RPGs are a team sport
Filed under Soapbox on April 16, 2004
Tagged: Dungeons and Dragons, roleplaying
What is it with people who play annoying characters? I suppose I should clarify this general statement before I go any further. I’m not talking about “griefers,” those people who populate online rpgs, whose sole existence it seems is to frustrate the gameplay of others. I’m not even talking about computer-based rpgs, as I’ve found it’s difficult to effectively roleplay in such real-time, quest-driven environments. I mean, in a DM-run game, players who decide they want to be a character that doesn’t do much in the way of fostering harmonius group dynamics.
Now, I’m not saying that good roleplaying means everyone has to get along like they were best friends. But the fun in roleplaying comes when there is a sense of cohesion amongst your band of adventurers. Combat becomes an exhilirating exercise in strategic manuevers, and the story progresses smoother.
Case in point: I have played in two Play-by-Post games recently (one I’m still in and another that was abandoned by its DM) in which one of the PCs was an ill-mannered, loud-mouthed dwarf with poor hygiene and a thirst for violence, a racial stereotype that I personally abhor. In the now-defunct game, the group almost broke up within minutes (in-game) because the character was offending everyone in town, got us thrown out of the tavern and permanently banned with threat of calling the guards if the owner ever saw us again. There was a long OOC discussion with the player concerning the way he expressed his personality and the player agreed to tone it down a bit. In the current game . . . well, that’s a whole other story for a possible future post.
I have to admit that the two players did a good job of roleplaying. Everything they did was in-character, and one of them even had a background explaining the behavior (he was raised by a bigoted father). But why choose the role in the first place? What makes someone think that playing a disruptive character in a group environment is fun?
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