Character, combat, and sub-optimal choices

[Khi'Khi]

How often have you all found that RP messes with combat choices? That your character might not act as effectively as your fellow players might like?

For instance, I once ran a cleric who had an intense fear of crowds due to a childhood experience where she was nearly trampled to death by a panicking mob. During the module we were confronted by a zombie horde attacking our town. Me being the cleric, I'm of course expected to buzz saw through these things. Because of character reasons, however, I played like she was rooted to the ground in fear. Once the horde was in range she'd blast them to kingdom come, but she refused to actually move towards them herself. Upon realizing this though, some of my fellow players got annoyed, as this slowed down the combat and made our mechanical fighting far less efficient, even though it was an RP choice.

I realize that sub optimal behavior can get infuriating if the player acts like a jerk. No one wants the rogue to go Leroy Jenkins every combat, or the bard to waste his time trying to pants the enemy just to be "lol, I so random!" But I understand not always going for the choice you know is "right" as a player. And it's not always a combat thing either. Let's say the party has to convince some arrogant ambassador to do them a favor. If the ambassador makes one too many snide insults at the party's barbarian, however, I'd understand him putting the guys head through a wall, even though that messes with the party's plan. What about you guys? Any instances where honest but sub optimal behavior either made or broke a game?

[hymer]

How often have you all found that RP messes with combat choices? That your character might not act as effectively as your fellow players might like?

I don't get to play as much as I'd like, so this sort of behaviour is fairly rare for me. I do recall a very happy-go-lucky elf, who fought the same mook for five rounds or something, and neither could hit the other for that time. So he took a round out to offer a truce with that mook, but since it was denied, I fought on in the following round. So nobody minded, I think.
One character I played had a very sore throat at one point, and she couldn't speak more than a few sentences before needing to rest her voice, and that obviously annoyed one of the players, but delighted another who cottoned on to what was going on. But that wasn't in actual combat.

I see poor planning and lack of foresight more often than RP during a fight (which is a shame, I'd like to see more roleplaying), but neither are as devastating to keeping up the pace as players who can't decide or who haven't mastered their character's abilities.

In the situation you describe, it seems there was disconnect, and one I see sometimes in games. The other players could have roleplayed, tried to comfort your PC, talked you up and helped you advance in spite of your fears. But their minds were all on game mechanics, so they didn't.

[Quertus]

How often have you all found that RP messes with combat choices? That your character might not act as effectively as your fellow players might like?

What about you guys? Any instances where honest but sub optimal behavior either made or broke a game?

Ah, interesting question. I suppose, since I hold RP as the highest goal, I might find a better question to be, "how often does combat interfere with RP choices?" And, of course, I'd be forced to answer that it doesn't - it provides them.

If your game can be broken by adding in reasonable, "you could find this IRL" complications, perhaps you need to reevaluate your game.

[BarbieTheRPG]

Player type is important as well. GMs should recognize players more geared to method-acting like Khi'Khi and make sure the power-gamers, rules-lawyers, storytellers and tacticians in the group are aware of it. They don't have to like it but they should respect it, just as khi'khi should respect their gaming tendencies. If her cleric is too afraid to act, that shouldn't interfere with the other players' ability to take action. She can be scared in the corner while the others fight off the enemy so the party can survive.

It's a tricky hobby dealing with two sets of people (players and their characters). As long as everyone communicates what kind of playstyle they like and what kind of character they're playing it minimizes problems. If the other players know beforehand that khi'khi's cleric could be useless against undead hordes, the players can prepare and there's less chance of annoyance.

[BWR]

Change the title to "character, the entire game, and sub-optimal choices" and yeah. All the time. Some times it makes for great stories. Some times it's just annoying. Mostly it enhances the game because I'm more interested in the character and roleplaying aspect of a game than the tactical and problem-solving aspect. That's not to say that I haven't been really annoyed at some bad choices but these are usually ones where the player doesn't know any better rather than making a conscious choice, fully aware of the consequences.

I think most of my fellow players (with a few exceptions) will more readily accept character choices than incompetence.

