This is something that is really getting to me. There seems to be an inherent flaw with true roleplaying experiences in a tabletob setting (or any multiplayer roleplaying setting with a focus on roleplaying).
Everyone goes in with the inspiraiton they draw from other mediums, such as Tolkien-esque books/movies, or some anime they've seen, maybe even some Drama TV show involving Vampires/Werewolves (*shudders*), etc. You get the idea.
And so, every player makes their character in this grander universe to be "the main character" in this narrative they create for themselves, and they play it out like that. And if they don't do that, then they make their character the "Lone wolf" side character type you see in animes as a supporting character that sits in the back of the bar shiftily eyeing everyone up, or scheming something in their head unknown to everyone including the DM (and this character should always be EVEN COOLER than "the main character").
Problem resulting from "The Main Character" player:
- They tend to be a spotlight hog for important NPC interactions. Multiple players like this will butt heads when trying to question or interact with them.
- When these players roleplay with each other, they tend to try to one-up each other. Always trying to get the witty last word in a conversation ("We will see about that", "Indeed we will", "Hmph, you'll see it my way by the end of this, mark my words", "It's the mark you will leave that I worry about" ME: "UGH JUST GET ON WITH IT!").
- In extreme cases, they try to always pull the plot back to something that continues their ultra-convoluted, 2-page backstory they wrote up and submitted to the DM. That, or they get frustrated when the plot contradicts their backstory or otherwise moves away from it without acknowledging them.
Problem resulting from "The Lone Wolf" player:
- Character always wants to go off and do something else, taking focus away form the party's actions, slowing things down often by having the party "break up" to accomplish a task. This happens often when the character by design must pick an action that allows him to make decisions without consulting the party, or without the party "weighing him down"
- When the player identifies another player as someone that might be "The Main Character", they try to show them up even harder than another "The Main Character" might do. Trying to prove them wrong, and always challenging them (verbally, test in combat, subterfuge, etc.).
- In extreme cases, "The Long Wolf" will go so far as to make sure the party fails with their plan, because they have a much better plan the rest of the party didn't like. Or because the character is secretly evil and is just trying to be evil for the sake of being evil, or otherwise has different end-goals than the party.
- I see countless examples of this player type in D&D horror stories told on forums about D&D games gone wrong.
In a movie, you can have a main character. But when playing a roleplaying game with other players, you can't really have that. The party is the main character, and the spotlight should naturally shift to different players as the story progresses. These players that take on these archetypes really bog down the game (or even completely ruin it), and I can never seem to avoid them in my 16 year venture to find a great role-playing group.
I try to be the character that wants to get the job done using everyone's strengths, or compromise with other characters mine disagrees with, as if to show them by example how to role-play as a group, but they just take advantage of this by affirming their position as the [archetype] and start butting heads with each other, leaving me to pick sides. If they see my character is trying to take advantage of everyone's strengths, they see that almost as a threat to their leadership and assert their percieved decisionmaking power to veto mine and everyone's idea if it doesn't work with their's. And I just roll my eyes and say "Okay, what would you have me do then" if only to move the plot along.
I have seen this in D&D, similar table top games to D&D, LARP groups, and MMO RP Realms (most prevelant in the extreme examples in MMO's because everyone wants to make a name for themself in the massive world of role players screaming for attention).
In my current group, we circumvented this by not taking the game too seriously, light RP, and we just have a bunch of fun and we like it that way. But then again, the one thing we lack that I miss form other games is more focus on role-playing. So I was thinking about finding a new group to play with at the same time (I am a DM for my current group), but I always seem to run into people like the above group when I look for Heavy Role-players, especially considering I have to look for a group of strangers (that probably are strangers to each other as well).
Has anyone run into this problem? Any ideas on how to circumvent this if I am just a player, not a DM?
I really haven't had this problem in over 20 years. But I see how it can be a problem. The game has to be played as an ensemble. I go as far as to tell players don't split up, it just slows the game down and you are going to run into things that only the team can handle. Now when I don't say splt up I don't mean the ranger or rogue scouting ahead a few feet.
scythebladex wrote:
And I think this may be a problem with younger or more inexperienced players. I think us much older players either got that out of our system or left the game. I do see it in some younger players in the hobby shop, but they typically get bored and leave real fast.
