Thief + Wizard, Part 2/5
Appropriately enough, the last time we talked about character development it was Thief and Wizard sharing the spotlight. Today they’re still the focus of our attention, upstaging Fighter in a pretty literal sense. In effect, what we’ve got is an alternate take on the diva trope. Or rather, the opposite of a diva. An anti-diva if you will. Just look at that blissfully smirking paint can of a head. Fighter is nobody’s idea of a literary hero protagonist, but he’s perfectly happy with the arrangement. The problem is that, if you’re a GM like me, you might not be so happy.
You see, I subscribe to the philosophy of the ensemble cast. Everybody gets an arc. Everybody gets a moment. I’ll actually write in character-specific bullet points on all my session notes just to make sure that everybody gets a time to shine every single night we play. These might be short and silly (the bard gets his first fan letter), a simple moral quandary (the paladin catches a starving pickpocket), or a major story hook (the warlock’s patron is revealed as the BBEG). Whatever it happens to be that week, I want everyone to walk away from the table feeling like they did something cool. But here’s the rub. What if that person happens to be like Fighter? What if they don’t really want a moment to express themselves, grow as a character, and go for the Oscar?
This is tough for me to admit as a professed thespian type, but it’s OK if you don’t want to take center stage. There’s nothing wrong with playing the bit part, watching from the sidelines as other PCs strut their stuff on the 1″ x 1″ stage. If Fighter gets his jollies by kicking down doors and rolling to-hit against monsters, that’s not bad-wrong-fun. That’s just another way to game.
All that said, there are two important corollaries.
- Some folks might not want to game with a Fighter-type. If the sum total of your contribution to game night is, “Does an 18 hit?” then the Wizard-types of the multiverse might get impatient. They’re not jerks. You’re not a bad gamer. You’re just looking for different things from the hobby, and might want to consider seeking different groups.
- As a GM, you should continue to give that bit-part player opportunities anyway. They might not pick ’em up every time, but that’s no reason to let a character languish in the background. I know it’s not easy to watch your precious tackle box full of character hooks go to waste, but you’ve got to continue casting them out there anyway. Because if you aren’t going to go your separate ways and seek different groups, then you owe it to the player to keep trying. After all, you never know what’s going to hit.
So what do the rest of you guys think? Have you ever had an anti-diva show up at the table? How did you manage to keep them entertained? Should you try and keep them entertained, or is it better to let them recede from the limelight? Tell us your tales of shy players, anti-divas, and plot hooks rejected down in the comments!
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I once had a game that was basically one long string of weird stuff, bad puns and over the top hilarity. I like to think was amazing and we all had fun while it lasted.
The worst person to ever show up at a game I ran was a complete and utter munchkin, who rules-lawyered whenever he could. In a game we both played in, he nagged me about not optimising my build. A guy who went “did I hit him” would have been much more welcome than a guy who insists he must have done because etc.
I’ve already whined about the group with the Evil alignment, so I’ll leave it at that. =p
There are more problem players in heaven and Earth, Horockio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy
Well, I haven’t finished gaming yet, Colin Hamlet. 😉
Though I am taking a bit of a sabbatical.
I wonder what Cleric and Wizard are talking about.
I’m not surprised Thief is walking off with Fighter; they have a lot in common, being Chaotics of less than stellar morals.
Not walking off so much as walking faster. The script just says, “A trail in the hinterlands. Fighter talks to Thief at the head of the marching order.”
“Meanwhile, Wizard is having a ham in the background whilst Cleric tries to keep her moving” – ?
Had to check real quick that I hadn’t accidentally posted the full script, lol
I’ll be honest, I’m often a lot like Fighter in this regard. Mostly talky sessions can leave me feeling exhausted. While seeing my 2 foot tall halfling slicing a big ol’ cyclops into ribbons because she can’t stop critting is super fun. I can do both, but the second is just easier for me.
