The Return of Jeremy
You guys remember Jeremy the Dragon. You remember Jeremy’s demise. Unfortunately for Fighter, death is only a temporary setback for a determined little brother.
Like we said last time, some players just don’t belong in the same group. They might have conflicting personalities, opposing playstyles, or a long-standing difference of opinion about who gets the top bunk in their shared bedroom. As much as I like the idea of dismissing all such conflicts with a simple “refer to the flowchart,” there may come a time when you’re obliged to put up with these people.
RPG horror stories and a tales of that guy are common. Hell, they’re the reason that Fighter exists. But not every personality conflict ends in “look for a new group.” If you’re gaming with a family member, your best friend’s obnoxious boyfriend, or in an “all players are welcome” style FLGS, you may wind up at the table with the kind of people you wouldn’t invite to your ideal game. These things happen. And for whatever reason, you may decide that you’re willing to endure the other guy’s love of shouting Monty Python quotes if it means you get to game.
More interesting still, consider the kind of game where you’ve got a passel of close friends who enjoy different aspects of gaming. One dude is a thespian, another dude enjoys min-maxing, his girlfriend is big into PVP, and the last guy just wants to make dick jokes in an English accent. It is possible for these people to have fun together. If you’re GMing for them though, you’ve got to make sure you’re catering to all of those needs. And even if you can’t meet all of those needs at the same time, you can change modes on the fly, incorporating elements that appeal to each of these players by turns. You’ve got to become a sort of chameleon, shifting with circumstance and designing sessions that appeal to different playstyles in different encounters.
Will everyone be happy all the time? Of course not. But that’s the cost of gaming with your friends rather than clones of yourself. I mean…. Ugh. Six different Colins sitting around a table would probably get bogged down analyzing the game state and then start a YouTube party. Sure Colin #5, Lindybeige makes some awfully interesting points about spiked armor, but could I just hit the orc now please? I suspect I’d quit the all-Colins game in a hurry.
What do the rest of you guys think? Is it better to seek out players that share your preferences, or can you make a mixed bag of gaming styles works? Let’s hear it in the comments!
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Like with any good dish, flavours of play may mix well, clash, or just have one drown out another.
Personally, I find it most difficult to match up min-maxers with those that are more interested in the story and RP.
I guess it’s tough for me to imagine people that are “purely min max” or “purely story and RP.” I’m all over the map myself…
https://sites.google.com/site/amagigames/the-what-i-like-glossary
…so I tend to assume that the thespian likes a bit of dice chucking, that the rules guy gets some level of enjoyment out of a solid narrative beat, and that the PVP dude can find a way to enjoy a bit of worldbuilding. Perhaps it’s when you get to the extremes (e.g. “I only like X aspect of gaming.”) that it gets harder to play nice together.
I don’t know about other people, but in most of my games the combat sets the tone for the narrative or vice versa. The problem boils down to the story suffering because the intended encounters are a cakewalk for the min-maxer. A couple of easy battles are fine, but the grand adventure aspect is lost if there’s no threat.
Then comes the dilemma: do I let 1 player breeze through everything or do I make it a challenge for the min-maxer and a nightmare for everyone else? The compromise ends up being a couple of cakewalks followed by a near TPK waiting to happen…
At least no one feels too left out.
Now I’m curious. Is there a particular min-max build plaguing you at the moment?
Not a particular build (or at the moment for that matter), but in the campaign now on infinite hiatus there was this player who knew how to play an artificer REALLY well. Pretty much magic McGuyver that had the Magic Item Compendium memorized, and had spells and effects way too high for his level via digging through obscure material.
The “worst” part is that he was thinking ahead, paying attention and just being creative in order to circumvent danger. I’d feel bad if I just GM vetoed that stuff and take away his fun. I didn’t actively discourage this, just made some obligatory encounters to keep the others invested.
While I’m pretty certain that the artificer’s player had a good time and it gave me some practice with modifying a dungeon “on the fly”, the others may have gotten a bit bored, which left a bitter taste in my mouth. Still working on finding that balance it would appear…
In my experience, this one is on the player. A good artificer will build himself a jet pack and fly around the problem. A great artificer will build everyone jet packs, thus making everyone awesome.
