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BaskingLobster
2015-05-26, 12:31 PM
So I've been in an RPG group with some high school friends for... a few years now. Pretty typical group, I think.

One of the players in this group (and a pretty good friend) has presented a sort of dilemma. After a few campaigns, he became uncomfortable with ANY game involving fiends, undead, cosmic horrors, and even straight-up magic for a while (although admittedly, two of them involved us being coerced into working for fiendish or monstrous forces).

It started with someone close to his parents saying something about bad mojo, then his folks started leaning on him to not go messing with anything "darker" in subject matter, and now he personally is uncool with anything that isn't low-magic and devoid of taboo subject matter. Warhammer was something he and his brother played long before RPGs came up, so that's okay (except Chaos), but D&D, Deadlands, World of Darkness, Call of Cthulhu, Dungeons: the Dragoning, Little Fears, etc. are all off-limits. The only games we've consistently had are low-magic Pathfinder campaigns based on one GM's latest favorite show or movie (the longest-running one is Game of Thrones), an occasional Champions game where we play supervillains, a game of Monsters and Other Childish Things that's kept away from explicit supernatural tones, and the (very) rare game of something like Maid or Fiasco. Only War's come up a few times as well, but that game doesn't tend to get off the ground. I think it's less the "morality" of the campaign than it is the presence of anything that implies dark influences; we can rob banks and blast super-cops until we run out of dice, but game over if an imp or vampire or madman touched by the Old Ones comes up solely for combat.

Entire campaigns and game systems have been shelved (if not scrapped outright) because of this. Our best GM has privately mourned many amazing game ideas because this is the only regular group in town and anything unpalatable for this player's view is out of the question.

He's not a bad guy. He's a very polite, well-meaning friend. Excluding him from a game is almost definitely out of the question; gaming is our most regular way of being together as a group, and even if he didn't know there was another game he'd catch on soon enough. Trying to advocate the inclusion of these elements would likely be received poorly, as would overt challenges to what he's been taught.

I don't begrudge him for having a more strict sense of morality, but when that morality begins to heavily restrict everyone else's enjoyment AND has very clear points of hypocrisy (I'll refer back to the supervillains), there comes a point where I can't just keep passively letting it go on. I don't know what to do, or what any of us could do, but I'm tired of doing nothing. Any advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: forum rules regarding this topic have been brought up. Terribly sorry about the poor post choice. Won't happen again.

Eisenheim
2015-05-26, 12:42 PM
Well, the group should probably all talk about what's best going forward, but if everyone else wants to something he's not comfortable with, he doesn't have veto power unless you give it to him. The forum really can't tell you how to work out your interpersonal dramas. I just advise honest, mature discussion.

One off-wall suggestion I might offer would be to take a look at Dogs in the Vineyard as a system and setting. That should either be wildly offensive for him or right up his alley.

Angelmaker
2015-05-27, 04:37 AM
Warhammaer 40K is very dark in every corner.

Orcs have big bad voodoo, darl eldar... Well... Humans have psykers and the machine spirits. You could argue that even the tau mantra "for the greater good" leads to many atrocities and is itself an ammoral doctrine.

I am not exactly sure where this comes from. Is it religious influence? I think board rules prevent discussing this, but a look at christopher hitchens on youtube should have high entertainment value anyway. He is a brilliant rhetoric. Or rather was. :smallfrown:

Yeah, go talk to him. :)

Thrawn4
2015-05-27, 08:33 AM
I don't think this discussion would be against the forum rules. It is possible that the player's reservation is founded on religious motives, but as long as we don't discuss religion and rather focus on a player whose interests differ from the rest of the group, adhering to the forum rules shouldn't be an issue.

So, is there any reason why you can't run two different campaigns?

Or how about just substituting magic with high tech? I am told Numenera does it, and you can also play Shadowrun and ignore all the magical bits (play it like Deus Ex).

LibraryOgre
2015-05-27, 11:08 AM
The Mod Wonder: I do not see anything explicitly wrong with this post per the forum rules. Don't discuss the possible religious motivation for his behavior and everything is cool.

That said (and mod hat off; if you want to argue with this part, go right ahead), you might consider straight up sci-fi. Star Wars might push his boundaries, but a more modern science-fiction with sci-fi explanations for various psychic powers (q.v. Mass Effect, where you're using weird physics) can work pretty well, and can be a lot of fun.