[Thrudd]

This depends on the type of game. If it is a story game, where each encounter is meant as an opportunity for you to advance the story of your character while also establishing the GM's plot, then this sort of behavior is absolutely correct and good. You can roleplay in this manner without fear that your character's quirks will get them and the rest of the party killed, because the GM is telling a story and nobody is going to die unless it's narratively appropriate.

However, if this is a game where each challenge is potentially deadly to the characters, and it is designed to test the player's problem solving, tactics and strategy, then I can see people being upset with this sort of roleplay. It's not just making a character "sub optimal" or making a single mistake or poor decision, you've consciously chosen to put the entire party in greater risk than they should be because of a choice to role play a character that can't perform the role the party needs them to perform. Of course, in D&D there is no mechanic forcing you to play it this way, so you could easily choose to participate more effectively while describing the discomfort your character is in. There's a balance between portraying a personality and solving the game's challenges that needs to be found.

It is possible to combine both types in one game, but the tacticians will need to be aware that the story-acting character will not be a reliable ally in certain situations and to plan accordingly. There's also the matter of certain character quirks being so extreme as to be unbelievable, at least in a character that is meant to be an adventurer, and a GM should identify and quickly overrule this sort of thing. You need to think, how has this character functioned in life thus far, and how will they be able to continue functioning in the adventures to come?

[Slipperychicken]

I just go with what makes the most sense to me, and chalk it up to survival instincts in a chaotic life-or-death combat situation. My character will own the mistakes that I inevitably make, so my characters rarely end up looking like perfect tactical geniuses.

My character can wrestle with "his" mistakes later, and that may even end up changing his self-image when he found himself responsible for something he later came to regret.

[Sajiri]

I play mostly 1 player, 1 DM games these days since we had trouble regularly getting full groups together, so roleplay is often far more important than combat. I've had plenty of situations like this but it often works out pretty well for character choices.

There's one we have in which my character is an android, she's made with a battle frame it turned out but her programming wasnt finished so she has a very naive and child-like personality. She's incredibly strong but hates fighting and is terrified of firearms. Its always interesting when combat happens, I roleplay her as being upset and then the DM gives me penalties because of her reactions. Sounds harsh but my DM also rewards roleplay like this, so when she gets power upgrades she also gets some cool social/passive/defensive abilities to make up for her less aggressive personality.

Situations have happened where during combat, she's been disturbed by an enemy getting killed, then has penalties to dodge after. There's been incredibly obvious traps that I know as a character she wouldnt notice, so I've had to play her falling for it. When it comes to choosing her weapons, having a loadout of guns would be pretty great, but she's afraid of them, so she gets power fists and rocket boots instead. I feel like this works better the less players there are though, more players seems to make individual roleplayer and character quirks a bit harder

[Koo Rehtorb]

It's entirely game dependent. Making sub-optimal choices is appropriate in some games, and not at all in others.

[tensai_oni]

It depends on the situation, like Thrudd said. If it's a challenging combat encounter planned with assumption of everyone being optimal, then you need to be optimal. However it doesn't inhibit roleplaying - you can show how your character feels about what's going on without sacrificing combat efficiency. In the example you've provided, your character could start Turning Undead while you describe how she stares at the horde with a terrified expression, or screams for them not to get any closer.

Also in general, taking an inefficient action (switching purely to nonlethal damage because you don't want to kill any enemies present) or refusing to take an action of opportunity (let an enemy go for one reason or another) are much better received than doing nothing at all. I guess what I am trying to say is, no need to be 100% efficient and optimal in every round, every encounter, but doing nothing means you're a load and that tends to annoy other players.

[Algeh]

This was definitely a problem I had in my first D&D group. I was used to more story-based roleplaying, and built a (1st level, in 2nd edition AD&D) bard character who had a backstory of having a fairly sheltered and academic life up until starting on this, her first adventure. So, I had her tend to hang back from combat, provide a support role, and generally have problems being at the forefront of anything, with the idea that I'd roleplay her "growing into herself" and finding her confidence to do things as time went on in the game. (I was new to the system, so I deliberately wrote a "sit back and watch" type backstory to give me, the player, time to learn more of how the system actually worked before I tried to do anything complicated.)

