Perception Disparity

[Afgncaap5]

Has anyone else ever run into weird situations where the rest of the group you played with either didn't understand what your character was like or, even more extreme, actively disagreed with you about what your character was like?

I think the most extreme example of this that I had was when I was making a my first wizard for a D&D 3.5 campaign, effectively my second D&D character ever. At first I thought human wizard, but then after hearing the DM talk about the fact that some groups of players would get different information about the world than other players based on their race I decided to make the wizard an elf.

Unfortunately, the other players and the DM had, at that point, heard I'd been thinking human, so when I said I was an elf I was just kinda... ignored? I went the entire campaign with the elvish wizard being treated as a human, which was a little weird. I don't think it really changed much about the campaign, but it was weird.

A less extreme thing happened once (though one that actually did affect the campaign) when I decided to make a half-elf artificer. The DM asked if I was more of a technician/mechanic artificer or if I was more of a mystical/enchantment artificer, and since I'd already thought about focusing on infusions that emulated things in the book Oriental Adventures I said mystical. In spite of that, when the last third-ish of the campaign happened in my character's old home town, the whole place was very, very tech savvy, not unlike Mechanicsbug from Girl Genius. It wasn't a bad place, just hard to envision why my character wound up that way with so many non-mystic-feeling things in this home town.

[weckar]

These seem more like straight up character hijackings than anything else. Sad, really.

I once played a sorcerer myself that ran into a similar perception issue. For some reason the DM was convinced I was walking around in wizard robes (including speckled stars and a pointy hat) and carried a staff, even though I had pointed out several times that someone who did not know better would probably mistake me for an acrobat or, at worst, a rogue. It resulted in my character being unfairly targeted more than once.

A lesser example was when my DM ruled that as I was playing a monkey-like race, I MUST be addicted to bananas. Ugh.

[Darth Ultron]

This is pretty common.....I see it a lot as a DM.

A player will describe a something like ''a greedy dwarf thief'', yet never even come close to stealing anything or trying to get gold and just runs around like a murderhobo striker always trying to exploit a sneak attack.

Often a player will want to be a noble or royalty or some other high social standing.....but then play the character like a street thug....and not a noble as a street thug.

[Jerrykhor]

These seem more like straight up character hijackings than anything else. Sad, really.

I once played a sorcerer myself that ran into a similar perception issue. For some reason the DM was convinced I was walking around in wizard robes (including speckled stars and a pointy hat) and carried a staff, even though I had pointed out several times that someone who did not know better would probably mistake me for an acrobat or, at worst, a rogue. It resulted in my character being unfairly targeted more than once.

A lesser example was when my DM ruled that as I was playing a monkey-like race, I MUST be addicted to bananas. Ugh.
That's incredibly lame. Your DM is lame and he should feel bad haha.

[JellyPooga]

Urgh, my old group was awful for this. I'd play a Rogue as a dextrous fighter and all they saw was a greedy thief. I'd play a Druid as a muscle-bound brute and all they saw was an elf-loving hippy. I'd play a Bard as Indiana Jones and all they saw was Elan. I would constantly be asked the question "hey, you're a X, why don't you handle this?" despite never having displayed any inclination or proficiency at doing so (e.g. my soldier Rogue (5ed) being asked to sneak past a guard despite not having Stealth proficiency).

[weckar]

Urgh, my old group was awful for this. I'd play a Rogue as a dextrous fighter and all they saw was a greedy thief. I'd play a Druid as a muscle-bound brute and all they saw was an elf-loving hippy. I'd play a Bard as Indiana Jones and all they saw was Elan. I would constantly be asked the question "hey, you're a X, why don't you handle this?" despite never having displayed any inclination or proficiency at doing so (e.g. my soldier Rogue (5ed) being asked to sneak past a guard despite not having Stealth proficiency).

"I'm a whatnow? I don't recall that from any training..."

[Jay R]

This one was kind of my fault. And eventually I decided to just enjoy it.

I once played a 2e thief/wizard. Since he was traveling with a Paladin, and the entire party was either Lawful Good or Neutral Good, I told the DM that he would never steal anything. Nonetheless, he was continually casing out places and talking about how easy it would be to break in. In a meeting with many nobles, he ostentatiously praised their beautiful jewelry.

Evidently, I managed to convince the Paladin player. Her Paladin (who had been with my character for two years in which he had never stolen anything), continued to not trust him, watch him carefully, and tell NPCs not to trust him.

So I decided to enjoy it. I set out to be the most emphatically moral character in the party. Always pushing to give money to the poor, help others when we didn’t have to, volunteer for the dangerous task, etc. And she never noticed that the thief was always the most honest and heroic person there.

