Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Light of Day 08-19-05, 06:04 PM	I recently suffered a rather nasty character death which another PC was indirectly responsible for. We had found a big shiney gem sitting on a pedastool, and being typical adventurers we seeked to aquire said gem. The joint efforts of my rogue/sorceror and the partys wizard revealed that the gem was trapped. Taking it off the pedastool would cause something big and nasty to be summoned into the room, and it was beyond our means to disarm the trap without destroying the gem. Unfortunatly, we needed the gem due to its magical properties, so our problem was less "do we take it?" and more "how do we deal with the concequences?" This is where our wizard comes up with a cunning plan: We all leave the room, he seals the door with a wall of force leaving a tiny gap he can shoot fireballs through, hopefully killing whatever is summoned without any of us taking a scratch. There is one tiny problem: we need someone to trigger the trap. That someone turns out to be me (as the wizard said, I was the one who could fly, turn invisible, and had evasion, so I was the obvious choice). Obviously, my character had her reservations about being the bait, but the rest of the party thought the plan was sound, so she reluctantly went along with it. To cut a long story short, things go horribly wrong. Mr wizard proves woefully ineffective pelting the monster with spells from behind his wall of force, and my poor sorceror ends up getting eaten. Eventually, the rest of the party convince the wizard to drop the wall of force and smash the monster to pulp in record time, but by the time this has happened it is too late. When they sift through the monsters remains, all that is left of my character are a couple of half-digested bones. As luck would have it, they manage to get my sorceror ressurected, but her equipment isn't so lucky. All of it was digested past the point of repair, and as she carried everything she owned on her person, she was left with quite literally nothing. This sucked pretty badly, but things like this happen. I wasn't angry, it's only a game, life goes on. My character, on the other hand, was pretty ******. She'd just lost everything she ever owned due to the wizards plan. She made her feelings for the wizard pretty clear, and currently refuses to speak to him. The wizard got pretty upset about this. After all, as he argued, it may have been his plan, but everyone else agreed it was a good one. Surely the whole party should share the blame? Even then, the plan WAS pretty sound. It shouldn't have failed, at least not so badly. He had some good points, and I knew it wasn't his fault, by my character needed someone to blame and he fit the bill. The two ended up getting quite angry with each other. It was at this point that I realised the wizard's arguements were OOC. Wheras I was arguing in character and didn't actually have a problem with the wizard or his player, the other player was taking it all personally and thought I was really angry with him. Fortunatly, I was able to explain to him that it was only my character who was angry with him, and me as a player didn't think he'd done anything wrong at all. We're still good friends, which is more than can be said for our characters. I was wondering, has anyone else had situations like this, where players sometimes can't seem to tell the difference between acting in character and out of character?
DragonDeadite 08-19-05, 06:26 PM	Hehe... you know, I ended up leaving a group because of this. I ended up ******* off one of the players because my character gets getting into trouble and she was always the closest one to my character when he needed help. The final straw was when my character (long story) was jumping from body to body by touching them. He got transported into the body of a water mephit (I think that was it, it couldn't leave the water) and the only way I could continue with the party was to jump into one of them, since they were STUPID enough to let the former body get away!!! She ended up ****** and yelling at me saying I was always after her. Yeah, that was the last session with that group!! I had fun though, but was a bother to them. When I was DMing not long ago one of the players made a comment about another being useless. The other player took OOC and after I confronted the first player about it he said it was meant IC. So the two characters had it out and the player that was called "useless" proceeded to pummel the other player. She was a warmage afterall and beyond a certain point no Warmage can ever be called useless in a fight. My best advice for this is to always step back during an arguement and let everyone know that it is completely in character and never OOC. If a player is starting to get upset then the argument needs to stop and be finished right there without going any further. IC and OOC can be a very thin line during a gaming session and sometimes things get said and taken the wrong way. Of course, if it is an OOC conversation, then you need to treat it as such. I removed a player from a game of mind after he made some innapropriate comments OOC that if made IC wouldn't have been a big deal. :dragon:
journeyman777 08-20-05, 05:52 AM	Hehe... you know, I ended up leaving a group because of this.Same here. Sometimes this is a major problem, sometimes it isn't. I was recently asked to leave a group because of a personality conflict with another player. We were both playing (theoretically) LG characters, so this may seem strange. His character was rude and insulting to mine, killed a foe that we had made a deal with, and commited a few morally questionable acts (all that in just the first session). When my character asked who he worshiped, He said Cuthbert. So my cleric assumed that he must be LN and treated him accordingly (trying to lead him to the path of good, repremanding him for questionable acts, etc..). The other player took serious issue with this treatment. The fact was that I knew OC that his character sheet said he was LG, but I didn't use that info IC. He (the player) considered my lectures (IC) on what he (the monk) should do/not do to be a personal attack. As a result, I am no longer welcome to play with that group. (I also had out of game disagreements with that player on various rules issues, but I kept the out OC and IC issues separate. I am not sure he did. BTW: This is the first time I've been asked to leave a group, so please don't think this happens to me often.) In another group I played with, things went much better. My character was LG and the other guy actually was LN. His character had a vision where he heard a strange chant and he made it a major goal to find out more about the chant. My character's goal was to protect the rest of the party so they could fulfill some great destiny. Since his attempts to find out more about the chant kept harming the rest of the party, my character grew very angry with him. The two characters actually came to blows (non-lethal, of course) at one point. IC we got to the point where we barely could tolerate each other; OC we stayed good friends and even complimented each other on the depth and quality of the roleplay going on. The situation was eventually resolved in game, but even when it was at its worst, we kept the conflict completely in game. I still play with that group and am respected for my ability to keep separate what is in-game and what is out of game. The inability of one person to keep character conflicts separate from player conflicts can make or break a game. I'm glad things worked out for you. Not everone is so mature about handling this problem.