Since I'd rolled pretty well and and first level characters are all mostly terrible at everything, it happened that she was one of the characters who was, mechanically-speaking, going to be in the upper half of the party in terms of damage dealt, this annoyed some of the other players to no end. (We were an 8-character group, so fairly large for the module we were playing, and we generally didn't have trouble with combat not going our way, but I think it offended their sense of tactical efficiency.)

Somewhat later into the module and after we'd been playing together for a while, a few of the other players left, and I ended up playing two characters: my original one and a dwarven fighter who definitely solved all of his problems by hitting them with axes until either the problems went away or became a completely different set of problems (which he would also try to solve by hitting them with axes). I don't know if that made it clearer to the remaining group that my bard's tentative behavior was a "character" thing rather than a "player" thing or not, or which would have annoyed them more.

When I GM, I always make it clear to my players that my goal is for them to have fun telling an interesting story about the stuff their characters are doing, and they know that before they start to build their characters. (Generally in GURPS, and sometimes I'll even give them extra points during character creation that they can only put into "not obviously useful" skills to get characters designed to be interesting rather than optimized.) It's just a playstyle thing, and I'm more interested in story than tactics.

[redwizard007]

The questions OP poses essentially boil down to, "are we playing a role playing game, or a table top combat game," and the answer is "yes."

Most of us will play combat games with some role play, and role play games with some combat, and enjoy both. There are always purists who will seek out role-playing where combat is handled with rock, paper, scissors, or war gamers that want everything boiled down to numbers (and systems exist for that,) but most table top RPGs are a blend by design. We don't run fire teams of statistics, we have individual characters. Those characters are supposed to have personalities, desires, back stories, and flaws, it's what makes them memorable.
Do I face palm when my buddy's paladin charges the giants while the rest of us escape? Sure, but I don't beat up on the player. Have I disrupted plots when my half orc tells the elven quest giver to go sit on a spike? Sure, and we found something fun to do anyway. The game is more satisfying for my group when we get into the RP, but that's the key... it's more fun for my group.

[Mr Beer]

It's a problem with D&D because there aren't any explicit character mechanisms to engage and reward roleplaying, whereas the opposite is true for combat. Consequently it tends to push the game towards more of a tactical fantasy battlegame than a roleplaying one. I mean, I say it's a problem, if you like combat of course it's just fine.

[redwizard007]

It's a problem with D&D because there aren't any explicit character mechanisms to engage and reward roleplaying, whereas the opposite is true for combat. Consequently it tends to push the game towards more of a tactical fantasy battlegame than a roleplaying one. I mean, I say it's a problem, if you like combat of course it's just fine.

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I've always felt the opposite was true. Role-playing is easy. It's how I introduce new players. "What would your character do..." the rules are something we work into. It's true that combat is the easy out for DMs, but overcoming an obstacle or an opponent is the only requirement for advancement. I agree that the rule books focus more heavily, perhaps to heavily, on combat as the primary means to advance a story and a character, but it is by no means the only way.

[Mechalich]

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I've always felt the opposite was true. Role-playing is easy. It's how I introduce new players. "What would your character do..." the rules are something we work into. It's true that combat is the easy out for DMs, but overcoming an obstacle or an opponent is the only requirement for advancement. I agree that the rule books focus more heavily, perhaps to heavily, on combat as the primary means to advance a story and a character, but it is by no means the only way.

The thing is many other non-D&D games provide explicit benefits to the player for role-playing negative character traits. GURPS gives out points for disadvantages, FATE tosses out fate points for accepting compels, even oWoD games reward the player with willpower for acting in accordance with their nature. D&D gives you...nothing.

D&D provides the incentive to play every character as the Terminator - relentlessly mission focused, distracted by nothing, totally immune to any attacks on their loved ones by virtue of not having loved ones. An orphaned murderhobo who carries everything he ever cares about on his person and spends all his spare time practicing with his sword (or more likely, his spellbook) is effectively the ideal. By providing no mechanical currency for story interaction the game produces a situation where the 'best' character is one with absolutely no story hooks at all.