In a discussion over what the party should do, I once responded to her with "That's because you're a paladin, sworn to do what's good and lawful. I'm just a thief, free to do what's right."

[CharonsHelper]

I once played a sorcerer myself that ran into a similar perception issue. For some reason the DM was convinced I was walking around in wizard robes (including speckled stars and a pointy hat) and carried a staff, even though I had pointed out several times that someone who did not know better would probably mistake me for an acrobat or, at worst, a rogue. It resulted in my character being unfairly targeted more than once.


Lol - my PFS Drunken Master monk actually DOES go around in robes speckled with stars & moon with a pointy hat (super cheesy - because that's what he thinks wizards are supposed to wear) - plus he's scrawny (STR 7). He also opens most fights Scorching Ray - all largely to get enemies to 'unfairly' target him since he has really good defences. I make sure to point this out to the GM at every table he plays at.

Sometimes they ignore it - but I've had a few who play along and have foes initially target the 'wizard' that it's worth doing.

[Max_Killjoy]

Has anyone else ever run into weird situations where the rest of the group you played with either didn't understand what your character was like or, even more extreme, actively disagreed with you about what your character was like?


I've most often seen this sort of thing when it involves a character having an archetype or trope slapped on them for some immediate or superficial reason, and being unable to get out of that unjustified pigeonhole in the minds of viewers, readers, or the other players at a gaming table.

[Friv]

This is pretty common.....I see it a lot as a DM.

A player will describe a something like ''a greedy dwarf thief'', yet never even come close to stealing anything or trying to get gold and just runs around like a murderhobo striker always trying to exploit a sneak attack.

Often a player will want to be a noble or royalty or some other high social standing.....but then play the character like a street thug....and not a noble as a street thug.

This is literally the exact opposite of what the OP is describing.

[Pex]

Urgh, my old group was awful for this. I'd play a Rogue as a dextrous fighter and all they saw was a greedy thief. I'd play a Druid as a muscle-bound brute and all they saw was an elf-loving hippy. I'd play a Bard as Indiana Jones and all they saw was Elan. I would constantly be asked the question "hey, you're a X, why don't you handle this?" despite never having displayed any inclination or proficiency at doing so (e.g. my soldier Rogue (5ed) being asked to sneak past a guard despite not having Stealth proficiency).


This one was kind of my fault. And eventually I decided to just enjoy it.

I once played a 2e thief/wizard. Since he was traveling with a Paladin, and the entire party was either Lawful Good or Neutral Good, I told the DM that he would never steal anything. Nonetheless, he was continually casing out places and talking about how easy it would be to break in. In a meeting with many nobles, he ostentatiously praised their beautiful jewelry.

Evidently, I managed to convince the Paladin player. Her Paladin (who had been with my character for two years in which he had never stolen anything), continued to not trust him, watch him carefully, and tell NPCs not to trust him.

So I decided to enjoy it. I set out to be the most emphatically moral character in the party. Always pushing to give money to the poor, help others when we didn’t have to, volunteer for the dangerous task, etc. And she never noticed that the thief was always the most honest and heroic person there.

In a discussion over what the party should do, I once responded to her with "That's because you're a paladin, sworn to do what's good and lawful. I'm just a thief, free to do what's right."

Past experience has made it a given: I will always suspect the rogue player until proven why I shouldn't. The more the player expresses joy in playing the rogue, the more suspect I will be. Can't be helped. Got burned too often and too hard. The class and its players are tainted.

On the bright side it's not hard to earn my trust. Easiest test is what the player does the first time he alone finds treasure meant for the party to divide. Passing the test is to let the party know about it and give a full accounting of what it is to be divided up. Learn important need to know information no one else does? Tell the party. Be a team player. You don't have to be a saint. I'm not going to quibble over a few silver pieces you pocket from the random orc you encountered while scouting. I'm not going to be upset out of character if you in character want to kill the prisoner hobgoblin we captured after a fight when in character I don't want to.

There is player in my Pathfinder group. Currently he's playing a paladin but has played a rogue. I trust him implicitly in and out of character when he's a rogue. He's quite the scoundrel with the NPCs and in his downtime, but when it comes to the party he's Absolutely Loyal. He's been tempted many times and never failed the party. One time he was carrying all of the party's treasure hoard from an adventure. We knew he was. When alone in the Black Market he could have spent it all on something he really wanted. He didn't. It was party treasure.

[JellyPooga]

Past experience has made it a given: I will always suspect the rogue player until proven why I shouldn't. The more the player expresses joy in playing the rogue, the more suspect I will be. Can't be helped. Got burned too often and too hard. The class and its players are tainted.

