My group is no exception to this and the same, I have found, applies in other game systems. All too often one player or more decides for whatever reason to turn on his fellows. All too often the campaign ends there, or at the very least is seriously disrupted. When players turn on players, it is the group that suffers.
It occurred to me the other day that such things would not take place in a computer game. It is in the player's interest to finish the game, using whatever strange combination of characters he has before him. He wouldn't want to fight himself and, if one of his characters did have some issue, it would be made an NPC and thus is removed from his control. But why is it that a computer player is so much better off? Partly, yes, that he isn't six people around a table, but mainly because he wants to finish the game. In short, he wants to win.
Our real world players, however, round their table, don't want to win in the same way. After all, D&D or other roleplay is not about winning or losing, but is, we are told, more about "team effort" and "experiencing the environment". It seems a selfish pursuit. True enough that there are objectives, but, when you look at it, they are not compulsory and, if the players wish, they can pretty much do what they please.
I would suggest that GM's try to bring back a sense of winning and losing into their campaigns. I would urge GM's to move away from the mentality that every player is an island and that he alone sets the objectives for his character. It is time to take them back and forge them, once more, into a party unit with a common bond. They must succeed or fail *together*.
It has often been an unwritten rule among veteran players that "the group comes first". The inexperienced paladin, for instance, may execute a character after an argument over captives turns sour. The veteran paladin player, however, will let a lot more things slide or will deal with them in a way that doesn't derail the game flow. That player has realised that, in the end, you need to keep going as a group and that some friction or "unreality" is better than an endless line of fights, arguments and backstabbing (sometimes literally).
Now, a good GM will minimise this friction between players from the earliest stage. By setting a group alignment, common histories, races and compatible classes, he gets the group to live happily side by side. Many parties will be made or broken before they even hit the table. Despite what a player thinks about his wonderful character idea, even at this stage, it is not all about him. He must make a character that works with the group. As a GM, watch for players who refuse to compromise at this point and smack them down hard. If they are that selfish now, then come game time, they may as well be playing in a group of one and woe betide the other player who gets in their way. Once this crucial stage is out of the way, things should initially go well.
Still, as time goes on, characters grow and change. New characters join and people can drift apart. Now is where the characters start thinking, "Why, really, do I adventure with these people?" There are different methods of keeping a party together during the campaign. The strongest is usually "the group cause", some great quest is in progress or some awesome villain must be defeated. The weakest, by contrast, is that the party wants to get rich and that they adventure together because it gives them strength.
This is where the winning and losing aspect can be brought into play. Setting fixed goals and concrete objectives is a powerful way of keeping the group on track. Players will have to fit in with the set goals and characters that don't make that grade "lose" the game and are effectively killed or made NPCs. The players must keep on track and that means working with their character concepts to make that work.
For example: The GM originally makes a party of hearty dwarven heroes with his players. He lets one player take on a human who has a good relationship with a dwarf city and everyone is good or Neutral, with a lawful nature. They are set a great quest to recover a stolen item and defeat a rival kingdom. Over time, some of the Dwarves die off. A rogue type joins the party, handy with locks, mainly because he was paid fairly well for his efforts. An evil sorcerer also joins up, because one of the adventures involved magic and he was the only spellcaster around.
Eventually, the party consists of a pretty diverse bunch of races, alignments (some actually opposed) and classes. A few party members have no real connection to the Dwarven city or the quest and the party begins to have arguments and issues of priority. Potentially the party may lose sight of their original goals altogether.
Now, in your usual game, at this point, player majority would win the day. Some characters would have to retire or would change their goals to fit with the vote. Say, the dwarves retire and the party becomes a group of evil adventurer types looking for power and gold. Or, perhaps, the rogue walks off, the wizard quits and several reinforcements get sent from the city to help the dwarves (notably paladins). Either way, many characters are lost. Some groups would do the above with violence.
Now, if the GM had said that the dwarven quest would stand as the objective of the game, come what may, then a strong warning is sent to players when making new characters. The evil wizard player knows where the game is going, as does the one who made the selfish rogue. They know that their characters must fit that objective, either in how they are made or how they are played. Potentially, with a clear and unchanging goal, you wouldn't see the evil character made at all, or the selfish rogue. However, should they still take on those concepts, then they do so knowing that *they must fit in*. If they do not, then *they* are the ones to go. The GM is also at free to add other restrictions to his goals, such as "the party must be heroic".
