Stuebi
2018-09-21, 07:27 AM
Hello there everybody. I just had the Ragnarok of PnP-Fights, and I would like some other perspectives on it. I'm gonna try to be as honest and open as possible, and I encourage everybody to be blunt if I was actually in the wrong here.
5 People, 2 of which are long time friends, the other 3, including the GM, I've known for a few months now, and frankly I don't have a particular attachment to them.
System is Rogue Trader (40k).
The first 3 sessions went fine, with a total playtime of somewhere around 12 -14 hours. Everybody except me and the DM is new to both the system and 40k in general, so it was supposed to be a toned down "just for fun" kind of start, so the newbies had some time to adjust. We roll up characters, I end up playing a Voidmaster (Ship experts, very used to life in space).
We do some basic exploring, have a couple easy encounters. We had agreed the Rogue Trader would be played by an NPC, with us being officers and advisors. I was initially skeptical, but the GM kept the ball rolling nicely, and managed to retain player agency. Often decisions came down to majority votes, and the RT would end up either agreeing with the majority, or in case of a draw, picking the side that fit his character best. It was good fun, plenty of jokes, the Newbies liked the Lore, which the GM was good at presenting. Banter was friendly, friendships were beginning to form. We got some loot, made some money and overall I was very much looking forward to each session.
On session 3 it went bad. We had a combat encounter, and as it happens sometimes, the dicegods had a bad day. Failures, some rolls on ciritcal tables, and soon our party was forced to retreat. At this point, 2 out of 4 characters were KiA, with me and the groups Arch Militant getting out barely alive, since we were the only ones who had saved up our Fate Points to avoid such a scenario. (The other players had been warned that you should really save at least 1 point up in case the metaphorical rock falls, but they had burnt them nonetheless). I could tell that most of the players were miffed, we had beaten the previous encounters with relative ease, which made some of the players a little too bold. 40k RPGs are pretty high lethality, even if you do tone them down.
So we call the session, and about a week before our 4th one I get messaged on Discord. The campaign will be restarted, to give people a chance to roll up better characters with the benefit of hindsight and more information now that they had played a bit. I was a little dissapointed, but I could deal. I know how frustrating it can be when you realize that you rolled something subpar, due to a lack of information. What I was NOT okay with, was the fact that one of the Newbies (One of the 3 I hadnt known for long) was now gonna play the Rogue Trader. And that I was not allowed to just reuse my Voidmaster.
I brought it up, the RT gets the final say on basically everything, and is thus usually a role for somebody who actually knows his stuff, and that I thought it would be too much for somebody new. There was a back and forth that at the time at least, didn't come off as hostile to me, but maybe "You don't have enough experience to play this." came off as too harsh. Either way, I was overruled by majority. Same thing for "Why can't I just reuse my Voidmaster?", because somebody else wanted to play one, and as the "pro" I should give the newbies space.
Fine, whatever. But then I'm also not allowed to roll Arch-Militant or Explorator, because we have one of each already and having something twice is a no-no. Missionary was denied to the GM not wanting to deal with one. Okay... so I pick Seneschall.
"Why don't you play a Navigator? We really need one."
"I'd rather not, don't like playing psykers."
Another back and forth. At this point, I'm two steps away from just stepping out. Restart the campaign if you want, get a newbie Rogue Trader if you want. But the least amount of decisionmaking I'd REALLY like, is what the howdy-diddly-doodly kind of character I get to friggin play. Okay? I stay calm, I explain it another couple times, and eventually people back off. I get my Seneschall and the GM makes an NPC to be the Navigator. So far, everything is civil, I'm annoyed, but I don't want to be "THAT guy", so I suck it up and see whether we can just play on and maybe the 4th session is gonna be fun.
Boy howdy was it not.
Now, the Seneschall's job is to keep an eye out for money. Generally you're supposed to provide advice to the RT, manage contacts, sales, and generally just try to keep the cashflow going. I've played enough RPG's to know that many player find that sort of stuff boring, and delegate it to the sidelines. So luckily all classes in Rogue Trader still get to be useful in a fight. We do our intial exploration, we land, we loot, we fight. When I was playing the Voidmaster, I had a def. niche in being the only guy being able to drive/fly regular vehicles. And even beyond that, Iw as handy enough with a gun that my presence in any combat scenario would not be questioned. With the Seneschall it was the complete opposite.