Wow. I knew you didn't much like rogues and I knew you had that weird "party before character" thing (which I still don't fully understand; it just doesn't make any kind of sense to me), but I didn't realise it was this...well, level of prejudice. Do you also instantly distrust anyone that plays a Barbarian until they "prove their trust" by not killing an NPC in the heat of battle, that the group has decided they want to capture? How about Clerics; do they have to "prove it" by casting a few heals and buffs before you'll look at them in any way but askance?

The simple fact is that Class is not a description of behaviour. Yes, there are certain stereotypes (the greedy Rogue, the ascetic Paladin, etc.), but nothing about them is a straightjacket and it's this kind of "urgh, do you have to play a Rogue?" attitude that bugs me. If it was "urgh, do you have to play a thief?", fine, I accept that you don't like a certain style of character in your party, but not every Rogue (or Thief, if you go back a few editions) is a backstabbing, party un-friendly, money grubbing douche-bag and no player should have to "prove it" beyond the first time they introduce their character. I mean, which of the following is a Rogue?

- Outdoorsy archer
- Monastic Scholar
- Lightfingered Thief
- Honourable Mercenary

If your answer was anything but "I can't tell, it could be any of them", you're wrong and displaying a prejudice that simply isn't warranted. The Thief could just as easily be a Cleric or Druid for all you know, but you instantly distrist the Merc because he's a Rogue? I don't get it.

[Pelle]

Past experience has made it a given: I will always suspect the rogue player until proven why I shouldn't.

For me, it has been kind of the opposite. I have a friend who always play his characters in the same way; super pragmatic, kind of risk averse and self-preserving (fleeing). It will take quite some effort from him to demonstrate that his new character doesn't have these characteristics. I blame confirmation bias. Even though his new character has a different personality in his mind, we see what we want to see.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I played a monk in 1e AD&D with a GM who seemed to pay more attention to his drinking than the game. Ravi Siddhartha was a southerner, a practitioner of yogic disciplines. I quoted dharma and Vedic wisdom. I described him as if he were Indian, his clothes and appearance. It's a culture and history I know well and love.
Despite all this - and selecting and painting my mini to match - the GM insisted on putting on a silly mock-Chinese accent when talking about my monk, and going on about kung fu and karate, and playing the theme from the 70s show Kung Fu.

When I finally managed to convince him that I wasn't playing an East Asian character, but more like a South Asian, he started doing a silly mock-Indian accent and making "gags" about curry and poppadums.

I left.

[Frozen_Feet]

Happens all the time, sometimes intentionally triggered from my part, but often not.

The most trivial cases of this happen when a person forgets how another player's character is supposed to look like, easy in a non-visual medium. For example, I've forgotten a character was blonde instead of brunette, and that a character was short and plain-looking instead of really tall. In both cases, realizing the mismatch forced me to rethink a bunch of character interactions.

Another time, I played a minor NPC for a short period, without establishing how they look. Much later, I decided to make this character into my PC, and established highly outlandish appearance for them. This was purposefull - I specifically asked other players to go back and reread the past interaction, just to see how their mental image of the situation would change.

Other times, this is value-based. For example, to some USA players, anyone below 18 is a kid. Period. This leads to weird interactions in a game which is not situated in the USA, where the characters are not from the USA, and the "kid" is a 17-year-old athletic male who is over 6 feet tall and armed. Even weirder when the supposed "minor" is a space alien, or an android, or some other lifeform to which human expectations of child- and adulthood do not apply.

Value-based perception disparities in general are easy in multi-ethnic or multireligious groups. These are usually what I try to trigger purposefully. For example, I have crafted gods and religiously zealous characters with arcane morals precisely to see various interpretations of them.

[hymer]

The most trivial cases of this happen when a person forgets how another player's character is supposed to look like, easy in a non-visual medium. For example, I've forgotten a character was blonde instead of brunette, and that a character was short and plain-looking instead of really tall. In both cases, realizing the mismatch forced me to rethink a bunch of character interactions.

A particularly jarring one in this line is when the character's gender gets confused with the player's. Makes you wonder just how immersed these players are.

[Darth Ultron]

This is literally the exact opposite of what the OP is describing.

Yes it is.

They were talking about dumb DMs that did not get their super awesome characters.

I mentioned........the opposite......dumb players that do not get their own characters.

[Frozen_Feet]

They can be basically at any level of immersion, but they may be immersed in the "wrong story" so to speak. If they were really immersed, the "reveal" can be as stunning as finding out Samus is a girl for the first time.

Other players forgetting my character's gender has happened to me, but I don't fault them. It is easy to forget the 181 cm Finnish man with a low voice is supposed to be 155 cm Chinese office lady this time around. (Clearing this mix-up led to a mildly funny joke about how the GM's character misgendered mine due to her low voice, caused by years of chainsmoking.)