For example, I finally got around to playing a necromancer last night. It’s easy to feel OP when you’ve got a high-CR pet following you around. But one of my buddies asked to put the increase-your-carrying-capacity magic belt on the thing. Another suggested using a bit of crafting to build a platform on it. And now we’ve got a mobile gunnery platform for the archer. For my money, that’s more fun for the whole group than “my pet walks in and steals the barbarian’s thunder.”
Not sure how to encourage that kind of play as a GM, but it’s a starting place I guess.
The worst player I’ve ever endured was one who always (ALWAYS) played a contrarian. It didn’t matter what game, D&D, Shadowrun, WoD (it started as Vampire, but he just HAD to play a Mage, and NO, Tremere wouldn’t cut it!), he had to not only be the odd guy out, he had to make a point of being the odd man out.
Eventually we had a Shadowrun session where we turned on him… We didn’t kill him, we just destroyed all of his character’s stuff. Eventually the GM had to tell him “It’s not that you play annoying characters. Annoying characters can be funny. It’s that you keep playing the SAME annoying character, one who refuses to be part of the team. One who insists his wrongness is actual fact even as he’s being told not only that he’s wrong, but also HOW he’s wrong. One who will sabotage the mission just for laughs. Again, it’s fun and funny sometimes. Not EVERY time.”
He didn’t show up for the next session, so I guess asking this of him was going too far.
Interesting case study. The GM was willing to say, “Your playstyle isn’t wrong, and we don’t 100% hate it. Do you think you could curb yourself a bit?” The player could not make that compromise. This suggests that there is no one answer to today’s question: Some people are capable of accommodating a diversity of gamers. Others are not.
Now I had a contrarian gamer who worked out the opposite way (i.e. a … good? contrarian). He would always play against the type of the party, but he knew how to make it entertaining. The party was, 90% of the time, the good guys. He was always a shady bastard.
Except when we played Vampire. Everyone was a shady, backstabbing bastard… he was the straight laced brujah with high humanity and a love for his friends.
It was. HILARIOUS.
So tough to describe player behavior in a few short paragraphs. You would almost need video evidence to show the difference between your contrarian and Levi’s. I bet it would be instructive if we could sit down and pick apart the differences.
If only I had a video of it! I’m betting the key difference is, “knew how to make it entertaining.” Knew when to put pressure on as a contrarian and knew when to NOT.
I don’t really seek out gamers based on those qualities. I join groups based on availability instead. I’m usually pretty lucky with it too. I did have one group that I left though, because the game was becoming too much about memes and screwing around. For example, one of the characters was a web-slinging dude in a colorful costume named “Spoderman.”
So here’s the big question: Could you have tolerated a lesser level of “memes and screwing around,” or is any level of that stuff enough to make you bounce to the next group? In other words, do you think you could have found a happy medium between yourself and the memers, or was that relationship destined to fail?
Certainly! I mostly draw the line at conceiving a character to be a meme rather than being an actual character. If I can at least pretend to take your character seriously, it helps me brush off the constantly jokes and immersion breaks.
That was my suspicion. I’m beginning to think that a distinguishing feature of “that guy” is an inability to compromise. On the one hand, there’s no reason to subject yourself to games that are not fun for you. On the other hand…
http://www.quickmeme.com/img/f9/f93c76303736d0ace43ec0892996cb214c5a81ccb436355d27952794eecca144.jpg
Digging deeper into the “inability to compromise” leads me to suspect that an element of selfishness, or at least self-centeredness, is usually at play. Not that That Guy doesn’t want the other players to have fun, but that he only ever thinks about what would be fun for HIM, and so is either blind or apathetic to the non-fun his actions cause others. A good player will, if told by others that their playstyle is ruining everyone else’s fun, agree to make adjustments, sacrificing a bit of their own pleasure to improve the experience of their compatriots. That Guy doesn’t, because his fun is all that he thinks about, and he gets upset and/or angry if you try to reduce his fun, you big meany. And that’s why you sometimes have to kick people out – a gaming group is like a marriage, and if you aren’t all willing to make little sacrifices for each others’ happiness, it’s not going to last.
