Troubles with character idea, the sequel.

[RingofThorns]

I know I might get some grief for posting a new thread for this but being as it is different from my last one I thought it made more sense to post it in a different thread.

Anyway I made a kind of brief nod to this in my other thread about having more or less been ran out of a previous group over this idea.

The whole story goes that the group I was in got done with one session and the DM sat us down and told us that he was getting kind of tired of how most of the characters in the game were just murder hobos. So he told us that we had to have a tangible goal that could be achieved within the game by the next time we played.

To explain it better the DM laid it out for the our warrior who had been for a long time just butchering his way across the map in the name of becoming the best warrior. The trick is though, that isn't really tangible because how do you know when you reach that goal? DM helped him out and he got the goal of wanting to win this fabled tournament of warriors that if you won then you basically got a weapon that was made by demi gods.

DM asked me if I needed any help and I told him not to worry about it I would have a concept to him the next time we all met up, I get home and start watching an old favorite show of mine Jim Henson's 'The Storyteller.' Well as I was watching it it gave me the idea that since I was playing a bard that focused more on telling tales,fables, and stories why not have try to become a storyteller?

For the basic idea I wrote it out that within the world bards all kind of shared this almost urban legend or old wives tale about this one particular group that were simply called 'Storytellers'. They were writtin to be this kind of mythic almost secret order of bards that focused on knowing all the stories in the world. The way they did this is that much like the character in the show I got the idea from each story teller wore a patchwork coat, with eacch patch of fabric representing a different tale.

The only way for a bard to earn one of those coats was for them to track down one of the story tellers [something that would have been a quest on its own.] and then having to tell their own story. Should the story teller be impressed with the tale then he would present the bard with their own patch work coat.

As for like stats and game mechanics basically if you got the coat my idea was that the bard would become a story teller and would begin focusing on using command word spells over others. They would get some small bonus to using those spells to reflect the whole idea of a story teller draws power from his voice and words he chooses. The coat would also give some little AC bonus like +1 or +2 but only when it was worn.

So anyway I get all of this kind of roughly hammered out and go to meet up with the group, everyone is pitching their ideas around and finally it comes to me. I start explaining the basic idea and telling the DM he could certainly adjust how powerful anything was or if it even gave a bonus at all, I was fine with his ruling either way.

The other four in the group though lost their freaking minds though, one got so ticked off about it for some reason that he started to just rant about how I was trying to steal the focus of the game, and I was trying to make a super broken character, The other three well the best way I can think to describe them is violently mocking and sarcastic. Don't get me wrong they never laid a hand on me or anything, but they very bluntly pointed out over and over again about how much of an idiot i was to think that was a good idea, etc. etc.

So this goes on for a little while and I am just sitting there trying figure out what I had done to make them all trip out so bad, when finally the DM just kind of takes me off to the side and tells me it is probably best I just took off and start looking for a different group. So like before I am here looking for some feed back on the idea, is it good? is it broken? etc. I don't have alot of experience playing a bard and what little I do is from 3.5, so I might be completely off the mark in 5th because bards can't use command word spells.

[Herobizkit]

If you're new to Bards, then welcome to the infamous Bard typecasting.

Many immature players (and some mature ones) tend to view Bards as sing-songy waifs who skip and dance and can't swing a sword to save their life. They're generally mocked by said people for not being "Deathlazor McSlaughterkill" level of bad-assery. Looking for stories?! Who wants to be SOCIAL, using WORDS to avoid combat their enemies? That's not killing things and taking their stuff!

In short, you want to RP in a group of murder-hobos and it generally never works in the RPers favor. Best you just step away from that table and see if your DM has other games to run... or buy in to the murderdeathkill. Roll a Half-Orc Valorbard who wears black spiked armor decorated with skulls and kills people with a giant axe, screaming death metal all the while.

Or, you know, the Bard from the new Mad Max movie. ;)

[KumaBozu]

Funny thing about this, is that I've managed to piss off the druid in my party by convincing the froup to use diplomacy instead of slaughtering everything in sight..... I'm playing a cleric.
A character capable of good RP will help the slaughterbots in one really important thing, which is getting favour of important story characters.

If you've ever read the Starcraft novels, you'll know the first one is essentially the Terran campaign seen through the eyes of a reporter, as opposed to being the commander in the game. Be that guy.

Let your story be of you travelling with these machines of destruction, chiming in when you know the only thing that will keep the group alive is the occasional voice of reason. There's no reason why you can't make the character you want to play work for the party in a way that's still enjoyable to you

[Hathorym]

I'm not understanding this situation at all. Is there more to this? From what you've written I see no reason for the response at all. There simply has to be more to this story.

[mgshamster]

This character background seems awesome and I would totally invent an adventure for this PC.

Especially if I told everyone in the group to do what your GM did; in that case, I'd write several adventures and have each one dedicated to one PC with a second PC having a side adventure at the same time (somewhat connected to the first PCs story). Each one would last 2-3 sessions, and everyone would get a chance to shine.

I really do not understand why your group thought this was a bad idea. This is a wonderful story arc.