Back with the same situation then. Lets also keep the same characters. The Rogue player can no longer justify his presence in the party with simple greed. He must stick with them even when the rewards are likely to be slim. He reasons his character wouldn't do this and thus "loses." He no doubt whines about this, but the GM set down the rules and the player knew what he had to do. Eventually, he makes a paladin type and fits in.
Surprisingly, the Evil wizard sticks with the party. His player still wants to be cruel and aloof, but he works into his character a grudging respect for one of the Dwarves, who he decides to stick with. He also wants to look powerful and enjoys the respect the dwarves have for his magic. All in all, despite being evil, cruel and using destructive magic, he sticks with the goals of the game and walks in the right direction. Thus, he, unlike the rogue, keeps his character. He must, however, recognise that working with the party is key, so while remaining evil, he avoids doing things that will directly upset the other party members. In short, he makes a real effort to fit in, while keeping his character as he wants it (or pretty close).
That fitting in is the key. Players most often turn to violence when they wish to control someone else...and when that happens, someone is not fitting in with the group and that character has to go. GM's must be prepared to come down hard on players who create or play characters in a way that goes against the clear goals and will of the party. There will be arguments, there will be discussions, but they will not get out of hand. If they do, then the GM must step in and give warnings. If it continues to get out of hand, then a character should simply be taken away. Veteran players and GM's alike will know when a character disagreement is under control and when it is not.
Perhaps, by winning and losing, I really mean "fitting in and not fitting in". To play the game one must make efforts, sometimes hard and difficult efforts, to fit into the group. Those who cannot do this, or who do not wish to do this, are the losers. Instead of the usual toleration, the gm now has a mandate to do something about it using warnings and character removal.
As a player, when making that character, be sure to ask other players how they will react. Playing a race that is usually hated, like a Drow character, may seem like great roleplaying, but if the majority of other players will despise your choice, then avoid it. That is, unless, you can roleplay it in such an exceptional way that you can stay on their good sides. It isn't their job to accept you, it is your job to fit in and if you don't make the grade, then you are out.
Common advice on the help related boards is "kick him out" or "I would leave if they did that to me." So much of what I have said above is nothing new. However, its my hope that GMs will read some of these thoughts and will use them to see the problem coming and ready themselves for it. So long as a GM sets out that he is prepared to enforce party unity, then he is probably seeing off problems before they start (with players making characters that will fit in). Additionally, when he needs to kick a character out, he can do so, because the goals were clear and players knew the consequences of not fitting in.
As to players, remember that selfish play is just that, selfish. Your plotlines are good and your character ideas are wonderful, but they must be shaped to fit in with the party and its goals. Should you build a character with tricky morals, a strange alignment or an objectionable race, then that's your problem and your struggle to make it work. Do not be surprised if, when your fabulous idea is causing problems, you are kicked out and told to make something different. You move for the game, the game does not move for you. Group effort, group success and characters are only worthwhile if they fit into that group. A character alone, no matter how strong, amazing or unusual, is an NPC. A character in the party, is a PC. Work to fit in, because fitting in is *winning* in roleplaying.
One of the stereotypical ways for the PCs to meet is all being mercenaries who end up on the same job. After that adventure, there is something that holds them together. They risked their lives for the mission and each other. They have something in common that is more important than race, alignment or whatever. The common struggle of people binds them together more than just a regular friendship, even if it wasn't a world-shaking war.
Other reasons they might stick together is that now, they sort of know each other and their personalities. As they continue, they learn more about each other, and effectively become friends.
Also they need a somewhat steady income, and adventuring will do it. Also, you wouldn't want to adventure with someone different every time. You'd want to be with people you know.
A final reason has to do with the nature of adventuring. You're treating adventuring like a chore, which it can be to some players, but for the player characters, it's a thrill. After doing it once, they'll want to do it again. It's like a very dangerous extreme sport.
That's about all I've got to say about that.
P.S. For me and my group anyway, winning means a successful campaign that left everyone happy. :D
If by "setting a group alignment" you mean the DM says, "You must be one of these X number of alignments," I'd say "thanks but no thanks." If, on the other hand, you mean "No evil alignments" then I'd be cool with that. The former is far to restrictive. The latter is pretty much exactly what the PHB suggests, and what the group I currently play in abides by.
I believe it is the DM's job to "force" cooperation simply by the way he presents the obstacles in the game. If the obstacles are able to be overcome even if the party doesn't necessarily work together, than naturally the party won't necessarily work together. If the obstacles are insurmountable without party cooperation, the party will cooperate or fail. It's that simple.