^This. Gold star post right there.
Claps for clcman
As I’ve said before I play at the Friendly Local Game Store.
I’ve been paired with unabashed munchkins whose only goal is have the party be nothing but their cheer squad.
I’ve main’d Paladin, and I’ve had to team up with all manner of psychos, war criminals, necromancers, edgelords, bad dudes and the like.
One of the more egregious examples though, wasn’t a rando, it was an associate from work. When he learned where I was going on Wednesdays, he invited himself along. I opted to give him a chance. He’s brought two “That Guy” characters in a row. As a person, everything aboot his demeanor is “Look at me; aren’t I random and interesting?!”
His first that guy character was “That guy is the reason we don’t let male players play female characters, they’re always uncomfortably oversexualized”, and “We don’t let that guy’s character have an instrument, especially not bagpipes”. After he told me he’d cooked up a backup character he was excited to play I was somewhat enthused. The characters had been at each other’s throats due to the aforementioned non-stop bagpiping, and an incident where they executed a prisoner. (I’m playing a Devotion Paladin. That’s basically Paladin Classic if you’re more familiar with lesser editions/spinoffs) It came to a head when I finally Javelin’d the bag of their bagpipe, to which they responded by stabbing me. Now I might sound controversial when I say this, but the moment you stab someone, they’re justified in kicking your ass and refusing to associate with you at minimum. I drowned his character to unconsciousness (Bard, can’t speak underwater, so can’t cast spells) in a nearby river. then told him his character was out, figuring it would let him switch to the character he’s so excited to play. He however, wanted to play the current character out to the end. He worked with the GM to retcon his character into a Yuan-Ti spy. I got to kick their ass during the betrayal scene. (He really thought he could escape) and then hang them with the Chain of Command. (A Dwarven Military concept. Follow orders or I beat you with this chain.)
His second character was a Kenku Fiend Pact Warlock. “That guy is the reason we don’t let evil characters at this table. They always play them like a mad dog”. Eventually they bit off more than they could chew when they fireball’d the leader of a military unit because he didn’t like her. He only rolled 19 (8d6 has an average of 28) damage and all his targets made their saves. He then got bumrushed by 7 mooks and a Cr 9 (We were level 6) boss while we all stood by shaking our heads at his stupidity.
His current character is an Aaracockra Arcane Trickster, and they’re only mildly annoying. He’s based off some Japanimu character. He’s getting anime on my D&D, but it’s not too bad. He’s not pooping on my sandwich; only getting some mayo on it.
With the latest character, it sounds like he’s at least moved away from penguin of doom territory. Is this guy just not aware enough of other players’ fun to curtail the shenanigans? Or do you think he’s finally getting the message?
I think he’s getting the message. He actually learned aboot my Wednesday hobby because I was discussing it with a friend I wanted to invite who couldn’t make it. Now the group is too full to invite said friend.
Solution: Start another game. Invite said friend. MORE D&D!
My schedule doesn’t have room, and I don’t have enough reliable friends who can commit to pull it off, hence my use of the FLGS.
On the subject of dual wielded katanas, can I say how glad I am that 5E abstracted katanas to re-flavored longswords, and made Dual Wielding kind of meh after level 5.
Now see, I’d heard that katanas were underpowered in 5e. >_>
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Katanas_are_Underpowered_in_d20
To which I say Katanas are just a Bastard Sword with sub-par durability and armor penetration. You weebs need to learn to worship a better weapon.
The Samurai caste was more known for using polearms and bows in combat anyways.
I will point out that swords as a whole are overpowered in most games. Swords were a secondary weapon. The term “Sidearm” literally traces its roots back to swords: A secondary weapon that can easily be carried on one’s person, and is often given to officers to denote rank.
I’m pretty sure a katana could easily derail a thread wearing full plate with a simple vertical slash.
Pushes up non-existant glasses in rage
And I’m pretty sure you couldn’t cut through platemail with any sword, especially not a katana. Pretty much only a poleaxe, greataxe, lance, arbalest, and some of the later guns had the potential to punch through plate.
Alternatives where hitting the less armored joints, which a medium-large slashing weapon like a katana would be terrible at, or smacking the guy hard enough that it didn’t matter if you cut through which a relatively fragile katana blade would be especially bad at.
