What if it IS what my character would do?

[OldTrees1]

Part of the issue is, what does disruptive mean?
Attacking another charicter with no reason... pretty clear.
Running a small scam so all the other charicters pay for your beer... not so much.
Your charicter tends to seduce x.. ???

Step 1: Who used the word disruptive?
Step 2: Ask them why they found it disruptive.
Step 3: Address the underlying concern.

[DwarfFighter]

Part of the issue is, what does disruptive mean?

Well, as per your examples, it depends. Group dynamic is everything here, so what is disruptive is what one or a few players do that derails the rest of the group's enjoyment.

An acid test here is if one players actions make the rest of the group want to kick him out, he's not a good match for the group.

It's not necessarily the edgy evil murder hobo that is the disruptive party. If the group is about random mayhem an being various kinds of chaotic and evil, the player that insists on playing the old skool lawful good paladin is the one being disruptive. Though if this is the kind of group you get kicked out of, I'd say you're the real winner :)

-DF

[kyoryu]

Yeah, disruptive is all about the group dynamics, goals, culture, etc.

What is perfectly fine in Group A is disruptive in Group B, and vice versa. Disruptive play isn't necessarily bad (though some pretty clearly is). Sometimes it's just incompatible.

And "it's what my character would do" is only a meme in situations where it is disruptive. The issue is that it's used as a response to "don't do that." That's where it becomes problematic, because it shuts down the further conversation.

[Segev]

Not because I think anybody is encouraging this, but I feel for completeness's sake the need to point out that sometimes, the "disruptive behavior" is a response to equally disruptive/bad behavior that went unnoticed.

"Bob, you can't attack John's halfling! That's PvP!" "But he stole my magic ring!" This one's obvious, and everyone tends to agree that John's already broken the compact by stealing from within the party.

But let's say, instead, that John has noticed Bob has a tendency to try to take prisoners, and John is sick of dealing with that. Is John disruptive if he goes out of his way to make sure all enemies die so Bob can't take prisoners? Is Bob disruptive for wanting to take prisoners? Would Bob be disruptive for telling John to stop offing everything? What if he took IC action to prevent John from offing some potential prisoners?

There's conflict, here, but who the "disruptive" one is might not be obvious. Bob probably isn't acting in bad faith, and John may not think he is, either. John views it as a mostly-IC issue and treats it as such. And he's not exactly engaging in behavior that is uncommon for PCs: killing enemies is typical.

[KaussH]

Yeah, disruptive is all about the group dynamics, goals, culture, etc.

What is perfectly fine in Group A is disruptive in Group B, and vice versa. Disruptive play isn't necessarily bad (though some pretty clearly is). Sometimes it's just incompatible.

And "it's what my character would do" is only a meme in situations where it is disruptive. The issue is that it's used as a response to "don't do that." That's where it becomes problematic, because it shuts down the further conversation.

So let's focus down a little. In game or out of game goals and culture? When you say group dynamics do you mean playstyle, other other things?

See, for me, disruptive is pretty much just something that is being done actively. But for others it can be something that is passive (other players saying "you cant play an elf, becouse we dont like it. " (as opposed to a gm having written the race out in season 0, a whole different conversation )

[kyoryu]

So let's focus down a little. In game or out of game goals and culture? When you say group dynamics do you mean playstyle, other other things?

See, for me, disruptive is pretty much just something that is being done actively. But for others it can be something that is passive (other players saying "you cant play an elf, becouse we dont like it. " (as opposed to a gm having written the race out in season 0, a whole different conversation )

In or out of game doesn't matter. If there's conflict, there's conflict. It needs to be resolved.

By group dynamics, I mean exactly that kind of thing... "oh, people are getting upset, what do we do." That sort of thing.

[Slipjig]

The important question is whether everybody else at the table is good with it. They may dislike the SPECIFIC action you took while being fine with intra-party conflict. A lot of fun stories involve the moment when everybody agrees that it would be a really bad idea push the button, and then one character says, "F it. I push the button." Sometimes players making Bad Choices makes for a much better game.

It really depends on what kind of game everybody at the table is looking for. Some groups LIKE a game with a high soap-opera factor where the PCs work at cross-purposes and fight each other as much as the monsters. Of course, if you are consistently the one turd in the punchbowl, it's reasonable for the other players to say, "Kicking your sorry butt out of the party is what OUR characters would do!"