NomGarret
2015-05-27, 12:56 PM
Sci-fi would be a good way to go. Star Wars works well. Even if you don't use the FFG versions, following the "smugglers game," "rebels game," "Jedi game" paradigm, with the Jedi game being the one you pass on, is still a lot of fun.

Mouse Guard is a fun low-to-no magic system that I've enjoyed as the occasional break.

I'd also consider looking at a superhero game, like M&M. Provided your group is able to steer clear of the more mystic options, (as I presume you do with D&D) you should be good.

rafet
2015-05-27, 01:21 PM
He could do what my buddy did back in High School, call the MTG cards "Pokémon" to his parents, and never let them see the cards themselves.

But in seriousness if the fluff is the issue, then change the fluff.
-That's not a mage casting a fireball it's a dude in his bathrobe shooting an RPG.
-Strange creatures are aliens, or futuristic animals, or diverse humans.
-Spells are just tech. It's not magic, just strange-really-hard-to-explain-stop-asking-questions-so-we-can-play-science.

Systems are just rules, the table decides the setting.

Sacrieur
2015-05-27, 01:56 PM
Then why allow him to play if he's intent on ruining it for everyone else?

Don't let one person pull down anyone else with them. If you can't reach an agreement it's unfortunate and there are a lot of times when the DM has to play diplomat, but sometimes he has to say, "Look man, you're ruining everyone else's fun."

rafet
2015-05-27, 02:18 PM
Then why allow him to play if he's intent on ruining it for everyone else?

Don't let one person pull down anyone else with them. If you can't reach an agreement it's unfortunate and there are a lot of times when the DM has to play diplomat, but sometimes he has to say, "Look man, you're ruining everyone else's fun."

Some friends are worth trying to work really hard with. If a little creativity is all that's needed then the effort is likely worth it. I doubt he's intent on ruining anything, it's just sometimes difficult to work with the holy paladin, and that's not a bad thing, just a challenge.

JeenLeen
2015-05-27, 03:12 PM
I recommend talking to your friend (probably best if just you, but if the other players are all part of your tightly-knit group of friends and all are respectful, as a group could work) about how you understand these things bother him, you want to keep gaming, and so you are trying to find a game that you all can enjoy. It sounds like you all are willing to avoid these topics/areas, so state that and find a game you all like. If he can define exactly what he's uncomfortable with, that could help you form boundaries that would perhaps let some stuff in (like basic magic systems) or at least make sure you and the other players aren't missing out because you assume he's uncomfortable with something.

I think the examples some others have given of re-fluffing stuff as tech could work. If a supervillain game was okay in the past, maybe a supers game or any game where the supernatural (here meaning simply above/beyond normal human ability) is unexplained would also be acceptable.

His case seems somewhat extreme, but I know there are a topic or two I'm uncomfortable roleplaying in-game. If it happens in-game, we have it in the background, a 'fade to black' sorta deal, but if he's uncomfortable with some elements at all, well, it looks like a fine compromise can be reached since you all are okay with playing without those elements.

Algeh
2015-05-30, 07:56 PM
It seems to me there are two issues here:

(a) finding additional systems or campaigns this person might enjoy so you can find something everyone in your group is comfortable with. You've already gotten lots of suggestions on this, and I'll add GURPS to the list since it's one I really enjoy and I've certainly played in many, many GURPS campaigns with no magic or supernatural elements to them.

The tricky issue is really (b) someone in your group of friends is not willing to play/interested in/comfortable with certain themes and categories of things, and the rest of you would like to explore some of those things. Furthermore, either he'd be upset with you doing something without him or you're not willing to cut back on your time together to start up a second game without him. I had a close friend in high school who was like this (with a very, very different set of no-go activities - most memorably I remember a trip to the beach where she refused to ride a surrey with us or do something else without us for a half hour so the two of us who wanted to ride a surrey could, and another time when two of us had to go to extreme lengths to get to her house to then take the bus with her to somewhere else (I had to walk several miles, and the other friend had to bike/bus across town) becuase she refused to walk a mile to the bus stop and take the bus by herself to get to a more central meeting location).

