The Gaming Den

hyzmarca wrote:Dude, so lets get this straight... are you saying that the guy blatantly attempting to ruin a DM's game isn't being a douche?

It's what we call misaligned expectations. Or as The Captain would call it, failure to communicate.

The player who ruins the game isn't a duchebag. He just has different expectations and desires about the type of game he's playing than the DM does.

Players who expect to play a game of murder hobos aren't going to engage with an Agatha Christie Mystery in genre-appropriate ways. They're going to rampage through your carefully crafted whodunnit like a bunch of murder hobos. That's just common sense.

Well...sometimes he is a duchebage, but then you have a problem outside the scope of D&D. I think people just need some better before/during/after game communication about what they actually enjoy and want to do in the game.

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:These "server hiccups" are annoying.

Not as annoying as Swordslinger.

hyzmarca wrote: It's what we call misaligned expectations. Or as The Captain would call it, failure to communicate.

The player who ruins the game isn't a duchebag. He just has different expectations and desires about the type of game he's playing than the DM does.

It's one thing to have different expectations, it's another one to just try to ruin everyone else's fun because you happen to be bored.

How does this player expect to fix the situation by ruining the quest? All he's doing is creating bad blood between him and the other PCs. He's saying "if I can't have fun, neither will you."

Isn't that the definition of asshole?

Players who expect to play a game of murder hobos aren't going to engage with an Agatha Christie Mystery in genre-appropriate ways. They're going to rampage through your carefully crafted whodunnit like a bunch of murder hobos. That's just common sense.

Why not just do the sensible thing and find a different game?

Instead they'd rather play in a game they don't like exclusively to try to ruin it for the DM and the other PCs.

So your point overall is that 3E has more ways for players to affect the world, so when you play with douchebags it's worse?

Got it.

On a related note, improved sanitation over the past few centuries now means that douchebags are living longer worldwide. I await your anti-shower campaign with breathless anticipation.

fectin wrote:So your point overall is that 3E has more ways for players to affect the world, so when you play with douchebags it's worse?

My point is that if you're playing in a game you don't like, you should leave, instead of staying in the game and being an ass.

Sure. That's true (generally).

It's also unrelated to anything that anyone else has talked about.

fectin wrote:Sure. That's true (generally).

It's also unrelated to anything that anyone else has talked about.

Bullshit.

Souran talked about how people randomly killing NPCs is wrecking the playspace (and generally doing something bad) and then K replied to that and said "He's just bored" or some crap as a defense, to try to excuse the douchebaggery.

I then replied back to him that the guy seriously is just a douchebag disruptive player and you should just kick him from the game.

I fail to see how that's not relevant to other stuff people have talked about given that I was replying to other people from the start.

Swordslinger wrote: Why not just do the sensible thing and find a different game?

Instead they'd rather play in a game they don't like exclusively to try to ruin it for the DM and the other PCs.

Because games don't grow on trees, because he wants to play with his friends and not a bunch of strangers, because he thinks the game is still salvageable and can be turned into something fun.

There's a difference between ruining and improving, but that difference is a matter of perspective.

People usually compromise to have a game with their friends. A bit more action here, a bit less undead or puzzle enemies there, more adventures in cities, etc. etc.

Once people are not willing to compromise anymore it's time to leave the group.

hyzmarca wrote: Because games don't grow on trees, because he wants to play with his friends and not a bunch of strangers, because he thinks the game is still salvageable and can be turned into something fun.

There's a difference between ruining and improving, but that difference is a matter of perspective.

When you're resorting to game destructive behavior, you're no longer playing it as though it was salvageable. You're generating bad blood with the DM and bad blood with the group.

The right thing to do is to talk to the DM in a civil manner before or after game about suggestions to make the game better as opposed to trying to force change by making everyone miserable.

Swordslinger wrote: When you're resorting to game destructive behavior, you're no longer playing it as though it was salvageable. You're generating bad blood with the DM and bad blood with the group.

The right thing to do is to talk to the DM in a civil manner before or after game about suggestions to make the game better as opposed to trying to force change by making everyone miserable.