[Pex]

Wow. I knew you didn't much like rogues and I knew you had that weird "party before character" thing (which I still don't fully understand; it just doesn't make any kind of sense to me), but I didn't realise it was this...well, level of prejudice. Do you also instantly distrust anyone that plays a Barbarian until they "prove their trust" by not killing an NPC in the heat of battle, that the group has decided they want to capture? How about Clerics; do they have to "prove it" by casting a few heals and buffs before you'll look at them in any way but askance?

The simple fact is that Class is not a description of behaviour. Yes, there are certain stereotypes (the greedy Rogue, the ascetic Paladin, etc.), but nothing about them is a straightjacket and it's this kind of "urgh, do you have to play a Rogue?" attitude that bugs me. If it was "urgh, do you have to play a thief?", fine, I accept that you don't like a certain style of character in your party, but not every Rogue (or Thief, if you go back a few editions) is a backstabbing, party un-friendly, money grubbing douche-bag and no player should have to "prove it" beyond the first time they introduce their character. I mean, which of the following is a Rogue?

- Outdoorsy archer
- Monastic Scholar
- Lightfingered Thief
- Honourable Mercenary

If your answer was anything but "I can't tell, it could be any of them", you're wrong and displaying a prejudice that simply isn't warranted. The Thief could just as easily be a Cleric or Druid for all you know, but you instantly distrist the Merc because he's a Rogue? I don't get it.

Nope, only the rogue. Whenever the player was a Jerk he was playing a Rogue. Once in 3E and once in 5E it was not the rogue, but in both cases it was everyone in the Group I had to quit the game. It was a complete clash of play style. Otherwise, in all my years of playing 2E, 3E, and 5E whenever a Jerk player showed up, he's playing a Rogue. Come to think of it, I dabbled once in 1E for a few months in a high school club before I really knew anything about the game. There was one player I was annoyed with. He was the Thief.

It's not every Rogue I play with. The Rogue and I in my Paladin game get along just fine. However, if the player is a Jerk, 9 times out of 10 he's playing a Rogue.

[Jormengand]

This is literally the exact opposite of what the OP is describing.

Yes, but did you expect to let that get in DU's way of badmouthing his players?

[RazorChain]

Usually when this happens to me it's class based system and it's preconceptions.

I was playing a discreet Paladin but I could as well have an advertising billboard stuck to my head that said PALADIN. Everybody and their mothers knew. "You're a Paladin, of course we can trust you!"

[Friv]

Yes, but did you expect to let that get in DU's way of badmouthing his players?

No, but I didn't want to let it slip past without calling him out. Which was a mistake. I slip up occasionally. Won't do it again in this thread, at least.


A particularly jarring one in this line is when the character's gender gets confused with the player's. Makes you wonder just how immersed these players are.

Honestly, that one makes a lot more sense. Realigning how you see someone's gender is not easy. Doing it back and forth repeatedly is much harder, because there's no consistency.


I've only had that happen twice, and both were weird in different ways. Once was when I made a ruthless manipulative cannibal sorcerer shapeshifter, and everyone at the table insisted on behaving like he was totally an okay person. He was not. He was loyal to the party, but I'd sort of expected that his tendency towards ruthless or even cruel solutions to problems was going to provoke a confrontation, leading to him restraining himself in order to be able to keep working with the party, leading to eventually realizing why his philosophy of vengeance and "ends justify the means" was not a good plan in the long run. I deliberately had him do slowly escalating things designed to make someone say, "Hey, this is not really okay, and we need to talk about whether you're one of the monsters that we kind of need to stop."

Instead, it was all, "Oh, you just tore that guy's heart out and ate it so that you can take his shape? That's a great plan, it'll get us into the bad guy's hideout much faster, let's never examine what this says about the seven other people you can turn into" or "hey, you have a spell to force people to adore you right, could you use it on this potential ally so we don't have to fight him?" Everyone else was still playing substantially less evil people, they were just totally willing to overlook anything he did as long as it was for the team's benefit and never so much as raise an eyebrow. He was just the team's funny evil mascot.

Too much party cohesion.

The second time was my infamous Good Necromancer; I pitched an idea to the DM of a D&D of playing a Chaotic Good necromancer who believed that necromancy could be used for the benefit of society, and who would be carefully using it in ways to minimize pain and suffering (Cause Fear to prevent bad guys from being killed by scaring them off, Death Ward, Animate Dead to spring traps and soak monster hits, etc.) I specifically asked whether this was viable in the game, or whether necromancy was evil, and the DM gave me a thumbs-up.