Interestingly, if we take Lord of the Rings for an example, we see how different characters become main characters at different times even though the entire story is really the story of Frodo and Sam traveling to destroy the ring. Like arnwolf said, I think the ensemble approach is what D&D especially was designed for.
When I play, I make sure that I give up the spotlight when it is appropriate to keep others engaged. I don't mind being a secondary character as long as I can do something important that becomes pivotal for our progress. This is also easier to accept when I know that some time in our campaign, maybe not today or even tomorrow but later down the road, my character will be setting the goal or "carrying the ring" so to speak.
But certainly, if a player does not understand the way to take turns or if a DM does not give all the players their chance to be a star there could be a problem. I'm just glad I haven't experienced that problem in my many years of playing and DMing.
When I write an adventure I try to have very fluid encounters (in case someone doesn't show up) designed to showcase different PC abilities. That's harder to do for Adventure League games, in fact pretty much impossible.
As a DM, I try to move the spotlight around. My group has been quite varied and usually has a mix of "main character" players and supportive characters. I think the problem you're seeing or fearing only comes up when you have too many players who are trying to "win" the game.
The OP is describing flaws in social interaction, not flaws in RPGs. You can apply these observations to a great variety of group activities. Sure, the solutions vary depending on the activity, but the problem is fundamentally the same: some people are $#!%brains.
Yeah, I have to agree with the responses that say the OP is taking a problem he's personally encountered and assumed it's universal. It's not.
Nor is there one correct way to roleplay.
Character conflict can be fun. Player conflict is an entirely different bag of turds.
.
So my PC had better be interesting/memorable & DO interesting/memorable things. (Otherwise it's a pretty crappy story.) Wich both requires, & results in, the spotlight
When I DM I make a conscious effort to try to bring different people into the spotlight at different times.
There are several ways I do this
- A long-lost friend shows up that can help the group
- Skills needed for a particular task are suited for a specific character
- Split the party. I don't do this often, but sometimes I have a PC (or two) have an RP opportunity while the rest of the is off elsewhere
- If someone is hogging the spotlight, I cut them off (I try to be gentle about it) but will flat out ask the attention hog to hold on for a minute while I find out what other people think/want to do.
It is important to remember that some people also don't like being in the spotlight. That they may just enjoy the game without being the center of attention.
Prima donna players
The thing is DM's do this as well - instead of their PC being the most important thing, it's their plot which is the most important thing. Or they have the lone wolf plot, which is secretive and shows up all the PC's as being less important than it.
But one example of players doing this prima donna thing is, I think, is where say player A has his PC goes off to stab the king and despite player B's character wanting the king to live, player A insists player B has to have his character totally not 'block' him from doing that.
Noon wrote:
I think if 'us' includes the GM, yeah (though I tend to think the GM gets a share and a half or so rather than one equal share of what it's about - call me a tyranical old school gamer, if ya wants! 
)
Mistwell wrote:
Well, surely not every story needs to have a main character, I am sure we can come up with some examples where you don't either have someone that absolutely everything always revolves around or the person who goes off on their own and takes up half the story.
Like... Well, the fantasy story that started the boom! Lord of the Rings where you have a group of the greatest adventurers around and.... everything revolves around and depends on the actions of Frodo Baggins who breaks away from the group and does his own thing.
Okay, well.. huh...
Okay!! Got it! The X-Men! Because with all their crazy racial powers and class powers, D&D characters are pretty well comparible. They are outcasts of society with greatly different abilities and personalities. They are a great team!!.... Which hardly matters because absolutely everything there is to be done is done by Wolverine and the rest of them are just there to lose and get killed in order to make him look good, in fact you can outright do away with the entire rest of the team and just do movies and comics about him and him alone.
Huh....
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe!!... Oh... right there in the title.
Hmmm..