SodaGuy 08-20-05, 07:02 AM	I'm curious as to how the plan went so badly. I'd think that with you invisible and flying around the ceiling, you'd be pretty safe.
Light of Day 08-20-05, 05:34 PM	I'm sorry to hear that some of you have left a group because of this. I'm lucky that for me it was a simple misunderstanding, it's sad that some people are too immature to sort these things out propery. The monster summoned into the room turned out to be a pair of beefed-up frost worms. First round, my greater invisible rogue/sorceror flys above them and blasts one with a scorching ray (scorching ray + point blank shot + sneak attack = :ayyyy!: ). Next, frosty's turn. The first one trills, forcing me to make a dc 17 save or be stunned. I fail. Then the next one, who saw the scorching rays and thus has a vague idea where I am, uses its breath weapon. You get no save against a frost worm if you are under the effect of its trill (our DM insists this is the case even if the trill and breath weapon belong to different frost worms), so I take 15d6 cold damage with no chance to evade. The DM virtually maxes the roll, dropping me unconscious. The rest of the party spend the next several rounds arguing and doing an extrodinarily bad job of enacting their end of the plan. During the several rounds before the wizard finally agrees the plan just isn't working, I bleed to death, my greater invisibility wears off and I am eaten. I just want to know how the rest of my party failed on their part so badly... the dice were not with us that day... :(
Horatio Hornblower 08-21-05, 03:39 PM	I've seen in game arguements get out of controll because not everyone realizes it's in game. It's not always the other guys fault. If the player is shouting and roleplaying being angry the player needs to do a good job of acting. Keep the tirade in the character's accent and style. Remember to use the other person's character's name and not their real name. If the player slips up in his roleplay don't be surprised if the rest of the players get the wrong idea. My suggestion is to tone down a roleplay arguement just a little. Yelling at the top of your lungs is annoying in or out of character. If you over do it you could set off an instinctive reponse. I hate listening to someone yelling, especially if we're in a small room. Please don't stress out your friends. I mean, what if someone forgot to take their medication? :)
Wil Harvey 08-21-05, 04:09 PM	It's really not too good of an idea to really lay into people, even in character. I mean, in character, if the OP's sorcerer would have laid into me like she did when the plan failed, I would have finished the adventure with her, then went my seperate way. Why would I adventure with someone that got that upset at me when we met a run of bad luck? At times, yeah, there's some people who would find it enjoyable to play a game with characters that really don't like each other. But for the most part, these guys are spending significant time together, and are putting their lives in each other's hands, so it makes sense that they get along reasonably well, and it's each player's responsibility to make sure their character is one that fits with that sense of party cohesiveness. Not doing so, while technically good roleplaying (at times), is just going to lead to problems in game and out of game.
Kintara 08-21-05, 04:23 PM	God, what did you guys fight? A digestion monster? What digests you in under a minute, let alone magical equipment? If your character gets angry in this sort of situation, it might be best to describe it OOC, at least initially, until everyone understands that it's just the character that's angry. Once everyone's used to it, you can have fun humphing and grumbling whenever the wizard comes up with a "brilliant" plan.
ShadowDragon8685 08-21-05, 04:35 PM	I woulden't call the loss of everything the character owned a "little thing." Frankly, the player took it better than I would have. I'd have bee royally ****** at the Wizard. That's pretty much making the character utterly useless, even if they are a sorcerer.
