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View Full Version : When did gaming become so unfriendly?



Burley
2009-06-17, 12:55 PM
I've noticed lately a lot of threads popping up, where players are asking Playgrounders how to best defend themselves... against teammates.

Is this something new? When did gamers decide to sit down with friends and ruin fun?

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-06-17, 12:59 PM
I've noticed lately a lot of threads popping up, where players are asking Playgrounders how to best defend themselves... against teammates.

Is this something new? When did gamers decide to sit down with friends and ruin fun?

The entire course of human history has consisted of people being jerks to other people.

See Cain and Able, Jesus and Judas, Caesar and Brutus, etc, etc.

Fixer
2009-06-17, 12:59 PM
... Jekyl & Hyde, Abbot & Costello, Cheech & Chong...

HamsterOfTheGod
2009-06-17, 01:01 PM
I've noticed lately a lot of threads popping up, where players are asking Playgrounders how to best defend themselves... against teammates.

Is this something new? When did gamers decide to sit down with friends and ruin fun?

Here! Here! Why in our day, all the players round the table joined together to ruin the DM's fun!


The entire course of human history has consisted of people being jerks to other people.

See Cain and Able, Jesus and Judas, Caesar and Brutus, etc, etc.

LOL! "Et tu, jerk?"

snoopy13a
2009-06-17, 01:02 PM
I think that for many of them it is competition instead of being unfriendly. It is similar to playing video games against your friends.

Cedrass
2009-06-17, 01:02 PM
That and the recent trend in video gaming where the fun is not to actually play with someone, but against someone (Halo's multiplayer for example).

Personally, I've never had any problem of the sort, and when a character did kill an other character, both players talked about it before hand.

chiasaur11
2009-06-17, 01:03 PM
Eh. People have been jerks to friends for millenia.

Just comes to the board in waves.

Shadowbane
2009-06-17, 01:06 PM
Shift in playing styles? But I know my group doesn't kill each other, and when we do it's because we all agreed to, and I'm DMing so I can control it. So yeah.

shadow_archmagi
2009-06-17, 01:06 PM
That and the recent trend in video gaming where the fun is not to actually play with someone, but against someone (Halo's multiplayer for example).


Only in the crappier games (Halo's multiplayer, for example). Team Fortress 2, as it's name entitled, has huge loads of opportunity for cooperating with your team to bring victory (admittedly, victory over the other team, but still.) Left 4 Dead is designed for 4-player co op.

Korivan
2009-06-17, 01:10 PM
DnD follows the same rules of life as every other game, sport, activity out there. That there is always those that take competativeness too far, those that are anti-social/psycotic, those that simply find betryal amusing. These are the people that are no different from the jock that throws the game for money, the ref that favors one team over another and makes thier calls based on that. I can go on but i think the message is clear. If you dont want to race someone who would trip you on the pavement, your probably not the type that wants someone backstabbing your character.

Cedrass
2009-06-17, 01:11 PM
Only in the crappier games (Halo's multiplayer, for example). Team Fortress 2, as it's name entitled, has huge loads of opportunity for cooperating with your team to bring victory (admittedly, victory over the other team, but still.) Left 4 Dead is designed for 4-player co op.

TF2 I don't know, but L4D, when I played at my friend's place was always infected vs survivors. Again, competition of players against players.

Comet
2009-06-17, 01:19 PM
The most strange part of these "help! my party is after me!" situations is that the players can't seem to understand the value of discussing these things with their playgroups OOC.

It's like they actually think that they are inside that fantasy world and have to make do with what is available within the context of the game.

Is "Please stop ruining this game for me" considered bad roleplaying? :smallconfused:

Luckily I play strictly with close friends, so issues like this dont come up much.

Besides, I have always been a fan of "storytelling over roleplaying". Meta-narrative, OOC converstations, gentlemanly agreements etc. are way more important than pretending to live in a fantasy world.
We don't "roleplay" as such, we just use the gaming rules and settings to build interesting stories ("would this be a cool twist of the story" vs. "would this be what my character would do"). This kind of mentality builds up a great deal of teamwork spirit, I think.

mikej
2009-06-17, 01:19 PM
I'd find it's the competitive atmosphere among fellow gamers. It's spotlight hogging at the very least, a lot of people lack the maturity to share the spotlight. Our group can basically be sumed up in "I can do this to your character," or "I'll just counter with this." It's something I deal with every campaign. although it's incredibility easy when the majority refuse to think the "Fighter & Monk" are underpowered, while I'll play the Wizard or the Druid.

chiasaur11
2009-06-17, 01:21 PM
TF2 I don't know, but L4D, when I played at my friend's place was always infected vs survivors. Again, competition of players against players.

Multi has ALWAYS been competitive.

Chess? Competitive. Checkers? Competitive. ____ing Ludo? You'd better believe any alliance is temporary at best.