You basically could not get through plate with a sword, especially one that’s best suited to downward and sideways slashing like a katana.
It’s a farce, Gabriel, sheer frivolity. 😀
Read a couple of the posts on Colin’s 1d4chan link for the reference.
If you’re into swords as secondary weapons, you might really like the way that swords were handled in 5e. Almost any sword build you have, you’d be better off using a polearm.
Also, an assertion like “swords were secondary weapons” is probably too broad to represent fact, especially without a reference to time period. For example, there were definitely periods during the existence of the roman legions that swords were actually the primary weapons of at least the heavy infantry.
A sword might also be a more practical choice for an adventurer than a polearm because they’re light, small, and versatile. The demands of the adventuring profession may force the heroes to rely on smaller and somewhat less devastating weaponry than might be seen on a soldier of the same setting.
Dammit, I wish there was an edit post feature.
I definitely agree that swords receive more attention than they deserve in fantasy, but I think many people go a bit too far in claiming that spears or polearms or whatnot are ALWAYS the superior choice.
The Gladius was always a secondary weapons. The Romans pretty much were always all aboot the pikes.
They’d be less practical for adventurers than an axe considering that they go up against things that a sword would simply not be sufficient against.
After the Marius reforms, a legionaire was equipped with “shield (scutum), one or two javelins (pila), a sword (gladius), often a dagger (pugio), and, perhaps in the later empire period, darts (plumbatae)”-Wikipedia
The ancient history encyclopedia’s article on the roman army (accessable at the url https://www.ancient.eu/Roman_Army/) also seems to attest that the fact that the roman spear, the Pilum, was a thrown weapon, and that the Gladius was the main thing used for hand to hand combat.
It would seem that the roman legionaire of the post-reform era was armed with the gladius as their primary weapon, as well as throwable spears that were used for skirmishing and prior to the close quarters engagement.
It’s also certainly possible that this changed into something else after a while. But rRome was around for a long time, and the sources seem to suggest that the gladius wasn’t ALWAYS a secondary weapon.
Interesting question. I run a game at home and another at the LGS, and there are pros and cons to each.
At home, I know that I have 4 players, and I more or less know what they want and how they act. The characters going into the adventure are the same characters who will actually be present for the adventure, and usually everyone is on the same page as to what the party is doing / has done. In terms of play style, all of the players seem pretty similar, but I often have a hard time pinning down what will or won’t interest them. The biggest downside to the home game though, is that we haven’t had a session in two months due to poor scheduling.
At the LGS, we never have scheduling problems, because d&d happens every Wednesday, regardless of player attendance. The biggest downside to this is that the numbers vary wildly, sometimes only having 3 people, but occasionally having up to 12. DMing for (a variable but usually large number) makes many things harder (almost all encounter balancing is done at the table), but in terms of designing plots, I find it much easier. With all the different play styles in this group, pretty much anything I do will appeal to at least a few. We’ve had a few people still who didn’t quite fit at the table, the best example being someone whose characters are all made in the image of memes or anime characters, but he now plays at a different table in the same room. Basically, there’s so much variety going on that everyone can find something to enjoy.
Pros and cons to both, eh? Well how about this: The classic gun-wielding maniac gives you one of those awful choices. Only home games or only LGS games from now on. Which do you choose?
Those maniacs and their hard choices…
Assuming I can’t take the third option, I’d probably go with LGS. I’d rather have a random but too large number of people than a random but too large number of “sorry, we can’t make it, no game this week”s.
A line from you previous post jumped out at me this time: “Basically, [with LGs games] there’s so much variety going on that everyone can find something to enjoy.” That is a downside to the home game. Although a long-standing relationship between players and GM can result in a bespoke experience, it also runs the risk of stagnating. GMs have preferences too, and it’s not easy to eschew those in favor of catering to players.