Now for certain kinds of players this doesn't matter, but for highly competitive types its a problem, because the incentive to create a character who scores higher on the pure badass scale than Conan (Conan had notable weaknesses for babes and booze) is strong, and that creates a cascade where any character who isn't built that way can be criticized as not pulling their weight.

[Thrudd]

The thing is many other non-D&D games provide explicit benefits to the player for role-playing negative character traits. GURPS gives out points for disadvantages, FATE tosses out fate points for accepting compels, even oWoD games reward the player with willpower for acting in accordance with their nature. D&D gives you...nothing.

D&D provides the incentive to play every character as the Terminator - relentlessly mission focused, distracted by nothing, totally immune to any attacks on their loved ones by virtue of not having loved ones. An orphaned murderhobo who carries everything he ever cares about on his person and spends all his spare time practicing with his sword (or more likely, his spellbook) is effectively the ideal. By providing no mechanical currency for story interaction the game produces a situation where the 'best' character is one with absolutely no story hooks at all.

Now for certain kinds of players this doesn't matter, but for highly competitive types its a problem, because the incentive to create a character who scores higher on the pure badass scale than Conan (Conan had notable weaknesses for babes and booze) is strong, and that creates a cascade where any character who isn't built that way can be criticized as not pulling their weight.

Right. It also arose in a setting where no punches were pulled and you had to play that way to survive. It was a game of player skill in problem solving, risk and resource management. Back story was irrelevant, no "hooks" were needed. You were going exploring and treasure hunting in dungeons full of monsters and traps that can kill you, that's what the game was. Make the best use of the limited resources given to your characters, and play smart! Your success is measured by how long your characters survive and what level you can achieve.

It is a much different mindset from the story game.

[Mechalich]

Right. It also arose in a setting where no punches were pulled and you had to play that way to survive. It was a game of player skill in problem solving, risk and resource management. Back story was irrelevant, no "hooks" were needed. You were going exploring and treasure hunting in dungeons full of monsters and traps that can kill you, that's what the game was. Make the best use of the limited resources given to your characters, and play smart! Your success is measured by how long your characters survive and what level you can achieve.

It is a much different mindset from the story game.

The problem is, it is no longer 1974, or even 1994. We now have video games that can deliver a much more complex, challenging, and rapid multiplayer tactical combat scenarios. In a choice between playing a pure dungeon crawl at tabletop and just playing Borderlands (or Overwatch or League or whatever your poison is) or pretty much any MMO raid, I and many others are going digital. The one real remaining advantage TTRPGs have is collaborative storytelling that can evolve in real time. D&D has incentives that currently run counter to this and that's a problem.

[kyoryu]

The problem is, it is no longer 1974, or even 1994. We now have video games that can deliver a much more complex, challenging, and rapid multiplayer tactical combat scenarios. In a choice between playing a pure dungeon crawl at tabletop and just playing Borderlands (or Overwatch or League or whatever your poison is) or pretty much any MMO raid, I and many others are going digital. The one real remaining advantage TTRPGs have is collaborative storytelling that can evolve in real time. D&D has incentives that currently run counter to this and that's a problem.

I think you're underestimating what a dungeon crawl can be.

But regardless, the fact remains that D&D remains, in many ways, a dungeon crawl chassis that's now being used for gaming styles that are very much *not* dungeon crawls. It's kind of like someone decided to make an off-road vehicle out of a Lotus. Sure, it's possible, but it's gonna be weird and have some leftover weirdness from when it was a race car.

[Mr Beer]

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I've always felt the opposite was true. Role-playing is easy. It's how I introduce new players. "What would your character do..." the rules are something we work into. It's true that combat is the easy out for DMs, but overcoming an obstacle or an opponent is the only requirement for advancement. I agree that the rule books focus more heavily, perhaps to heavily, on combat as the primary means to advance a story and a character, but it is by no means the only way.

I'm going to be super lazy and simply refer you to Mechalich's answer, since it's what I wanted to say but better put.

[Talakeal]

The questions OP poses essentially boil down to, "are we playing a role playing game, or a table top combat game," and the answer is "yes."