I know!! What about Ninja Turtles thing back in the 1980s and recurring every since where you have 4 different characters with 4 different specialties and 4 different personalities and.... in most of the stories, Rapheal breaks away from the group and does the most important things all by himself.
Well, let's see here...
Oh!! With all the bronies who are coming out on this board, I am sure I would be remiss not to mention their favorite TV show, MLP... where absolutely everything revolves entirely around Twilight who is the most perfect, flawless and best and the others exist just to be different flavors of goofy sidekicks who constantly sacrifice themselves to elevate her.
Harry Potter? Oh, right. Duh. The Boy Who Lived, how does anyone else even matter?
Star Wars?... Wait, no. Everything of any importance at all was done by the same family line. Both Luke and Anakin are chosen ones who alter the universe with their actions alone, accomplish everything meaningful and for long parts of the story go off on their own.
Star TREK perhaps?.... No, even in the more modern series where the main character might rotate each weekly story, there is still a main character in every story and no one else spends more than a quarter of the episode on screen.
You know what? Yeah, you are pretty much screwed. There is no example of any sort of long-running series where you had an entire group who were all equally valued and received equal attention and stayed together through the entire story and lasted long enough to have many, many stories. What one expects to get from an RPG runs entirely counter to what makes a good story.
To be fair, I don't think the OP's rant was about lone wolves or lead protagonists per se, but rather a PC's (or multiple) proclivity for the spotlight at the expense of the table.
scythebladex wrote:
In fact a well optimised party will never have hogging problems, given a variety of situations, because they're depensent on each other to cover their weaknesses (thus allowing them to have those weaknesses).
I just prefer to play with people who don't try to hog the spotlight in the first place.
i rather enjoyed hebitsuki's examples.
so the OP appears to be complaining that everyone either wants to be the main character or they want to be lone wolves, and that is somehow a bad thing. I think in any X men adventure without wolverine, or any Justice League adventure without Batman, the "everyone is a main character" works. Wolverine tends to fall by the way side in space and high level adventurers too (Proteus handed him his arse, and at that time, envy was for any marvel character except him).
Harry potter makes a good point of illustrating the problems when you actually are the main character. The jealousy of being the center of attention coupled with being the target for both generic villains and the "come to the darkside" recruiting attempts from the high level villains is more of a burden than a happy go lucky time. If i were in Harry Potter land, I would probably prefer to play one of the Weasley twins, Hermione, or someone from slytherin other than Malfoy or his immediate sidekicks.
Last night i ran a session where we had two people play 2 characters each and one person play 1. Sometimes people want to be the center of attention, even if their respective characters are nothing special. Just give them more characters I guess. Some people want to be quiet church mice and panic when called on to do something important, or give a speech, or lead.
Best way to resolve the 'who is the important person' and 'does anyone get to be the lone badass' is to have the group construct their characters collectively, seeking advice from each other. I've seen this solve lots of power problems. When someone feels like they contributed to making the "thing" that takes up the spot light, they share in that glory. When someone feels like the reason so and so does so much damage, has so many attacks, such a great armor class, or amazing social skill bonuses, is because they made that happen, then they don't often feel bad when that character is doing well.
if you rock paper scissors the character construction so everyone has a hand in at least one other person's character design, then they will naturally weave themselves together, or a least be amused when the whole thing crumbles.
i think in Rune Soldier they had a relatively balanced mix. A fighter mage, a cleric, and a thief. The fighter mage was the main character but his wizard levels were super low so he ended up looking like an idiot any time they needed magic. Actually, the storyline was pretty cruel to him about 80% of the time.
Statistically, there's almost no way everyone at the table wants to be the constant center of attention. Someone will always be more extroverted or introverted.
The inherent flaw in RP is when you do not want to participate for whatever reason. Then you tend to drag down the rest of the experience at the table. I am not talking about one off behaviors because you are in a bad mood, sick, or just plain silly. Just avoid the extremes when you want to hog the spotlight, or don't want to be bothered. If you are trying to exert that much control over the game, then you are not happy about something, or are wasting your time trying to change people to come around to your point view. It is probably best at that point to move on.