Wil Harvey 08-21-05, 07:40 PM	I woulden't call the loss of everything the character owned a "little thing." Frankly, the player took it better than I would have. I'd have bee royally ****** at the Wizard. That's pretty much making the character utterly useless, even if they are a sorcerer. And yet the character blamed the entire fiasco on the wizard. Never mind the rest of the party thought it was a great plan. Never mind that she herself decided to go along with it. Never mind that it was her decision to fire off a spell, giving the monsters a pretty good clue of where she was. I mean, why not just wait invisible and out of harm's way until the wizard was done blasting? Why reveal your hidden position in the first round when you're not the one the plan calls for to kill the creatures? Despite all that, the sorcerer lashed out against one other character, as if he had stripped her of all her equipment and thrown it into some endless pool of lava. Not only that, she took absolutely no responsibility herself. If I was the wizard, I would have said, "I apologize that you feel that way. Considering how you reacted, I'm sure you'll feel it is in your best interest that we no longer adventure together. *turn to rest of the party* Guys, let's go to the local magic-users guild and hire a sorcerer to finish this adventure with us" You're very right, what happened wasn't a little thing. Which makes the sorcerer's reaction all the worse. Imagine one of your friends is driving his nice car, and you're in the passenger seat. When you guys come to an intersection, he asks you which way they should go. You say 'left'. A minute later, you guys get into a car accident, and your friend's car gets totaled. You could even possibly imagine your friend not only completely blaming only you for the accident, but then also refusing to speak to you? That's absolutely inconceivable to me. And yet that's exactly how the sorcerer responded. In my opinion, the sorcerer is lucky to even have that character still, because like I said, if a character my character was adventuring with reacted like that, I would have simply said good bye to them with the explanation that they were not the type of person I would want to spend my time with or risk my life for. That's why, in my opinion, it's every player's responsibility (in most games) to create a character with a personality that is agreeable to the standard format of people adventuring with each other. That doesn't mean that the character can't have flaws, can't get angry at each other, etc., but I think it does mean that they shouldn't react like a comlete and utter ******* when something really, really bad happens that everyone probably very much regrets. And if they decide to react like that, in character or out, I don't see why they'd be surprised when either the in game or out of game (or both) dynamic is hurt.
Elrana 08-21-05, 08:12 PM	Friday a week ago a good friend of mine really peed me off. Did something that I think is really out of order. I found out over the phone when I finished work. Later that day I told him it had really peed me off, he asked why, I explained, he disagreed, we were with other people so I let it drop. The next day the two of us were in the pub alone so I brought it up again. He defended his actions, I argued that he was wrong and had no defense, it was a pretty deep felt argument on both sides, in the end we were never going to agree. He had peed me off, in arguing over it he got peed off as well. By the time we finished arguing this our beers were finished, we ordered two more and changed subject. I see him more or less daily, he's a good friend of mine and he peed me off, so I told him, so we argued, so what? People do, that's how relationships work. If I peed a friend off I hope they would tell me and then I could defend myself (if appropriate) and get peed off back and have an argument and then it's done and dusted and over and done with, water under the bridge and whatever else. I've never quite understood why in D&D people seem so insistent on playing supersensitive characters who take offense at every possible opportunity, imagining slights where none are intended and behaving generally, well, socially inept. I have seen it so often, a group member takes the mickey out of another so he draws his sword or threatens him or whatever, when if the player was to do it to another player he would laugh and do the same back. Or when one PC pees off another and the argument never ends, or they decide never to adventure together again or whatever. Or, even worse, the players decide not to play together again. I was lucky in my last group (before I left the UK, not my last because I no longer wanted to play with them or vice versa), everyone played very three dimensional characters, we had times when our characters were peed at each other, times when they took the mickey and had a laugh, times that they argued, times that they were all best friends. Similarly, as players we shared the same times, during game time and just generally, in the pub or whatever else. I think what this example (the OP) displays is a real dimensionality to your roleplaying. These PCs are supposed to be real people with real characters, complex and evolving, not two dimensional stereotypes. Your sorceror is absolutely right to be peed, and if she aims her anger at the wizard then so be it, he'll just have to deal with it, she'll get over it in time. How any times has the sorceror saved other party members' lives, or the wizard done the same? It's all swings and roundabouts, just like real life! I'm glad that you have a group that is capable of playing things so well and keeping in game in game and not causing arguments out of game. To those who don't have the same good fortune you have my comiserations. As I said, I was lucky in my last group, I have been less lucky with others. Having this aspect in my roleplaying group brought the game to new levels of roleplaying freedom and allowed us to get into character so much more than I have experienced in the past. It was partly due to good roleplaying all round, but also equally due to good out of character communication and discussing how we wanted the roleplaying aspect of the game to be, and understanding what that meant. We wanted a real-life roleplaying experience and we managed to have one. I can't recommend it highly enough! :)