Modern gaming isn't an anomaly for not having co-op as the only mode. Games with co-op are the ____ing exception, not the ____ing rule.

With all due apologies to Mister Tulip.

Narmoth
2009-06-17, 02:19 PM
Well, I think if 4th ed really turned D&D to focus more on battles, then more would think of killing of their fellow characters.
As soon as the game isn't about, well let's face it, a fairytale, it becomes more a game of numbers on a sheet competing with other numbers on someone elses sheet. Thus it's more interesting to kill of each other than the monsters that are almost bound by the rules to loose.

Trizap
2009-06-17, 02:21 PM
... Jekyl & Hyde, Abbot & Costello, Cheech & Chong...

everyone & everyone else.........

Thajocoth
2009-06-17, 02:27 PM
I pretty much assumed these to be rare isolated events that are fairly uncommon... Perhaps due to a player getting really bored, or a group deciding they want another player to leave the group, but not having the heart to tell that to the player's face.

I've never run into this sorta thing. Granted, a few people in this thread mentioned "competitiveness" which is something that has always been beyond my comprehension. Never been a fan of team based sports, but something like snowboarding's fun. Never liked playing PvP in games, but co-op's lots of fun, ect... One of the major reasons I've taken to D&D is the coop. Even as DM now, I feel I'm with the players, not against them... To provide them with interesting challenges that are just hard enough to barely not kill them and interesting enough to keep them thinking...

Learnedguy
2009-06-17, 02:31 PM
My group never backstabs each other. Why? Because we're crazy prepared for it to happen!! Seriously, when I create a character, I do not think about what the DM said he'll throw at us. I think about what my fellow party members might throw at me:smallyuk:

At our gaming table, MAD is not an acronym for multiple attribues dependency:smallredface:.

Myatar_Panwar
2009-06-17, 02:35 PM
In the past year I have been visiting my local gaming shops alot more, and been doing a bit more research. I have come to one conclusion:

Alot of nerds/geeks are total *****. Yup.

You would think that years of being picked on and whatnot would make them more tolerant, but it only seems to have made them bitter...

wormwood
2009-06-17, 02:49 PM
For the first many years I played RPGs, it was par for the course for one of us to do away with one of the others. It was expected. That didn't ruin our fun, it was part of it. All my friends had pretty much come to terms with the fact that we were all raging psychopaths and might gut one another at the drop of a hat.

Luckily, I knew this mindset was unique (or at least rare) and didn't take it to other games with me when I moved away from home. It took a long adjustment period, playing in friendly, cooperative games, before I stopped thinking, "how are they all so... nice? it's bloody unnatural!" I think my fellow players were happy that I didn't continue my killing rampages in the new games and I did have fun (once i overcame my old habits). However, i can easily see how someone who played in the same sort of group I originally had would bring that to future groups without a second thought. In fact, I have seen it happen when folks I played with back in the day joined my current games. A quick explanation that we didn't play that way anymore straightened it out.

Just thought I'd share some perspective from the "bad" side of the fence.

valadil
2009-06-17, 02:54 PM
I don't think lots of threads regarding unfriendly gaming are indicative that that's the direction that gaming is taking. Nobody is going to complain that their game is too cooperative. If everyone is working together, there's no comment to make. Therefore the only threads on this topic you'll see will be the ones asking how to fix a game that's gone too competitive.

Yora
2009-06-17, 02:55 PM
If you belive what the forums say, ever game consists of some players playing wizards while the rest of the group watches them.

kjones
2009-06-17, 02:55 PM
Different groups, different playstyles. Back in the day, it was unusual for a session to pass without someone drawing a sword on another player or threatening them with a fireball.

Of course, we were 12 back then. I'd like to think that we've grown out of it since.

Piedmon_Sama
2009-06-17, 02:59 PM
P. sure the party thief has been stealing from his squadmates and people have been dying in friendly fireballs since the 70's, OP

averagejoe
2009-06-17, 03:32 PM
P. sure the party thief has been stealing from his squadmates and people have been dying in friendly fireballs since the 70's, OP

Hell, back then it was even called a "thief." Those guys were total jerks.

chiasaur11
2009-06-17, 03:54 PM
Hell, back then it was even called a "thief." Those guys were total jerks.

A discarded class only known through a couple of Gygax's old notebooks.

Class abilities included "Hey guys, I got a great new module for your characters! It's called The Tomb of Horrors. Might be a tad too easy though."

Behold_the_Void
2009-06-17, 03:59 PM
I tend only to game with my friends and I have not once had anything remotely like this come up. I guess I know cool people or something. :smallcool:

Narmoth
2009-06-17, 04:20 PM
Different groups, different playstyles. Back in the day, it was unusual for a session to pass without someone drawing a sword on another player or threatening them with a fireball.