There's also a big difference between doing things that are detrimental to the party (e.g. you risk blowing the party's cover by swiping a valuable bauble from an NPC's desk, talking smack when diplomacy is clearly the better choice, or picking a bar fight and expecting the other PCs to jump in) and doing things where you are directly harming other PCs (stealing magic items from another party member or deliberately hitting them with lethal damage). People (and PCs) will put up with a dumbass buddy whose bad decisions sometimes makes their lives difficult. Most people will NOT put up with somebody actively harming them, and it's not reasonable to expect other PCs to do so.

[KaussH]

In or out of game doesn't matter. If there's conflict, there's conflict. It needs to be resolved.

By group dynamics, I mean exactly that kind of thing... "oh, people are getting upset, what do we do." That sort of thing.

Ig and oog always makes a huge difference. Oog can be about people real lives, so some positive flexability is always good . Also while conflict in game tends to be be an "agreed upon" thing, in the real world sometimes the source of the conflict can just be wrong thinking :)

[kyoryu]

Ig and oog always makes a huge difference. Oog can be about people real lives, so some positive flexability is always good . Also while conflict in game tends to be be an "agreed upon" thing, in the real world sometimes the source of the conflict can just be wrong thinking :)

If it's IG and doesn't bleed over into OOG feelings, then it's not a problem.

If people are walking away upset, then it's a problem.

[Frankbit]

do what makes you happy

[Pex]

do what makes you happy

It's not so simple as that. Some people find happiness in their character's success happens when other players' characters suffer.

[Segev]

do what makes you happy

It's not so simple as that. Some people find happiness in their character's success happens when other players' characters suffer.

To get ultra-philosophical, if one engages this on as broad a level as possible, it's good advice...but it's also unhelpful advice. If your happiness comes at the expense of other players, then people will stop wanting to play with you, which will diminish your happiness long-term. So "do what makes you happy" can encompass doing what makes others want to keep playing with you.

So as not to make this a huge screed, I'll stop there, but this keeps going as you try to identify all the factors that go into making you happy and decide to make certain short-term happiness sacrifices for long-term gain in happiness, etc.

[kyoryu]

To get ultra-philosophical, if one engages this on as broad a level as possible, it's good advice...but it's also unhelpful advice. If your happiness comes at the expense of other players, then people will stop wanting to play with you, which will diminish your happiness long-term. So "do what makes you happy" can encompass doing what makes others want to keep playing with you.

So as not to make this a huge screed, I'll stop there, but this keeps going as you try to identify all the factors that go into making you happy and decide to make certain short-term happiness sacrifices for long-term gain in happiness, etc.

Naive self interest vs enlightened self interest, basically.

[Talakeal]

Make your character better, idk if your character could not justify any other actions other than obsessive behavior that annoys your other players, then I think this character should not be played in the first place. For example, a character is not a real person, all that he is is because his player has made an active decision to be like that.

I would agree, a character that can’t do anything but annoying behaviors isn’t a good fit, but at the same time I would say the opposite is also true, someone who never does anything that rubs anyone the wrong way is a boring character that also shouldn’t be played.

While it is true that the game is fiction, playing a role is the name of the game, and if you aren’t allowed to craft a character that has depth and complexity, imo you aren’t really playing the game at all.

[Pauly]

The way I look at it is if you have to say ‘It’s what my character would do” then you have failed at roleplaying.

If the other players at the table understand who your character is and what their basic personality traits are then they will understand that’s what your character would do and won’t complain about it being out of character.

If you have to say it then the other players don’t know what sort of person your character is. That isn’t an other player problem, it’s a you problem.

[icefractal]

If you have to say it then the other players don’t know what sort of person your character is. That isn’t an other player problem, it’s a you problem.

Or the other players haven't been paying much attention, or it's been a while since this kind of situation came up, or you're saying it in response to "why didn't you automatically go along with what my character wanted to do!?"

[Jakinbandw]

The way I look at it is if you have to say ‘It’s what my character would do” then you have failed at roleplaying.

If the other players at the table understand who your character is and what their basic personality traits are then they will understand that’s what your character would do and won’t complain about it being out of character.

If you have to say it then the other players don’t know what sort of person your character is. That isn’t an other player problem, it’s a you problem.

This isn't always the case.

A while back I was in an exalted vs wod campaign where I was playing a Solar who wanted vengeance on the people who killed her family. The entire party was on board and everything was going good.

