Fun fact:
The Expanse books (and eventual TV show) were started as a unique role-playing campaign where the person running it (Ty Franks) would write a prompt, the players would explain their character’s reactions. He’d then write a story section incorporating that and the players would say how they reacted and so on.
There was a core group of characters who were the “survivors” early on, but one of the players had to drop out early-ish, so in the next bit of story that character died.
That was carried into the books and TV show, which is why after the core group of characters is established, there’s a sudden, shocking death.
Dice-less, narrative games are so much fun. Sadly finding a good group for it is like pulling teeth, at least in my area.
*Sad theater kid noises*
If you don’t have a reason to work with the group, accept that this is a one-shot for you, which may be retcon’d as needed.
Also accept that you suck at making characters
I don’t know. One time I joined a game, and I had plenty of reasons to join the party, but the DM started RPing a really rude character, and it’s like his method of getting me to join the party was to be a huge asshole to me? I just didn’t pick up on it, and when I finally gave my character an ass-pull reason to join (that I could do some good if I tagged along) the DM was like “jeez, finally” and it sucked.
Like, if I’m playing a level 1 wizard, and the DM tells me I’m gonna die if I enter the conflict, it’s not really my backstory’s fault that I don’t jump into the fray. Sometimes you’re dealing with an inexperienced DM that expects you to metagame your way into the party. I genuinely thought he was on the verge of giving me the opportunity to convince the party to run away from the dragon, not stay and fight it.
If your character has no reason to stay either the plothook was insufficient or you made a bad character. Both should be adressed ooc.
Create a new character that does have a reason to stick around. *Session 0 should be the creation of the story of how the group met, they should not meet in session 1.
The DM came up with the plot hook and the players agreed to play, so the players need to put some effort into finding a reason to go along with the plot hook.
Suggestions on making the hook more engaging is an option too!
For me, as a DM, real shit always happens on session 1, you swim together or fucking die.
THANK. YOU.
Players who do this ARE BAD PLAYERS. I don’t care what it takes, you WILL find a reason to cooperate. Call it metagaming if you have to. This is a team game, you will work as a team.
Players are expected to make characters that will, for whatever reason, will work together and, for whatever reason, will take plot hooks. Without those two things the game doesn’t happen.
Everybody plays RPGs differently, but it’s funny how some people don’t get the term “roleplaying” and are constantly, relentlessly playing their real selves in the game. So you get barbarians with the sensibilities of software developers.
It’s natural that we gravitate towards familiarity.
Case in point, how some actors always seem to play the same character, no matter which movie they’re in.
Yeah that’s a good parallel. Lately I’ve been watching Kaitlin Olson’s show High Potential. Even though she’s playing a super-smart crime solver, to me it’s the same character she played in It’s Always Sunny and The Mick. Not that there’s anything wrong with that lol.
I mean, I think they get the term, but just have a hard time doing it.
I’m new to my party and roleplaying in general (though I’ve consumed it as entertainment) and I’m having a slightly different issue. My character was intentionally designed to be a bit naive to match me as a player, and doesn’t have high skills in any int based stuff (at least for now) and instead has medical, nature, survival, etc.
A lot of puzzles or traps etc I can as a player try to reason through, but my character shouldn’t be able to sus out, and I feel torn between playing the character as it should be or adding ideas to solve stuff so we aren’t just sitting there twiddling our thumbs for ideas.
Maybe your char bumbles around the room doing goofy things instead of working hard and logically to crack the puzzle and the dm can make your bumbling uncover extra clues that advance the plot.
This right here is what makes it roleplaying.
You as the player know what to do to move the story forward. Just need to figure out how the character you built would go from Point A to Point B, then roleplay doing it, even if it means they bumble their way through it like a clown.
Let the DM worry about what skills you need, if you even need them at all; the only thing the player has to do is describe their actions and their intentions.
A good DM will make sure you fail forward.
Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between factual knowledge and just cleverness. There’s no reason a bumpkin fresh off the farm can’t be curious about what makes something tick, so they look under it or break it open - and whaddya know, they find a hidden thing. It’s really up to the DM to say no, your character wouldn’t know to do that. The intelligence you show when you figure out a puzzle or a trap could make total sense as the same spark that made the naive character want to leave the farm and explore the big wide world.
Like for beginners just learning that’s fine.
But the amount of players I’ve DM’d for who always play the exact same character that is just “idealistic version of self” with different coats of paint is way too damn high.
Forget that for average people it is incredibly difficult to put themselves into the perspective of others, much less hold a continuous train of logic based on that perspective, which is what roleplaying is all about.
This shouldn’t be the GMs job btw, players, roleplaying and backstory are YOUR department, write a reason why your character would end up with the others. Work together.
Disagree. The DM should provide some sort of reason for the party to come together. Some sort of external influence, to bring in any characters that don’t start the game together.
But it is the duty of the player to roll with it. Don’t fight the plot hook. What’s the point?
DM: As you walk away, you feel a slight tingle in the air before a flash as bright as a thousand suns blinds you for an instant before… nothing. A bolt of lightning has vaporized your body. Miraculously, nobody else in the vicinity seems to have been harmed in any way nor even do they seem to have noticed what just happened, including the fact that you just disappeared. It’s as if the Gods themselves, for no particular reason, have arbitrarily decided to smite you out of existence entirely.
Ready to roll a new character?
DM: “Alright, so your character walks off after refusing to go along with the group. Okay. Well, guess you can pack up and we will see you next session. I don’t have anything planned other than what the group is doing, so, guess you won’t be playing today. Bye.”