My characters never have a background when I start building them, unless I’m adapting an already existing character. I usually just think of a fighting style of some kind and go from there. For example, I wanted a dual wielding monk, thinking she could bash with both weapons before kicking her opponent. (I then learned that a Pathfinder Monk’s Flurry of Blows won’t stack with Two-Weapon Fighting so one weapon had to be dropped.) Wanting to get a couple of skills as class skills influenced what traits she took. That influenced her backstory as did wanting to use a race I hadn’t before. I ended up with Tamarie – a half-drow whose family was chased out of their home and found refuge in a temple of the Green Faith, being taught how to fight by the clerics there. She has no human family outside of her mother and most of her father’s family don’t like her, including her older siblings. She has recently learned how to cast some healing magic as well as some control over the winds to lift her into the air. (Took a level in cleric and gained a Martial Tradition thanks to a houserule, taking the Fly Package and Sparrow’s Path from Spheres of Might.)
I am both looking forward to and dreading the time her family comes into play. I want her to develop more and see what she’ll become. But it will mean having to do a lot of talking, which I’m better at in short bursts.
Child of the temple? https://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/faith-traits/child-of-the-temple/
It’s always a balancing act. I certainly get bored with the talky scenes that just grind on without advancing the plot. But in my experience, it only causes friction between player-types when one of them refuses to RP at all.
As a matter of fact, yes. It’s kinda useless now that she actually has those as class skills from her cleric level, but I don’t want to retrain it since it’s such an important part of her backstory.
Which is why I try to RP when it comes up, even though it’s so tiring.
I often go full-circle on things like this. I’ll decide I want a certain mechanical feature — say, an obscure regional feat — and start shaping the character’s background around that idea. Which will lead to more bits of mechanics, and more bits of story and personality…until it’s clear that there’s no way I will ever have room in the feat that started the whole mess, but by then I have fallen in love with the character!
Yeah, balancing flavor and mechanics can certainly create interesting characters.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I like thinking of rules and flavor as a sort of engine: a feedback loop that generates character. For example:
“OK. I want to play an occultist. He needs special objects to focus his powers. What if one of them was a weapon? Cool, I’ll go with transmutation and choose… What haven’t I used before? Bardiche looks cool. Maybe he can be a traveling executioner. Cool! So with all those dead people in his past, he probably has some ties to necromancy. Maybe this ‘necromantic servant’ power calls upon the spirits of the people he’s beheaded? Neat! OK then, what kind of object do you need for necromancy? This ‘ferryman’s slug’ sacred implement sounds interesting. How did my guy meet the boatman on the river of death then…?”
That’s the most fun for me, watching rules cascade into story and back into rules again.
Yeah. I haven’t come up with a backstory yet, but I have a character that fits in with that. It went like this:
Ok, I haven’t made a dwarf yet. A wis-based class is mechanically best, but would it be fun? Hm, what’s this archetype? Forgepriest? She could make her own weapons, that could be cool. Heh, imagine using her big ol’ warhammer to make a little necklace. That’s funny. I wonder if she could use her crafting tools to fight with. I should look it up. Hm, Shikigami Style? Can use improvised weapons as if one size bigger. That’s helpful. Surprise Weapon trait? +2 to attack role when using improvised weapons? Yes, please. Oh, better not neglect her actual weapon. Blessed Weapon? Can use warhammer as holy symbol AND carry a divine touch spell as part of an attack? My gal’s bringing the divine wrath her today!”
I tend to be somewhere between the extremes. My characters tend to have some background, but rarely more than a paragraph or two… flavour, but not a lot of plot hooks. It does mean I get a bit less spotlight time than others, but that’s fine with me… Fighter isn’t wrong, being the star of the story can be hard work.
Some of my buddies are natural leading men / women. Their dudes tend to carry major story arcs and quest lines, meaning that events tend to swirl around them. As a player who prefers quirky characters, that’s not something that I go after, preferring instead to carry a B Plot or a smaller character-based arc.
However, I will get annoyed if the entire campaign revolves around one PC because they happen to go with the GM’s flow. As I think about it, that’s where a lot of this is coming from. Just because someone isn’t at the center of the A Plot, I don’t think that’s a reason to ignore them or their less-central character hooks.