Then the GM revealed the the person who put the hit on my family was the parent of another PC. That PC wasn't there that session, but I thought the GM had cleared it with them. In character my PC did everything they could to prove that the PCs parent was innocent, but the GM directly told me that there was nothing to find.

As this was my character's driving thing I talked with the other PCs and we agreed to kill the parent. The next session the missing player came back and was very angry that I would want kill their PCs parent.

I tried to talk it out, suggesting we retcon out my character finding out, because if they did then taking vengeance would be the only thing that would fit the way I'd played them for the last year. The other Player was too frustrated with the situation and quit because the rest of the party no longer trusted their PC's parent and were planning to stop relying on them.

The GM was upset by the blow up and the game ended there.

Everyone knew how my character would react, and yet my character wanting to take an action was enough to end the entire campaign. I'm still frustrated by it.

[icefractal]

That one's not on your action, it's on the GM deciding to make the other PC's parent a murderer without even checking if the player was on board. Even if your character hadn't pursued vengeance, the rest of the party would have still not trusted said parent.

And in that player's place, I probably would have been pissed off (at the GM, not at you) as well. Use your own damn NPC for the face/heel turn, or get buy in!

[Cluedrew]

I think that is a great example of why the PC/everything-else divide doesn't actually work. The parent is not a PC so it seems the GM thought they could them like they are a part of background lore. But a character does not end at a person, they are all tangled up in their relations, their background, the culture they come from (nation level to much smaller communities) and messing with those will change the character as well. So be very careful and talk to the player first.

[KaussH]

I think that is a great example of why the PC/everything-else divide doesn't actually work. The parent is not a PC so it seems the GM thought they could them like they are a part of background lore. But a character does not end at a person, they are all tangled up in their relations, their background, the culture they come from (nation level to much smaller communities) and messing with those will change the character as well. So be very careful and talk to the player first.

While the gm should have included a " hey, i am planning on messing with peoples backround npcs" gms are in fact allowed to change npcs, cultures, old friends, ect. I make it clear that while i encurage pcs to make up backround stuff ( moreso if their pc is from a less documented/worked on location) i reserve the right to kill and mess with npcs, destroy towns, reveal secrets, ect.
Now i try not to be an a@@ about it, and work inside the npc details and setting details but, if i have an event or plot that ( for example) kills or threatens a swath of people, npcs related to the pcs dont get plot armor.

[NichG]

'Its what my world would do' is the GM version of this excuse, and it's just as bad. If a player can decide that their character acts differently in order to respect the social contract, so too can a GM have their NPCs or setting as a whole act differently.

Whether or not background NPCs being harmed is against the expectations of people at the table is going to be a table-specific consideration. And it may be unspoken and therefore seen differently by different people at the same table. So that's why it needs to be discussed from an OOC frame of mind.

[MoiMagnus]

But a character does not end at a person, they are all tangled up in their relations, their background, the culture they come from (nation level to much smaller communities) and messing with those will change the character as well.

Not really?
You can justify almost every pairing background-PC, as long as the background doesn't get into excruciating details:
+ Some follow their parent's values, other rebel against them. You can justify almost every value system by a mix and match of follow/rebel. And as long as both the background and the character are self-consistent, this should be believable.
+ You just need few "blank" years between the end of the "background modified by the GM" and the beginning of the "campaign" to link the two in coherent way. The father is a murderer and no longer match the "father figure" you had in mind? Maybe there was a secondary father figure (uncle, master, etc) that took a more prominent roles few years before your departure.

Obviously, when the GM modify a background, additional modifications might be required to not obtain a contradiction ("I've never been to the capital" can become "I only went once to the capital, but I was so young I have no memory of it"), but you should manage to end up with a character which is equivalent to the character before modification.

Not that I'm not advocating for GM to butcher their player's background. I'm just saying that the feeling of ownership of a player on his character and background is the true issue here, not consistency background/character which is almost always fixable without any observable change on the character side.

[KaussH]

'Its what my world would do' is the GM version of this excuse, and it's just as bad. If a player can decide that their character acts differently in order to respect the social contract, so too can a GM have their NPCs or setting as a whole act differently.

Whether or not background NPCs being harmed is against the expectations of people at the table is going to be a table-specific consideration. And it may be unspoken and therefore seen differently by different people at the same table. So that's why it needs to be discussed from an OOC frame of mind.

