Third Wheel
Poor Gunslinger. His quest to find a party continues to flounder. Maybe he should quest for some self-respect instead?
I think we can all sympathize with the struggle though. If you happen to live in a small town or if you’ve recently moved to a new city, it’s always something of a challenge to find that next group. But if you do get invited to sit down at a new table, it’s important to be critical. Are these people that you want to spend time with? Would you want to hang out with them in a context outside of gaming? And even if they do happen to be decent people (Druid and Arcane Archer seem like a lovely couple), do you fit in with their dynamic? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with saying, “Thanks for the invite guys, but I don’t think our playstyles match up.”
I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but the advice bears repeating: No gaming is better than bad gaming. That include uncomfortable interpersonal dynamics.
For my money, I think it’s all about going in with the proper mindset. It may be weird to look at it this way, but the first session is a lot like a first date. You aren’t committing to a long term relationship; you’re trying to get a sense for the person across the table. Is there a decent sense of humor there? Do they seem interested in you? Would you actually want to invite them back to your place? The criteria for “good relationship” will vary from gamer to gamer, but you owe it to yourself to make sure you’re getting involved with compatible folks. If you’re so desperate to sit in on any old campaign that you put up with bad vibes, then you’re in line for frustration and, at worst, an rpg horror story.
So how about it, guys? Have you found yourself sticking with the wrong group for longer than you should? Did you manage to get out without too much fuss, or was it a nasty breakup? Share your best tales of tabletop incompatibility down in the comments!
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I have no idea why, but it really stood or to me today how expressive the faces are!
Arcane Archer: “I hate you and everything you stand for”
Druid: a mix between “Are you ok?” and “Alright, that’s just creepy”
Gunslinger: “This is perfectly normal, everything is fine, please oh god don’t push me, we’re really high”
Arcane Archer has very expressive ears.
I’m guessing Gunslinger bribed Allie with treats to give him a boost.
I like to imagine that, in the grand tradition of cartoon gunslingers, he’s held up by his own obliviousness:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ooXkck5g6p8/VprVmB8de6I/AAAAAAAAIRs/V-_tBuF2Pzs/s1600/High-Diving_Hare_1950_32_fall2.jpg
Cheer up gunslinger! You’ll find that perfect group eventually. It’s not like there’s a curse and/or malevolent entity that ensures your failure in finding proper companionship. Even if it is amusing.
Yeah. Malevolent curse entity. What a silly notion. >_>
Ha-
hahaha…
ha.
Well we still need to see him try and party up with team evil because his loneliness outweighs his morality.
The funny/sad thing here is the evil team might be all for it! And it would be all fun and games, until gunslinger finds himself in the role of Anakin vs younglings. Or recreating a famous scene from Old Yeller. Hopefully they’re still doing the puppy test!
AP would never let any harm befall Patches the unkicked.
Gunslinger has had a run-in with the leader of The Evil Party once before:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/which-witch
Of course, that meeting predated the formation of The Evil Party now that I think about it. Hmmm… Maybe he’d be dumb enough to try again?
For some reason this comment made me suddenly wonder what each character would think of their creators and how they made them or what they’d say to them. No not the gods. I don’t think those have even been established yet have they? I mean Colin and Laurel.
Wizard: Wait, you had me become a girl forever on PURPOSE?
Necromancer: So Paladin was mean because of you?
Fighter: It’s not my fault that people don’t like me!
@Wizard: Don’t blame me. Blame the Patreon peeps. They voted for it.
@Necromancer: It’s not my fault. It’s what his character would do!
@Fighter: Yes it is. Jerk.
Necromancer: And WHO decided that, hm?
Gunslinger: Do… do you think you could draw me a friend, please? Pretty please?
@Necromancer: The paladin’s code was set down by the elder god Gygax. Take it up with him.
@Gunslinger: No can do. That’s the illustrator’s job. I just write this stuff.
Gunslinger: T-T
Cleric: You are aware Thief is using my allotted time for questions to try and pickpocket you yes?
Me IRL: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K99uoig23_U/hqdefault.jpg
I’m confused as to why they picked the top of a not-exactly-comfy tree as the site of their picnic/date (as opposed to a nice druidic grove). Has gunslinger done this before to them?
The dining room is a bit cramped, but the view is spectacular.
one group took a long time to die from too many players (too few felt obliged to actually show up regularly) a few others fell apart rather quickly.
Altogether maybe 3 to 4 where I wasn’t really sad about the end. Not bad enough to leave altogether, but leaving a few names on a blacklist, including the DMs of those groups.
You’ve met Chavalier last week. There is also Ninja for saying „ill prepared“ to the DM once too often. Also I think I‘ll never want to play with an MBA again „just give us the GP values for the loot (don’t bother with the description), thanks“
Well then. I got a bit of second-hand rage from that. What a dick!
Yeah, but I got back at him:
Loot1: some crates with assorted Protection from Energy with BBEG‘s initial on them(CL16), with labels, so no need to identify them.
MBA: „½ of 750GP of 4(his share) LvL3 potions, so I sell them for 1500GM, ok?“
me: „the vendor (who had cast identify) thanks you overwhelmingly very much indeed.“
Too bad the rest of the party never got to actually drink the potions with 160 minutes duration instead the expected 30 minutes.
Loot2: Silver mirror worth 1000GP – sold at first opportunity.
next levelup:
MBA: „I can cast Scrying now.“
me: „Spell description says: Material Focus: Silver mirror worth 1000GP, got another one of those?“
MBA: „what?“
me: „like the one I put in the loot weeks ago, because you mentioned you wanted to take scrying…
You want one made to order? Because that was a month ago, in game, and that thing is hard to come by in this area, sold like a hot cake.“
As far as dickishness goes the „ill prepared“ at the DM was the worst, in the sandbox setting of Serpent Skull.