Duration_10_Rounds 08-21-05, 08:25 PM	What i find even worse than the "oops your in character" mess ups... are the people who play thier characters based on the fact they are miffed OOC. I played one game(not D&D) recently where we were all playing a group of buddies on a fishing trip one character awoke from a nightmare i so i splashed him with water to bring him round..... so the player, who was irked with me for playing the selfish, sarcastic, bastard of the group decided his players reacation was to, as he described: "Smash him[me] in the face as hard as i can", My chracter, upon being hit responded, "what the hell?...", And he answered(IC): "Sorry just a natural reaction, i didnt realise it was you" My character being able to see where he might be comming from (even though i know why he did it) playfully splashed him again. To which the other player then reponded "I'll smack him again" :rolleyes: When this kind of thing happens you can't come to some kind of agreement becuase it was all just a misunderstanding, they where roleplaying albeit it a very bloody-minded, disruptive manner. It also happens way to often(that being more than once! for my taste), players who dont realise your party had been together X years, have trusted each other with thier lives numerous times and are as far as the story and setting goes (i.e in game) the best of budies will draw guns/swords on thier party. Just becuase they have decided right then and there that becuase that other player made a joke about them or made them look silly infront of some chick they where chatting up that they have no history and are infact sworn foes from that point onwards. I just hate it when people roleplay their characters the way they wished they had the balls to act like in RL social situations like some kind of misplaced anger or chance to vent off .... Its a game thats meant to be fun for everyone not a chance for them to live out a twisted fantasy where they can punch every ones face in they dislike with no repocusion. Sure when I make a stupid joke about a mate he may wish for a second he could shoot me in the face for making him look silly. But he actualy cares about me and doesnt want to go to jail and realises that society would crumble if we all acted like that....but at the gaming table thier character is just a bit of paper who doesnt feel anything and doest care about some fantasy prison sentance or society so they react in a way that basicly says "I dont care about this caracter or this world" and THAT royaly irks me! Not the players to dumb to work out OC and IC at a roleplaying session (in our group we would probably be laughing that off 5 mins later) but those who can see the difference but choose to use IC action as a condiut for them feeling jerked around OC or unable to provide a whittiy and fitting IC responce. This is one reason i really do not get on with players who try and play "Lone wolf" or "Hired Killer" types in heavily party orientated groups. As they purposfuly distance thier characters via thie role or background from having any emotional link or loyalty to anyone. Often for the reason of they want to be able to pull this kind of crap and palm it off as roleplaying thier uber selfish, "i kill any one who looks at me funny", "I dont care if i die" characer. Sorry didn't mean to hijack, they are pretty closley related gaming problems. Those who just fail to seperate IC and OC, those who feel what you do to them IC direclty relates to how you feel about the preson OC, And those who know well enough (or bloody well should do) but just use IC actions to let of steam about how they feel OC.... and so often all three are linked... and very disruptive, non fun gaming ensues.
Wil Harvey 08-22-05, 03:07 AM	Friday a week ago a good friend of mine really peed me off. Did something that I think is really out of order. I found out over the phone when I finished work...so I told him, so we argued, so what?... I don't know, maybe I didn't make myself clear enough. I figured when I pointed out that characters can and should get angry at each other, I was hoping that would be clear enough. But I guess not. Maybe that was my fault. Let me try again. What happened was horrible. Very horrible. A character died, had to get resurrected, ended up losing all her stuff. Very bad situation. This wasn't someone spilling ale on someone else. The sorcerer's reaction to this horrible situation, that was pretty obviously no one's fault? She completely laid into one person, even refusing to speak to that person. Again, I implore you to try and imagine this happening in real life. Imagine your friend got ****** at you for his house being broken into and all of his valuable possessiongs being stolen. Imagine him getting ****** at you because you asked him if he wanted to go to the bar that night, and because he was out of the house, his house was broken into. Imagine he got so upset with you that he wouldn't even talk to you. Does that sound even remotely reasonable for a friend of yours to do? I can't possibly imagine someone reacting like that, and if someone did indeed react like that, I couldn't possibly imagine why I'd have them as my friend. Yet that's exactly how the sorcerer reacted. To me, that's absurd. If I was that wizard, I would have said, "Nice to have known you. Adios." I mean, you could argue that the sorcerer reacting how she did was reasonable in general (though you'd be fighting a seriously uphill battle), but reacting like that when the point of the game is a group of characters risking their lives together? Can anyone honestly react like that and expect it not to affect the group dynamic, either in game or out of game? Maybe I'm just socially inept.
