go further than backstory ties to the plot, but my backstory practically IS the conflict and I’m setting up circumstances with the DM where the other characters will have to get time in the spotlight while I temporarily switch to another character.
Good on ya for thinking about the other players at the table.
The swap to another character is always a good opportunity for trying something different. And if you’re really worried about being a spotlight hog, you can even go so far as to make a “hype man” type support character. Think Chaucer from “Knight’s Tale” or Gunslinger in this comic:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/sidekick
I get the opposite accusations. My boyfriend played a Gnome. I ate him with a Giant Frog. (It was in the module, and he survived.) He played a Paladin of Sarenrae, I nearly killed him with an abomination of Lamashtu (Again, in the module. Black Magga Criticalling was not.) He played a Brawler, I killed him with Shadows. (Not a module that time. >.> The cleric did not plan spells and bursts well. ) My players often tell me to take it easier on him. XD
Do you think there’s any truth to the accusations of targeted killing? I mean, are you overcompensating for perceived favoritism by going HAM on the BF, or was it all just a series of unfortunate dice rolls?
All. The. Time. It gets even worse because she’s got rather… lethargic social batteries, so I try to make sure she doesn’t end up frustrated with being in a group for hours on end and just decide the game is too much trouble. It’s going well so far, and she loves her character, so now it’s just juggling everyone else and making sure it’s fair and fun for all involved.
It’s SO much easier when we play as PCs together. We’re part of an AL group where I get to play a long-suffering goliath wizard who a little Kenku Rogue/Bard latched onto, much to his annoyance. She gets to do her best to pester me to no end, I do my best to smile and bear it.
It’s a lovely microcosm of our normal relationship dynamic, and we both giggle our faces off coming up with new ways to torment one another!
I miss playing together. I’ve been forever GM for a few years now, and Laurel and I were talking about hitting some organized play over the summer so that we could actually RP together again. Then COVID-19.
sad_Trombone.exe
“Then COVID-19. Sad_Trombone,” is basically the mantra of 2020. But when situation allows, I absolutely recommend it! Best part of bringing someone else to organized play is that by playing character ideas off of each other, you can often get the ball rolling for more RP from new players at the table!
My roommate and I play twin Half-Orc Barbarians, and just us doing doofy cockney accents and talkin about how our Mum woulda been proud got the couple who sought out AL because of loving Critical Role to become part of a permanent group with us at our FLGS!
Wizard REALLY should have listened to Cleric about jewelry vs vacuum cleaner… Maybe let her backstory take the forefront instead of seizing the limelight again…
While the GM’s girlfriend hasn’t come up as an issue in my group of friends so far, it’s definitely something I worry about eventually.
I’m beginning to think Wizard doesn’t understand girls.
I can relate. Especially at the beginning of my DM career, I was second-guessing everything you just mentioned. It didn’t help that the main quest of my first campaign was basically a search for my girlfriend’s character’s NPC penpal.
There sure as hell were other plothooks, but this was the one the group followed almost exclusively of their own volition (shy people all of them, always went with the first choice of the first one to speak), so that at the end of the campaign the other players knew the backstory of her PC better that that of their own. I sure hope it didn’t bother them as much as it bothered me.
My paranoia went away over time and my current campaign is free from DM bias (I desperately hope).
From a player’s perspective, I never had the feeling that there was a “favourite” of the respective DM. The groups I was in were either of a barely manageable size (10+players per night), which nips playing favourites in the bud. Or they consisted of experienced players, willing to enable others’ “cool moments”, so that everyone contributed to the plot regularly.
That’s the thing about rpg horror stories (of which “GM girlfriend” stories are a sub-genre). They wind up crawling inside your head and making your doubt your own judgement. Chances are that you and I both gave our significant other an appropriate amount of attention, but the fear of becoming a “that guy” GM is insidious.
I do think it’s a GM maturity thing. But as my story and your ‘desperately hoping’ parenthetical indicate, it’s hard to shake that mindset entirely. Weirdly, that makes it a GM neurosis thing rather than a relationship thing. And I think the real key is to just laugh at yourself, move on, and tell the best story you can.