Of course, we were 12 back then. I'd like to think that we've grown out of it since.

Oh, we still do that (and we're 18-27), but we talk about the issue in character after having our stand off, not simply try to kill each other

averagejoe
2009-06-17, 04:23 PM
A discarded class only known through a couple of Gygax's old notebooks.

:smallconfused: What? The thief was the precursor to the rogue in 1st and 2nd ed.

Mr.Bookworm
2009-06-17, 04:52 PM
TF2 I don't know, but L4D, when I played at my friend's place was always infected vs survivors. Again, competition of players against players.

L4D is a completely and totally cooperative thing. The main campaign mode is four people against the world, and if you don't cooperate, you're dead.

The mode you're talking about is Versus, which is still really cooperative, except now it's two teams against each other.

chiasaur11
2009-06-17, 04:55 PM
:smallconfused: What? The thief was the precursor to the rogue in 1st and 2nd ed.

No, the jerk.

Bad joke, shoulda cleared it up more.

Rhiannon87
2009-06-17, 06:17 PM
I don't think lots of threads regarding unfriendly gaming are indicative that that's the direction that gaming is taking. Nobody is going to complain that their game is too cooperative. If everyone is working together, there's no comment to make. Therefore the only threads on this topic you'll see will be the ones asking how to fix a game that's gone too competitive.

This. My group's never had much in the way of PCs trying to kill each other, when we weren't dominated at least, and I think that maybe it seems like there's a lot of it going on because those of us who have groups where we don't all have to sleep with one eye open don't complain about it.

Decoy Lockbox
2009-06-17, 06:59 PM
:smallconfused: What? The thief was the precursor to the rogue in 1st and 2nd ed.

Do you mean that the 1d4 HD OD&D thief was the precursor for the 1d6 HD AD&D thief? The class has always been called thief until 3rd edition changed it to rogue.

In my 10 years of tabletop gaming, playing in many groups with many people, I've had a few situations where PvP came up, sometimes for in-character reasons, sometimes for out of character grudges. The worst was when a paladin tried to join our 3.5 party that had a chaotic evil ninja named Razor in it. Now, Razor was a completely indispensable member of our team, and nobody had any clue that he was basically a sadistic serial killer. The player had kept this a secret via subtle roleplay and notes to the Gm. So as far as our party knew, Razor was just a very dependable elf ninja who was always there for his party and helped us out of many jams.

And then one of the players made a new character, a paladin (who had leadership, and his own wife, another paladin, as a cohort). Of course, the paladin used detect evil on the party, and determined that Razor was chaotic evil. Due to the "can't associate with evil" clause in the old paladin code, it became apparent that either Razor or the paladin would be in the party by the end of the day, and the other would be dead. Of course, due to the inherent sh*ttiness of the paladin class, Razor easily dispatched both the paladin AND his wife. Then he used his immense bluff skill to convince us that those two were assassins sent to kill us. The paladin's player must have been pretty pissed, but it sorta had to happen.

We also once started an "evil" campaign with some less than noble players that degenerated into PvP within 30 minutes.

In general I find that most "malicious" PvP, the type that comes not from in-character conflicts (like paladin vs evil ninja), but from external conflicts, is caused by poor roleplaying, or people treating D&D like it was any videogame with respawning or that sort of thing. When people play themselves through their characters, instead of the character through themselves, these things can happen.

Thurbane
2009-06-17, 07:00 PM
I blame the intarweb! :smallbiggrin:

...just depends on the group, I guess. Back in my old 1E days, a couple of guys I played with positively delighted in killing or messing with fellow PCs. It always annoyed me no end. Fortunately, the group I play with now are pretty cohesive.

Dixieboy
2009-06-17, 07:33 PM
The entire course of human history has consisted of people being jerks to other people.

See Caine and Abel, Jesus and Judas, Caesar and Brutus, etc, etc.fix'd.

I fail to see the problem in a good inter-party conflict.

A BAD inter-party conflict on the other hand...

golfmade
2009-06-17, 11:07 PM
Not a whole lot of people who game where I live and generally those that are jerks and needlessly try to kill other gamers wouldn't be invited back to game next session.

Origomar
2009-06-18, 12:46 AM
Nothin's wrong with a lil bit of non lethal damage IMO.

shadzar
2009-06-18, 01:16 AM
When the number of gamers became so much that people decided the best way to remove unwanted players form their groups was to kill of the characters enough until the person took the hint that they, their playstyle, or edition of choice, or gaming philosophy wasn't welcome with the group they are trying to take part in.

:smallconfused:

So like 30 years ago I would say. :smallwink:

You just have more people gaming now, and better technology to realize it is happening because of the larger scale.

:smallsmile:

kamikasei
2009-06-18, 04:43 AM
That and the recent trend in video gaming where the fun is not to actually play with someone, but against someone (Halo's multiplayer for example).

