Player not wanting to roleplay 3.5

[Sparrow]

I don't know if this is the right place, but my friends and I have been having a problem with a new player, who has been doing things because he can and he doesn't roleplay when the party does.

He basically skips every roleplay opportunity and when forced to choose between his friends or about 1000gp at level 8, he chooses the money because he wants the money.

He isn't necessarily evil, so I was hoping the Playground could give me advice on what to do to get him more into the spirit of roleplaying before he betrays the party for a silver piece.

[Deathslayer7]

talk to him outside of the table. Find out why he doesn't want to RP more. That's the first step.

The second step would be to nicely ask him to RP more. But let's face it. Some people like hack n slash more than RP.

[Suddo]

He's not evil he's just greedy, which makes him more neutral if anything, or "Unaligned".
He's RPing whether he likes it or not and let him know that. Choosing to not communicate to NPCs and always choosing money over anything else (that isn't equatable to money) still makes a character. Just treat him like anyone who was RPing that character, people often are untrustworthy of him the bad people might hire him. Constantly throw money in his face but slowly alienate him from the world around him creating a world where everyone but the person hiring him (and even then) is his enemy. It will be a slow death.

I assume you have already talked to him OoC though.

[inexorabletruth]

I'm not 100% sure what you mean.

It sounds like he's roleplaying as a greedy narcissist who is a bit on the surly and anti-social side. That's not the easiest character in the world to roleplay, but it is a type of character.

Perhaps you can elaborate by providing some examples of what he does that isn't roleplaying.

[Particle_Man]

The test is whether he would kill someone for no other reason than to join the assassin's guild. :smallbiggrin:

[Sparrow]

An example of him taking money over friendship is when an enemy used charm person. He failed his save but kept killing someone against what the enemy was telling him. The spellcaster order that he stop bashing the boss's face in and succeeded on a Charisma check, but the player continued because it was a job that paid a fair amount of coin.

[Adam...?]

First: There are some who would argue that selling out your allies for petty cash is an excellent example of roleplaying. Just saying.

Second: You really can't force people to roleplay if they don't want to. If he skips the opportunities you toss his way, take the hint and stop wasting time with it. Some people are super into the roleplaying aspect of the game, but some people just want to wait for their turn to bash orcs. And there's nothing wrong with that, so long as he isn't being disruptive.

And really, it sounds like the real problem here isn't the lack of roleplaying, but that this guy isn't playing nice with others. Talk to him about it. Talk to the other players. Unless he's completely unreasonable, you should be able to work something out.

The way I see it, if worked properly, having a loose cannon in the party who could turn traitor at any moment is a scenario with loads of roleplaying potential. Especially if the rest of the PCs actually have a good reason to keep him around, so they don't kill him "just to be safe."

[eclipsic]

First: The actions you describe definitely count as "role-playing".

Second: I'd ask the rest of the party the same question I ask them every time somebody brings the "brooding, solitary, lone-wolf who doesn't need anybody" character to the table: "Why would you [the rest of the party] want to associate with this guy?" If the answer is "We wouldn't", maybe the greedy bastard would be interested in a solo campaign, and by "solo campaign" I'm referring to a campaign composed of one person, not just one player.

Third: To expand, it's perfectly legitimate to want to adventure with a jerk/evil person if they're useful: Raistlin certainly wasn't the most warm-hearted guy, but he had his uses.

[Aharon]

An example of him taking money over friendship is when an enemy used charm person. He failed his save but kept killing someone against what the enemy was telling him. The spellcaster order that he stop bashing the boss's face in and succeeded on a Charisma check, but the player continued because it was a job that paid a fair amount of coin.

That's not bad roleplaying, that's bad application of the rules. The order the spellcaster gave was neither suicidal nor obviously harmful, so by the rules, he would have had to follow the order.

[godryk]

It's not necessarily bad roleplaying. And I think the OP doesn't really need to turn this into a confrontation between the player and the rest of the party. All the PCs involved are supossed to have willingly joined the party because they can't reach their own personal goals on their own. Assuming this, I cannot contemplate a character completely indifferent about the desinty of the group and, to certain degree, of the destiny of each of the group's members.

However, there are many shadows of grey between this attitude and the hero willing to sacrifice himself for the others. As others have said, the greedy treacherous guy has a lot of potential for the story.

[Particle_Man]

Yeah that last bit you have to tell him that his character is an NPC and whatever you say he does under charm, he does. Let him know he will get control of his character again when the charm wears off. If he keeps saying "I do this" tell the rest of the party that none of what he says is actually happening in game and to act accordingly.

[eggs]

That's not bad roleplaying, that's bad application of the rules. The order the spellcaster gave was neither suicidal nor obviously harmful, so by the rules, he would have had to follow the order.
It's Charm, not Dominate. So this is totally in the realm of roleplaying a greedy psychopathic bastard.