Elrana 08-22-05, 05:14 AM	The situations you are talking about are pretty different to one another. She had just died and been resurrected, she has every right to be peed off. How she displays that is up to her, when people are angry they react irrationally, it is up to friends to determine what aspect of their behaviour is due to anger and so to accept and overlook it. It isn't to do with reasonable, it's to do with angry and unreasonable, the reason comes in on the other friend's side, where he has to choose whether this person has been a good enough friend for long enough to accept the good with the bad or, irrelevant of background and history, whether he will just write them off for a single outburst. When people are upset they behave oddly - it is at these times that others need to give more leeway and offer more support, not just walk away. :)
Light of Day 08-22-05, 07:30 AM	The situations you are talking about are pretty different to one another. She had just died and been resurrected, she has every right to be peed off. How she displays that is up to her, when people are angry they react irrationally, it is up to friends to determine what aspect of their behaviour is due to anger and so to accept and overlook it. It isn't to do with reasonable, it's to do with angry and unreasonable, the reason comes in on the other friend's side, where he has to choose whether this person has been a good enough friend for long enough to accept the good with the bad or, irrelevant of background and history, whether he will just write them off for a single outburst. When people are upset they behave oddly - it is at these times that others need to give more leeway and offer more support, not just walk away. :) Thank you. This is how I see the situation too. In fact, had the wizard at least tried to be supportive, the situation would have been largely avoided. As it was, instead of being sympathetic, he started trying to pin the blame and anyone and everything except him. Was he justified in doing that? Probably. Did it help? Hell no. Besides, it's been less than an hour in-game since my sorceror was ressurected. She hasn't really had time to calm down yet, she'll forgive him when she does (especially when she remembers she has no spell component pouch, and he's the only source of material components for the next hundred miles or so). Chances are, in years to come they'll look back on this and laugh, but right now things are a little tense between them. You can't go around with a huge smile on your face being everyones best friend all the time, it's just not natural.
Phrennzy 08-22-05, 11:10 AM	Thank you. This is how I see the situation too. In fact, had the wizard at least tried to be supportive, the situation would have been largely avoided. As it was, instead of being sympathetic, he started trying to pin the blame and anyone and everything except him. Was he justified in doing that? Probably. Did it help? Hell no. Besides, it's been less than an hour in-game since my sorceror was ressurected. She hasn't really had time to calm down yet, she'll forgive him when she does (especially when she remembers she has no spell component pouch, and he's the only source of material components for the next hundred miles or so). Chances are, in years to come they'll look back on this and laugh, but right now things are a little tense between them. You can't go around with a huge smile on your face being everyones best friend all the time, it's just not natural. A lot depends on HOW you roleplay. Some groups roleplay with speaking in first person, some in third. I can see how the wizard's player might think YOU were angry if you guys roleplay in first person. A simple "I'm not mad at you, <wiz player name>, but Sorceress sure is P.O.'d at Wizard, as irrational as that may sound." Sure, it breaks the roleplay ambiance, but it can defuse situations before they become inflated. Or something.
SeidonVanDolf 08-22-05, 09:06 PM	This will sound pretty silly but it solved a lot of our problems. Some of our group are pretty gifted actors out of game. One of them can actually become red-faced and teary-eyed if her character gets upset. It is a little disconcerting to people who don't know her as well as others in the group. So some of our group would get nervous when this happened fearing they had upset her OOC and then get freaked when her complextion would quickly bleed back to normal and her eyes would stop flaming so she could politely ask for a soda and to have the Batman fruitsnacks passed her way before launching back into her angry character's tirrade. So to kill off some of this confusion we came up with the 'out of character' hand-sign. Which means we hold up the "Loser" symbol over our foreheads and speak when we are talking OOC. This way we can interject through our tirrades of "YOU EVIL BASTARD!! YOUR STUPID PLAN NEARLY COST ME EVERYTHING!!" [hand-sign "Dude, I'm not mad but Jack the Barabarian is so ready to kill your character... lol" end hand-sign] "YOU MANIACAL SELF-RIGHTEOUS CREEP!!! I OUGHTA SKIN YOU ALIVE!!!" and through all that there is no misunderstanding. It was funny when we first started but now it is almost second nature in our group and it has killed off so many misunderstandings and confusions. Try it or something like it and see if it doesn't help. It worked like a charm for us and the groups we've introduced it to have said it works well for them, too.