And then the game started, and he immediately paired me with another player who was the demonic familiar of one of my fellow necromancers, a Chaotic Evil imp rogue. We were searching for my friend, and I was supposed to be okay with the evil imp because he'd been my friend's familiar. And then I almost died, and had a glimpse of Hell, which is where I would go when I died because I was a necromancer after all. At which point I said, "Fine, I wake up, abandon my magic, and retire, because apparently necromancy is just super-evil in this setting" and the DM was gobsmacked that I didn't like the idea that my character was destined for Hell because he was using evil magic.

[Quertus]

Do you also instantly distrust anyone that plays a Barbarian until they "prove their trust" by not killing an NPC in the heat of battle, that the group has decided they want to capture? How about Clerics; do they have to "prove it" by casting a few heals and buffs before you'll look at them in any way but askance?

"Hi, I'm a Bar..."
Me: held action spell, quickened spell, continent spell, familiar uses a wand, cohort casts a twinned quickened spell, Huptzeen casts a spell, simulacrum casts a spell, etc, etc, save or die die die die die die die die!

Why, no, I've never played with Arcana Unearthed Barbarians before, and I'm totally not scarred by the experience. Why do you ask?

Clerics? Anyone who isn't actively trying to overthrow the horrid abominations that rule over most D&D worlds is clearly the worst kind of Evil, and needs to die.


Other players forgetting my character's gender has happened to me, but I don't fault them. It is easy to forget the 181 cm Finnish man with a low voice is supposed to be 155 cm Chinese office lady this time around. (Clearing this mix-up led to a mildly funny joke about how the GM's character misgendered mine due to her low voice, caused by years of chainsmoking.)

"Character Description Phase" is one of my favorite parts of the game. Such confusion would be rare at my tables.


Usually when this happens to me it's class based system and it's preconceptions.

I was playing a discreet Paladin but I could as well have an advertising billboard stuck to my head that said PALADIN. Everybody and their mothers knew. "You're a Paladin, of course we can trust you!"

And this is part of why I want people to learn things in character, rather than get stuck on these metagaming notions.

[Frozen_Feet]

Too much party cohesion, you say?

Ah yes, I'd forgotten that. Basically, this is caused by a common in-group/out-group distinction, where PCs are held to one standard and NPCs to another. So an Evil character can get away with fairly absurd things as long as they only target NPCs, while a Good character can get shouted at for taking any sort of offense to what other PCs do.

This gets especially jarring in Freeform games where there is no GM, and the line between PCs and NPCs isn't very strong. From an in-game perspective, it quickly starts to look like some people get away with nothing and others get away with everything due to arbitrary favoritism.

[Pex]

Too much party cohesion, you say?

Ah yes, I'd forgotten that. Basically, this is caused by a common in-group/out-group distinction, where PCs are held to one standard and NPCs to another. So an Evil character can get away with fairly absurd things as long as they only target NPCs, while a Good character can get shouted at for taking any sort of offense to what other PCs do.

This gets especially jarring in Freeform games where there is no GM, and the line between PCs and NPCs isn't very strong. From an in-game perspective, it quickly starts to look like some people get away with nothing and others get away with everything due to arbitrary favoritism.

In my perspective the problem is in having Good and Evil PCs in the same party in the first place rather than PC/NPC distinction. There will always be someone who says he has no issues playing an Evil character in an otherwise Good group. I'll allow for that to happen. I have to to not be hypocritical because I experienced such a thing way back when in 2E when another player played an Evil character and it worked out fine. I even tried to dabble in it back then still learning how to play the game. However, too often it doesn't work. A player may have written N or CN on his character sheet to pretend he's not Evil but play Evil or at least Disruptive On Purpose anyway. These are the 9 out of 10 Rogues I mentioned earlier.

I call such players The Real Jerk or That Guy, though the personality is only a subset. There are Jerks/That Guy who aren't disruptive to the game. They're instead Self-Centered where the only thing that matters is their character. Every other player is irrelevant to them, a nuisance to put up with to play the game of getting as rich, influential, and powerful as possible. These are the 1 out of 10 Not A Rogue. They are a spellcaster.

[Arbane]

I just got hit by this today. The GM sent me some backstory he'd thought of for my half-orc wizard (Pathfinder game), with the ever popular 'human mother raped by orc raider' blargh, but I'd already said, in game, several times, that my character's FATHER was human. (Evil wizard who'd taken over an orc tribe about 20 years ago, my character is 17 years old. Not too hard to do the math there.)

Quite annoying.

[NontheistCleric]

This happened recently to a goblin character of mine. After one session, the DM told me that he saw the goblin as someone evil who was trying to redeem himself.