Most of us will play combat games with some role play, and role play games with some combat, and enjoy both. There are always purists who will seek out role-playing where combat is handled with rock, paper, scissors, or war gamers that want everything boiled down to numbers (and systems exist for that,) but most table top RPGs are a blend by design. We don't run fire teams of statistics, we have individual characters. Those characters are supposed to have personalities, desires, back stories, and flaws, it's what makes them memorable.
Do I face palm when my buddy's paladin charges the giants while the rest of us escape? Sure, but I don't beat up on the player. Have I disrupted plots when my half orc tells the elven quest giver to go sit on a spike? Sure, and we found something fun to do anyway. The game is more satisfying for my group when we get into the RP, but that's the key... it's more fun for my group.

You make me wish this foum had a like button. /applause

[hifidelity2]

How often have you all found that RP messes with combat choices? That your character might not act as effectively as your fellow players might like?

For instance, I once ran a cleric who had an intense fear of crowds due to a childhood experience where she was nearly trampled to death by a panicking mob. During the module we were confronted by a zombie horde attacking our town. Me being the cleric, I'm of course expected to buzz saw through these things. Because of character reasons, however, I played like she was rooted to the ground in fear. Once the horde was in range she'd blast them to kingdom come, but she refused to actually move towards them herself. Upon realizing this though, some of my fellow players got annoyed, as this slowed down the combat and made our mechanical fighting far less efficient, even though it was an RP choice.

I think it will depend on the group – if all they are interested in is murder hoboing then I am sure it would be annoying

However if its more of an RP group then hopefully they are all doing it to some extent

[HidesHisEyes]

I think something people often miss in this discussion is the idea of the players' goals and the characters' goals always being in alignment. Not everyone sees it this way, but for me it's really important that what I'm inclined to do and what my character is inclined to do are compatible, harmonious. And so when I make a character I bear in mind the gameplay of D&D and I think about what is and isn't appropriate for that kind of game. I don't make pacifists or physical cowards or people who love goblins. When I get into combat I play the game to the hilt, making optimised decisions to win the fight, and by doing this I play my character - who wants to win the fight - to the hilt as well. This is roleplaying, as far as I'm concerned.

[Thrudd]

I think something people often miss in this discussion is the idea of the players' goals and the characters' goals always being in alignment. Not everyone sees it this way, but for me it's really important that what I'm inclined to do and what my character is inclined to do are compatible, harmonious. And so when I make a character I bear in mind the gameplay of D&D and I think about what is and isn't appropriate for that kind of game. I don't make pacifists or physical cowards or people who love goblins. When I get into combat I play the game to the hilt, making optimised decisions to win the fight, and by doing this I play my character - who wants to win the fight - to the hilt as well. This is roleplaying, as far as I'm concerned.

It is absolutely role playing. I mean, the term "role playing game" was originally used to describe D&D, in which this was the expected behavior. You're playing the role of an adventurer fighting for survival and probably seeking fame, fortune and glory.

[HidesHisEyes]

It is absolutely role playing. I mean, the term "role playing game" was originally used to describe D&D, in which this was the expected behavior. You're playing the role of an adventurer fighting for survival and probably seeking fame, fortune and glory.

Exactly. Of course, many would say that is only one kind of game and not all games are necessarily about "heroic" characters. The thing is, not to put too fine a point on it, those people probably don't want to be playing D&D. As you say, it's a pretty basic assumption for the way D&D in particular is designed. I think the problem the OP describes is one experienced by people who come to the game thinking they can play literally any character they can imagine and still have loads of fun. Yes it's about role-playing and yes you get to make your own character - but all that is in the context of a game that is designed to be about heroic characters having adventures.

[CharonsHelper]

For instance, I once ran a cleric who had an intense fear of crowds due to a childhood experience where she was nearly trampled to death by a panicking mob. During the module we were confronted by a zombie horde attacking our town. Me being the cleric, I'm of course expected to buzz saw through these things. Because of character reasons, however, I played like she was rooted to the ground in fear. Once the horde was in range she'd blast them to kingdom come, but she refused to actually move towards them herself. Upon realizing this though, some of my fellow players got annoyed, as this slowed down the combat and made our mechanical fighting far less efficient, even though it was an RP choice.