From the OP I'm going to guess this guy isn't deliberately RPing a Jayne Cobb-type (which seriously wouldn't be a problem). But as has been said, the guy's going to be interested in the things he's interested in. I'd recommend just chilling, and making plans that don't rely on the player suddenly making an about face and waxing poetic about his character's hardships and dreams.

[Morph Bark]

It's not necessarily bad roleplaying. And I think the OP doesn't really need to turn this into a confrontation between the player and the rest of the party. All the PCs involved are supossed to have willingly joined the party because they can't reach their own personal goals on their own. Assuming this, I cannot contemplate a character completely indifferent about the desinty of the group and, to certain degree, of the destiny of each of the group's members.

However, there are many shadows of grey between this attitude and the hero willing to sacrifice himself for the others. As others have said, the greedy treacherous guy has a lot of potential for the story.

Charm Person does allow for a few things:


The spell does not enable you to control the charmed person as if it were an automaton, but it perceives your words and actions in the most favorable way. You can try to give the subject orders, but you must win an opposed Charisma check to convince it to do anything it wouldn’t ordinarily do. (Retries are not allowed.) An affected creature never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders, but it might be convinced that something very dangerous is worth doing. Any act by you or your apparent allies that threatens the charmed person breaks the spell. You must speak the person’s language to communicate your commands, or else be good at pantomiming.

[onemorelurker]

How do your other players feel about this guy's playstyle, OP? If they're fine with having an unreliable party member who cares about gold more than he cares about them (writing it like that, it sounds like a bad thing, but I acknowledge that it's a legit characterization, if not one I like), then I don't think there's a problem. Let this guy have fun the way he likes, as long as it's not disruptive to everybody else's fun.

[Aharon]

It's Charm, not Dominate. So this is totally in the realm of roleplaying a greedy psychopathic bastard.


I don't agree. Here's the relevant excerpt:


You can try to give the subject orders, but you must win an opposed Charisma check to convince it to do anything it wouldn’t ordinarily do. (Retries are not allowed.) An affected creature never obeys suicidal or
obviously harmful orders, but a charmed fighter, for example, might believe you if you assured him that the only chance to save your life is for him to hold back an onrushing red dragon for “just a few seconds.”

As the caster in the OP won the Charisma check, he was able to convince the character to do something he wouldn't normally do (namely relent from attacking). The player not acting on this isn't a roleplay thing, but a rules thing.

[Sparrow]

I'll add a bit of background, so I don't have to later:

The campaign is set in the Elder Scrolls setting after Skyrim. The main objective is to stop the Thalmor from wiping out mankind.

When asked why he wanted to stop the Thalmor, his response was because its what we are supposed to be doing or just because. His character does have any real personal motives, and lacks the basics of a personality. The character isn't greedy, its the player being greedy. So far he has only done things to make his character the most powerful character in the party and we were trying to keep the game at medium optimization.


Charm Person does allow for a few things:

You can try to give the subject orders, but you must win an opposed Charisma check to convince it to do anything it wouldn’t ordinarily do. (Retries are not allowed.) An affected creature never obeys suicidal or obviously harmful orders, but it might be convinced that something very dangerous is worth doing.

Yes, he was ordered with a successful charisma check to stop doing something that wasn't necessarily harmful to him. He should of stopped doing what he was doing but used the excuse that his character doesn't care about anything but the money, when really the player just wanted the new armor he was saving up for.


How do your other players feel about this guy's playstyle, OP? If they're fine with having an unreliable party member who cares about gold more than he cares about them (writing it like that, it sounds like a bad thing, but I acknowledge that it's a legit characterization, if not one I like), then I don't think there's a problem. Let this guy have fun the way he likes, as long as it's not disruptive to everybody else's fun.

The believe that the rest of the players want this guy to try to roleplay things out, as eventually this guy will fight his way into something that can't be gotten out of and was easily avoidable with roleplay. The players know this all to well from the last campaign we played where a character(not the same player) went out on his own and screwed the others over by trying to beat a boss single handedlywho was designed to be able to defeat the party.

At the next session, I am going to have a talk with all my players, to see what they want and what needs to change. Thanks everyone for your help. If you have anymore comments feel free to post them. I will watch this thread for the next couple of days, but you've all been enough help.

[Bastian Weaver]

Personally, I blame computer games. This player's behaviour would be perfectly reasonable if he was playing an Elder Scrolls game, like Daggerfall or Oblivion. Okay, I need to give this super duper cool sword to a daedra to fulfill the quest. Who cares about this stupid quest anyways, I've got the cool sword!
This behaviour works when you're playing a computer simulation. When you roleplay with people, well... let's say that very few people in Cyrodiil would willingly do something to offend a daedra. Because those things are powerful and dangerous, and they're not limited by pre-programmed scripts in their actions.
Maybe this guy could understand what's wrong about his actions if someone explained it to him properly. Then again, maybe not.