Uh... maybe I'm just profoundly ignorant, but I would have thought multiplayer gaming started out competitive. You talk as though games used to be cooperative and have changed since.

Kaiyanwang
2009-06-18, 05:16 AM
My players did some backstabbing, but when they were about 14 (years, not levels). They enjoyed play chaotic parties played chaotic stupid - we played silly campaings that time.

Anyway, wasn't never something lethal. The worst thing I've seen was making the halfling rogue trigger traps with his body instead of disable them. Sometimes some punch, or not - so -damaging spell.

But in subsequent campaings, they were good between them, even if there were confilcts between characters, for alignment, fiendish possession or the evergreen Frienzed Berserk. But they kept it inside the game world.

I realize I'm lucky, maybe.

Tyrmatt
2009-06-18, 05:38 AM
I once had to insert a shotgun up the nose of my friend to prevent him killing an NPC who we were obviously supposed to talk to after she...uhh...shot him -_-.
Entirely justified the impulse to kill her but he was also supposed to be our party face, whereas I was the medic. Still I was the only one of any level head and willing to roleplay a character against the DM.

Thanks to my talking though it did provide us with one of our most enduring memes during our games.

So apart from that one issue, I've not really had to deal with players hunting players. I know PVP is a big thing in MMOs but it just doesn't work in a party scenario. Maybe in an awesome two-party campaign or with a Mirror of Opposition or something like that though...

Gnaeus
2009-06-18, 06:12 AM
Most of the PVP I have seen is a result of the action of the slain player. Someone who acts so jerkish in character that the other party members off him in self defense. I know one player who habitually when making characters will smile and say "they are going to hate this one".

As an extention of this, in LARPs, there are some players who cannot keep from being killed by other PCs for one night. ALL of their character concepts are so blatantly criminal, dangerously antisocial, or so needlessly rude that other people kill them within minutes.

I have seen instances of the paladin vs ninja, or necromancer vs cleric or druid as well. These don't bother me as much, because they are a combination of people roleplaying their characters and usually new players bringing in characters with no thought to how they will fit into a party.

Oslecamo
2009-06-18, 06:27 AM
I once saw my 7 people party slaughter itself untill all that remained was the sorceror and a charmed fighter and cleric when the DM handed us one custom magic ring. We had no idea what it did, but the DM was normally so cheap about treasure (lv 8 and we had less nonconsumable magic items than party members) that we were willing to fight to the death between ourselves to get our hands on it. The DM smirked evilly all the time, boasting that he didn't even need to send monsters or traps any more to get us killed.

potatocubed
2009-06-18, 07:11 AM
So apart from that one issue, I've not really had to deal with players hunting players. I know PVP is a big thing in MMOs but it just doesn't work in a party scenario. Maybe in an awesome two-party campaign or with a Mirror of Opposition or something like that though...

I think PvP can work in roleplaying games so long as everybody's on the same page. I've enjoyed playing elder Vampire games, where scheming against the other characters is all part of the fun, and I reckon you could set up something very similar with Sidereal Exalted.

The essential elements are going in with your eyes open, taking defeat (and character death) well, and having some overwhelming reason forcing the characters to sometimes work together, whether they want to or not.

Fuzzy_Juan
2009-06-18, 07:35 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhmUj9QJ9RM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9FMURHhgzc&feature=related

Sometimes, just sometimes...PvP just happens...you see something hospitable, and well...that's what your character would do.

Project_Mayhem
2009-06-18, 08:09 AM
Uh... maybe I'm just profoundly ignorant, but I would have thought multiplayer gaming started out competitive. You talk as though games used to be cooperative and have changed since.

Yeah, I was gonna say - if I'm having to play the stupid green Mario, then I'm sure as hell gonna try and beat your highscore.

Tar Palantir
2009-06-18, 08:20 AM
The only party kills my group's ever had were either in our evil campaign of plotting against each other, or me accidentally killing my teammates (yes, actually accidentally, not "accidentally"). Come to think of it, I've gotten more player kills by accident then on purpose. For exapmle, my friend's druid was grappled by an ooze, and I tried to Eldritch Blast the ooze, but missed my 50% roll and killed him. Stuff like that. All the intra-party conflict is typically just to show off.

Gnaeus
2009-06-18, 10:13 AM
Uh... maybe I'm just profoundly ignorant, but I would have thought multiplayer gaming started out competitive. You talk as though games used to be cooperative and have changed since.

Well, the late G Gygax was quoted as saying that Paranoia would be a great game if it were more cooperative. I guess that signals a change in the culture at some point.

kamikasei
2009-06-18, 10:19 AM
Well, the late G Gygax was quoted as saying that Paranoia would be a great game if it were more cooperative. I guess that signals a change in the culture at some point.

I was referring to videogames, in response to the person I was quoting.