I found it annoying, because I had deliberately tried to demonstrate that despite being part of an adventuring party with several good-aligned people, the goblin was only out for himself and his friends and definitely not above even petty evil acts. For example, just earlier in the game he had had an NPC killed and eaten because the NPC had peed on him. I mean, no one would ask even a good character not to retaliate in some wat against that, but I'd still think having someone killed and then eating them qualifies as evil. Then he pushed the blame for burning down his village (which the goblin and his party were actually directly responsible for) onto a political opponent so that he could win over the support of his goblin tribe in a leadership conflict. Then he and the party murdered his rival.

Definitely not the acts of someone looking for redemption.

[Frozen_Feet]

In my perspective the problem is in having Good and Evil PCs in the same party in the first place rather than PC/NPC distinction.

Nope. As my comment of freeform games should've tipped you, this phenomenom exist even in games which bear no resemblance whatsoever to tabletop D&D.

It always boils down to this:

Player characters are seen as extensions of their players, so any offense towards them is seen as offense towards the players.

Non-player are seen as extensions of no-one, they are of secondary importance, so offense towards them is seen as less relevant.

Having Good and Evil characters in the same party is not the problem in these situations, it is the result of it.

[Max_Killjoy]

This happened recently to a goblin character of mine. After one session, the DM told me that he saw the goblin as someone evil who was trying to redeem himself.

I found it annoying, because I had deliberately tried to demonstrate that despite being part of an adventuring party with several good-aligned people, the goblin was only out for himself and his friends and definitely not above even petty evil acts. For example, just earlier in the game he had had an NPC killed and eaten because the NPC had peed on him. I mean, no one would ask even a good character not to retaliate in some wat against that, but I'd still think having someone killed and then eating them qualifies as evil. Then he pushed the blame for burning down his village (which the goblin and his party were actually directly responsible for) onto a political opponent so that he could win over the support of his goblin tribe in a leadership conflict. Then he and the party murdered his rival.

Definitely not the acts of someone looking for redemption.

I've had the opposite happen, where a party assumed that a character who hadn't ever been "evil" was on some sort of redemption arc or something, because of their species/race.

[Scripten]

I've had the opposite happen, where a party assumed that a character who hadn't ever been "evil" was on some sort of redemption arc or something, because of their species/race.

What would make this even more frustrating for me is that this outlook would be a great way to handle the in-game characters' thoughts, but it's the players that have the incorrect perception. I've been lucky with my group in that they sometimes inject incorrect perceptions of other characters into their roleplaying, but it's always because they are actually roleplaying and not because they can't seem to pay attention to their friends' descriptions.

[Guizonde]

i actually managed to force it! took a while, and was a challenge that i mentionned i wanted to try to the dm, and he rolled with it.

i wanted to play an undercover inquisitor. the joke the first time around was that since he was dressed like a duellist and was very roguish in behavior was that i didn't want to play as an inquisitor. several sessions went by, all the while maintaining my double identity of a roguish merc that enjoyed starting bar-fights. the team referred to him as the rogue.

... then i cast judgement and banished an evil aligned monster in front of the paladin who hadn't had the time to do the same. jaws dropped because they had legitimately forgotten i was first and foremost an inquisitor (with no class levels in rogue). i think i quipped something to the tune of, "if i can fool my friends and adventuring companions that i'm not an inquisitor, i can fool anyone i'm infiltrating". the dm gave me bonus xp because he too had forgotten i was not a rogue.

my team still forgets occasionnally i'm an inquisitor, but they're happy about that when i manage to stack sneack attacks with precise strikes and judgements (i multiclassed stalker vigilante as a result).

if your team doesn't listen to you despite repeating how your character looks or behaves, that's a problem from your team. not you. sometimes, it can be funny, but it rarely is, since it's a blatant lack of respect.

[Max_Killjoy]

What would make this even more frustrating for me is that this outlook would be a great way to handle the in-game characters' thoughts, but it's the players that have the incorrect perception. I've been lucky with my group in that they sometimes inject incorrect perceptions of other characters into their roleplaying, but it's always because they are actually roleplaying and not because they can't seem to pay attention to their friends' descriptions.


This was a player assumption that I struggled to counter at the player "level", because I like certain sorts of things to be handled in-character.

If it had been on the part of the other PCs, or NPCs, I'd have been much less bothered by it, but the players assumed it and it took a lot of effort to convince them that it wasn't the case without spilling a lot of information I wanted to come out in play. I'd even have been fine if the players had withheld judgement, but no, they took one look at the character's species/race and made a bunch of assumptions as players.

(And for those wondering, not a Drow.)