It would probably annoy me too as your RP choice seems like a special snowflake choice to me.

Why did you create your character with this phobia? Likely so that you could do just this.

What tiny % of people have a significant psychosis or phobia? And would any of them actually choose to become an adventurer in the first place?

[Kol Korran]

These kind of conflicts come from 3 main sources: Gaming preferences, expectations and cooperation. I'll elaborate a bit:
1) Gaming preferences:
As you can see even from the previous posts, different people place different priorities on different aspects of the game. In gaming terms, these preferences have been named by some as "gaming aesthetics". (Look up "the 8 gaming aesthetics". The Angry DM has a nice article on the subject). Basically, different people come to the game for different reasons, and sometimes the preferences of others may clash with theirs, and cause irritation or conflict. This is exacerbated by the fact that many players consider their gaming style "better/ superior/ right" for the game, when really all are cool, as long as the group knows how to incorporate those. While I'll explain and touch on some of the main aesthetics below, it's important to note that most players incorporate several aesthetics into their game. In the cases above, the conflicts may involve 3 main aesthetics:
- Expression: The desire to play out a character's personality, psychological traits and so on. Players who prioritize this will at time make "sub optimal" choices, sometimes even consciously, since that enforces the expression of their character even more. People who prioritize other aesthetics may see them as selfish drama queens at times, all too focused on their "own special little character" even on the expense of the group, or the challenge.
- Challenge: The desire to meet a mechanical challenge (Such as combat, but also social and other), and find a way to solve it/ overcome it. These players come to be challenged, test their abilities, wits and capabilities against said challenge. Others however may see them as "poor roleplayers" or "minmaxers/ minchkins".
- Fellowship: These players come for playing with a group, a cohesive group, that strive together, decide together, and work like a good team. For them, the feeling of "everyone for the team" outweighs other decisions. They can make good tactical decisions, or bad ones, as long as the group makes them TOGETHER. they are often either the arbiters of the group, those who try to help the others, or the ones who are mostly silent, and "go along with things". Yet, if others make choices on their own, which may hurt the group (Either combat, roleplay, or whatever), that will annoy them.

As I've said before, most plaers incorporate several gaming aesthetics. The mix, and how each player handle themes, create the wide range of players, despite relatively few aesthetics. I for example, am very Exploration and Expression focused, and to a lesser degree Fantasy and challenge focused.

I suggest to start by reading a bit about those, and trying to figure out the aesthetics of each player, it helped my group A LOT!

2) Expectations:
I find that in new groups, or every once in awhile, it's worthy to talk in the group about it's own "social contract". Too often have I seen/ heard of people clashing in game, simply because they expected different things from the game, and the players were outraged that the other player broke that expectation, when the expectations were never really discussed...

Whether you read/ understand the aesthetics, it's worthy to talk about expectations, by EVERYONE at the table. What do you wish from the game? What do you want to avoid? What is "fun" to you? What ruins your fun? And this is not just individual- what do you expect from the party? As Players AND as characters? What do you expect from the GM? What does the GM expect from the players? Set the expectations from the start, and if a new issue coems up, then put a time at the end of the session/ start of the next session to talk it out. It's crucial to keep the game going!

Two small examples that came in our group:
- An Expression focused player believed that small inter-party conflicts are fun, because they help develop characters, reltionships, and growth of characters. Another however, who was far more Fellowship focused, always saw these small conflicts as irritating, even hampering the group, and grew antagonist to the first player. The first player at first thought this was part of the conflict roleplay, and continued, while the second player started to get increasingly angry with the first. It took some time to realize that the two styles hurts both people's fun, yet once we talked it over, we began to diffuse it, and make for a better game.
- For the most part, most of our group loves to roleplay, but we got one player who mostly just lieks ot listen, but LOVES combat! And he makes very efficient and mechanically focused characters. For years (!) I've tried to get the player to roleplay, and kept trying to puzzle out what stops him from roleplaying more. (After all, in my head it was SOOO much fun!) Yet at one point the player told me "Look, I just want to kill stuff, it's fun enough for me, I enjoy when the others roleplay, but I don't like it that much personally". With that realization, I let go, and provided more fun battles for him at parts of the session, and it eased that tension A LOT.

