What to Watch Out for in Your Players

[Segev]

Can I flip the table here?

I'm afraid not; you're not hosting, so Tabletop Simulator won't let you flip it.

[JoeJ]

On the gender issue I think everything has already been said. But on this:

• Wants to be actual royalty in their backstory

I fail to see how that's a problem.

[Segev]

On the gender issue I think everything has already been said. But on this:



I fail to see how that's a problem.

If I had to guess, the player(s) he's thinking about wanted to use it as an excuse to break the equivalent of WBL curves and to order NPCs and/or the PCs around.

[JoeJ]

If I had to guess, the player(s) he's thinking about wanted to use it as an excuse to break the equivalent of WBL curves and to order NPCs and/or the PCs around.

Bad behavior by a player is a problem, obviously, but it would be just as obnoxious if the PC had a criminal background and tried to use their ties to organized crime to do those things, or a cleric who did them because they were the favorite of their deity.

[Mr Beer]

People will commit atrocities, yes. You do not have enough information to make this determination for all conceivable intelligent species. No one does. It is, therefore, entirely up to the setting author to decide if atrocities will take place, and all objections are irrelevant.

Irrelevant. Any author that decides no such thing takes place is not worth talking about. There is no accurate depiction of the world without pain.

There's a big gap between 'does not commit atrocities' and 'pain exists in the world'. Big enough to fit plenty of conceivable species into.

[JoeJ]

There's a big gap between 'does not commit atrocities' and 'pain exists in the world'. Big enough to fit plenty of conceivable species into.

Especially since different species would not necessarily agree on what constitutes an atrocity. Abandoning young children in the wilderness to survive or die on their own would probably not be an atrocity for a species with a high "r" reproductive strategy (that is, have a very large number of offspring, of which only a small percentage will survive).

[Rerem115]

I'm sorry, what?

Especially the first one.[...]The rest are equal bullcrap. There's nothing wrong with being the king. There's nothing wrong with crafting. There's some small bits wrong with dandwiki, and it's the DMs job to decide which.

I guess it's fair that I explain why I listed what I did.

As I said, I play a lot with new and/or younger players and with strangers. I've found that limiting the amount of overtly sexual content is generally good for group dynamics, thus the "sexy" and "pregnancy" bullets. At least in my experience, enough of the people who cross play are also too overtly sexual for my table, so it makes me prick up my ears a bit more when they describe their character.

For lolrandom and Japanese/edgelordy stuff, see inexperienced players. This also ties into the royalty bit. You can play royalty if you want, just give me a good reason why you're a wandering adventurer, anddon't expect to start with a Holy Avenger and minions (plural) because of your backstory.

For crafting, it slows down play, messes with the average quality of party gear, and as such, is a frequent target of players looking to break the system. Not helping matters is the fact that for 5e, basically all crafting is homebrew. I won't disallow it, per say, but you will have to get me to okay it first.

...Which segways into dandwiki. Is there some good content there? Sure. But, there's just so much garbage that it's probably not worth your time or mine to sift through it/fix whatever you find there. I will work with you on homebrew, but dandwiki is just too untrustworthy.

[JoeJ]

For lolrandom and Japanese/edgelordy stuff, see inexperienced players. This also ties into the royalty bit. You can play royalty if you want, just give me a good reason why you're a wandering adventurer, anddon't expect to start with a Holy Avenger and minions (plural) because of your backstory.

Considering how many fairy tales involve king's sons out seeking their fortunes, it shouldn't be any harder to justify a royal adventurer than any other background. As for minions, the noble background in 5e has an option to start with 3 retainers. You might choose not to allow that at your table, but it's hardly a warning sign if a player sees that in the PHB and wants to have it.

Also, per the PHB, any character can have as many minions as they want for 2gp per day each.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Considering how many fairy tales involve king's sons out seeking their fortunes, it shouldn't be any harder to justify a royal adventurer than any other background. As for minions, the noble background in 5e has an option to start with 3 retainers. You might choose not to allow that at your table, but it's hardly a warning sign if a player sees that in the PHB and wants to have it.

I'd disallow a royal adventurer, but that's only because of the four major nations, exactly one is a conventional monarchy, and the royal clan there is small and all their kids are less than 10 years old.

There is another noble family in a different land that has plenty of viable candidates, as long as they're not too busy stabbing each other in the back with poisoned daggers. Not having a clear heir when there's something like 16 primary candidates and ~120 other children (it's complicated, involving lots of wives/concubines and a set of blood-brothers who promised to adopt each others kids when one died). They're only vying for control of one area of the nation, and the absolute monarch (well, sort of) may decide to throw them all out on their ear if they don't cut it out soon.