One of my players is the lone wolf type. His Pc makes every attempt to leave the party and do his own thing. I let hiim know and the other players warned him as well, I don't pull punches as a Dm. A Pc going it alone can find himself over his head really quick and dead. Will see what happens and how the player reacts when that goes down.
sirkaikillah11 wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
Rhenny wrote:
hmnn.. nope. you guys aren't making any sense.
Bob is a level 1 fighter, he goes it alone in an area good for level 1 encounters designed/engineered for 4 characters.
results: bob probably dies or runs away realizing he can't win.
conclusion: logic is sound. going alone is dumb
Dave is a level 4 fighter, he goes it alone in an area good for level 1 encounters designed/engineered for 4 characters.
results: Dave probably slaughters everything he encounters, and moves on to the level 2 area, reaching level 5.
conclusion: logic is questionable, Dave could still progress to an area over his head.
Anubis is a level 14 Sorcerer, he goes it alone in an area good for level 10 encounters designed/engineered for 4 characters.
results: Anubis has mixed results depending on the encounters and his spell choices. But then wanders around level 8-12 areas and gets to level 15.
conclusion: logic is questionable, Anubis can probably determine which encounters to avoid and has magic to escape.
Mr. Mxlpix is a level 17 wizard. He goes it alone (with a couple of henchmen, a carriage, a backup clone spell, 3 contingencies, and a couple of broken magic items)
results: Mx is confused about the encounters in the area. He scans about briefly, and decides on a method of doing whatever suits him. When he encounters the level 17 encounter, he uses "power overwhelming" too broken to repeat here.
conclusion: logic fails.
The power curve of characters normally outstrips the terrain layout of encounters at some point, whether it is a planned encounter or just random encounters, doesn't matter. It is Bad DMing to assume when a character is alive and existing in a campaign, exactly enough monsters identical in CR to their level materialize and prove how awesome team work is. That's just a bunch of crap. Some character builds ARE better than others in various situations. It depends on the encounter, and it depends on the build, levels, classes, equipment, attributes, and whether or not the player is clever. (and as i learned a while back, if your PC is a flying Archer like an Aarokra vs. a pack of wolves, then the odds can be grossly in favor of the PC, even if their level is low)
some people struggle to fight monsters several CR lower than their group, and some solos are capable of taking out monsters a few CR higher than themselves. It's not an automatic mathematical equation, nor should it be. An idiot full of hubris wanders off going "i dont need you guys, im awesome", sure, go ahead and slaughter his arse. But if for some reason you have some whackjob from an anime doing the dark and brooding tropes, just roll with it. They will either walk into the volcano or they will eat a big bowl of rice. No way of knowing if they are going to suicide by hubris or turn blond and shiny until they get there.
Last session i was in i accidentally killed a paladin with a haste spell. The evil villain thought it was so unusual and hilarious they paid half the ressurection fee just to have permission to examine the body. Weird shite happens. Being level X doesn't automatically mean you die when you go solo.
shintashi wrote:
I admit that I'm a very 'active' player. It's not a main-character thing, it's a matter have having a short attention span and disliking having to sit idly and wait while other players tackle all the changes. However, all of the players at my table are like this, so we end up playing out a balanced ensemble, with everyone engaged in their own little subplots. There were the trio of of non-magic-user Zhentarim engaged in a turf war over ownship of a potion shop; the cleric of Shar and the prideful dragonborn sorcerer whom were continually locked in battles over power, artifiacts, and influence (with a great deal of collaterol damage); and the human sharpshooter whom had Reincarnate cast on himself in order to throw assassins off his trail, only to learn that his reincarnation might be from a lot farther back. Each of these plotlines absorbed a great deal of table time, but everyone was okay with it and it all worked out okay. (Admittedly, though, we were all exhausted by the end of it and vowed to cooperate with each other in the next campaign.)
