It\u2019s not unusual for RPG players to find themselves in situations where, if they\u2019re being honest, the character they\u2019ve established would make a choice that the player knows is a bad one. In these cases, a good role-player acts according to his character\u2019s established background, goals, and personality even when it isn\u2019t the most advantageous course of action. In such cases, \u201cI was just playing my character\u201d is a perfectly valid reason for doing something that complicates things, and generally the other players aren\u2019t going to be too upset about the problematic turn of events. In fact, some will applaud the bad decision because it fits the character and makes for a more interesting story. The GM may even give you Yum Yums.<\/p>\n
Those aren\u2019t the kinds of \u201cjust playing my character\u201d moments I\u2019m talking about here. I\u2019m talking about the player who constantly disrupts the game and annoys the other players and, when confronted about it, says, \u201cHey, I was just role-playing my character!\u201d \u00a0In these cases, \u201cjust playing my character\u201d isn\u2019t a reason for making a particular choice, it\u2019s an excuse to avoid taking responsibility for bad behavior. While there are as many types of bad behavior as there are annoying players, there are five general categories of fuckery where \u201cI was just role-playing\u201d is a common excuse.<\/p>\n
This is when a player interferes with the group\u2019s ability to play the game they\u2019ve all agreed upon, usually by creating a character that is woefully unsuited for the kinds of stories the group has decided to tell. It\u2019s the guy who decides to play the Druid in the city-based campaign, or, more often, the evil character in a game whose premise assumes the characters are good guys. Or Samuel L. Jackson the Barbarian in a game that\u2019s supposed to be straightforward heroic fantasy. Or a character who talks like Scooby Doo for absolutely no reason in an atmospheric horror game. Characters don\u2019t always have to be a perfect fit for the party and game concept. In fact, well-crafted outliers can often make the story more interesting, and even stupid one-joke characters don\u2019t always ruin a game. However, if your character concept forces major changes to the nature and focus of the story or ruins the tone of the game by merely existing, you\u2019re sabotaging the premise.<\/p>\n
This brand of dickishness is often the logical extension of creating a character that sabotages the game premise. It happens when \u201cbeing true to the character\u201d requires the player to constantly do things that interfere with the goals of the rest of party. As I mentioned in the introduction, good role-players often have to make decisions that result in negative repercussions, sometimes for the whole party. The main difference between them and the party saboteur is often a matter of who suffers the repercussions of the character\u2019s bad decisions. In the former case, most of the fallout usually hits the character who makes the decision, or at least affects him and other party members equally. The negative backlash of a saboteur\u2019s actions, on the other hand, nearly always fall primarily on the rest of the party. In many cases, the saboteur himself benefits in some way from the decision. Having a mole or double agent in the party can be fun in some kinds of games, but only if that traitor\u2019s player understands that things are destined to end badly for his character. When the party saboteur gets caught, \u201cI was just role-playing my character\u201d isn\u2019t going to save him, usually because retribution is the only way for the other players to stay in character.<\/p>\n
If the DragonLance novels didn\u2019t make you hate Kender, the first game you played with a Kender PC almost certainly did. The player annoyed everyone else and constantly sidetracked the game so he could steal shit from the other party members. One-note characters like Kender (at least as they\u2019re played in a typical D&D game) are a common example of taking an idea to far. Another surprisingly common one-note character is the mad bomber–the guy with a demolitions skill who blows things up constantly and gratuitously, usually to the detriment of the party. In these cases, the problem is mainly one of bad character design. In other cases, taking an idea too far is a matter of not understanding context (most often as it applies to humor): the player gets rewarded (through game mechanics, story outcomes, or just positive feedback from the other players) for a particular action, so he repeats the action over and over again in a bid for additional positive reinforcement, blissfully unaware that not all actions are appropriate for all situations and that a lot of things are only cool or funny the first time.<\/p>\n
Players should always try to introduce subplots and supporting characters, so there are always going to be scenes that focus on individual characters, often with no involvement from the other PCs. This character takes it too far by constantly creating situations, either through character design or character actions, that force single-character scenes where the other players are demoted to audience members. To add insult to injury, the player regularly drags out such scenes far beyond the point at which they\u2019re still interesting to anyone else. Some players don\u2019t even give the other players potentially interesting character development to watch; they just split the party at every opportunity because \u201cthat\u2019s what my character would do.\u201d The worst example of the latter is the \u201cloner\u201d character. The loner is also to some extent also guilty of sabotaging the game premise and taking an idea too far. RPGs are by definition group activities, so if you create a character that\u2019s going to constantly split with the group, you\u2019re intentionally creating a problem. If you want to play a character who \u201cisn\u2019t a group player,\u201d follow Batman\u2019s example of getting the point across by constantly reminding the group you\u2019re working with (or in Batmans\u2019 case, the half-dozen or so different groups you regularly work with) about it. Don\u2019t expect the GM spend half the game running a solo adventure for you.<\/p>\n
Some of the most beloved characters in fiction (especially action heroes) are complete jerks, so it\u2019s only natural for RPG players to create characters who are jackasses from time to time. In most cases, there\u2019s nothing wrong with that as long as the character, like most fictional assholes, has some redeeming qualities to make the audience (in this case, the other players) appreciate him despite his douchebaggery. Without the redeeming qualities, nobody\u2019s going to want to be around him, so the other players are legitimately just role-playing when they move to another town without leaving a forwarding address or volunteer the jerk character to find out whether the dragon\u2019s breath is hot. Particularly dickish jackasses, either for shock value or because they\u2019re terrible people, use the jerk characters as an excuse to say and do things that they know the other players will find offensive, disturbing, or hurtful. Those people should be asked not to come back.<\/p>\n
There are a lot of situations in which role-playing requires a player to make choices that are detrimental to the character and the party or distasteful to the players, but nine times out of ten those situations are going to make everyone involved enjoy the game more. If your \u201cin character\u201d actions are constantly interfering with the other players\u2019 enjoyment of the game, however, \u201cI was just playing my character\u201d is a bullshit excuse. It\u2019s not the character; It\u2019s you. The character, after all, is a fictional construct with no agency of its own. You\u2019re the one who created a character who annoys the other players or doesn\u2019t fit with the group\u2019s goals for the game. Don\u2019t blame your own bad decisions on imaginary people unless you\u2019re trying to beat a criminal charge with an insanity plea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s not unusual for RPG players to find themselves in situations where, if they\u2019re being honest, the character they\u2019ve established would make a choice that the player knows is a bad one. In these cases, a good role-player acts according to his character\u2019s established background, goals, and personality even when it isn\u2019t the most advantageous…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3874,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2062],"tags":[41,580,1118,1137,1152,1185,1358,2103,2309],"class_list":["post-414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-gaming-articles","tag-batman","tag-samuel-l-jackson","tag-dd","tag-dragonlance","tag-scooby-doo","tag-mad-bombers","tag-grim-loners","tag-player-advice","tag-kender"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3873,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions\/3873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}