The other two are a guild-based semi-oligarchy with merito-democratic pretensions and a democratic kritarchy (rule by elected judges). No nobles to be found in either one

For people from those lands, I take the "noble" background to mean "child of a wealthy/established leading family". But then I do narrative custom backgrounds instead of using the book ones directly.

[Rerem115]

Considering how many fairy tales involve king's sons out seeking their fortunes, it shouldn't be any harder to justify a royal adventurer than any other background. As for minions, the noble background in 5e has an option to start with 3 retainers. You might choose not to allow that at your table, but it's hardly a warning sign if a player sees that in the PHB and wants to have it.

Also, per the PHB, any character can have as many minions as they want for 2gp per day each.

You're saying exactly what I mean on the royal adventurer bit. I've legitimately had a couple players say "I'm the king/princess of a country, and leave it at that. No reason why, they were just royalty galivanting about.

With regards to minions, yes you can have retainers. No, those can't be Knights out of the MM. As for hiring minions, I tend to discourage it, since they slow the game down by quite a bit.

I guess my biggest problem with royal PCs is that their very existence tends to warp the plot around them. In games where I've had royal PCs with an actual backstory, the story eventually became a quest to save their kingdom, giving that player a lot of time in the limelight and drawing the others into orbit around them. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but that sheer power as a plot point can definitely skew the game.

[Lord Raziere]

There's a big gap between 'does not commit atrocities' and 'pain exists in the world'. Big enough to fit plenty of conceivable species into.

Especially since different species would not necessarily agree on what constitutes an atrocity. Abandoning young children in the wilderness to survive or die on their own would probably not be an atrocity for a species with a high "r" reproductive strategy (that is, have a very large number of offspring, of which only a small percentage will survive).

With such disagreement and variance comes an inability to be at peace with another, and thus war.

and thus do more atrocities occur.

[Nifft]

With such disagreement and variance comes an inability to be at peace with another, and thus war.

and thus do more atrocities occur.

I think you're claiming that disagreement & variance always leads to war and atrocities.

I'd prefer to believe that war & atrocities can be outgrown, as humanity progresses.

[Lord Raziere]

I think you're claiming that disagreement & variance always leads to war and atrocities.

I'd prefer to believe that war & atrocities can be outgrown, as humanity progresses.

Yes. through reason. agreed.

But biology and nature are not reason or civilization.

[JoeJ]

With such disagreement and variance comes an inability to be at peace with another, and thus war.

and thus do more atrocities occur.

You must be a lot of fun at parties.

[Mr Beer]

With such disagreement and variance comes an inability to be at peace with another, and thus war.

and thus do more atrocities occur.

I mean if you can demonstrate that this is a truism applying to all plausible lifeforms, you should publish your thesis and then go collect a Nobel prize for cracking the secrets of xeno-psychology.

[Lord Raziere]

You must be a lot of fun at parties.

I don't like parties, I'm the worst at parties. prefer to stay at home, read books or write stuff or play videogames. they're either stuffy formal affairs with suits, things with a lot of awkward conversation and just sitting talking for no reason other than to talk which to be fair is the vast majority of them, or wild drunken things that I'll never go to. full of strange stupid etiquette that I don't care about. I have no idea what people see in them. I mostly go for the food and so people don't nag me. rather be doing something actually fun myself. socializing is a necessity to me, not a joy.

[JoeJ]

I don't like parties, I'm the worst at parties. prefer to stay at home, read books or write stuff or play videogames. they're either stuffy formal affairs with suits, things with a lot of awkward conversation and just sitting talking for no reason other than to talk which to be fair is the vast majority of them, or wild drunken things that I'll never go to. full of strange stupid etiquette that I don't care about. I have no idea what people see in them. I mostly go for the food and so people don't nag me. rather be doing something actually fun myself. socializing is a necessity to me, not a joy.

And yet here you are, posting on a forum devoted to tabletop roleplaying games, with a join date of 2010. That strongly suggests that there are at least some social activities you enjoy.

[Quertus]

I don't like parties,

Solo adventurer, then?

That should probably be added to the list of things to watch out for.

[martixy]

dandwiki is a smoking garbage pit.

As a DM that's what I've decided.

