NGL, I always am sceptical of reddit pages (Rpghorrorstories being a place like that), so this video was a breath of fresh air. It is always a bit frustrating when I see reddit pages talking about how bad the player or gm is. I genuinely wonder if some of these stories are made up or true! But like you said, they can be biased too.
I imagine a good chunk are fake but if this one was, I felt like there was at least enough to talk about for me to be interested in it vs just the usual "maybe don't play with shitty people and just talk with your friends" that is the advice for 99% of those posts lol
My general rule is the party needs a good reason to stay together in the long term. You can play things out with pvp or whatever but that's just really beating around the bush: the "problem" is in RPGs we accept and trust player characters faster than we normally would NPCs or people in real life because otherwise the game would be boring. A lot of times toxic players will abuse this by doing something terrible and saying "it's what my character would do". This doesn't seem to be what happened here though. It's probably what their characters would have really done. The problem is the new players didn't create a character compatible with the existing party. If this happened I would just tell the new players that they need to make characters that would mesh with the existing PCs. Of course, if everyone loves pvp go for it. But lots of people don't.
At the minimum you should explain to new players what the tone of the campaign is thus far and ask that they build a character that can engage in that. I know some players bring the character they made at home with fantasies about where and how they will develop over time only for it come in contrast with the campaign as it is and where the other players are. It's fine to have a character idea coming in to a new campaign but you need to read the room so to speak and make adjustments if you want to have a cohesive group. Also, talk about what you're trying to accomplish. You don't have surprise everyone at the table every time because you want to appear mysterious. Maybe in this example the assassin was attempting to get the players to make a promise for the future as a way to getting them in her pocket with an IOU. Maybe the veteran player was trying to get across the idea that this group isn't to be trifled with. But instead both players' attempt at RP was met with hostility and the DM didn't even attempt to de-escalate and just picked a side. If the RP is getting heated and you worry it'll spill over in to IRL just call a time out and determine the goals of each side. Could be there's just a failure in communication and one side thinks the other side is saying something different. As DMs, we are not kings of the table. Sure, we have the final say in things but they're always with the considerations of the table. We're players in a specific role as arbitrators presenting the story. You don't have the right to just drop the ban hammer on another player because your pissed with them. That's incredibly rude and patronizing. It's not your table, it's not your game. It's out table and our game, comrade. You're part of the group, not the one in charge.
Seem like everyone was a bit at fault and badly communicated, but I think the GM could have worked with the new players to better align their characters with the goals of the legacy players and not require them to hire the new PC. That part is weird. Like give them some background goals that align or use NPC patrons who hire them to help the legacy PCs. But maybe the GM was blindsided and was not expecting the new PC to ask the legacy PCs for payments.
I want more of Wasabi´s social advise corner.
NGL, I always am sceptical of reddit pages (Rpghorrorstories being a place like that), so this video was a breath of fresh air. It is always a bit frustrating when I see reddit pages talking about how bad the player or gm is. I genuinely wonder if some of these stories are made up or true! But like you said, they can be biased too.
I imagine a good chunk are fake but if this one was, I felt like there was at least enough to talk about for me to be interested in it vs just the usual "maybe don't play with shitty people and just talk with your friends" that is the advice for 99% of those posts lol
My general rule is the party needs a good reason to stay together in the long term.
You can play things out with pvp or whatever but that's just really beating around the bush: the "problem" is in RPGs we accept and trust player characters faster than we normally would NPCs or people in real life because otherwise the game would be boring. A lot of times toxic players will abuse this by doing something terrible and saying "it's what my character would do".
This doesn't seem to be what happened here though. It's probably what their characters would have really done. The problem is the new players didn't create a character compatible with the existing party. If this happened I would just tell the new players that they need to make characters that would mesh with the existing PCs.
Of course, if everyone loves pvp go for it. But lots of people don't.
At the minimum you should explain to new players what the tone of the campaign is thus far and ask that they build a character that can engage in that. I know some players bring the character they made at home with fantasies about where and how they will develop over time only for it come in contrast with the campaign as it is and where the other players are. It's fine to have a character idea coming in to a new campaign but you need to read the room so to speak and make adjustments if you want to have a cohesive group.
Also, talk about what you're trying to accomplish. You don't have surprise everyone at the table every time because you want to appear mysterious. Maybe in this example the assassin was attempting to get the players to make a promise for the future as a way to getting them in her pocket with an IOU. Maybe the veteran player was trying to get across the idea that this group isn't to be trifled with. But instead both players' attempt at RP was met with hostility and the DM didn't even attempt to de-escalate and just picked a side. If the RP is getting heated and you worry it'll spill over in to IRL just call a time out and determine the goals of each side. Could be there's just a failure in communication and one side thinks the other side is saying something different.
As DMs, we are not kings of the table. Sure, we have the final say in things but they're always with the considerations of the table. We're players in a specific role as arbitrators presenting the story. You don't have the right to just drop the ban hammer on another player because your pissed with them. That's incredibly rude and patronizing. It's not your table, it's not your game. It's out table and our game, comrade. You're part of the group, not the one in charge.
Seem like everyone was a bit at fault and badly communicated, but I think the GM could have worked with the new players to better align their characters with the goals of the legacy players and not require them to hire the new PC. That part is weird. Like give them some background goals that align or use NPC patrons who hire them to help the legacy PCs. But maybe the GM was blindsided and was not expecting the new PC to ask the legacy PCs for payments.
They seemed fine with that until the legacy player put pvp on the table. The all bets were off.
Complete missed opportunity for the best safety tool of all, the debrief.
100%
I can´t believe this is a reddit drama channel now.
The fall-off is real