It does vary by genre for me, though. My D&D characters don’t usually have strong backgrounds and won’t be the focus of personalised sub-plots. On the other hand, my various supers characters usually do have a lot more hooks to work with… origins that might have ongoing impact, rivals and rogues that the GM can bring into play.
Indeed, one of my favourite supers campaigns included my character’s NPC ex girlfriend, a criminal mastermind who started the game in prison and finished up in the White House. She wasn’t actually the campaign villain, but she might as well have been for the way she took advantage of every opportunity that presented itself…
We had a player similar to fighter for a while. Out of character they were kind of funny to play with, but in character they were, well, fighter. And it eventually got obnoxious enough that we ended up having a serious talk about whether we still wanted them in the group. The final straw was when they announced that they were showing up to the wedding of two PCs, which was a serious emotional moment in and out of character, buck naked.
The situation got resolved on its own then the player themselves decided to leave the group after that session because of an unrelated argument that made them feel attacked, so that spared us some of the hardship of telling them that their behavior wasnt appropriate for the group and they needed to change or leave, but we were preparing to have that conversation with them next session if they hadnt started ghosting us.
All in all, it wasnt a fun time (except for the wedding, which totally was once the character got themselves kicked out). We dont mind murderhobos hanging out with drama queens, as long as the murderhobos respect that the drama queens get DM attention too.
That does sound pretty awful – apart from the wedding.
I’ve known a player like that; wasted part of a WoD-session on a lurid description of him desecrating a church. Nice guy in person.
What? Who said anything about a wedding? That has nothing to do with this arc, I tell you. NOTHING!
As for ruining formal occasions….
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/courtly-dress
Yeah, that sounds about right.
We had an anti-diva Elf Barbarian for a while before the player ghosted the campaign. A shame, since the backstory had a lot of potential- he was a wizard apprentice (hence cantrip) until his Rage tendencies began appearing, and the other High Elves cast him from society.
Frustrating indeed. A well-crafted hook is a powerful tool, but at the end of the day it’s only as good as its player.
I left some plot hooks for our epic level campaign at the end of the tomb of horrors, but for one reason or another the players were pretty done with it. “You think this artifact might allow you to access the plane your girlfriend was abducted to!” “I’ve moved on; we leave the dungeon and never look back.”
I’m frankly impressed that you had enough faith in your players to plan anything at the end of ToH.
Optimism born of inexperience, as it turned out.
From what I hear and read about the ToH, that response is perfectly logical.
If someone doesn’t like the spotlight, there’s really no need to push them into it. If they just want to show up to a session to kill things and have fun with their friends, all power to them.
More often than not, that’s how I play. It’s pretty calming. When I’m ready for a character moment or plot-hook, I’ll let the GM know and usually the other players are accepting of that. I wouldn’t call myself an Anti-Diva (since that implies a level of active work to keep from there being a diva), but rather just a “crew member”. I’m part of the team.
If a player is not willing to respect that, and are too pushy, then sure, I’d consider a different group. And if it’s clear that it’s a character moment and not just the player wanting there to be drama of some sort, it’s cool to play along.
Sometimes it’s fun to be Kellam, and sometimes it’s fun to watch Kellam stand out from the crowd.
I am an anti diva typically. And I can say from experience, I’m fine watching from the sideline and occasionally giving my fellow players a little narrative push if the situation calls for it. That’s not to say I don’t like RP’ing, but I’m not looking for an epic character journey.
I find tables tend to balance out their diva-levels. Non-divas will push themselves forward less, and tend to be less appreciative of having the spotlight pushed on them. Everyone finds their comfort-zone.
Some of my players didn’t even offer a backstory but still roleplayed their fair share.
The informal party-leader (Dwarf Tempest Cleric. Further proving my theory that Dwarves, holy characters, Charisma characters, and players with table-seniority naturally end up as the party leader. She wasn’t Charismatic, but she ticked the most boxes.) didn’t even have her backstory interacted with because it was a bare-bones “I grew up on a farm until I received a vision from Kord” and she never visited her family’s farm during the many months of downtime I gave them. (She had access to an airship so visiting wouldn’t even be that inconvenient. If an emergency came up she could get back to base via Word of Recall) She did get very involved with the goings-on at the temples of Kord though. (Working out while the other clerics zap you is a common initiation for a god of storms and fitness)
The Wizard roleplayed plenty, but his backstory was also bare-bones and not really much to be interacted with.