That is the right thing to do...in hindsight, but now that you have a destructive player, you cant just tell him he should have brought it up earlier so shutup.

Basically you have a problem with a player that arises because the player is ether a asshat or bored. The only way for the game to stop the "problem" is to take away player power, which is actually ignoring the ACTUAL problem and just saying "no, you cant do that" to the symptom.

The point is still that the only way to "STOP" game destructive behavior is to take away player freedom. I would rather have player freedom than not have to talk to a player after he ruins a subplot about what his problem is.

ALSO: you need to stop playing with asshats. Seriously. You act as if this problem is a common occurrence, where i have personally NEVER had a issue with it.

Swordslinger wrote: When you're resorting to game destructive behavior, you're no longer playing it as though it was salvageable. You're generating bad blood with the DM and bad blood with the group.

The right thing to do is to talk to the DM in a civil manner before or after game about suggestions to make the game better as opposed to trying to force change by making everyone miserable.

That is the right thing to do...in hindsight, but now that you have a destructive player, you cant just tell him he should have brought it up earlier so shutup.

Basically you have a problem with a player that arises because the player is ether a asshat or bored. The only way for the game to stop the "problem" is to take away player power, which is actually ignoring the ACTUAL problem and just saying "no, you cant do that" to the symptom.

The point is still that the only way to "STOP" game destructive behavior is to take away player freedom. I would rather have player freedom than not have to talk to a player after he ruins a subplot about what his problem is.

ALSO: you need to stop playing with asshats. Seriously. You act as if this problem is a common occurrence, where i have personally NEVER had a issue with it.

fectin wrote:So your point overall is that 3E has more ways for players to affect the world, so when you play with douchebags it's worse?

Got it.

On a related note, improved sanitation over the past few centuries now means that douchbags are living longer worldwide. I await your anti-shower campaign with breathless anticipation.

I think his point was that anyone who has the ability to affect the DM's carefully planned plot in any off-script way is a douchbag,

He's basically making a case for DM entitlement and railroading and against player agency, but he's trying to hide it behind an argument about disruptive players because demonizing disruptive players is far easier than winning the argument that players should not be able to deviate from the scripted plot.

Still, glad to see him trolling other people and not just me, because literally everyone's agreement with him about disruptive players is not stopping his posts on the subject. That's because no one is going so far as to agree that PCs should not be able to affect the plot in unexpected ways or that they should have the right to skip the parts of the adventure they find boring.

He's not trolling me: he was on /ignore right from the beginning. I am surprised it took you this long, K.

And at the end of the day, one would kind of expect a 4rry to be all for railroading and taking power away from the players. Their ideal game has no player agency, such that they can just write their SOP + wishlist and call it a day.

In any game, I have fun as long as what is happening can be justified by the rules of the game being played, and Ii both work hard and find it to be a fun mental exercise to justify any situation presented (either hypothetically or stated by the MC) using the game's rules.

As a corollary, I literally cannot stand non-repeating super unique standalone effects that cannot be justified using the game's rules; breaks me right out of the game to replace fun with rage.

Swordslinger wrote:

hyzmarca wrote: Because games don't grow on trees, because he wants to play with his friends and not a bunch of strangers, because he thinks the game is still salvageable and can be turned into something fun.

There's a difference between ruining and improving, but that difference is a matter of perspective.

When you're resorting to game destructive behavior, you're no longer playing it as though it was salvageable. You're generating bad blood with the DM and bad blood with the group.

There is no such thing as game destructive PC behavior because the game is, by its very nature, freeform. Breaking genre conventions or derailing the DMs painstakingly crafted linear plot doesn't damage the game, it merely changes the game's structure. The plot locomotive can always been replaced with a plot helicopter.

This isn't to say that players who want political intrigue should be forced to be murder hobos instead (and certainly everyone should be on the same page in that regard), but you can always adapt to changing circumstances. That's part of the fun.

I have never (never!) seen just one player go on a rampage. Conversely, I have seen an entire group decide that the high-level quest giver was too rude, burn down her house, and fill it with sewage. The entire group crowed about it for weeks. It was the first time some of those people had engaged at all.