3) Cooperation:
There are different ways of doing stuff. The saying "But that's what my character would do!", while it does hold to some cases, it doesn't hold to all, and there are different ways a character can respond, even from the same motive. The core idea of cooperation, is to be aware of the group's play styles, the group's expectations, take these into account and communicate potential possible problems. If you communicate such issues, it may come as less of a surprise to others, and feel less that you prioritize your own gaming preferences over theirs. Remember, it's a social group game, consider the group. I'll use the 2 situations outlined in the first post, to illustrate possible communication, possible actions and more:

Cleric terrified of crowds, facing a zombie horde:
Roleplay the cleric's initial response to the threat, thus giving the party a warning that something is problematic, and is a roleplay issue for you, and enable them to respond:
You: "My character goes pale, seeing the masses of shambling undead flesh. His hand trembles, and he takes an unconscious step back. Sweat forms on his brow, and a few weak words slip of his mouth: "So many... so many..."
(OOC discussion:
"Hey, everything's ok?"
"Yeah, It's just part of my character. Got a problem with big crowds."
Which can go different routes from here- "Oh, cool, we'll see how this players out/ This is a tough situation, we're counting on your cleric powers!/ Well, we won't let you falter!" and more... You can gauge the party's preferences in this, and put forth your own, make a sort of mini-informal social contract for this situation)
IC, depending on what you all decided, this can go several ways:
- The party understands this piece is important to you, and you play exactly the same, but the others are more aware, may incorporate this new behavior into the group's roleplay and dynamics. The main thing it won't come as a surprise, and will take their desires into account ad well.
- The group considers this a major tactical challenge, and you agree to play it differently. "My cleric, seeing you rush forward, grits his teeth, saing a quick prayer to his god "Protect me! I can't let them down! I can't let them down!" And you play him combating his fears while participating in the fight, despite his horror. You can play effectively, and play your character, which can lead to great moments later on.
- Some sort of compromise ("Cool, play your stuff, but if things get hairy, get into it, ok?") where you start as you did, but then when things get more dire, you can rush in, your friends distress giving you desperate courage.
- The other players take this as a roleplay opportunity as well! The barbarian, as it rushes in, calls at you. "I thought the followers of your god were courageous, not weakling cowards!" or the rogue/ bard trying to uplift your spirit, and so on...

Conversation with an insulting diplomat
The barbarian roleplays his initial reaction, again- giving the party some warning something is up, thus opening a quick discussion. "My barbarian's nostril's flare, his eyes narrow and his hand reflexively clenches. You hear him muttering under his breath "pansy person talk too much! One more word..."
Then an OOC quick discussion, which can again lead to different ways of playing it out:
- The party think it's appropriate for the barbarian to smash the noble, or find it funny, or they might really dislike the noble, or the discussion may give rise to suspicion against him.
- The party feel they MUST have the noble's cooperation, so another character shushes the barbarian/ bribes him/ persuades him silently. (The players can still play his anger rising up, just being contained).
- The party uses the barbarian's anger in the conversation ("Look, we'd really like to make a deal with you. But my friend here? He is getting angry. You DO NOT want to get him angry". Maybe even add an intimidation check?)

And so on...

To sum up:
1) Learn the different play styles. understand that all are valid. Try to find out where the group matches, and where they differ. (Nearly ALL groups have issues where they differ)
2) Talk about expectations, before the game, and during it.
3) Work to cooperate on differences. Give some warning, talk things over quickly. Sometimes you'll have to relent, sometimes you'll go ahead, sometimes something new will come out of it. There is VERY rarely only just one way "my character would react". It's a social game, accept and strive for fun compromises, or incorporating different preferences into one experience.

[Mechalich]

What tiny % of people have a significant psychosis or phobia? And would any of them actually choose to become an adventurer in the first place?

Actually quite a large percentage of people have significant mental health difficulties, with a range of impairment to their overall functionality. Just as you have a high chance of struggling with a chronic disease at some point in your life ranging from the relatively manageable (ex. GERD) to the devastating (ex. lung cancer), you have roughly the same chance of struggling with a chronic mental health condition in roughly the same range.