Nobody cared about the money. The way it's handled in RT, it's very easy to "fire and forget" chashflow, which works early on, but can get you in trouble later on. I was trying to engage over and over, offering to handle the important parts myself if the others found the whole thing boring. No chance. The RT wanted any and all decisions to go through him, but would then blow me off right away when I even curved the topic of finances. Somewhere in session 5 I just tried to do stuff on my own, which lead to being chewed out and made fun off by most of the party (Which to them, was good fun. To me, it was the cherry on top of 6-7 hours of literally being ignored). The GM tried valiantly to side with me here and there, but he's a shy guy appearantly, and did not want to rock this boat too hard. In combat, I was "Moneyman" and thus would be frequently left in the far back, participation being minimal. In retrospect, maybe I did really ruffle some feathers with my comment early on, and the RT was now getting back at me.
At the end of session 5, I talk about this over Discord. I mention how I might as well drop out, that I feel like I'm being sidelined on purpose. And that I would like to know why. No real answers, although the RT and the Arch-Militant are quick to deny any such thing happening, and that in their opinion, I was just playing it wrong. "Come up with something that my character agrees with or finds interesting." and "Stop trying to hog the spotlight.". I say that I might as well leave then. Lots of backpedaling, but not quite enough to stop being passive-aggressive. My friends try to calm the waves a bit, and I eventually relent.
At this point, the cap is coming off. I attended Session 6 and turned on "Ego-Mode", meaning that my PC was now out for himself. I funded some stuff out of my own pocket, got some profits off selling intel, got some nice pieces of loot out of the winnings, and naturally rubbed it into the faces of my "comrades", namely the ones who had shunned and belittled my character before. Maybe now, I thought, Captain Knowitall would maybe see the benefit of listening to me sometimes. And we can both be richer, and have fun again. No such luck, instead I got ordered to share the wealth. So I continued my endeavours in secret, and at this point I could tell RT was getting actually angry.
It was getting awkward at the table, which my friend pointed out during the break. According to him, RT was fuming. I can be childish when angry, so that gave me a feeling of satisfaction at first. Which showed, which in turn got RT to yell and cuss. And at that point I got up and walked.
It has been two weeks. I have since apologized for antagonizing the guy. But appearantly they want me to apologize for a whole lot of other things, like not "Just playing the stupid Navigator, and being an elitist.". The final word being something like "If you value our relationship, you're gonna apologize!"
As stated before, I only really care about my two actual friends in this group, and both of them are fine, if a little awkward about the whole thing. So I told the other gents I had nothing more to apologize for, and if they thought that their "friendship" meant enough to me to be taken hostage, they were very wrong. Again, probably childish, but I do actually think these are people I don't want to interact with. The one exception is the GM, and I do actually feel sorry that my prsence caused so much drama for him.
So, any thoughts? Did I dig this hole myself and should switch over to building a ladder?
5 People, 2 of which are long time friends, the other 3, including the GM, I've known for a few months now, and frankly I don't have a particular attachment to them.
System is Rogue Trader (40k).
The first 3 sessions went fine, with a total playtime of somewhere around 12 -14 hours. Everybody except me and the DM is new to both the system and 40k in general, so it was supposed to be a toned down "just for fun" kind of start, so the newbies had some time to adjust. We roll up characters, I end up playing a Voidmaster (Ship experts, very used to life in space).
We do some basic exploring, have a couple easy encounters. We had agreed the Rogue Trader would be played by an NPC, with us being officers and advisors. I was initially skeptical, but the GM kept the ball rolling nicely, and managed to retain player agency. Often decisions came down to majority votes, and the RT would end up either agreeing with the majority, or in case of a draw, picking the side that fit his character best. It was good fun, plenty of jokes, the Newbies liked the Lore, which the GM was good at presenting. Banter was friendly, friendships were beginning to form. We got some loot, made some money and overall I was very much looking forward to each session.
On session 3 it went bad. We had a combat encounter, and as it happens sometimes, the dicegods had a bad day. Failures, some rolls on ciritcal tables, and soon our party was forced to retreat. At this point, 2 out of 4 characters were KiA, with me and the groups Arch Militant getting out barely alive, since we were the only ones who had saved up our Fate Points to avoid such a scenario. (The other players had been warned that you should really save at least 1 point up in case the metaphorical rock falls, but they had burnt them nonetheless). I could tell that most of the players were miffed, we had beaten the previous encounters with relative ease, which made some of the players a little too bold. 40k RPGs are pretty high lethality, even if you do tone them down.
So we call the session, and about a week before our 4th one I get messaged on Discord. The campaign will be restarted, to give people a chance to roll up better characters with the benefit of hindsight and more information now that they had played a bit. I was a little dissapointed, but I could deal. I know how frustrating it can be when you realize that you rolled something subpar, due to a lack of information. What I was NOT okay with, was the fact that one of the Newbies (One of the 3 I hadnt known for long) was now gonna play the Rogue Trader. And that I was not allowed to just reuse my Voidmaster.