The Bard got their more developed backstory interacted with because nobles give me large-scale political plot-hooks, and developed backstories give me more potential plot-hooks. Sadly they had to drop out of the campaign early so they never got to pursue their lost love.
The first Rogue got their minimal backstory interacted with because I needed a criminal contact for the party.
The GOO-Warlock got a fair bit of backstory interaction because he had a developed backstory with characters for me to hook into, and his patron was being carried around by him which made a great plot-device.
The second Rogue roleplayed a moderate amount, and only interacted with their backstory (Was constantly bullied by his Kobold clan for being so abnormally short even by Kobold standards) in the final stretch of downtime when he challenged the clan’s leader to single-combat and overthrew the reign of the Swolbold.
The Fighter had literally no backstory he shared with me, and wasn’t that big into roleplaying outside of the occasional shopping trip. He enjoyed himself fine.
The Paladin was an interesting case. He was a Warforged with the most minimal backstory possible. “I activated long after the people who made me died, and I am searching for self/purpose.” This was blank enough that I could build some lore onto it aboot the origins of Warforged in my world which tied into the fallen empire the party was hunting for relics from to keep them from being used for evil. The Warforged eventually learned that they were made with the souls of sacrificed people, and did some literal soul-searching to get in touch with the people they were.
Oh hey, I’m a wizard/oracle of predictions, yet again! Or maybe I’m really good at guessing that google doc password.
Next predictions:
We get Wizard/Cleric’s point of view, as well as their discussion (bonus points if we see Thief/Fighter in the background)
Thief & Wizard try to strike it out ‘on their own’, or effectively cause the party to split into two halves. Thief’s bad luck gets worse without healers or magical support (and Fighter being a jerk). Wizard and Cleric find themselves without martial beefcakes and are bullied by the ‘jock’ monsters.
Surrogates of each other are made as they both dip into denial or insanity. A replacement caster is hired, who is forced to dress up in an identical fashion as Wizard. Wizard goes crazy and makes simulacrums, animated objects or illusions/hand puppets of Thief and remains in denial.
Of course, a pair of spellcasters cagey enough to improve their mook-summoning spells, or willing and able to dip into construct-crafting, need never want for beef to throw into the meatgrinder…
Our group is a mix of both mentalities of players, and it shows due to it being a text-only game and using APs exclusively. APs are such that any backstories that aren’t related to campaign trait tend to be either impossible to fit in, are way off from the APs actual plot (which you can’t tell without spoilers), or the DM has to uncomfortably and awkwardly shunt them into the story where they still won’t be the main focus. As such, most of our interactions are on-the-spot rather than based on pasts or origins.
One player tends to stick to mechanical aspects of the game and is very sparse/limited on RP – she had a few sessions where she didn’t utter anything in-character, but I feel like she’s slowly turning to being more active in RP.
One player is very active in RP and mechanics, but is also very argumentative and stubborn. They also tend to go with their own flow and nab the spotlight – often developing stories that come outta nowhere.
Our third player is a balance of the two, both talking/interacting and mechanically active.
My engagement varies with the situation or character – very talkative on a smart or talkative character, very quiet on a non-talkative one, or restrained intentionally. I love doing combat, but also make sure to make some basic or elaborate stories for the characters in case they can flex their backstory.
My ratfolk wizard used to be exposition-heavy, as he was the genius of the party, would identify monsters, and predict the plot of the AP (something I do regularly on my own, without spoilers).
My kobold gunslinger is quiet and goal-focused (read: combat and survival, plus looting and leading) and are flat out unable to do knowledge checks (unlearned drawback).
It’s an odd situation when you want to talk about something but your character wouldn’t – the meta situation where you know a monster’s traits already, but can’t talk about them until someone else identifies it for you. And the fact the Kobold comes from the Mana Wastes but is in Osirion is pretty much putting them in Fighter’s situation – they have a backstory, but it’s there as a placeholder, with no expectations for the DM to actually use it (they got enough troubles running the game normally!).