I've also played in a campaign wthere a main character appeared organically. It was an Eberron campaign which focussed on warforged and where there was a warforged PC whose backstory conveniently allowed the DM to generate a cadre of lieutenants / boss monsters linked to the Lord of Blades. I managed to play a character whom acted like both a lone wolf and a pushy main character, but that was a key part of whom he was, and I ultimately played him in a manner than allowed him to at as the supporting character for the warforged PC. Ultimately, all of us worked well together with no player conflict. (In-character, the other party members plotted to assassinate me, and I was plotting to have them wiped out the second they moved against me.)
I guess good RP ultimately comes down to whether or not you have a group which can work well together. If everyone is strong-willed but patient or everyone is willing to go witht he flow and unite to tell a great story, then things work out well.
Sometimes a spotlight hog can be a blessing to a table, especially to the DM who needs to riff off of player activity. I'll throw myself under the bus here: I played a Togashi ise zumi (a tattooed monk) in a recent game of L5R, who largely attempted conversation indirectly, largely by way of metaphor and introspective philosophizing. Usually tied directly to how lacking my sleep had been, and a bit of introversion to boot, I simply didn't have the energy to play the character well. A sort of mental fatigue would see me withdraw into a sedentary performance, so far as my tattooed monk was concerned. Having someone else at the table driving most of the action was a boon.
Elfcrusher wrote:
Noon wrote:
shintashi wrote:
Noon wrote:
Noon wrote:
Yunru wrote:
Brimleydower wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Two-page backstory? Amateurs. I submitted 10 pages and a 1-page psychological profile for the character I'm playing now.
But then I don't fall into the stereotypes of the "Main Character" player. I'm more than willing to share the spotlight, and, in fact, I am willing to stand back and let other players take initiative when they want to or when it's pertinent for the story.
So what if I'm a bard? A bard can't be on stage all the time.
I have seen these people, though. I guess I've been lucky in that I haven't had too much of a problem with them. The Lone Wolves will stand at he periphery of the party, but never just go off on their own in a dungeon or anything. Our DMs (one of which is me) like to focus on different characters for different story arcs, while making sure everyone is engaged, so the MCs stay appeased and don't try to one-up each other.
The only problem I run into frequently is the "my character wouldn't do that" player, who always seems to be, by nature, diametrically opposed to the party. It's usually either a paladin in a group of chaotic people or a rogue in a group of relatively law-abiding characters. Rather than come up with a way that their character can try to work within their ethics and get the same result, they immediately shut down and refuse to budge, stating, "My character wouldn't do that." And they never give in. Or they'll give in, throw down their pencil and just half-heartedly roll dice, pouting for the rest of the session. It's pretty much a "My way or the highway" mentality, but garbed in the guise of "good roleplay."
shintashi wrote:
thewok wrote:
scythebladex wrote:
I've seen this played out a few times, and with my "core" group, we've learned that it's good to be each other's cheerleaders.
I haven't played with a large group in awhile (last group didn't work out the way I wanted it to, so I let that game die--and it had something to do with this phenomenon), but the great thing about TTRPGs is that we can improv--something film, TV, books, theater, and video games will never be able to replicate.
We can tell stories with TTRPGs that do things which these other mediums can't do because we have absolute control of the timing and the back-story. When we read a book or watch a television show, all that is prepackaged for us in a (fairly) unambiguous way--a main character is identified so we know what the story is "about." Think about the Dragon in the Wheel of Time. Is Rand al'Thor a badass because he is who he is, or because he travelled with people that helped him achieve the reaches he attained?
The answer is a trick: Robert Jordan made Rand a badass and his support cast a support cast because Rand is the product of a mythic/fantasy tradition of writing about the One who Saves the World which Robert Jordan wanted to join.
But if Rand didnt have Thom, or Perrin, or any of his mates, he'd be a super uninteresting Mary Sue, getting out of all his scraps because he was destined by plot.
My question, then is whether these "side" characters are interesting without Rand? I'm not sure. I know they're made more interesting to me because of their relationship with Rand. I think of Christopher Moore's book _Lamb_, and the way it made the Three Kings/Prophets far more dynamic characters, whose backstories were Jesus's story as much as they were their own. By themselves, they would have been interesting characters, but tied together with Moore's interpretation of Jesus, we get this much richer implication of the world's history and the nature of Christian philosophy.