In general, there's little need to force artificial camaraderie through alignments, races, classes, etc. You can elicit camaraderie through shared hardships overcome with cooperation. Also, true veteran paladin players will have seen the potential for conflict before it began, and taken care of it sooner (during party makeup). They absolutely WILL NOT let more things slide, because compromising your ideals is decidedly not in the paladin's code.
Having said that, I'll now say this: my current group has a DM who "forced" one thing in our character backgrounds: every character attended the same school for adventurers. He cared not how we got there or our goals, so long as we all came from there. So, all our characters knew each other for 4 years before we actually adventured together, which opened the way to say we were friendly and trusted each other enough to risk our lives with each other. (the other stipulation was "no evil alignments") This has worked out supremely well so far. This, and adventures requiring cooperation have really started to bond the characters.
You don't need to force it openly. Force it subtly.
The group as a whole must get along out of game as well no matter what the theme of a particular campaign, party, or PC. It won't matter if the party consists of nothing but dwarven paladins and LG clerics of Moradin if one of the players refuses to bathe. Other common out of game problems are things like two players not liking each others' style of gaming. For example, one player could think of himself as a comedian. The other may like a very serious tone. These two are going to be a problem unless they can agree to compromise. The same goes for mixing "power-gamers" and "role-players." (aka munchkins and drama-queens) A DM must always ensure unity between his players both in game and out. The DM as well is bound by out of game considerations. The DM must neither play favorites nor have a personality at odds with that of the group.
All of what I've said really boils down to the main point of this thread's author: "Fitting in" or getting along is winning. This must apply to all players as well as the DM. It must apply both in-game and out. If these factors are considered at all times it will be difficult for a group to not succeed or "win."
Bill
The object of the game is to make it fun for the other players. If everyone strives for each other's enjoyment, then everyone will enjoy themselves.
And the truth is, when you see that by your actions the rest of the group have a lot of fun, you in turn will enjoy that. So it serves your best interest to help the others. Now, it's a shame that many players and DMs have forgotten that, and only concerns themselves with their own enjoyment. THAT is what leads to party infighting, hurt feelings and groups not playing anymore. So to all of you out there, make an effort to entertain your group and they'll entertain you in return.
You, on the other hand, managed to hit the nail on the head concerning making your character "fit" the goal of the party or campaign. Every disruptive player that has the potential to be rescued from munchkin-ism should be forwarded this thread.
This last group I stepped in (as DM) and said think up ideas but don't roll, don't put anything on paper, and don't get attached to an idea. So they all showed up with numerous ideas and sat down the 1st session and came up with a coherent party that is both functional and had some reasoning to start out together. Since that time I, as DM, have tried to foster a common goal...
The Paladin is not a problem. See the invaders? They are bad. They must be stopped
The Fighter? He's a farmboy who left home to earn money for ma and pa because the farm was going bust. The invaders are now approaching the homestead and he's doing everything he can to turn them before his family gets ground up.
The monk? Her elven home was the 1st real stand against the invaders. With a recently assassinated king and a very conservative commander the elves were supremely confident in their capabilities without any help. They were successful in the first battle but the retribution was swift and horrid. The monk's lands were utterly crushed. She doesn't know if here family is even alive. Ahh vengeance is a great motivator.
The Cleric (DMPC)? He's a DMPC so why not work with the group? He is also a good cleric of war from a church that is an offshoot of the paladin's church. Also the Fighter/Farmboy saved him from a patrol of the enemy army. He's an old warhorse that needs little reason to fight a battle for the forces of good and the party has proven trustworthy, capable, and motivated.
The only stick is the Wizard. I've not yet come up with a reason for him to stay involved. He doesn't have any memory (cheesy I know, but...) so maybe I'll play off that (any suggestions?)
Anyway, my point here is that as DM if the party is just at the "why are we together" stage not the "I wanna kill all of you" stage then a few adventures can go a long way to including everyone and binding them to a common cause.
One of the aspects we need to understand is what sits in the games tagline; the world’s premier fantasy role-playing game. Fun (for me) is derived from conflict, not the lack thereof. What you’ve offered is that we’re winning if all forms of inter-party conflicts are removed. All players (and DMs) need to understand the multiple forms of fun being derived from D&D. Character acting, power gaming, strategizing, and more. This article, as I see it is nothing more then a representation of the conflicts with different forms of role-playing. You have fun one-way and your friends have fun another. There’s nothing wrong with the way the world role-plays. There is no validation of the deprivation of fun with the presence of inter-party conflicts. I can see how stale or boring game-play might result if there was none.
Imagine what D&D would be like if everyone unanimously agreed on everything. Even with a present objective, players will view tasks and treasures differently. I will say that if a story is lacking a definitive plot, players will tend to create his or her own which sometimes results in PC death or worse, a completely de-railed DM.