I brought it up, the RT gets the final say on basically everything, and is thus usually a role for somebody who actually knows his stuff, and that I thought it would be too much for somebody new. There was a back and forth that at the time at least, didn't come off as hostile to me, but maybe "You don't have enough experience to play this." came off as too harsh. Either way, I was overruled by majority. Same thing for "Why can't I just reuse my Voidmaster?", because somebody else wanted to play one, and as the "pro" I should give the newbies space.
Fine, whatever. But then I'm also not allowed to roll Arch-Militant or Explorator, because we have one of each already and having something twice is a no-no. Missionary was denied to the GM not wanting to deal with one. Okay... so I pick Seneschall.
"Why don't you play a Navigator? We really need one."
"I'd rather not, don't like playing psykers."
Another back and forth. At this point, I'm two steps away from just stepping out. Restart the campaign if you want, get a newbie Rogue Trader if you want. But the least amount of decisionmaking I'd REALLY like, is what the howdy-diddly-doodly kind of character I get to friggin play. Okay? I stay calm, I explain it another couple times, and eventually people back off. I get my Seneschall and the GM makes an NPC to be the Navigator. So far, everything is civil, I'm annoyed, but I don't want to be "THAT guy", so I suck it up and see whether we can just play on and maybe the 4th session is gonna be fun.
Boy howdy was it not.
Now, the Seneschall's job is to keep an eye out for money. Generally you're supposed to provide advice to the RT, manage contacts, sales, and generally just try to keep the cashflow going. I've played enough RPG's to know that many player find that sort of stuff boring, and delegate it to the sidelines. So luckily all classes in Rogue Trader still get to be useful in a fight. We do our intial exploration, we land, we loot, we fight. When I was playing the Voidmaster, I had a def. niche in being the only guy being able to drive/fly regular vehicles. And even beyond that, Iw as handy enough with a gun that my presence in any combat scenario would not be questioned. With the Seneschall it was the complete opposite.
Nobody cared about the money. The way it's handled in RT, it's very easy to "fire and forget" chashflow, which works early on, but can get you in trouble later on. I was trying to engage over and over, offering to handle the important parts myself if the others found the whole thing boring. No chance. The RT wanted any and all decisions to go through him, but would then blow me off right away when I even curved the topic of finances. Somewhere in session 5 I just tried to do stuff on my own, which lead to being chewed out and made fun off by most of the party (Which to them, was good fun. To me, it was the cherry on top of 6-7 hours of literally being ignored). The GM tried valiantly to side with me here and there, but he's a shy guy appearantly, and did not want to rock this boat too hard. In combat, I was "Moneyman" and thus would be frequently left in the far back, participation being minimal. In retrospect, maybe I did really ruffle some feathers with my comment early on, and the RT was now getting back at me.
At the end of session 5, I talk about this over Discord. I mention how I might as well drop out, that I feel like I'm being sidelined on purpose. And that I would like to know why. No real answers, although the RT and the Arch-Militant are quick to deny any such thing happening, and that in their opinion, I was just playing it wrong. "Come up with something that my character agrees with or finds interesting." and "Stop trying to hog the spotlight.". I say that I might as well leave then. Lots of backpedaling, but not quite enough to stop being passive-aggressive. My friends try to calm the waves a bit, and I eventually relent.
At this point, the cap is coming off. I attended Session 6 and turned on "Ego-Mode", meaning that my PC was now out for himself. I funded some stuff out of my own pocket, got some profits off selling intel, got some nice pieces of loot out of the winnings, and naturally rubbed it into the faces of my "comrades", namely the ones who had shunned and belittled my character before. Maybe now, I thought, Captain Knowitall would maybe see the benefit of listening to me sometimes. And we can both be richer, and have fun again. No such luck, instead I got ordered to share the wealth. So I continued my endeavours in secret, and at this point I could tell RT was getting actually angry.
It was getting awkward at the table, which my friend pointed out during the break. According to him, RT was fuming. I can be childish when angry, so that gave me a feeling of satisfaction at first. Which showed, which in turn got RT to yell and cuss. And at that point I got up and walked.
It has been two weeks. I have since apologized for antagonizing the guy. But appearantly they want me to apologize for a whole lot of other things, like not "Just playing the stupid Navigator, and being an elitist.". The final word being something like "If you value our relationship, you're gonna apologize!"
As stated before, I only really care about my two actual friends in this group, and both of them are fine, if a little awkward about the whole thing. So I told the other gents I had nothing more to apologize for, and if they thought that their "friendship" meant enough to me to be taken hostage, they were very wrong. Again, probably childish, but I do actually think these are people I don't want to interact with. The one exception is the GM, and I do actually feel sorry that my prsence caused so much drama for him.
So, any thoughts? Did I dig this hole myself and should switch over to building a ladder?