Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Derenger999 01-21-08, 12:19 PM	Alright, so before I begin I want to give a little history on my group. All are 24+ years of age, one being 42, one being female. We are currently playing an Eberron game, half-celestial, currently level 6-7. Anyway so I've asked for a few things as a DM, here is what I asked for and what I recieved. 1. 3 Side quests, atleast one paragraph long with backround. I've given all the players access to any books they might need(I am missing very few 3.5 books) and also told them they can come up with stuff on their own. What I got was this, word for word. A. To find a magical sword. B. Visit Xendrik C. Kill the Lord of Blades Just to name a few. No backround on why the character would want to do this, or anything resembling a plan to do so. 2. I've asked for the characters to map out their progression, feats and spells, so as to speed up leveling up so if we level up mid-session, it doesn't take two hours. 3 out of 5 players did this, it took an hour an a half to level up from 6 to 7, during a 6 hour session. 3. I've asked them to put their characters on character sheets, because I don't like people just sitting behind their laptops all session. Maybe it's just me but it seems to be distracting and kind of kills the nostalgia of D&D. Now their are numerous other problems but to me I don't seem to be asking for much, but it seems like they are just being lazy and don't want to put any work into their character outside the game. I feel like I literally have to hand the plot to them because they wouldn't go seek it out on their own. Now, to be fair, I've been accused of railroading a little(not much), but I don't think asking for them for a little help and to flesh out their characters is railroading. Any help or advice would be most appreciated.
Arcane-surge 01-21-08, 12:25 PM	Sometimes it happens. I have a player like that. Once I asked him to tell me about his character, for a Werewolf game, and he said, "Middle class." That was it. I don't think you're necessarily asking a lot, I've got a moratorium on laptops myself ever since I found one of my players playing Bejeweled in the middle of a scene description. However, for them, it might be too much. Take each player on a case by case basis, rather than giving directives to them as a whole.
iserith 01-21-08, 12:53 PM	These sound like players that game to be entertained for a couple hours, then when gaming is done, they go do something else. Sometimes you get people like this. If they don't want to give you much material to go on, that's just carte blanche for you to do whatever you want. Win-win. If they don't want to plan out their characters in advance, tell them they can't have more than 15 minutes to do it at the session. Seriously, what changes? Hit points, skill points, maybe a feat, maybe an attribute, and maybe a class ability. That's it. I can level a character in 2 minutes, let alone 1.5 hours! It's not rocket science. If they don't want to give up their laptops, that's just pure rudeness. Do you have a printer at your house where they can port up and print out their character sheet? That's what people do at my sessions.
docballen 01-21-08, 01:09 PM	Anyway so I've asked for a few things as a DM, here is what I asked for and what I recieved. 1. 3 Side quests, atleast one paragraph long with backround. I've given all the players access to any books they might need(I am missing very few 3.5 books) and also told them they can come up with stuff on their own. What I got was this, word for word. A. To find a magical sword. B. Visit Xendrik C. Kill the Lord of Blades Just to name a few. No backround on why the character would want to do this, or anything resembling a plan to do so. Not everyone feels "comfortable" with writing. Asking your characters to write out a report before gaming might not be the best thing to do. I feel you are lucky to get the information you did. Some people choose to give up writing because their grammar or spelling skills stink to high heaven. (I wish they knew how to use "grammar check" and "spell check" here on the board sometimes.) Just because you have the ability to write and make yourself understood doesn't mean that everyone in your group does. You should probably let this battle go. Just tell them they might enjoy the game more if they had some background ideas about their characters. 2. I've asked for the characters to map out their progression, feats and spells, so as to speed up leveling up so if we level up mid-session, it doesn't take two hours. 3 out of 5 players did this, it took an hour an a half to level up from 6 to 7, during a 6 hour session. I'm not a real experienced player, but in the games I have been in, it always takes several hours to level up, so we always do it between sessions. I tried plotting out my character's progression-- I wanted my character to be a drunken master, and plotted out the feats and everything he'd need. Turns out I had already missed one important prerequisite and had to throw the whole thing out. (He wasn't a monk!!!!!) Again, you're giving these people work they don't want to do. Did you ask them to do this stuff, saying it might make their game more fun?? Or was this a DM's "homework for you foolish gamers" One reason it takes so long to level up-- for me-- is that I don't have all the books memorised. (Yes, I use paper and print, not e-Tools or whatever.) So I might have a character concept in mind but have to look through three or four books to remember the PrC or where "that neat weapon" was. And not everyone is as swift a reader as I am... and "Hey can I borrow that book?" can turn into "two hours later as I finally borrow that book after its owner re-read the article on Monk..." 3. I've asked them to put their characters on character sheets, because I don't like people just sitting behind their laptops all session. Maybe it's just me but it seems to be distracting and kind of kills the nostalgia of D&D. I agree with you on this one. What I would do is make copies of the character sheets that I like, bring the next game