Disclaimer: The above is not a pitch for Christianity, nor a jab at it. I'm not trying to debate theology or belief. Moore's book was the last novel I read that stuck with me, so it's been on my head lately.
With a TTRPG though, we can bypass that kind of narrative cunundrum, because all characters present belong to everyone at the table.
That goes pretty starkly against the official stance of metagaming in the DMG (I don't have my book, otherwise I'd quote it to ya directly). Namely, don't do it. Ever. Each character is a separate entity, and what the bard knows the barbarian doesn't.
I haven't tried an alternative method of play with a party of totally new players in a DnD game, but in the Silence Metagame (where each player embraces imperfect knowledge of the other character and works to ensure nobody incringes on each other's backstory) we create a really fragmented narrative. For my more literary folks, think William Faulkner's _The Sound and The Fury_, where we see four different perspectives on the same story, never interacting, just commenting on each others actions. We're never not metagaming, but our metagame prohibits building on one another.
But think about combat--a well-oiled DnD party works to set up each other player's strengths. The Cleric buffs the Barbarian, who defends the wizard, who controls the terrain, so the ranger can kite, so the baddies are distracted and the enemies never see the rogue coming.
That requires metagame knowledge to happen. We need to know the Barbarian can be a bruiser. We need to know the cleric casted an offensive spell which lets the barbarian hit five times a round. The barbarian needs to know that the wizard will cast a spell which will turn the battlefield into an improv coloseum, etc. The characters aren't spending the time telegraphing their decision that way--the players do that in the metagame.
Likewise, a good RP session allows for similar tie ins--which requires similar metagame knowledge. The DM and the fellow players should work to make each moment of spotlight on a particular character relevant, interesting, and rewarding. Players should try to revel in each other's characters the way we revel in or favorite characters in our fandoms. We need to be each other's fandoms, trying to see how each character can take the world the DM presents to us and tie it back to what the player has expressed as his goals for his character.
I know anecdotes are only of limited use to other players, but with my regular group, when we discovered this play style, it was an amazing change in play. When I started playing, I preferred being the lone-wolf PC--but I realized the reason I did that wasn't because I was trying to edge out the party, but because I wanted to increase conflict by jabbing at "the world" of the game, and see if I could cause a ruccus which brought the party into conflict.
But then I realized how to transform that impulse to make the group stronger, which brings me to:
Anecdote time:
I played a NE Orc barbarian named the Meantree in a long running campaign of mid-high level characters. He was a nasty mercenary who'd toured around the Southern half of this country helping fight off an invading army. I had this ugly reputation as a doer-of-all-the-bad-things, and the only reason the different militias and armies hadn't put me down like a bad dog was a deep-seated xenophobia: anytime I was fighting the invading species (they were Suuli from one of the Pathfinder Bestiaries), I charged dirt cheap, and any time I worked with folk from my home region, I worked hard.
And instead of just introducing myself that way, one of my buddies--he was playing an elven wizard--cut me off before I could launch into an out-of-game explanation. He had his character say she had heard of the Meantree, and proceeded to describe some of my exploits: rumors had it that I'd killed a Basilisk with my bare hands, that I'd poisoned an entire enemy encampment, that before the southern war I ran with a bandit known as Tomohawk Joe and they kicked me out of the gang because I was too violent.
We didn't know if any of this was literaly true in the world. But it was a great moment, because we all spent the next half hour telling stories and rumors about each other's characters. It was all off-the-cuff stuff, and we never tore down each other's image of each other's characters; we refined them. We established boundaries and relationships between each other, and we got used to one another's aspirations for one another as players.
A few play sessions later, and one of my buddy's characters reveals to Meantree that he was deposed nobility. My buddy had saved my character's hide twice (I can't remember if it was healing him or just removing bad mojo), and so I told the Meantree tell he'd be his champion for no up front cost if he needed to fight his way back into authority. And from that point on, I had the Meantree angle his interactions with NPCs to help lift up my buddy's character.