Generally speaking, a plot will be better followed if everyone has similar views and objectives. A plot can be made a whole lot more interesting if there are conflicting objectives. A plot, however, is not a DM’s decision to have followed; it’s the PCs. If a PC sees that he is merely the paint for the DM’s portrait, I at least, would be completely offended, and purposefully de-rail the whole thing. I play D&D so I can play, not be played with. I will accept selfishness as the character trait to describe my actions, but ultimately we must realize our own selfishness in our imposing plots.
A couple of points. First of all, it's not the case that a single player playing a number of characters would have them all work together. For example, I was briefly in a campaign with me as the only player and the DM (we were sharing an office, and found this was a great way to pass the time in between sessions with our group). I was playing two characters who were members of the Thieves' Guild. Dirk was a rogue, and Lorenzo was a thug (rogue-like fighter from Unearthed Arcana). Dirk was evil and only concerned with himself. Lorenzo was neutral, but just found himself in this line of work because of circumstances. I fleshed out their personalities, and when it seemed appropriate that they would split up, they did. Dirk went on to gain status in the guild, and Lorenzo left the city and became a ranger (the details of why are not important here).
I had a lot of fun playing these characters. My DM had lots of fun watching them develop. Party cohesion was not needed. By insisting that the only successful parties are those that perform in a specific way, you lose out on many other perfectly valid and playable options.
Second, I don't like your identification of "winning" with "fitting in". We get enough pressure to conform to the standards set by other people. I wouldn't want that in my game. While groups of players falling apart is a problem, it has to do with a conflict in what the players want, not a conflict among the characters.
But far too often, these conflicts lead to player conflicts instead, and that's often what becomes a problem. And if the party members have completely conflicting goals, the game will not work, the PCs will separate or kill each other. And I'm not playing D&D duel, I'm playing a team game where the PCs as well as players has to work together to promote everyone's fun.
Fitting in means not causing the party to splinter or having an evening ruined by in party fighting and new characters. And in that respect, fitting in is winning.
That doesn't mean the PCs should always agree to exactly how their common goals are achieved, and the PCs could (and should) have some goals the party has not. Persuading the rest to go with YOUR idea to solve a problem is part of the fun
I've played a game where the PCs were potential enemies (in Dark Ages: Vampire), and that was actually one of my best rp experiences ever. But that was in a setting where you just couldn't draw a sword and gut your enemy, but a gamer of political intrigue. It could potentially have worked in D&D in the right circumstances, but since D&D is a lot about adventuring, it hardly would have fitted every occasion.
The best D&D rp experiences I've had however, the party has cooperated well and succeeded against all odds. And that in a party with some with cultural differences and a lot of arguing
There is a simple solution that will satisfy all concerns: the D&D group should discuss their preferences and expectations before the campaign begins. Reading these boards, it seems to me that the vast majority of the inter-party and player-DM problems that arise are the result of people simply having different expectations or preferences about how the game is to be played. Most of the time, these problems can be solved simply by having everyone in the group talk about the problem and how it is making the game less fun and discuss potential solution. Better yet, talk about game-play style and campaign preferences and so forth before the campaign begins (or whenever a new player joins the group) to prevent such issues from coming up. Before my current campaign, we all went around and talked about what we wanted to get out of it and what kinds of sessions we wanted to have, and our campaign is much better for it. We didn't all agree on all points, but we reached enough of a consensus that everyone felt they would enjoy playing.
The object of the game is to make it fun for the other players. If everyone strives for each other's enjoyment, then everyone will enjoy themselves.
This is quite possibly the most brilliant idea I have ever heard on this topic. Those 1st Edition designers sure knew how to sling a mean RPG.
-- 77IM
A friend of mine was running a typical "end of the world" campaign. The BBEG was conquering everything, could only be stopped by a specific artifact, the whole nine yards. And we, the players, were humanities last, best hope, running cross country and trying to stay alive while stopping the onslaught. The trick was that there was very little margin for error, as most of the encounters were very dangerous (to say the least).
The first casualty was a gnome that another friend wanted to play. She jumped into the game in the middle and immediately caused huge amounts of trouble, accidentally leading people back to our campsite, tipping off enemy forces as to our locations, and almost causing the party's death several times. So after a particularly stressful session we booted her - I believe the exact message to the DM was "If X plays this character again we kill her PC in her sleep the first night we're with her." (We're still friends and she plays in many of the other games, btw.)
