[D&D 4E] Basic Understanding Of Roleplaying This Character
Callan S.:
Hi again, John,
Something else to keep in mind is that you yourself and the rest of the group seem to have a strong focus on 'the group stays together'. Not that that doesn't make sense in RL practical terms - I think it's a pain in the arse in D&D for the party to be split up and it's hardly supported by system. But your really strong focus on this means when one character decides to decline the optional skill challenge, because the rest of the group goes in and because 'the party stays together', he's in there and having to do this ghost roll. Or because 'the party stays together', when he thinks lesser mages need to be stopped from raising a dead dragon, you don't leave him behind, you kind of argue him into coming with you since 'the party must stay together'. Indeed you even think he's acting as if he's right about what the whole party should be doing. That you think as a player he's talking about what the whole party must do kind of shows how much you focus on the party always staying together.
That's something to consider - whether your focusing on, and thus enforcing 'the group stays together' regardless of what choice you gave the player (like the choice to stay out of the crypt).
Just quickly I'd like to add a note to Ron's advice that I think applies (maybe it doesn't)
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When the group experiences dissonance of this kind, I think it's pretty much given that someone must say, "Look, I'm not talking about your character, I'm talking to you and about what you do."
Even this I think isn't aimed right at the real world problem. Taking the example of "I say nothing." "OK, what do you do?" "Nothing.". I'll stretch it out to it's apparent full implications:
"OK, what do you do? And by leaving 'do' open, I'm including the option of doing nothing"
"I do nothing"
"Gah! Why are you doing that? Look, I'm not talking about your character, I'm talking to you and about what you do!"
I think the real problem is accidentally giving the player choices you didn't intend to give them. Talking to them about what they as a player do, misses that. The problem is not that the player actually took a choice given to him (which was do nothing). It's what you've done/given permission for that is the problem.
It's a bit like the idea of casting a spell - got to get the words just right! Otherwise it's all magicians apprentice with brooms all over the place, or deadites if your Ash and try and cough through the last word that you forgot... :) [/lame humour]
masqueradeball:
This post really brings up a lot of memories and feelings about similar experiences with D&D.
Let me make a few points and you can tell me if they apply or might apply to the situation your talking about:
1) It seems that there's a chance here that this "problem" player is doing his best. His definition of "good role playing" has a lot to do with the notion of sticking to his guns about how he interprets his character and he doesn't really grokk approaching play differently. It may just take some good discussion and experimentation with other ways of thinking about player authority and what "good role playing" is for this group of players playing this game. I have a number of intelligent, creative friends, who got an idea of what "good gaming" was from early experiences and haven't thought about it since, and this lead to seriously shitty play between me and them. So maybe there's a fundamental disconnect where this guy just can't hear whats being said to him because of how he conceptualizes the whole thing.
2) There also seems to be a problem with the question of authority over in game content. D&D has quantified mechanics that detail a character's intelligence, wisdom and level of knowledge. Was this system ever used to address whether or not the character would mechanically have an understanding that dragons could be raised from the dead, or who would be capable of doing it. Is the problem that the player's interpretation of the shared fictional world is different than the rest of the groups, and that there's no "series bible" that can address this.
I'd also like to know more about how you run your games. Ron and others are taking the stance that you use too much Force, but I wonder if perhaps its the opposite. How involved were you in the conversation/arguments/discussions between the players over issues like the dragon skeleton? Could it have been resolved by someone in the group (presumably you, the DM) had stated firmly how common the knowledge of necromancy was in the fantasy setting (as these things are left very ambiguous, despite the above mentioned rules) by the game text.
Finally, the way skill challenges are addressed in the text of the DMG (and presumably Keep on the Shadowfell) are, according the designers, poorly written. If your going to continue playing D&D 4, I'd suggest reading some of the designers blogs or checking out some of the early pod-casts about how the skill challenge system was intended to operate. For instance, if the character wasn't being Intimidating, he should have been allowed to suggest a different skill (Diplomacy, for instance) to achieve his goals. The samples in the DMG do a terrible job of explaining how fluid the system was/is intended to be.
Hope this is on topic and helps further the conversation,
JoyWriter:
Force is useful when players cannot handle all the creative stuff they might be required to do; when it doesn't come easily to them, or they don't think they can or don't want to do it. In my experience everyone who has had this attitude has actually found that when they came to do it, it was awesome, and so gained a greater appreciation of their own ability, but my sample size is small!
Secondly, I think the problem is actually confusing levels of interaction: Say the players want this player around, but they find his character annoying. If a player really wants to split character from player, then he must be willing for that character to be left behind or forced to comply in ways that wouldn't work at the player level. Basically if the player wants to play an ignorant character who is highly sure of his opinions, then the players characters may leave him behind. We have party cohesion vs player cohesion and it seems like
So what happens if he does get left behind? Does the DM follow his path? Or does he say "This is the path of the adventure, your character has stepped out of it, so he's out of my hands." The limits on the Shared Imaginary Space are quite important to work out; I once walked my PC out of a building and my stressed GM said "You find nothing!" which I thought slightly awesome!
Is this a betrayal of his character? Not really, as you agreed to sit down and play that adventure, and he wanted a character who was not fully limited by it's parameters. No problem, it just means that sometimes stuff he does is outside the adventure. You could even have him on his crazy quest as a separate campaign later on, with new PCs from other players more suited to this.