Then a few sessions later, a PC died and a new character was introduced--an ancient orcish witch, and to bring the character into the world, the player and I decided that Orc culture venerated their elders. So the witch was introduced to the party by Meantree, who basically prostated himself before her and in addition to trying to build up his ex-noble ally, he worked to earn the approval of this disapproving crone of an orc (who was NG).
The player decided the witch would see the need for Meantree, but be repulsed by him because of his deeds. So any time the Witch's player needed to demonstrate her influence to an NPC, she'd chastise the Meantree and make him do things which were menial to someone of his notoriety--and I ran with it. He hated doing it, but it was more important to him to make sure he had the approval of this ancient orcish matron than to establish himself as independent of her. The Witch's player wanted to stage a coup, and she wanted to do it without ever having her character do anything violent, so I made the Meantree vulnerable to the manipulation of another character so that the Witch could have her epic coup moment, where (skipping a bunch of plot to get to the juicy bit) she stood over the Wizard she worked to depose and had an awesome back-and-forth exchange about how she was able to depose of him because he couldn't inspire loyalty and how she'd never needed to use her magic to force his army to bend to her will. It was an awesome moment--and totally a perversion of the truth--but it was fun for every character at the table because we each did our little part to build up this opportunity for this other player to act out this political fantasy.
Yunru wrote:
The “survival chances” are a tough thing to deal. If you can “tailor” the encounters for a group of X players of level Z, you can do that with one character. Basically, PCs die only when you want to or when you mess up too much encounters. That’s the truth.
I think it would be interesting to actually see the one “Lone Wolf” play at the table: I saw that kind of character only once, and a short time after he became the lone wolf, I had to stop DMing for completely unrelated real-life problems. Yeah, that is life.
You see, I’m not saying this kind of character cannot be problematic or good one, nothing like that. What I’m saying is: it would be interesting to actually see one of those guys do that and try to work out. If I don’t like it or find that to be a bad thing… Ehh, life is not perfect. But apparently, as long as third person report is concerned, you can work out if – and only if – the player accepts that this won’t be a story about a lone wolf character and the rest of the group: it will be the story about a group of adventurers and close friends, and a guy who kinda help kinda don’t. Perhaps the “Lone Wolf” type of player is just another “Main Character”. In that case, the treatment is the same: make the character whatever you want it to be, but spotlight time is shared between players. You are not the only one trying to have fun here, and I’m not perfect to begin with. We are all humans so we have to deal with that sooner or later – although perhaps, once we die, we can play RPG at heaven. Perhaps it would have fewer problems.
Or, in both discussions, maybe not. Who knows?!
cassi_brazuca wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Noon wrote:
If the players are trained properly, they will avoid fighting against the odds or against more dangerous foes whenever possible. Therefore, a solo PC can use stealth, social skills and other tricks to survive and thrive if the DM rolls with it, the same way a lower level party can encounter a Lich or other high CR creature(s). The key is for players and DM to have non-combat solutions for those situations.
Also, reading some of the other excellent comments, I agree that it is great when the players become cheerleaders for other players, and if that happens having a lone wolf or split party can be very exciting.
Hebitsuikaza wrote:
Rhenny wrote:
Noon wrote:
shintashi wrote:
shintashi wrote:
i dont try to change encounters based on solo/group dynamics either way, although i may change the way an encounter plays out if I made a mistake in over estimating player competence, or pulled an encounter from some other edition where they are much stronger or weaker in the new edition, but that's me making mistakes.
When it comes to disrupting play, there's basically two scenarios. Reasonable deviation from the party path, and unreasonable. Sometimes, characters literally won't do something because it is against their ethos, that the party just goes along with. Sometimes the player thinks the party is leading them down a suicidal path and their desire to preserve their character's lives trumps the "go team" bridge jump. I remember i got a lot of flak for not stepping on the green glowing pillar that made characters vanish in a bright green ray of light - I think it's because about the same time my mom bought Stephen King's Tommy Knockers and green = disintegrate.