“Kind of meh” is actually an upgrade for dual-wielding, at least in 3.X, and from what I understand, in Pathfinder as well. In 3.X, the “best” method of fighting by a country mile was to two-hand a polearm, with greatswords and greataxes coming in second. Reach was king, allowing you to get hits in on advancing enemies – or avoid the enemy doing the same if they were larger. And with the Power Attack multiplier for two-handing, two-handed weapons just did more damage, and without the accuracy sacrifice, feat intensiveness, and multiple attribute dependency of dual-wielding. Sword-and-board and dual-wielding were far behind, perhaps even behind archery (which was mediocre in 3.X, but is supposedly very good in Pathfinder).
There were specific builds that could dual-wield effectively – Tome of Battle made almost every fighting style viable at least, and I had an idea for a Cavestalker build dual-wielding spiked chains for maximum trippage. But normally dual-wielding was a trap option.
Now see, I think you misunderstand. You get TWO weapons when you’re dual wielding. That’s twice as much damage. /s
See, now I’m remembering a scene from Tales of Symphonia where Lloyd and Kratos are talking, and Kratos asks Lloyd why he dual-wields. Lloyd’s answer is pretty much, “If one sword has 100 attack power, then two swords has 200. It’s simple math!” Cue facepalm from Kratos.
And yes, they had an in-game reference to weapon attack powers in an RPG, IIRC.
I tend to fall in the middle of the player spectrum, and can enjoy Role Play or Game Play.
We have a pretty mixed group, but we usually make it work.
I kinda like the variety myself.
Do you ever find yourself getting antsy if it’s too much of one and not enough of the other in a given session? I tend to worry about that sort of thing when I’m behind the screen.
Yeah.
But that’s mostly a lack of experience on my part.
The first time, I was trying to interject more story than they wanted.
The second time was more the mix of people who wanted different things.
So I am learning a little here and there.
I think I liked what was said on a previous page about making a note or two per session that can touch on their respective desires.
I will give that a try in the future.
That’s the beauty of the medium, right? You can do little things to tailor the experience to the individual. Fan service for one!
If I ever meet a clone of myself, we will immediately fight to the death.
Would that count as suicide or murder?
I’m pretty sure it would count as a Highlander sequel.
If we’re talking about players not changing, I have a good story. I commented waaay back about a toxic player who’s a friend that I was beginning to hate because of stuff that kept ruining the game for me. Well, after we were on the brink of a full-on argument, a third-party entered in and helped us and our DM sort things out. Currently, we’re on better terms thanks to the third party.
I always appreciate it when people put ranks in Diplomacy. 🙂
Although that does beg the question; what is Fighter’s player like?
I have never been in a position to somehow freely pick who I’m playing with for some kind of ideal matchup. There’s just a few circumstances where I’ve avoided “this just will not work” groupings. And that’s always been after playing with said people to learn they’re no fun to deal with.
So what’s your sniff test? How do you tell the difference between those lesser personality conflicts — the ones where it’s annoying, but not worth leaving the group — and the “this just will not work” groupings?
It basically boils down to “is this person so disruptive/rude that enjoying the game is essentially impossible”.
I think that “is this person so disruptive/rude that enjoying the [INSERT NOUN] is essentially impossible” might be a good rubric for life in general. 🙂
All I see is raw potential. The undead dragon player? Dedicated future rper. The chocobo wanting player? They know final fantasy tropes so likely played it and can grasp a basic systems quickly. Twin katanas? … well, hey there is always hope you know. At least you’ve three players ready to game.
Besides young or just anime fans, evey new player has to learn. Infact if anything LotR moves are a godsend for at least showing how cool generic fantasy races can be. Far more likly to be less of a struggle to get them into the mindset of western fantasy tropes now then ever.
Also if a party of goblins can be fun to play(pathfinder)… why NOT dragons for a day?
Remember: Fighter is a jerk. Getting kids into the hobby is ALWAYS a thing to encourage. That said, if they’re trying to horn in on a long-running adult game, you might have to find a different solution.
Ima dip behind the Patreon wall and copy + paste the write-up Laurel posted along with the comic preview:
If Jeremy’s associates are a Green and a red, does that mean the’re gonna have alignment conflicts with Dracolich Jeremy?
Considering they’re all supposed to be pre-teens/teenagers, I imagine they’d all ignore the alignment written on their character sheets and play either Stupid Evil or angsty lone-wolf antiheroes.