My Conflict With My GM & One Other Player (And What Should I Do?)
SentientAfro:
I'm currently engaged (so to speak) in a Pathfinder campaign written by one of my friends (the GM).
Now, his setting was extremely cool. I was fully interested in the setting.
But I have a problem: he already wrote the PCs' goals, the storyline, and the setting makes it so that the PCs cannot do what they want (if PCs stray from the set storyline, they risk death, divine punishment, or worse, hoards of high-level enemies). And due to the nature of the story, all of the characters are pretty much required to have some good in them.
I tried explaining to him why I do not find this particularly enjoyable and would like him to change something up a bit. He insisted that he does not limit the PC's choices, but I told him that the way he presented the information led the players to believe that we HAVE to do this thing. He refused to listen to me. Some of the time, he chooses actions for the player. His "story" is also filled to the brim with combat encounters, in which my character (and others) are completely useless.
And then we have another player. This player is a RPG "Veteran", who has played many many games over the years. He's stuck in a very "we have to WIN" mindset. Why is this a problem? My character does a lot of things that hinder the story. And anytime I(my character) does a action that I think would make for some interesting drama, he talks down to me and calls me an idiot for "ruining it".
The other players don't roleplay at all because the think roleplaying is limited to dialogue. And the kind of character they REALLY want to play would "ruin it". So I'm singled out as the "problem player" because I'm actually playing my character.
Another problem: my GM has a "Roleplaying MVP" award that the players vote for at the end of the session. Now, I'm not arrogant or anything, but the last few sessions, I was the ONLY one who deserved that. I played my character PERFECTLY. But because I "ruined it", I never win it.
So, I come to you, Forge, to ask you:
What should/can I do to at least try to get across to them that I'm not enjoying it at all?
And I know what you're saying, "Why don't you just quit?" Well, I have before. And I tried playing with another group. They were worse. And I really want to play an RPG. And none of my other friends know how to GM, so if I want to play The Burning Wheel with them, I'm stuck GMing when I want to play.
Larry L.:
Hi,
Welcome to the Forge.
Are you playing Pathfinder or Burning Wheel? I'm missing something.
SentientAfro:
Oh, it's Pathfinder. I just tried to get a Burning Wheel game going and it failed. Sorry for the confusion :)
czipeter:
Hi and welcome, SentientAfro!
Most Forge advice looks as you described. Leave their game. Try gaming with them with a rulebook which encourages your wanted play style more. Or ideally join a group already playing a game based on such rules. Habits are so strong--they can be your worst enemies and best allies. I am convinced these can work as I have read accounts giving credit to them and I myself experienced these to a degree.
But I think, fighting a rulebook and group habits is not much harder then the above mentioned methods. I will talk about this one from now on. In short, keeping "ruining it" is one of the best things you can do, so I think you're on the right path. If you want to experience meaningful choices, thus dramatic action, then winning some gamable thingie is a secondary, temporary objective at most. Your action by which you want to create moments of drama can be also seen as "ruining it", as "striving for it" and everything in between by people who have the goal of achieving a fixed goal within relatively fixed rules / conditions. Though it's uncomfortable to be called an idiot but if your goal is not on that level (i. e. the goal of fulfilling the need of peer appreciation by being called a master tactician), I think, you can cope with it. You must accept that those who want to think in an us vs. the GM mindset and doesn't understand and accept your goals, won't applaud you for throwing curveballs at their characters and at yours. They will do it when your move puts the "enemy" in a bad position, but their motives will still differ from yours. My opinion is that you don't have to be convinced by their reactions if you understand and accept their motivation but do not defer to it yourself. Or at least this is the thought guiding my intents in my groups at the moment.
I wish, I was not far off with my assumptions and this helps a bit.
By the way, what's your real name? Could you include it in your signature, please?
JoyWriter:
First off, perhaps you don't want to play with an existing group, but you do want to play with certain people in those groups.
What do I mean? Well I don't know your local situation, but in my experience often there can be set group dynamics that get in the way of a certain kind of fun, but that various players in different groups, if they banded together, would actually quite like this kind of play.
This can have social issues, if you set up "competitor" groups, "poach" players etc. One way round this social problem is to play a game that is really left field, that obviously doesn't replace the existing games, but complements them by doing what they do not.
For example, if there is heavy GM ownership of games, play something with a very light GMing structure, if there is high competitiveness, play something which nulifies "playing to win" entirely. This way, hopefully, people can consider the integrity of their group to be still "intact" while players do various different things.
But all of this depends on what you actually want!
You've said that you don't tend to get rewards for "roleplaying", how important is that element of performance to you? And also, do you want to be rewarded by other players for playing your character perfectly correctly? How are they supposed to know what correctness is as far as your character is concerned?
It would help to hear a description of what you think good play looks like, on the players side, and also the responces you would expect from other players. And after that, what happens that gets in the way of that.
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