I am one. On a personal level the spotlight is bad. I don’t like to be the center of attention. That is how you get… i don’t like it. Add to that i am the one that makes the plot of the campaign. If i wanted i could make my character the center of everything. Then there is a difference between not liking the spotlight and just being a DPS bot for the party. I work with our DM to make the plot. I ask the other player what concept they have to make plot things for them. “Everybody gets an arc. Everybody gets a moment.” that is something i do too. Never for me. NEVER EVER. I prefer to be that guy that is part of the group but doesn’t get any especial episode 🙂
In a certain way it’s like a dragon-blooded party is joined by a guy that just goes with them and fight with them, but isn’t personally involved in their quest for revenge and cleaning their names before the realm 🙂
Only for the other player to discover in another game that my character was a Sidereal using a resplendent destiny to infiltrate the party and make sure they were successful 🙂
My characters are not the heroes of that story but of others 😉
In one of the campaigns I am currently running, we have: a PC searching for his missing mentor and whose homeland the party has had to visit on their quest; a PC who was raised in a cult run by the villains and who will have to fight former friends; a PC who works for an important faction and has become deeply interested in unraveling certain backstory mysteries of the setting; a PC whose social circle is another important faction; and a PC whose sole desire and motivation is to destroy demons. There are no demons in this campaign, a fact that the player was well aware of – the PC is delusional enough that he can rationalize almost any foe as being demonic, demon-worshiping or in-the-way-of-him-and-demons.
While the PCs with significant connections to the plot are usually enough to cover my storytelling needs, I’ve seeded in a little arc for the demon-hating PC (a sympathetic tiefling character driven by fears of being ostracized due to her heritage), just to see how the character handles a challenge to his black-and-white worldview. The PC has also befriended a member of a secretly Lawful Evil antagonist faction over their shared support for anti-demon crusades, so that’ll be interesting. All in all, I’m trying to share the spotlight among the crew, so everyone gets to do something.
A full-blown anti-diva wouldn’t last a session in my primary group, which tends to be extremely narrative-driven and relatively rarely use combat. My secondary group were all a lot closer to this when I met them, with some added dumb jokes, but I’ve been working with some success to open their eyes to the joys of actual roleplaying (they knew what they were getting into when they signed up with me…)
Is it just me or are Tiefling’s horns getting bigger over the course of the comics? Especially now, cause those are some long handles right there.
Well then. If you’ll excuse me, I need to write a comic starring Thief, Barbarian’s salon, and an angle grinder.
Annnd now I got a flashback to the “Hellboy”live action movie. ^_^;
I once ran a D20 Modern-based superhero campaign. Everyone seemed pretty enthused–except one guy. It took me a few sessions to figure out that the player really liked it when his character was referred to by his alter-ego “Epicenter,” but that the PC had an “ordinary-guy” schtick and hated to wear a costume and grumbled and fussed whenever he was addressed by his codename in-character. Yikes. In-play voice: Don’t call him that. OoP Narration: PLEASE call him that. It didn’t help that the player didn’t use any special voice or tells to indicate in-character dialogue from out-.
lol. Switching between frames is hard work sometimes.
https://www2.rpgresearch.com/documents/primary/fb-rp-theory/fb-group-files/6-jennifer-grouling-cover-frames-of-narrativity-in.pdf/at_download/file
I’m definitely not the “wizard” type, but I tend to want a bit more out of play than “my to-hit is bigger than your to-hit”. I also very much do not want center stage, but deeply appreciate it when my character get small supporting parts. For me, a big part of playing the game is just getting to learn about whatever the hell is going on in the story and helping other players get their character moments. Oh, and occasionally dealing enough damage to make everyone else do a spit take.
In retrospect, I think I may be conflating two different types of players when I say “Fighter-types.” There are the true hack ‘n slashers that don’t want any of that RP crap. And they there are the players that prefer “small supporting parts.” I’m beginning to suspect that they’re different beasts rather than parts of a continuum.