[Biggstick]

-Snip-

The whole story goes that the group I was in got done with one session and the DM sat us down and told us that he was getting kind of tired of how most of the characters in the game were just murder hobos. So he told us that we had to have a tangible goal that could be achieved within the game by the next time we played.

To explain it better the DM laid it out for the our warrior who had been for a long time just butchering his way across the map in the name of becoming the best warrior. The trick is though, that isn't really tangible because how do you know when you reach that goal? DM helped him out and he got the goal of wanting to win this fabled tournament of warriors that if you won then you basically got a weapon that was made by demi gods.

DM asked me if I needed any help and I told him not to worry about it I would have a concept to him the next time we all met up, I get home and start watching an old favorite show of mine Jim Henson's 'The Storyteller.' Well as I was watching it it gave me the idea that since I was playing a bard that focused more on telling tales,fables, and stories why not have try to become a storyteller?

-Snip-

So anyway I get all of this kind of roughly hammered out and go to meet up with the group, everyone is pitching their ideas around and finally it comes to me. I start explaining the basic idea and telling the DM he could certainly adjust how powerful anything was or if it even gave a bonus at all, I was fine with his ruling either way.

The other four in the group though lost their freaking minds though, one got so ticked off about it for some reason that he started to just rant about how I was trying to steal the focus of the game, and I was trying to make a super broken character, The other three well the best way I can think to describe them is violently mocking and sarcastic. Don't get me wrong they never laid a hand on me or anything, but they very bluntly pointed out over and over again about how much of an idiot i was to think that was a good idea, etc. etc.

So this goes on for a little while and I am just sitting there trying figure out what I had done to make them all trip out so bad, when finally the DM just kind of takes me off to the side and tells me it is probably best I just took off and start looking for a different group. So like before I am here looking for some feed back on the idea, is it good? is it broken? etc. I don't have alot of experience playing a bard and what little I do is from 3.5, so I might be completely off the mark in 5th because bards can't use command word spells.

So it looks like that the DM was tired of murderhobo without a purpose. He's running the game and would like you as Players to have a clearly defined goal.

He took time to try and explain this to the "warrior." It ended up getting worked out because the Player and the DM worked together to come up with a cool idea that other people were on board with.

You bring up that he tried to talk with you, but that you told him no, you'll have an idea by the next time you guys get together and play.

Did the other players also refuse to work with the DM, or not work with the DM at all until the day of the game? You didn't include that in your description, and to me that's an important part of this situation. The other players it sounds like worked something out with the DM, hence the reason none of the others (as far as you've said at least) complained about each other's motivation/cause for adventuring.

Depending on the type of campaign the DM is actually running, what you've proposed might be totally out of the way for his world. It might present a situation in which none of the other PC's can participate. It might be that you're the only one who could possibly be doing anything for this particular story arc. You've given us quite a bit of information on the idea, but not all of it. Provide a bit more information on the other players and how they ended up working out their ideas with the DM so we can help you come to a conclusion.

As a side note, you've written out this long post on a forum. Why couldn't this have been sent to the DM the day before the campaign started? You could have worked with him/her to iron out kinks before it's announced to everyone. The necessary changes could have been made before it was made "public" and it could have been made to much better suit the DM's campaign idea.

[furby076]

You bring up that he tried to talk with you, but that you told him no, you'll have an idea by the next time you guys get together and play.
.

Reread the ops statement. The dm said they should have in game goals by the next game. Meaning, the dm was giving the some time to think of their character stories. Thats legit...its also legit for a player to say i need time to think of a concept

[Biggstick]

Reread the ops statement. The dm said they should have in game goals by the next game. Meaning, the dm was giving the some time to think of their character stories. Thats legit...its also legit for a player to say i need time to think of a concept

You're right. It is legit to need time to come up with a character focus. And a great dm is going to be able to on the fly adjust to things the player brings them.

However, the player (as far as we know) came up with this great idea that might have 0 context or viability in the current story. Just because it's a good idea doesn't mean it's good for this DM's campaign.

This could also be one of the reasons why the other players weren't fans of OP's idea. If it's a direction that none of them really want to go on, and irrelevant to the story that was being told, it seems logical for one of them to tell the OP that it feels like a selfish story.

If the player actually talks with the DM before they sit down to play the game, it's usually going to go way smoother. The kinks could have been ironed out before the idea was presented, and everyone could have gotten onboard.

This is all based on the information the OP has provided through. What were the other players decided-on motivations for pursuing adventure? Did they also not discuss it with the DM until the game had already started?

[RingofThorns]

Okay sorry about that wasn't able to check the forum for abit but now I am going to try and play catch up and adress some things people mentioned in posts.



"I'm not understanding this situation at all. Is there more to this? From what you've written I see no reason for the response at all. There simply has to be more to this story." No that is pretty much all of it, the kind of responce I am looking for from the playground is more on mechanics then anything else, i.e. how should the stats be on the coat and bonuses to spells and all that.