Ultimately, we stopped trying to include everyone in every activity, but it wasn't easy to make the transition. As we got older and stopped living in each other's pockets so much it got a lot easier; I think high school is the hardest time for this because all of your friends are at the same place you are much of the day and on about the same schedule a lot of the time, so it makes sense to do everything as a pack. If you want to go this route and start up a game he wouldn't be comfortable with, try to find some other activity that he's interested in and some of the other people in your gaming group aren't and keep doing that with him as a different, smaller group, so it's several smaller groups doing different things at different times rather than the group that includes him and the group he's not in but otherwise includes all of his friends. What eventually broke a lot of our stalemates was just broadening the group of friends enough that at least one person almost always wasn't interested in what the rest of us were doing and it was different subsets a lot of the time with no one person trying to do everything "the group" was doing. Don't want to take the bus to the roller rink for Cheap Skate Tuesdays? Fine, I'll see you on Wednesday for GURPS night - it's your turn to bring the chips. I'll be skipping the movie this weekend because it's got that actor I don't like - maybe next time.

neonagash
2015-06-02, 04:52 AM
It seems to me there are two issues here:

(a) finding additional systems or campaigns this person might enjoy so you can find something everyone in your group is comfortable with. You've already gotten lots of suggestions on this, and I'll add GURPS to the list since it's one I really enjoy and I've certainly played in many, many GURPS campaigns with no magic or supernatural elements to them.

The tricky issue is really (b) someone in your group of friends is not willing to play/interested in/comfortable with certain themes and categories of things, and the rest of you would like to explore some of those things. Furthermore, either he'd be upset with you doing something without him or you're not willing to cut back on your time together to start up a second game without him. I had a close friend in high school who was like this (with a very, very different set of no-go activities - most memorably I remember a trip to the beach where she refused to ride a surrey with us or do something else without us for a half hour so the two of us who wanted to ride a surrey could, and another time when two of us had to go to extreme lengths to get to her house to then take the bus with her to somewhere else (I had to walk several miles, and the other friend had to bike/bus across town) becuase she refused to walk a mile to the bus stop and take the bus by herself to get to a more central meeting location).

Ultimately, we stopped trying to include everyone in every activity, but it wasn't easy to make the transition. As we got older and stopped living in each other's pockets so much it got a lot easier; I think high school is the hardest time for this because all of your friends are at the same place you are much of the day and on about the same schedule a lot of the time, so it makes sense to do everything as a pack. If you want to go this route and start up a game he wouldn't be comfortable with, try to find some other activity that he's interested in and some of the other people in your gaming group aren't and keep doing that with him as a different, smaller group, so it's several smaller groups doing different things at different times rather than the group that includes him and the group he's not in but otherwise includes all of his friends. What eventually broke a lot of our stalemates was just broadening the group of friends enough that at least one person almost always wasn't interested in what the rest of us were doing and it was different subsets a lot of the time with no one person trying to do everything "the group" was doing. Don't want to take the bus to the roller rink for Cheap Skate Tuesdays? Fine, I'll see you on Wednesday for GURPS night - it's your turn to bring the chips. I'll be skipping the movie this weekend because it's got that actor I don't like - maybe next time.

I second this.

There comes a time when you have to realize that not all your friends have to be part of everything at the same time. Tastes change and people evolve.

When you try to hold back the clock all that happens is that you build resentment and create drama where it doesn't need to be.

what I would suggest is that you run two alternating games. One week you run one that this player will enjoy too and the next week you run a more open game with the more supernatural stuff.

And his friends in the group pull him aside and say gently but firmly that you respect his beliefs but they are not your beliefs and its not fair to hold you to them. So you're running two games. He's welcome to both. But one will be going into territory he is not comfortable with and that is not changing.

We all have a right to our beliefs. But there's a saying " you're rights end where my rights begin ". And right now his beliefs are infringing on your own rights to freedom of expression.

Like it or not we all have to learn how to compromise with other beliefs to get through life. The sooner your friend learns this the better off he will be.

Segev
2015-06-02, 08:07 AM
I will chime in to emphasize the point a few have made: if he's not comfortable with a game, he doesn't have to play. It's not you excluding him, unless you deliberately always choose things you know he won't play. (That said, he's got a broad spectrum of things he won't do, so it's again back on him that he's anti-interested in so much.)

As a personal example, I have a serious distaste for the game Cards Against Humanity. When a group of my friends want to play it, they let me know that's what they're doing as an explanation as to why they're unavailable to hang out at the time. They really are, and if I wanted to play, they'd let me, but they and I both know I would be...unhappy...playing it. It's my own choices and taste. I have no right to demand they play something else just because I want to participate at that particular time.