Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories Continued (not really)

[Quertus]

At this point you guys are pinging on my Bizarro world sense.

The idea that the GM is out of line trying to make sure the players make compatible characters or that the players should just emotionlessly accept whatever anti-social bunk their fellows bring to the table is really out of line.

Now, I suppose I have been a bit more sensitive to it than most, having been physically and verbally abused for not playing games right my entire life; but seriously, look around:

Watch sports brawls. Look at DOTA games where you can report your own team for playing the wrong character or not being good at the game. Look at MMO raiding videos where people rage after a wipe. Look at casino superstition where people blame their losses on people changing seats or making a mistake for "changing the flow of the table" or "taking their cards". Look at the sheer number of threads on this very forum or the vast number of gaming podcasts or youtube videos that deal with problem players or group templates or people who are "just doing what their character would do". Heck, look at the intent behind the tier system.

To deny that people routinely get upset over games is to deny overwhelming mountains of evidence.




A few posts up Zinycor was talking about "min-maxxing" in general or "any behavior that is not against the rules".

Now we are talking about "reasonable" which is completely different can of worms. Of course if something is reasonable you shouldn't object to it, that's what reasonable means.

I said months ago that I would have let him change his character to something reasonable, but all he was giving me was a one trick pony that would have been utterly useless outside of situations that can be solved by blasting and trivialize the rest of the party in situations where they could and whose ability scores were all outside of the range that was allowed by the form of point buy we were using to build character, and Zinycor specifically objected to that idea.

Again, I don't see one trick pony as unreasonable, even if the character was completely useless in other scenarios.

Now, if the player is being a jerk, I would kick him out regardless of the character he was playing as.

Talakeal, I'm not sure if anything in your reply is actually related to anything i was trying to say.

There are ****s in the world. How being a **** manifests among minmaxers causes plenty of idiots to throw the baby out with the bath water, and demonize the noble profession of optimizing.

How being a **** manifests varies. But treating an RPG the way you describe people acting… OK, being a **** is a spectrum. Really, a lot of your stories about sports and whatnot were also ****s, but people acting that way about an RPG is higher on the **** scale. Kinda like someone punching you for stealing their spot is worse than someone punching you for killing their SO.

Now, I'm not familiar with this DOTA practice, but people who break the social contract are ****s. But what the social contract is in DotA may well inherently more about "winning" (and formulaic teams) than RPGs are.

Personally, I play MtG for fun. Those who claim that there is only one optimal set of decks for Emperor may be right, but I would have no interest in playing with those who not only insist that those are the only decks that can be played, but verbally attack anyone who does not play such decks. The parallels to RPGs should be obvious.

"The idea that the GM is out of line trying to make sure the players make compatible characters… is really out of line." - um, what? Just who do you think said what? Me, I believe that it behooves everyone to try to make characters that get along (and that it's idiotic to bring alignment into that discussion).

"or that the players should just emotionlessly accept whatever anti-social bunk their fellows bring to the table is really out of line." - um, what? Just who do you think said what?