I can't remember the name but someone brought up if the game was set in such a way that my Storybringer idea wouldn't fit, and the best way I can describe that world is just vanilla DnD I mean really pick up every Drizzt book, and Player handbook toss them into a blender and out comes a world. Magic and magic items are everywhere, crazy things happen all the time, it honestly was just high fantasy generic.


I didn't send the idea to the DM because I didn't have their email or Facebook, and putting all that into text is a nightmare. I didn't figure there would be any real problems with what I came up with, I mean the DM seemed okay, if not cool with it. The other players just seemed to over react and that is why I was asked to step out.

" This could also be one of the reasons why the other players weren't fans of OP's idea. If it's a direction that none of them really want to go on, and irrelevant to the story that was being told, it seems logical for one of them to tell the OP that it feels like a selfish story."

I figured it would be pretty easy to work everyone else into the story, I mean the leads to find one would more then likely lead into all sorts of dungeons,ruins, lost cities and so on. The next time we all met up was just to discuss the ideas we had for motivations and goals and how to get them all together, and working at one table not actually like a sit down and play session [sorry if I wasn't clear on that.]

On a final note mostly like I said earlier I am looking for help with the mechanics of the idea, how much of a bonus should it be, should it give any..etc. That is what I was mostly looking for all the rest was just meant to kind of explain the story around me coming up with the idea.

[Unoriginal]

RingofThorns, I really hope I'm not going to sound mean, but there is nothing the Playground or anyone can do with the mechanical side of things to help you.

You got told to leave the group and not come back. It sucks, and they're enormous jerks, but it's not an issue of mechanics.


What you described was a pretty nice RP idea, but from a mechanical perspective it was simply a baseline Bard from the PHB with a fancy coat. You even told the DM they could decide what the stats were.

If for some reason you still want to play with those people, go talk to them and ask them wtf they think is wrong about your character. Personally, I'd never try to play with them again.

[RingofThorns]

RingofThorns, I really hope I'm not going to sound mean, but there is nothing the Playground or anyone can do with the mechanical side of things to help you.

You got told to leave the group and not come back. It sucks, and they're enormous jerks, but it's not an issue of mechanics.


What you described was a pretty nice RP idea, but from a mechanical perspective it was simply a baseline Bard from the PHB with a fancy coat. You even told the DM they could decide what the stats were.

If for some reason you still want to play with those people, go talk to them and ask them wtf they think is wrong about your character. Personally, I'd never try to play with them again.

Dude I am not trying to get back into that group, I was asked to leave oh well. I am looking for help to get the whole idea worked out and get the stats and all worked out and written down so that if it ever comes up again I can literally just pull out a piece of paper and go "
here this is my idea." Again like I said twice I am NOT looking for help getting back into that group, I am looking for help working out the part of my idea that would tie into game mechanics.

[Unoriginal]

Then you just need to ask yourself this question: How much does the magic come from the coat, and how much does it come from the Storyteller?

[Foxhound438]

I am looking for help working out the part of my idea that would tie into game mechanics.

I think that's best left to the dm's discretion, as different games will have different levels of magic item/special story ability inclusion. In a low magic campaign that was aimed to only go to something like level 6 it might just be a "robe of useful items", while in a high magic campaign aimed at level 20 it might be a staff of power combined with a cloak of protection with 2 or 3 epic boons tossed on top.

Basically, don't ask for certain stats. give the DM the story idea and take whatever they give you.

[Sabeta]

Man, GitP is so fatalistic when it comes to a bad group moment.

If you don't want to or aren't willing to return to that group, oh well. I would try, as I hate starting over. I don't like all the people I play with. I don't like all the people I DM for, but learning how to handle people you don't like is a apart of life. Deal with it.

Here are my complaints with the idea in general:
1) Storyteller is a quest line. I think the crux of the PCs problems was this. A tournament of fighters is an event that can happen at any point or easily worked into the world. Finding an esoteric storyteller, regaling him with a story, and getting a magic item out of it takes several sessions.

In other words, they're upset you wrote a quest line for yourself, rather than a simple, attainable goal. It could look like you're siezing the campaign and making it all about you.

Personally, I think that's okay, but if the group doesn't then here's an alternative. The Storytellers are no longer secrets in the winds. They're simply the greatest bards in the land, and to earn your way in you just need to hit up a Bard college and perform for them, or in a "battle of the bands" style tournament.

2) The stats of your item are easy. Ask your DM to look at the Instrument of the Bards. They're very good Bard only magic items. Tell him you want that, but as a cloak. Say you're okay with the weakest version of it as long as it's upgradeable, or gets an AC bonus. Talk about trading out the pre stock spells for ones that fit your concept, or trading the spells out for a different bonus.

Alternatively, look at Wand of the Pact Keeper. See about getting that for a Bard, but it only works on Power Word or Command Word spells.

Your story is now a Bardic flavored version of the Warriors, so they can't possibly have a problem with it. Future tables probably won't either. I suggest trying to smooth things over with your old group, and try again. Either way, good luck.

[Unoriginal]

Man, GitP is so fatalistic when it comes to a bad group moment.

There's a difference between a bad group moment and a bad group.