So what does the player do in the meantime? Well the characters may need another party member, so he could be one of the people they interview etc. Then the player will see that collaboration requires flexibility or pre-arranged harmony, and if his character has neither then he will simply end up leaving the collaborative space. This has happened a number of times with us, but occasionally has lead to an ad-hoc piece of troupe play as someone else has taken up GMing for the new set of stuff, although because it was ad-hoc with substantial compatibility issues that stopped us re-integrating them.
Also on skill challenges, I love them, although I might be biased because they match up to my own system for doing challenges I semi-lifted from Shadowrun. Here's what it seems like your missing: The given skill uses only show the standard way to complete the challenge, if I am not mistaken you should pick skills to roll not by what the spirit wants, but by what fits what they player wants to do, then set the DC by what the spirit wants. So if it is less likely push the DC up. And do not assume only one player must be the one to intimidate; what stops another character stepping up to the plate and intimidating? There's usually a chance, even without the +8 or so for being specialised at it.
Secondly the DMG suggests that whenever you run an encounter, you hide clues as to how easiest to complete it, such as pointing out the cracked structure of a golem or the pungent smell coming off a river. This in character information leads to players being able to take more meaningful choices.
Finally just because someone's character is good at something doesn't mean they always want to do it. They might end up in a situation where the easiest mechanical way to get what they want is to steal some widows savings, because her low influence means inconveniencing her will not effect their chances too much. Obviously not all characters are going to go for that, even ones with identical thieving skills. This is why I like additions like Rustbelts psycho-dynamic system, where you can just stick on the character sheet "by the way, my character will never rob from innocent destitute people". I think adding fears to such a system could be useful cues as well, so people know "this guy can't stand undead". Do you think that may be why the character also wanted to stop the raising of the dragon? One character with high insight sitting down with him might find out that he has a past history problem with undead, and is acting in an obsessive way to compensate. Now how's that for a thematic bomb to drop on that player? It's not longer "just his character", but his motivations can be explored!
mcv:
Quote from: Big J Money on December 02, 2008, 07:17:47 PM
However, I'd still like to ask the question, "Is railroading really always bad; can it not be considered a legitimate technique" because the way the encounters are designed in the published adventure still follow a basic railroad format.
Railroading can be very fine, as long as everybody is willing to go along for the ride. But tell them in advance: I'm going to railroad you. Sit tight, and it's going to be a fun ride.
Some people prefer to do their own exploring, and expect to be able to do that in a RPG. If you don't want them to do that, notify them in advance, otherwise you'll get big misunderstandings.
IMO there are a couple of situations where railroading can work great. for example to get a campaign started in a particular direction. The players may not know what to do when you set the loose in a new campaign, so guide them. And once they figure out where they are, they may want to jump off the railroad. Or maybe they'll derail it completely. Let them; somethings you can find wonderful things among the wreckage. (I think I need to stop pushing the train metaphor any further.) Or they really all enjoy the ride and are willing to sit back and go wherever you take them. Just don't expect too much player initiative in that case. Because if they do take initiative, they will derail your train.
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Okay, here's my mental pitch for railroad play: the players get to play the heroic protagonists in a story with the crucial parts predetermined. They will face challenges and battles that allow them to make creative and tactical decisions regarding use of their heroic abilities.
Which means they get to play the heroes you want them to be. It may be fine for some, but not for everybody.
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So I have to ask, are you sure? "Guess what I'm thinking" is a game. I fondly remember playing "Eye Spy" as a kid.
They can be great games if you know that's what you're playing, and if that's what you want to play.
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Is the use of railroading to establish hard plot and situation boundaries a roleplaying game breaker? I'm posing this question now in all seriousness because I will be at a crossroads soon where the published adventure ends and I must make a decision to radically change our play-style or stick with it. The players so far have seemed to enjoy themselves. I will definitely be bringing up the issue of the published adventure and railroading in general to their attention for feedback. Although I hesitate to use the word "railroad" because that could elicit negative responses even if there is disparity between us over the meaning.
Then call it something else. But realise that you are forcing your players in a particular direction, and you're denying them choices. If they were looking forward to those choice, or if they like freedom, then they may be disappointed.
As for your problem player, I think I understand him. I'm just like that. My best characters have a personality all of their own, distinct from mine. And in play, I try to do justice to that personality. Now I'm devious enough to tweak that personality in such a way that I can do justice to it without disrupting play too much (unfortunately another player in my group sometimes revels in disrupting play), but I'd hate to see my character's ability to make his own choices limited by the GM.
On the other hand, if the party wants to go one way and the character wants to go another way, the character has a choice to make: does he want to leave the group or does he want to stay with them? My characters usually have some reason to stay with the group.
Frank Tarcikowski:
I hear that in published D&D adventures or adventure series it is quite common to alternate between, broadly speaking, dungeoncrawl and railroaded plot. I.e. railroading is used to establish the objective for the dungeon and bring the characters to the dungeon entrance, and then they are “turned lose” on the dungeon until they either achieve the objective or give up. I understand many players accept this as a valid way of bringing context and meaning to a dungeoncrawl. The railroading parts are comparable to introductory sequences in video games.
It’s probably a good idea to be honest about what you are doing and go through the railroaded sequences rather quickly and without much ado or dice-rolling.
- Frank
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