Yah...i have to disagree . Just becouse a pc decides to make a backround aspect theirs does not suddenly make it hands off for the gm. " the king talked to me a few times and was nice, its in my backround. Your cant assassinate him in game without asking me." " i come from a village on the border of x country we are at war at. You cant have that country over run the border and kill most of the village, its in my backround... "

A gm being carefull and thoughtful with changes good. But being restricted by a pc in such a way, bad.

But then as i have said, season 0, i make it clear i might modify, use, abuse backrounds. And not always for the bad. In a recent game, the pc playing the monk learned their mentor ranked up. The caster gnome got to take the pcs to the family estate for rest and planning.
But i have also done stuff like turned someones father into an undead tracking abomination ( in his defence the pc killed said father for very good in game reasons they provided the first time, so it all flows in context. )

Its not quite the same as " its what my charicter would do" for gms. And some aspects of the social contract are handled differently.

[Segev]

The reason the divide between PC and "background NPC belonging to the PC" gets blurry is because you can judge people by their friends and enemies. If you built this NPC in your background who is your hated enemy, and your character feels justified in distrusting him and even assuming he has it coming if the PC's actions and choices hurt him, and the DM decides to make that NPC a paragon of generosity, it suddenly makes your character potentially much more of a heel than you ever intended. If the wrongs you attribute to him were actually beyond his control and your PC should have known that, but you didn't think so until the DM 'dramatically revealed' it, that again makes statements about your character and undermines the character's emotional investment.

Similarly, taking an NPC beloved of your PC whom your PC, you think, knows well, and revealing they're the kind of person who would cold-bloodedly murder a family either says your PC didn't know them the way you thought they did (making statements about your PC's inability to read people at the very least) or that your PC is actually okay with this on some level.

[Rater202]

Yah...i have to disagree . Just becouse a pc decides to make a backround aspect theirs does not suddenly make it hands off for the gm. " the king talked to me a few times and was nice, its in my backround. Your cant assassinate him in game without asking me." " i come from a village on the border of x country we are at war at. You cant have that country over run the border and kill most of the village, its in my backround... "

Ad Absurdium: Providing extreme examples does not make the argument wrong.

Player:"I'm from village on the border of country X."
*Later in game, the main country and country X are now at war*
GM: "Hey, player, would you be okay if your home village was overrun by invading forces and some of your childhood friends or maybe your character's parents were casualties?"
Player: "Not really, I'm not sure the way my character would react to that is a way that's good for the campaign"
GM: "Okay, that's fine. There's easily another border town I can have overrun instead."

This is a perfectly reasonable course of events.

[Asmotherion]

Common tropes go like this:

-Rogue decides he's smarter than the rest of the party, and steals everything they own.
-Paladin keeps imposing his beliefs on the rest of the party.
-Warlock betrayed rest of the party for power. etc

My take is, there's nothing wrong with playing against the party, if that's what your character would do, but don't be buthurt if the party teams up to defeat you; That's what their character would do. Basically, don't expect others to follow unspoken rules, if you yourself break them.

It's ok to play a quircky character, but you may as well retire the character when his quirck becomes too problematic for the rest of the party, and roll a new one. For some, PVP is fun, for others it's wasting time from advancing the story. All those things can be determined by session 0 so that everyone is on the same page and on board for a fun time together. When making a character, consult the DM on the tone of the campain, and don't be "that guy" who makes an edgelord Mary Sue and ruins the fun for everyone else, especially when playing with a group of strangers. In a nutshell, use common sence.

[KaussH]

The reason the divide between PC and "background NPC belonging to the PC" gets blurry is because you can judge people by their friends and enemies. If you built this NPC in your background who is your hated enemy, and your character feels justified in distrusting him and even assuming he has it coming if the PC's actions and choices hurt him, and the DM decides to make that NPC a paragon of generosity, it suddenly makes your character potentially much more of a heel than you ever intended. If the wrongs you attribute to him were actually beyond his control and your PC should have known that, but you didn't think so until the DM 'dramatically revealed' it, that again makes statements about your character and undermines the character's emotional investment.

Similarly, taking an NPC beloved of your PC whom your PC, you think, knows well, and revealing they're the kind of person who would cold-bloodedly murder a family either says your PC didn't know them the way you thought they did (making statements about your PC's inability to read people at the very least) or that your PC is actually okay with this on some level.

In real life it is often the case you dont know people as well as you think you do.

In a lot of games this is easy. If you spents points on an npc, contact, location, ect its yours and should be messed with softly. Its part of the pc. Everyone else is fair game.