Your question also presumes that a character chooses to become an adventurer. That is (mostly) the case in a game like D&D - though some interpretations require persons such as wizards to have an innate talent - but it is absolutely not the case in many other games. In superhero games the powers bug can strike just about anybody - Professor X can't walk, and Magneto has PTSD (from being in Auschwitz as a kid) that has been used against him on several occasions. Pretty much every White-Wolf game ever written placed the characters into a specialized class where they were more likely to be vulnerable to mental illness than ordinary people. Call of Cthulhu has its legendary insanity, and the much more modern Eclipse Phase has multiple tracks of mental damage - since in that game physical death is more of an inconvenience compared to the far more terrifying possibility of losing your grasp on reality. Mental illness is actually an extremely common, albeit difficult to play properly, trait appearing in RPGs.

D&D, as a game, is almost uniquely bad at dealing with mental stress, in part because it utilizes an extremely archaic framework which conflates mental illness with moral standing. Play a clinical psychopath - you're neutral evil, have a nice day. Paranoid schizophrenia - chaotic neutral, would you like Slaadi with that? It's awful. This website's titular comic actually contains a perfect example: Belkar. He's evil in large part because his low wisdom makes him mentally unstable and a sadist. When his wisdom is temporarily increased by Varsuuvius his entire ethical outlook changes.

[tensai_oni]

What tiny % of people have a significant psychosis or phobia? And would any of them actually choose to become an adventurer in the first place?

A much larger percentage than people who are adventurer material or even spellcasters, I suspect.

Sounds like you expect every player character to be an emotionless terminator described several posts ago.

[Mutazoia]

In a nutshell, this is the age old "Role Playing vs Roll Playing" debate.

With out trying to wax too verbose, my two coppers worth are thus:

Originally, D&D rules were a reference, mostly focused on combat, because that's the main area of this style of game that NEEDS concrete rules to deal with things. The rest...the role playing part, was left to DM discretion. You could come up with any zaney idea you wanted, and the DM would make a ruling on how to handle it. That was all you really needed.

As time went by, people started to think that there needed to be rules for EVERYTHING. Maybe it was because some DM's didn't have the creative juices to make rulings on the fly, maybe it was a distaste for keeping track of all said rulings to stay consistent, who knows. Either way, new games started having rules for things that took place out side of combat.

This, more or less, gave birth to the general idea that D&D was all about combat, and that to play the game, you had to optomize for combat. Anything that wasn't combat was "sub optimal".

The probelm is, D&D is still a Role Playing game. Even if you've added rolls for every conceivable situation, you are still playing a role, and that doesn't always mean you have to be the baddest ass in badassdom when it comes to combat, because in the end, you are all there to collectively tell a story of epic adventure against insurmountable odds. Not every encounter in the game is going to be a combat situation, so expecting every character to be combat optomized is silly. Some people want to do more than roll dice and feel good about themselves because their imaginary person kicked another imaginary person's ass.

If you just want to play for the combat sequences, have a DM just turn through the Monster Manual to random pages and have you fight what ever comes up, back to back. Otherwise, realize that there are people there for the story aspect, as much as the combat aspect, and try to get along. Or find a group that matches your lust for perfect class/feat combo's.

[Maglubiyet]

How often have you all found that RP messes with combat choices? That your character might not act as effectively as your fellow players might like?

This isn't an issue in games where these characteristics are actually a part of the character build and gameplay.

In GURPS you might have the Phobia Disadvantage or in Fate this would be your Trouble Aspect. Playing it out should be rewarded.

In some games that are little more than simulationist combat scenarios, this kind of behavior makes as much sense as giving personalities to your tokens in Risk.

Blue player: Excellent, you can take Southern Europe this turn and we'll knock red player out.

Yellow player: No, I cannot. For my commander, General Salvatore, is from a small fishing village in Calabria. His beloved Arabella waits for him there. The day he accepted his commission in the military she made him swear that he would never defile their homeland while the War raged.

Oh, the tears they cried when he left. If only this War...


Red player: Dude, can we not invite him next time?