I am not sure why that site gets such universal bad rap. There is some hot garbage in there, but it's the DMs job to curate his own game, not the site's. It's no more egregious than say, allowing Serpent Kingdoms in a 3.5e game.

I guess it's fair that I explain why I listed what I did.

As I said, I play a lot with new and/or younger players and with strangers. I've found that limiting the amount of overtly sexual content is generally good for group dynamics, thus the "sexy" and "pregnancy" bullets. At least in my experience, enough of the people who cross play are also too overtly sexual for my table, so it makes me prick up my ears a bit more when they describe their character.

For lolrandom and Japanese/edgelordy stuff, see inexperienced players. This also ties into the royalty bit. You can play royalty if you want, just give me a good reason why you're a wandering adventurer, anddon't expect to start with a Holy Avenger and minions (plural) because of your backstory.

For crafting, it slows down play, messes with the average quality of party gear, and as such, is a frequent target of players looking to break the system. Not helping matters is the fact that for 5e, basically all crafting is homebrew. I won't disallow it, per say, but you will have to get me to okay it first.

...Which segways into dandwiki. Is there some good content there? Sure. But, there's just so much garbage that it's probably not worth your time or mine to sift through it/fix whatever you find there. I will work with you on homebrew, but dandwiki is just too untrustworthy.

I didn't elaborate much, which I will now remedy.
It's true that younger players tend to be immature. Confronting them, right then and there tends to a good way to deal with that. Including all these concerns voiced here and even left unsaid. Dealing with the truth is a good way to resolve things in general.

Okaying things first is, well, okay. But labelling that as an automatic red flag seems a bit too harsh. Which does segway into dandwiki. See above.

People, even kids, don't usually do things merely out of spite. There's usually a better reason, and sussing out that reason and talking it over usually has a greater benefit than handling the symptoms.

[Keltest]

I am not sure why that site gets such universal bad rap. There is some hot garbage in there, but it's the DMs job to curate his own game, not the site's. It's no more egregious than say, allowing Serpent Kingdoms in a 3.5e game.

Its because they do a terrible job of separating their ill-thought-out homebrew content from actual game content and rules. They present themselves as a legitimate resource, and you may be able to use them as one if youre willing to put in the work, but if youre just browsing through classes looking for something to fit a concept, most likely youre going to end up with something that looks awesome at first glance but isn't remotely in a fit state for gameplay.

[martixy]

Its because they do a terrible job of separating their ill-thought-out homebrew content from actual game content and rules. They present themselves as a legitimate resource, and you may be able to use them as one if youre willing to put in the work, but if youre just browsing through classes looking for something to fit a concept, most likely youre going to end up with something that looks awesome at first glance but isn't remotely in a fit state for gameplay.

But....

they have big stonking banners on top that say "This is homebrew" or "This is SRD".

I don't get it...?

[Rerem115]

Maybe I used the wrong term when I said "red flag". I meant it as something that immediately draws the attention, a sign that I should start listening and make sure all is well.

Most of what I listed isn't enough to do much more than ping on my radar. But, that ping exists for a reason, which is why I listed it as a flag.

[Rerem115]

But....

they have big stonking banners on top that say "This is homebrew" or "This is SRD".

I don't get it...?

Well, the people looking for a "unique" character concept are going to find one. And when they hear I'm okay with homebrew, they are going to ask me if it's okay to play as a slightly depowered Solar who's class lets him ride a dragon and make 15 attacks a round. So, i just say no dandwiki to simplify things.

[Lord Raziere]

And yet here you are, posting on a forum devoted to tabletop roleplaying games, with a join date of 2010. That strongly suggests that there are at least some social activities you enjoy.

close friends who I've carefully built friendships with. I admit, I'm not the fastest at making friends, nor do I actively do so. roleplaying itself I enjoy for the art of it. talking about the videogames I like which are currently things like Fallout New Vegas, Hearthstone or Tales of Bersaria. talking about some shows I like. I just don't see the point in socializing for its own sake. my interests and preferences determine it. and those preferences include whom I like or dislike given what I've seen of a person. you may think it non-social to avoid people I do not like because of their views, but I just see it as a form of social skill in recognizing the people you'll never get along with and avoiding them instead of causing trouble because I decided to uselessly try to talk to them anyways, because I am honest like that and therefore honestly have to be observant of other people and thus extrapolate from what I've seen of them to determine such things.

I admit I could probably be a lot more socially adept if I apply myself, but I am lazy, and I don't like spouting bull.

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Wonder: Closed for cleaning