Sometimes lone wolves in our games are villains. Their "solo" storylines are actually turned into plots the other players later face. This works better in groups larger than 5.
Orethalion wrote:
shintashi wrote:
Noon wrote:
I sometimes wish I had players trying to out "role-play" each other, as opposed to being wheelbarrowed through the campaign.
Noon wrote:
As a DM who runs a lot of public games, I run into this alot. No there's no "one true way" to roleplay but we're not necessarily talking about roleplaying here. We're talking about players playing a game with other players.
And therein lies my usual solution to the problem. RPGs are a child of two worlds: story and game. Too often I see people readily embrace one side but not the other. The answer to problems on either end is the same: balance.
Here are two examples to show what I'm talking about, both from my latest game. In one scene, the combat was just plodding along, rolling dice and obsessing over distances and stuff. I was getting bored and said "okay, if you go into detail on how you attack your foe, I'll grant you an additional +1D4 of damage." Suddenly combat became a lot more creative and fun, with people making battle cries and tying their moves into their backstories, the whole nine.
In another scene, the PCs are transporting a caravan full of refugees to the capitol city. Rather than playing out every day or chaining encounters, I created a minigame where players had to choose Logistics, Defense, or Scouting. Each role affected the other, granting advantages, reducing time to get to the destination, etc. On each player's turn, they described the role they took and the things they wanted to do in that role to be successful. I ruled that every role had to be taken once every day, so there was a lot of strategic team discusssions about who should do what when.
So in the first example, a game that was getting too bogged down in rules became more fun by weaving narrative action into the rules themselves. In the second example, I took a situation that may have been heavy on lone wolves scouting ahead (i.e. doing their own brooding hero thing) by infusing some simple team-based mechanics into the scene to keep people thinking about the bigger picture.
Is it always that simple? Of course not. Does it always work? Not really. But it does work more often than not, and the overall theory is still a potent one. What makes an RPG great is not that it's an interactive story OR a tactical game with a story built into it. It's both, at once, simultaneously.
D&D is a team game. If you don't play as a team, it just doesn't work. It's the same with soccer or basketball. That doesn't make RPGs inherently flawed.
Hum…
Honestly, yeah, PCs can die from bad decisions in combat or bad luck, although this happens way more in difficult encounters, otherwise requiring exceptional circumstances.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case: split-up (any kind) is mostly a roleplaying choice. A solo adventure should look different from a group adventure, but outside that, yeah, you know that guy is going solo, and you can change encounter to whatever you wish.
Not saying is a good or bad idea, just possible. Whenever this is a bad idea or not may depend on the circumstances.
I think that, what we are saying is that it’s one thing to go fight the Ancient Red Dragon at level one alone. It’s another thing to just throw up party-level encounters with the intention of only saying “you see, split-up was a bad idea!” These are extremes, of course, but they serve as a basis to actual cases.
Although, I think the “lone wolf” player (aka the player which is playing the solo character) would know better than to go fight huge dangerous monsters which are much more powerful than him just as if there were 20 support characters helping him. So I think the kind of adventure is a little different. Having lots of combat, perhaps, but you get my point.
Or, in all those cases, maybe not. Who knows?
Eddie_G wrote:
Mecheon wrote:
Noon wrote:
AndrewJO wrote:
Noon wrote:
As a DM you have the ability to approve/veto character ideas, back-stories, etc. In the OPs example, I wouldn't just allow those types of disruptive players to keep doing their disruptive thing. This is a game, a team game, in which a group has come together to play as a team.
I would, as the DM, simply work with the player and come to a solution. "Sorry, you're brooding, lone wolf hero does not fit in this campaign. Lets work on coming up with a new concept that you like, that works better with the party" doesn't seem out of line at all.
Although I usually make my players create characters together, focusing on a shared back story of some sorts, good ties with each other, and bonds, goals, and motivations that are interwoven throughout the PCs. This always makes for a more enjoyable game for everyone at the table since there is almost no chance that a character is generated that would disrupt the flow of the party and game.
TL:DR DMs just need to work with said players to build a more viable character. 'Nuff said.