The second was the paladin. After many games we had the artifact, we were headed towards the BBEG, and through a combination of bravado, horrifically bad decisions, and bad luck the paladin managed to single-handedly lose it to the enemy after a totally avoidable 30-minute encounter. So my character killed him on the spot. Because he had shown himself to be a liability and, best case scenario, set us back several sessions. And more importantly, because he didn't realize that it was "bad" for us, just that it had been "in character."
So, can a need to "win" a campaign unite a party? Sometimes. But it can also divide a party. Winning is fitting in, not "winning."
On a side note, there were a couple of posts here about walking away from games with too many DM requirements - do you really do that? I've run an all rogue campaign, all LG or NG campaigns, all evil campaigns, a no spellcaser campaign, heck, in my current one I only allow NG, CG, N, and CN characters and that's a pretty light restriction (I let the players pick one corner of the alignment grid). Many of the campaigns I've played in have been the same. In my experience, the restricted campaigns are always better than the ones with all sorts of random, unrelated characters with every alignment on the chart. It gives the characters common ground without requiring them to save the world...
-Shaftiel
From the very beginning of my DM's campaign he introduced a sort of "over-villain" who was, directly or indirectly, causing most of the world's problems. Whenever our party has started to drift from teamwork our DM reintroduces this character. We've all been informed that the storyline will culminate in a sort of epic battle with this person and the "fate of the world" hinges around that. In fact our DM is planning the next campaign world around the result of that conflict, either something similar to the original cosmology or a burned out world dominated by undead.
While our party is all good, we have had conflicts around the law/chaos axis and despite managed to keep from deteriorating down to the level we read about in the "What's a ____ to do?" forums because of this unifying factor.
So thank you for your well thought out post that exactly expresses our situation and perhaps the optimum gaming situation.
I am currently playing in a campaign DM'ed by one of my own players. All of the veterans are there, but there are also a couple of players that have been unintentionally causing great grief. I wrote a dozen pages of background for my character, developed a 10-page illustrated book of spells for her, detailed her friends and why she was adventuring and her goals. She sought a reliable group of people to adventure with to gain knowledge, power and the skill needed to overcome the problems in her background. What she found with the party assembled for the game was a level of incompetence in some of the members that it was utterly unacceptable that she continue to risk her life with them and trust them as companions. Every time she made a suggestion for safety (scouting a hall before resting in an room, not letting an alarm get out) that relied upon another character's skills she got no aid and ended up nearly dead on every adventure she went with them. I warned and guided in and out of character but to nop avail.
After being captured by the Emerald Claw (Ebberon) and watching her closest companion killed, she had to leave the party... despite the 20+ pages of background developed for her. The character, and no character with any sense of self-preservation would have remained with them. It was so bad that my character did not know if the poor players were enemy spies out to kill her or not. She had to leave. Her familiar's famous last words before being killed was "Betrayed! We are betrayed by his cowardice"... referring to one of the bad players how had just ignored a life and death warning.
My reaction as a player was to create a character that would not rely so heavily upon the competence of others and who could basically fend for himself: a cleric with a really, really big sword. He has immediately made it clear that he is a knightly warrior who insists upon the respect that he is due for his station, he values valor, and he does no man dishonor or harm who does not first do harm to him. Because he doesn't need the problem players, when they have recently made poor decisions, he has had the strength to remain and do the right thing for himself and for the game.
I see a possibility for conflict to arise if they begin to endanger his life through incompetent acts and willful disregard for his warnings. This character truly would have slain the other two problem characters if he had been in the same situation as my previous character.
I have to confess that this new character has two FLAWS. The first is the "madness of bloodlust" which causes him to go berserk after dealing a critical hit and lusting for blood until two times the critical damage is done to opponents (or possibly others if the enemies run out). The other flaw is the "stain of battle" which is like post traumatic stress disorder and causes him to sometimes have flashbacks of battle during stressful or threatening situations... and he reacts as if in the remembered battle.
Cooperation and brotherhood among the party is the only way to keep the rages in check. A threatening and dangerous set of party members can easily be mistaken for enemies during battle or other stressful situations. My character was built powerful enough that one hit from him can put the most problematic character at -10, and easily put the other one negative. I think my player is a barometer who will react to the party's rising need to bleed.
That sounds terrible, it is terrible, and no such thing was ever needed in the games I DM'ed. Considering the situation, though, who in his right mind would spend effort building a wonderful character who just gets killed by the other characters' incompetence? With this character, the poor player's incompetence or cowardice may still betray us all and cost our lives, but it will be certain that they are also rolling up new characters with us and with many fewer irksome traits and destructive traits.
G