[Quertus]

i actually managed to force it! took a while, and was a challenge that i mentionned i wanted to try to the dm, and he rolled with it.

i wanted to play an undercover inquisitor. the joke the first time around was that since he was dressed like a duellist and was very roguish in behavior was that i didn't want to play as an inquisitor. several sessions went by, all the while maintaining my double identity of a roguish merc that enjoyed starting bar-fights. the team referred to him as the rogue.

... then i cast judgement and banished an evil aligned monster in front of the paladin who hadn't had the time to do the same. jaws dropped because they had legitimately forgotten i was first and foremost an inquisitor (with no class levels in rogue). i think i quipped something to the tune of, "if i can fool my friends and adventuring companions that i'm not an inquisitor, i can fool anyone i'm infiltrating". the dm gave me bonus xp because he too had forgotten i was not a rogue.

my team still forgets occasionnally i'm an inquisitor, but they're happy about that when i manage to stack sneack attacks with precise strikes and judgements (i multiclassed stalker vigilante as a result).

if your team doesn't listen to you despite repeating how your character looks or behaves, that's a problem from your team. not you. sometimes, it can be funny, but it rarely is, since it's a blatant lack of respect.

I'd been debating which story to tell; your story clinched it for me. Although it's more related to your story than directly to the topic, IMO.

One of my M:tA characters, Woody, would commonly pull useful items out of his pockets / trench coat / backpack / car / trunk. Which makes sense - Mages are known for using just such Coincidences to hide their Magick, so that their will working was easier, and to prevent Paradox. Whenever I performed such a feat, the Storyteller would ask, "you want to roll for that?". Invariably, I'd answer, "no". Because, you see, I actually kept track of the many handy things my character actually had in those places. His amazing feats of preparedness weren't magic, they were simple Wits.

Not only was preparation one of the best magics ever, but, since the GM was unable to distinguish between my character's willworking and more mundane actions, it only made sense that the world couldn't, either, and was a great excuse to buy / a great refluff for the Blatancy skill.

[The Fury]

These seem more like straight up character hijackings than anything else. Sad, really.

I once played a sorcerer myself that ran into a similar perception issue. For some reason the DM was convinced I was walking around in wizard robes (including speckled stars and a pointy hat) and carried a staff, even though I had pointed out several times that someone who did not know better would probably mistake me for an acrobat or, at worst, a rogue. It resulted in my character being unfairly targeted more than once.

A lesser example was when my DM ruled that as I was playing a monkey-like race, I MUST be addicted to bananas. Ugh.

I remember once when I played a Fighter there was one player that kept thinking that my character had a sword. In fact, I was using a halberd but for whatever reason, he wouldn't let go of this preconceived assumption. I imagine he was just thinking I was being pedantic. We did get some memorable conversations though.

"I need a pry bar. The Fury, let me use your sword!"

"I don't have one."

"Yes you do! What do you call that?"

"...A halberd? Also, no. You can't use it as a pry bar."

There was another incident when an NPC commented that my character was horse-faced. That one I didn't really mind at all. I didn't think it was specifically true at first, but it was a reasonable enough conclusion to draw based on what brief physical descriptions I'd given. With that in mind I sort of retroactively decided that the "horse-faced" remark was actually true.

Also, bananas. Mm-mm! Good source of potassium!

[NontheistCleric]

This was a player assumption that I struggled to counter at the player "level", because I like certain sorts of things to be handled in-character.

If it had been on the part of the other PCs, or NPCs, I'd have been much less bothered by it, but the players assumed it and it took a lot of effort to convince them that it wasn't the case without spilling a lot of information I wanted to come out in play. I'd even have been fine if the players had withheld judgement, but no, they took one look at the character's species/race and made a bunch of assumptions as players.

(And for those wondering, not a Drow.)

It's interesting how the 'evil race member being redeemed through association with good race members' stereotype is so prevalent and overpowering that players and DMs can manage to apply it to characters on two opposite ends of the good-evil spectrum who aren't even going through that character arc in question, simply by virtue of belonging to one of those so-called evil races.

Out of curiosity, what race was that character?

[Pelle]

I remember once when I played a Fighter there was one player that kept thinking that my character had a sword. In fact, I was using a halberd but for whatever reason, he wouldn't let go of this preconceived assumption. I imagine he was just thinking I was being pedantic.

Sounds likely. Did he know what a halberd is? I assume he though it was a type of sword... (similar to the infamous gazebo story)

[Max_Killjoy]

It's interesting how the 'evil race member being redeemed through association with good race members' stereotype is so prevalent and overpowering that players and DMs can manage to apply it to characters on two opposite ends of the good-evil spectrum who aren't even going through that character arc in question, simply by virtue of belonging to one of those so-called evil races.


Yeah.

I need to remember this example the next time someone questions my dislike of tropes and archetypes.