session to a halt, hand out the character sheets, and use that time to at least get copies of their characters. You will haver to offer to help them navigate the paper and pencil world, but it should be worth it. Every time you wish to advance one of their characters, you will need to hand out the paper again and have them update the sheets or the changes would not be valid. ("But I've got the changes on my laptop where you gave me a million points and I leveled up to Godhood", um, I've seen this before...) In the group I just got done with, no one (but me) has books. So they may tell me "only use the PHB" to create a character... and then they come up with crazy stuff that they can't cite where it came from other than "eTools"-- which in my opinion is pretty darned flimsy. Now their are numerous other problems but to me I don't seem to be asking for much, but it seems like they are just being lazy and don't want to put any work into their character outside the game. I feel like I literally have to hand the plot to them because they wouldn't go seek it out on their own. Now, to be fair, I've been accused of railroading a little(not much), but I don't think asking for them for a little help and to flesh out their characters is railroading. It sounds to me like your attitude and your players attitude are completely different. Your players look to you to provide them with a fun time; you're interested in telling a good story, getting the most out of your plot hooks and adventure ideas, and you like your characters and world with lots of detail. They can't force you to "just get to the part where we can have fun" any more than you can force them to "flesh out Mack the Hacker with a back story and his family history". You may have to negotiate yourself into middle ground or you may lose your players over this division of intent... which may not be a bad thing. One thing you might try is this; back when I GM'ed I wrote stories about my game world. This enabled me to get what I wanted out of the story lines and out of the characters. I could "doublethink" the games so that the RP went the way the players wanted but I could still have my idealized view of those characters and that world. My players always chose to do things differently than I thought they would... and I was covered by being able to say, "That's not how I thought you'd handle that."
Anathema 01-21-08, 01:34 PM	I think the crux of the main issue is that you DM different than your players want to play; or at the very least, the easiest way for them to play. I'm pretty much in the same boat right now. I'm more of a storyteller at heart, with a love for rich characterization. My players all love the phat loots. One seems to want to roleplay but is fine with hack & slash, one seems like he would roleplay if others did, one seems like he has an innate talent for it that he hasn't realized yet, and one just comes over to hang out and have fun with friends for a few hours. My solution for the moment is just to run a game straight out of a book. We're doing Expidition to Undermountain right now. This takes all of the headache off of me for not needing to prepare very much ahead of time, and to not be personally invested in the game as much as I would if it were one of my own creations. I think once we finish this up I'm going to update City of the Spiderqueen to 3.5 (shouldn't be tough) and run that until they're level 18ish, then run a tail end campaign to get them to 20. This should hopefully have satisfied their desires for a purely hacky/slashy campaign and they'll be more open to a more traditional campaign of my own creation where I can encourage them to roleplay more. If not, I'll run the three-part FR adventure for them. I might even get someone else to DM so I can play for once. In any case; if they do decide that they would want to try their hand at a more roleplay-like campaign I'm going to pool everyone together. Making interesting characters is a strength of mine, and I think everyone has things that they can contribute to the process. So instead of leaving the individuals to twist in the wind with skills they either don't possess, don't care about, or don't have the initiative to complete; I think I'm going to make the character building process more communal. Have the entire group, including myself, build the characters together and then have people decide on which one interests them the most. This way I get the backgrounds created, and the players aren't left to their own devices like it were homework.
kelcimer 01-21-08, 02:34 PM	1. 3 Side quests, atleast one paragraph long with backround. I've given all the players access to any books they might need(I am missing very few 3.5 books) and also told them they can come up with stuff on their own. What I got was this, word for word. A. To find a magical sword. B. Visit Xendrik C. Kill the Lord of Blades This is actually a good start. You have players that can't even do that. This gives you some definite topics. You have a bad guy, an item, and a location. That's great! The player has goals! You just need to ask why. The most important "why" that you need to know is why he wants to kill the lord of blades. The others don't need much in the way of why. "My character has heard of the place and thinks it'd be an interesting place to go" and "who doesn't want a kick ass sword" are both legitamite answers. 2. I've asked for the characters to map out their progression, feats and spells, so as to speed up leveling up so if we level up mid-session, it doesn't take two hours. Why, exactly, are you letting anybody level up mid-session? No matter how fast the players update their sheets it still brings the game to a standstill. Additionally, not everyone WANTS to map out their character progression. According to certain philosophies on the matter it hampens roleplaying. 3. I've asked them to put their characters on character sheets, because I don't like people just sitting behind their laptops all session. Why, exactly, do you allow computers at the game table? And all they should have to do is print out their character sheets and be done.