Make it sting. Refuse to let them roll a new character and have them do the walk of shame. They made their choice So they can deal with the consequences of them.
back around late 90’s early 00’s I was pretty lucky to have a group of friends that all just hung around together. Talking like 8 or more of us and it always wound up that 3 of us would have a place together out in the sticks (it changed locations/roommates from year to year but we had a good long 5+ years of everyone being consistently together). We ended up playing basically any tabletop we could get our hands on or pirate (napster/limewire back then) and print off (we still ended up spending 100’s a piece though on dice and official releases), we even ended up starting to make our own games that I still think about doing something with to this day. (all just context for how we could pull off some of what I’m about to say)
Getting EVERYONE together was rather difficult at times, people would come into stories and be quickly rotated out if they had to work or weren’t available when we were wanting to continue running a story-line (multiple different DM’s and storylines from different games going on in concert, still can’t fathom how that all worked out looking back). So we all got pretty used to being fluid about it and no one really had any FOMO unless their character was low-level versus everyone else.
At that point it became apparent on my storyline that I was going to have to catch some people up so we started doing 1-on-1 DMing where I would spend a few hours running someone basically on a solo mission that I could tie into the rest of the story and give them something to catch up to everyone else. Sometimes we would do it before a bigger session and people showing up early could sit in or do cameo appearances to help out/etc. People are a lot more comfortable to ask questions and be involved with the story that way and translates well to the group play.
It ended up being a huge success and had some of my favorite interactions. Sometimes we would have a bunch of people over and some wanted to play and some wanted to listen to music and party so it just always felt natural and those involved really wanted to be there for it.
“Oh, you encounter a desert. There’s nothing around for miles”
“I perform a history check to see if there’s any historical significance about this desert.”
“Sorry, but, as DM, I don’t remember calling for a History check. So, no, you actually don’t.”
You can get away with it while having some downtime in a village. The bard is making coin in the tavern and the barbarian is drinking in the same place, the priest visits the local chapel, the warlock looks to spend some coin on magic baubles, etc. This also increases the creativity in which you can give your players their next quest.
But once you’re out adventuring on that quest, you’re a goddamn party. If you don’t want to be a party, then go home and play a single player game.
Edit: I have had good DMs separate the party themselves though, but we always spend it trying to find each other again.
Splitting the party is fine! Here’s some great reasons why you might:
If you get in through the servants entrance, you’re gonna have access to different stuff than if you get in through the front door.
You have the most wanted woman im the country and an anthropomorphized war crime in the party, and you’ve decided you need to ask a duchess about a thing.
The tunnel splits, and you’re not about to allow that fucker to get behind you. Again.
I don’t trust these other fuckers. I spy on the rest of the party.
You fucked up and only got one invitation. Hopefully they can open a back door somewhere.
He actually can’t take the armor off. It’s a whole thing. He can be the distraction.
The rest of the party moves 3x as fast as me and has stealth nonsense. But I have points in siege engineering, and resistance to fall damage. Shout when you need me.
The guy who splits the party on session 1:
Hehehe it’s so fun when I just have to sit and watch and can’t interact, I love iiiiit!
Basically my only rules for character creation are 1) your stuff must be from an officially published 5e rulebook, and 2) it must make sense for your characters to party up. It’s really hard to make an interesting campaign for a group of four lone wolves who are totally disinterested in The Quest
make checks until you fail. take 40d8 damage from a mysterious source. no one’s around you to help unfortunately because you were dumb enough to separate from the party.
now make a better character or go home, your choice.
My rule on this is very simple; if your character isn’t a part of the group, they’re not part of the story. That goes for lone wolves, people who betray the party, “evil” characters who work against the party’s interests, etc. You make the choices you want to make, you do what seems right for your character, but the moment that means you’re not a part of the group, you either figure out a good story for how we’re going to fix that, or you hand me your character sheet. It’s really that easy.
“But thats just what my character would do!”
OK, let’s unpack that. If that’s truly, genuinely the case, if there’s no way your character could no work against the group or leave them at this point, then this is how your characters story ends. If that comes twenty sessions into a game, well, waking away rather than betray your morals is a pretty good story if you ask me. If it comes two sessions in then we need to figure out why you’re not on the same page as everyone else.
But more often, the player simply thinks its the only possible way their character can act in this situation because they’re not thinking creatively. People are complicated. Consistency is actually the bane of interesting characters. A good character is inconsistent for interesting reasons. “My character would never trust someone in this situation!” OK, but what if they did? Now we’re left with the question of why, and figuring that out is surely going to be interesting.
There’s also the other side of this coin, which is the responsibility on the GM’s shoulders. Yes, your players owe it to each other to try to keep the story moving forward, but you also owe it to them to respect the reality their story takes place in. Don’t run a gritty crime game and then expect your players to just automatically trust some NPC that turns up with no bona fides. You actually have to put the work into crafting scenarios where the players can have their characters react naturally and still drive the story. It’s a bad GM who pisses their pants and cries because they created something that looks like an obvious trap (whether it is or not) and their players refused to walk into it.
I’m a big fan of “you all wake up in loincloths sitting in a wagon, hands bound” and as long as someone at the table can roll higher than a 1, they can break free.
Or something attacks them while they’re all in a tavern
Basically I’m a fan of “you could ignore having your shit kicked in, but will you?” since so many players would stop at nothing.
Fallout NV had the right idea. “Where’s that little fucker who shot me in the head?!”