Out of curiosity, what race was that character?


One of the Yuan-Ti variants, I don't recall which was which umpteen years later. (Fully humanoid, but with scaly skin and slit-pupil eyes, in her case.) I don't recall why exactly she'd walked away from their society, other than simply not being that into all the stuff they were up to.

This was also the character who had to explain to another character something like "I have no idea what what you're blathering about with all this 'true neutral' and 'maintain the balance' nonsense."

(The DM was of the "you can play it if it can agree on a balance point for it" variety.)


https://pre00.deviantart.net/e04a/th/pre/i/2013/015/9/7/bg2__yuan_ti_pureblood_by_rascality-d5rn5zs.png

[The Fury]

Sounds likely. Did he know what a halberd is? I assume he though it was a type of sword... (similar to the infamous gazebo story)

I asked him that too. After I described one, and I think drew a picture of one, I hope he'd at least have some idea. Maybe he just didn't care.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Lets see;

Dragonborn Paladin of Bahamaut? Obviously he's a greedy, covetous stick in the mud who will always strive to ruin the party's fun. Nevermind the clear backstory, openly shared, of his drug-using past and seeking redemption for his past sins.

Mul (Half-Dwarf)? Obviously just a tall dwarf who loves booze and gold! Obviously! Never mind they are more like tall muscular humans, with a distinct lack of any body hair (admission; I didn't know about Dark Sun Dwarves at this point) and purposefully didn't view himself as a Dwarf because his mother was exiled for having a half-blood child in the first place.

Warforged? Obviously a fighter! What do you mean he has a staff? He's a Wizard!? Preposterous! Fine, just spam Magic Missile. What? No Magic Missile!? Inconceivable! What kind of Wizard are you?!

I don't play with them anymore. Apparently every race/class must only be a stereotype. Except Drow. Drow are inherently neutral and can be anything. Even Drizz't clones. Especially Drizz't clones.

[NontheistCleric]

I don't play with them anymore. Apparently every race/class must only be a stereotype. Except Drow. Drow are inherently neutral and can be anything. Even Drizz't clones. Especially Drizz't clones.

Well, it is established canon that Drizz't is good at everything he tries. Apparently he would have been a very powerful drow wizard had he chosen to become a wizard, so that may be why that group thought that way.

[vasilidor]

Closest to this problem I ever had was when it took me twenty minutes to explain my gun bunny sorcerer in a Shadowrun game. he had no lethal attack spells. or any attack spells. instead he turned invisible and shot people in the back of their heads.

[Honest Tiefling]

Too much party cohesion, you say?

Ah yes, I'd forgotten that. Basically, this is caused by a common in-group/out-group distinction, where PCs are held to one standard and NPCs to another. So an Evil character can get away with fairly absurd things as long as they only target NPCs, while a Good character can get shouted at for taking any sort of offense to what other PCs do.

To be fair...Excusing violence done to people outside of one's 'group' or 'tribe' is not only a historically accurate way of thinking in many time periods, but a really effective way to play an evil character. I mean, if my buddy wants to go pillaging and looting I have their back. If someone else dare insults my buddy, however? Hope they have made peace with their final destination in the afterlife because I'm giving them an express ticket straight there.

I think the worst is plot hooks. A friend stopped a plot hook very fast when he decided his LE cleric was going to kill a CE fae seeking help...Because she was chaotic and needed to be purged, obviously. NPCs who are obviously suspicious asking for help? No, no thank you. I don't think I will help out that undead skeleton animated by pure evil, I think.

[Katrina]

My character description in Scene 1:
You see a beautiful human woman with hair dark as night and skin like fresh fallen snow. She wears a black halter top that exposes a fair amount of her sizeable chest and her midriff, with a pair of black silk leggings tucked into her boots. Her only visible weapon is a dagger at her hip.


Three hours later:
Dm: They see your horns and shout "demon!" They draw their weapons. The are staring at Shalistaria.
Party: "huh?"
Dm: she's a Tiefling.
Me: "with Fiendish Facade, a 30 Disguise check and no horns."
Dm: what?
Me: "it's a feat that says I actually have no outward signs that I am a Tiefling and look almost completely normal. I actually can't have any of the physical alterations with this feat. It's in the requirements. If they beat the disguise check, they notice her eyes reflect red when they only glance at her, but it's super subtle because of the feat and bonus."
Dm: ...I kinda wrote this whole section with people reacting to you being a demon.

[HidesHisEyes]

I've never really encountered this, but I've encountered the opposite problem where another player has such a complex and, erm, 'original' character that I genuinely can't figure out what I'm supposed to be imagining, or who it is that I'm supposed to be interacting with.