UAMDB 01-21-08, 02:46 PM	Sometimes players don't know how they want their characters to advance. My current game, I am playing a Swordsage 2, Ranger 2, Swashbuckler 2. I know that next level is going to be Swashbuckler. After that I really don't Have a clue. I might take rogue levels for the sneak attack, but I really don't want to give up the BAB, and the hit points. Of course the sneak attack could be good. The point before I started rambling was that not every one knows where their character is headed at creation.
CCS 01-21-08, 03:46 PM	I feel your pain.... My Sunday group (all 5th lv now) is comprised of; Player #1: An elven druid. From the woods. And his (imo, rediculously powerfull) wolf. To date he still hasn't revealed any reason why he was in the town where the adventure began, why he answered the call to arms, or anything about his background. If this was character based, fine. But this isn't due to him being secretive vrs the others, this is the player simply not investing the effort to make a complete character. And he simply doesn't interact with NPCs. If it's not player to player interaction (mostly mechanical), or mechanical player/DM interaction it almost certainly doesn't happen. To the point of not even giving feedback on the game.... Honestly I don't think he "gets" it & would be better off just playing a miniture wargame. Player #2: A human bard. Slightly below average stat-wise as far as Int & Wis. go. Almost penniless when we began, and near penniless now (due to some in-game bad luck). When the adventure began he was merely trying to eke out a living. He anwsered the councils call based upon the GP reward. But, like the elf, he didn't really have any type of background/plan/goal. And he still doesn't. Unlike the elf though he's at least done some minimal RP development (he does interact with the NPCs to a limited extent). I stress minimal though. He's not the best at RP, but he's very slowly improving. To date, the most interesting thing about him is that he was believed to be dead by the rest of the party for a few weeks. Player #2 again: A dwarven fighter. The replacement character when the bard was believed dead. This guy was a mercenary recuited straight off the battlefield the group found themselves on. At the conclusion of the pitched battle, now minus the bard, the party went looking for a recruit for a quick sidetrek into the swamp. They chose this particular dwarf - for some reason. And for some reason they remain together even though that sidetrek is finished.... This time out though player #2 seems to be emulating player #1s aproach of zero character building. No backstory, no plans/goals, no details.... Though he does interact with the NPCs a little. *Note; Player #2 only gets to control one of his characters at a time. Player #3: A human fighter. This guy actually has a minimal backstory. He lives in the town, has a house/farm there & serves in the local watch/milita. He didn't so much as answer the councils call, rather he found himself volunteered.... But the GP reward, the chance to do something other than patrol the docks and break up bar-fights, and tend pigs greatly apealed to him anyways. So off he went. Doesn't really have much in the way of plans/goals atm other than staying alive vrs the strange creatures he's facing.... His RP interaction with the NPCs is low, but it is there. More importantly so's his potential as a player. He though has a decent excuse. He's a brand new player to this type of game. Until this fall he'd never heard of D&D.... Player #4: A human cleric of pelor atm. An elderly priest of pelor, long since retired from the adventuring life. He realized through divinations that if he doesn't at least try & sheppard these other three characters a horrible fate will soon befall his town.... The player & I even know that his characters destined to die & be reincarnated as a raven.... This is my vetern player of the group. Has played several editions of D&D, has played other gaming systems, makes characters with backgrounds, Role-plays them, has plans/goals, & personalities for each character, speaks in character, interacts with any/every NPC available and tries to draw the other players into doing the same. He'll even RP it out when he knows that his characters about to walk into certain death. So what's this boil down to? 1 player who's self-suffient, 1 novice making all the usual beginning errors/moves while trying this whole RPG thing, and two players whom I have to spoon feed plot/detail to & almost pull teeth to coax some RP/thinking out of.... Despite this it's a fairly good game with a decently evolving player driven story* *By player driven story I mean that I largely respond to what the players do at the table. It breaks down to about 2 parts DM (1 part initial plot/1 part prep), 2 parts Player #4, & 1 weakly shared part between Players #2 & 3. Player #1 though? Beyond a giant wolf in combat he's not really contibuting -no plot hooks & no game influancing actions....