Games with freeform backrounds are a touch trickier. And while they should be handled in a thoughtfull matter, they are npcs and npc locations and once let out into the worlds are subject to play.
While pc backrounds and npcs are nice to have, they should never come with plot armor.

[NichG]

Yah...i have to disagree . Just becouse a pc decides to make a backround aspect theirs does not suddenly make it hands off for the gm. " the king talked to me a few times and was nice, its in my backround. Your cant assassinate him in game without asking me." " i come from a village on the border of x country we are at war at. You cant have that country over run the border and kill most of the village, its in my backround... "

A gm being carefull and thoughtful with changes good. But being restricted by a pc in such a way, bad.

But then as i have said, season 0, i make it clear i might modify, use, abuse backrounds. And not always for the bad. In a recent game, the pc playing the monk learned their mentor ranked up. The caster gnome got to take the pcs to the family estate for rest and planning.
But i have also done stuff like turned someones father into an undead tracking abomination ( in his defence the pc killed said father for very good in game reasons they provided the first time, so it all flows in context. )

Its not quite the same as " its what my charicter would do" for gms. And some aspects of the social contract are handled differently.

OOC framing doesn't mean don't do it ever, it means recognizing that there's an element of permission that supercedes the rules of the game and whatever an individual might consider their role at the table to be.

You can say 'as a GM I have the right to do X' and if the players disagree and walk, it doesn't matter what you thought you had the right to do - in that case, you were wrong.

You can of course have players who would say 'sure, mess with my backstory characters'. Session zero agreement is basically a source of this permission.

The issue isn't messing with their backstory characters, it's about trying to bypass that element of permission with an argument that is grounded at an inferior level of authority. E.g. if a player previously said 'I want to have the backstory elements that a normal person would have but I don't want to play a game about those elements', the GM agreed to that, and then the GM had raiders kill the PC's sister, then saying 'well for the world to make sense and be self consistent then that had to happen' is an invalid argument, because violating the OOC agreement to not do that is a more serious matter than the GM's perception of what they should be able to do.

Abuse of social contract is also a thing that could happen and again, the solution is OOC frank discussion about what people want the game experience to be like rather than finding excuses in rules or assumptions.

If a player is twisting or intentionally misinterpreting an OOC promise, discuss that OOC from the lens of the game you're able to enjoy running rather than letting it be about exact words or past phrasings.

"Sorry, when you said don't touch my backstory, I agreed with the understanding that it meant only those things you specified during character creation. I'm not willing to run a game where I can't create stakes that matter - you being able to protect any element at a whim prevents me from that. Are you willing to still play in a game where you don't have that? Is there a compromise we can find?"

It doesn't matter who is right, what matters is to find a solution where everyone would rather be playing than not. The moment continuing to play becomes a net negative for someone at the table, that game is unstable. It's everyones' job to make compromises to avoid that.

[kyoryu]

It doesn't matter who is right, what matters is to find a solution where everyone would rather be playing than not. The moment continuing to play becomes a net negative for someone at the table, that game is unstable. It's everyones' job to make compromises to avoid that.

And, really, there is no "right". There's the expectations everyone has, and what they agree to at the table.

That's probably the most important thing to realize - people come to RPGs with different ideas of what is and is not acceptable. And that's okay, and all of them (or at least most!) can work if that's the game the table wants to play.

It's not a matter of figuring out who is or is not right. It's a matter of figuring out what people can agree to. The only real answer to "is X okay?" is "what does everyone at the table think?"

[Pex]

DMs killing off a PCs friends and families is the reason why so many PC will start off as orphans with no siblings who came from nowhere. Those players don't want that kind of drama. If they have friends and family it's for downtime roleplay. It's a way to take a break from the stress of adventuring. It's the DM's campaign, but it's everyone's game so no, the DM cannot just kill off Mom, Dad, and Suzie who lives down the block whom the PC secretly has a crush on. A PC's background belongs to the player as much as the character sheet game statistics. The DM should discuss it with the player how much melodramatics he is willing to have. Call it Plot Armor if you want. If it means when the orcs attack the family coincidentally was visiting relatives elsewhere so be it. If the DM dares to have the girlfriend among the captives, she's alive and not harmed when the party comes rescuing and will not be killed by her captors during the fight or as they are fleeing.

If the player is absolutely fine with whatever goes then all is well, but the DM needs to know that is the case and not take it upon himself to make the player take it whether he likes it or not.