So...why is that bad?

Edit: took 4 hours to post. Edited for coherence.

I have fun in D&D by doing things that annoy players like Swordslinger.

A Man In Black wrote:I have fun in D&D by doing things that annoy players like Swordslinger.

You are a scholar and a saint.

hyzmarca wrote: There is no such thing as game destructive PC behavior because the game is, by its very nature, freeform. Breaking genre conventions or derailing the DMs painstakingly crafted linear plot doesn't damage the game, it merely changes the game's structure. The plot locomotive can always been replaced with a plot helicopter.

It's destructive when you hurt other people's ability to have fun and it's destructive when you totally break character and do utterly random things for no reason.

A lot of people player RPGs to have some kind of story, the guy who decides to just totally ruin the story by randomly killing the tavernkeeper for no reason and getting the party chased out of town simply because he was bored annoys people. There's no logic to it in the story, and they realize the guy is just a juvenile that got bored.

That's game destructive. It's like logging onto someone's mine craft server and just messing up all the shit they made and saying "I'm not ruining it, I'm just changing the game's structure!" Or maybe you'd like to log onto an FPS and start teamkilling? Again, just changing the game's structure right?

Running around at the beach and kicking over other people's sandcastles is just being a juvenile dick.

The fact that people here don't seem to get that point is actually pretty sad and some actually put me on ignore for stating it lead me to believe that a lot of the denners are actually the anti-social type of disruptive gamer that do that shit to get their rocks off.

I'd love to join one of your games and just be a total disruptive ass of a player. Then I can blame you as DM for not entertaining me enough.

Swordslinger wrote: It's destructive when you hurt other people's ability to have fun and it's destructive when you totally break character and do utterly random things for no reason.

A lot of people player RPGs to have some kind of story, the guy who decides to just totally ruin the story by randomly killing the tavernkeeper for no reason and getting the party chased out of town simply because he was bored annoys people. There's no logic to it in the story, and they realize the guy is just a juvenile that got bored.

That's game destructive. It's like logging onto someone's mine craft server and just messing up all the shit they made and saying "I'm not ruining it, I'm just changing the game's structure!" Or maybe you'd like to log onto an FPS and start teamkilling? Again, just changing the game's structure right?

Running around at the beach and kicking over other people's sandcastles is just being a juvenile dick.

The fact that people here don't seem to get that point is actually pretty sad and some actually put me on ignore for stating it lead me to believe that a lot of the denners are actually the anti-social type of disruptive gamer that do that shit to get their rocks off.

I'd love to join one of your games and just be a total disruptive ass of a player. Then I can blame you as DM for not entertaining me enough.

WOW. You still are not getting it.

If a player is a ASSHAT, dnd CAN NOT FIX THAT. You need to fix that by not playing with him.

If a player is BORED/DISSATISFIED, he will mess with the game to try and make it more fun for him. This is a communication problem between you and him, and is also NOT FIXABLE by dnd.

I want you to tell me, in one sentence, what you dislike about the above two statements.

Strung Nether wrote: If a player is a ASSHAT, dnd CAN NOT FIX THAT. You need to fix that by not playing with him.

If a player is BORED/DISSATISFIED, he will mess with the game to try and make it more fun for him. This is a communication problem between you and him, and is also NOT FIXABLE by dnd.

I want you to tell me, in one sentence, what you dislike about the above two statements.

The only thing I dislike is the distinction that these two people are different types. They are both asshats.

disruptive is disruptive, be they just a jerk of a person, or a jerk during play when they dont have all the attention.

Swordslinger wrote:The only thing I dislike is the distinction that these two people are different types. They are both asshats.

So, are you saying that all bored people are asshats, or that all asshats are bored?

Both?

RadiantPhoenix wrote: So, are you saying that all bored people are asshats, or that all asshats are bored?

No I'm saying that people who do disruptive things are asshats for whatever reason (including boredom). I could care less if they happen to be bored, they're still being juvenile assholes.

If they want the game to get better, then they can talk to the DM and other PCs liek a rational adult, not just try to sabotage everyone's fun.