If I am DM a player would only say that twice: a first time and after a warning a last time.
My current table echoes a cheerful „please insert disc number 5“ whenever DM or a player are loading, because we appreciate how much stuff there is to not all remember.
Nasty group breakup. It went on for far too long, with every campaign that managed to go on for more than a couple sessions ending up cut short when most of the party would eventually vote on something that one particular player disagreed with. He’d then hold himself hostage to get what he wanted, it’d sour the game, nobody would want to play any more, and next week we’d be playing something new.
Eventually one guy got sick of that player doing shit and got into a shouting match. Insults were thrown, and the first player was told to kill themselves.
That, as you might imagine, soured the whole group, not just the one game. Unfortunately (or perhaps, in an odd way, fortunately, since it wasn’t a very fun group) I was roommates with the one who’d told someone else to commit suicide. I kinda wound up excluded from the group by association.
Turns out that “No D&D is better than bad D&D” is rather true, though. I hadn’t noticed until we lost contact just how very stressed that group was making me.
As it happens, “No X is better than bad X” holds true for most hobbies. Cooking is the notable exception. Eating isn’t optional, even if your one recipe involves adding goldfish crackers directly to the can of tuna.
…
It’s a good thing Laurel knows how to cook. S’all I’m saying.
I read that as “adding actual goldfish to a can of tuna” the first couple times. >.<
Sounds like something I would do.
I’d basically kept playing with a group of friends for way too long, on account that we’re friends and I didn’t think I could find a better group. Definitely a big mistake. For some reason I felt like it was commendable of me, staying in a group I didn’t really like and “trying to make it work”. I’d put up with lots of things I didn’t enjoy, just because I didn’t want to ruin it for everyone else. And even while I was doing that, there was still drama all around.
I ended up joining another group towards the end – thanks to them, I got the confidence to make the big decision and leave the toxic group. It was a good decision – I heard they got reformed eventually and had new players join, so presumably they’re doing well too. There’s no point sticking with groups you don’t fit in – if all players get to be in the games they like, it’s better for everyone.
The wisdom of experience right there. Good on ya for finding the resolve to move on.
Oof, guilty. I had a nasty group breakup, back in high school. There was only one willing DM, and he was all too welcoming of all types to his table. That includes the munchkin who was looking for fun and creative ways to wreck the DM’s storytelling plans and break the fellowship beyond repair. He also seemed to have a particular spite for players getting too invested in their characters. As the youngest player at the table, I was definitely guilty of that.
But as much as that one guy made my blood boil, in retrospect I’m glad I walked away from that table entirely, because it says a lot about the DM that he invited both of us back time and time again. I think he was too laissez-faire about the whole matter, even when arguments broke out and feelings started getting hurt. And the more I think about that, the more I feel the DM was too laissez-faire about the game in general — which is funny, since the other player complained about him railroading things too much.
High school games, man. It’s a wonder any of us continued playing after those.
It wasn’t all bad. Scheduling sessions was a lot easier, since everyone had their Saturdays free and we could play all day. We could get a lot done and never feel pressured on time.
But maybe that’s not much of a silver lining, if there’s someone there you’d rather not spend a whole day with. People, in general, are easier to get along with in smaller doses.
“Maybe he should quest for some self-respect instead?” A quest? He needs a whole campaign!!!
Why Gunslinger doesn’t do like most adventurers and just go to a tavern, bar, pub or inn? Either he gets a group or he dies of cirrhosis while waiting 🙂
It doesn’t work for him. Stereotypes hurt everyone, but especially lone wolves:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/loner
Fun story about that comic. I’d meant for Gunslinger to be a Clint Eastwood lookalike, but Laurel had already drawn an adorable halfling when she was doing concept art. Neither one of us compared notes until the comic was done. In consequence, the Heroes wound up sitting around admiring the grizzled countenance of a Lollipop Guild representative.
So, is because of Laurel drawing a little cute halfling that Gunslinger looks like he does? I like him more this way, his cuteness only make his suffering the more sweet 🙂
If taverns, inns and similar don’t work why not prisons? With autumn cold growing each day the nine hells surely are cozy this time of the year 🙂
As Mark Twain once said, “You go to Heaven for the climate and Hell for the company.”
While never whole groups, I’ve seen various people cycle through and out of our group. Our worst match-up was just as bad out of character as he was in, and it was a combination of behaviors that got him asked to not return. We had a GM who killed a player’s favorite character in a blatantly hostile game during an encounter that obviously wasn’t reasonable for our group, wasn’t properly prefaced, and wasn’t a “Boss” encounter and then laughed in his face and crowed “I killed your favorite character on your birthday.” He was not asked to return, as I understand it. I personally made my displeasure known with a player for numerous instances of falling asleep during my game.
And Druid should know that Halfling used his racial ability to get along with Eagles from that one setting to get up there.
OK. That’s kind of funny out of context. It’s such an over-the-top dick move that I kind of imagine it as dialogue from a sketch about D&D.
It was a Coup de Grace from a goblin who was threatened at the time. Completely bonkers for it to stop and finish off the half orc who had been dropped due to a fire breath potion. (That was also pulled, drank and breathed on the same round. ) So, yeah. It was an over the top move that belongs in parody rather than at an actual table.
Well then. I guess you knew where you stood with that GM. :/
Alternatively, it may take some time to get to know the people in your group, find a groove. It may even require you to make some adjustments. And during that learning period it might be very awkward for you and others. But these “feelings” you’re feeling might just be normal feelings and not reasons to quit.
If the “normal feeling” in question is “I’m not enjoying this,” I think that may be THE reason to quit.
Did Gunslinger at least get XP for killing the moment?
Negative XP is still XP!