Teamwork and roleplaying.

[Talakeal]

I noticed that my players almost never talk to one another about tactics or strategy, nor do they make plans that involve the other characters.

One particularly infamous example is when they were dealing with a hydra-esque monster that got stronger the more damage it took, and the players came up with a brilliant plan to subdue it, but two of them decided to ignore the plan and instead pump damage into the monster, resulting in a TPK. When asked why they did this, one player said they forgot the plan, and the other said that they were intentionally ignoring the plan because they believed the DM was out to trick them and giving them bad OOC information.

But last night I kind of realized the absurdity of the situation when one of the players (who didn't have the silence spell) was trying to jury-rig several spells together to recreate a silence effect instead of simply asking one of her party members who did have the silence spell to cast the silence it for her.

Now, it might appear like I am saying "how do I get my players to work together"

BUT...

On the other hand, a lot of people get really mad when you try and talk strategy to them as they see it as overbearing and controlling.

When I am a PC, I always find it very nerve-wracking to talk strategy, as I feel like I am dominating the table and taking away other people's fun, and I don't want to fall into the trap of gatekeeping or metagaming or mansplaining or any of the other buzzwords when there are less experienced players present.

In the last game I was a player in, I had one situation where I made a tactical suggestion to another player, and he got really mad at me OOC because he was trying to RP his character's flaws and intentionally making sub-optimal tactical choices, and felt like I was overstepping my bounds and bossing him around.


Does anyone have any good advice or anecdotes about building teamwork in a positive way or know how to square the apparent contradiction between RPing someone with flaws and limitations and RPing a competent adventurer who knows their business and is fighting for their life?

Thanks!

[Telok]

Don't know if it helps, but my group suddenly shows a bunch of frequent & extensive cooperation & coordination in Paranoia that they almost never do in other games. Its... odd.

[Satinavian]

I noticed that my players almost never talk to one another about tactics or strategy, nor do they make plans that involve the other characters.

In my groups players tend to keep such talk strictly in-character. That does mean that there is no such talk if the groups is spread or can't communicate, that there are only very short exclamations during combat and that we basically have planning discussions when the PCs do as well.
Also that people restrict their advive to stuff their own character knows. So suggestions won't involve other character's abilities unless they have been shown or explained to the group already and even then rarely rely on deep understanding of the mechanics unless the character making the suggestion is knowledgable in the field. And tactically minded players tend to hold back a lot during combat if their character is not a combat character. Yes, even if they know a winning stratefy, the group is loosing and they are facepalming all the time. If it is not in character, it is just not done.

And then there are theme groups, often with a In-Game hierarchy. And this hierarchy will decide who gives commands during combat and who follows them. Regardless of whether the character or player in charge actually has good ideas.

On the other hand, a lot of people get really mad when you try and talk strategy to them as they see it as overbearing and controlling.

Yes, i can see that happen. It is not inevitable, but there are risks. People generally want to play their own characters and make their own decisions, not just being a tool for someone else to use to achieve adventure success. There might also be some indignation that you presume others need your guidance.

[Thrudd]

As the GM, you might encourage strategy and teamwork by including a formal or semi-formal strategy period at the beginning of every combat - make it part of the game. The miniatures are placed, the known enemies positions and the environment have been established, the players now have up to five minutes (or whatever you think is appropriate) to confer and discuss strategy- this is when it's ok for everyone to metagame a little bit, talk about what abilities they have and suggest things to each other out of character. Encourage them to look at contingencies, remind them that the battlefield will constantly be shifting, think about not just what to do on turn one, but also how things might go as the enemies start moving. Discourage table talk/metagame and encourage RP once individual turns begin...possibly even enforcing a time limit on deciding individual actions to keep combat moving, when your players get better at thinking ahead. Of course, make sure it is clear that nobody is locked into anything they talk about during the strategy time- their turns and actions belong to each player individually, no one should expect the other players to absolutely follow preestablished directions. The strategy time is to help speed up their decision making and help coordinate abilities, not to allow one player to give others orders that they need to follow. Of course, the assumption is that the characters are all on the same team and want to help each other succeed and survive the fight, and might have these sorts of strategy sessions at unspecified times.

Depending on the system and how combat turns and rounds are structured, there could even be new strategizing at the top of each round- shorter than the pre-combat session, maybe 1 or 2 minutes - but only if it's helping to speed up each individual player's turn. Note, when I'm talking about speeding up turns, I mean the player's decision making time, not the time it takes to roll the dice and do the math to resolve actions - I don't count that against their turn time.

[Easy e]

As a player, I always start with... "Do you mind if I make a suggestion?"

If they say yes, they have tacitly given permission to at least listen. There is no guarantee they will do it, which is fine. If they say NO, then do not make a suggestion.

As a player, I also often say; "What do you guys think?" in order to get folks engaged with what we are doin; even if it is not their turn.

Of course, I spend a lot of my time as a player, trying to move the spotlight around between players so everyone gets to do cool stuff. That even includes me sometimes!

[animorte]

-snip-

I have also taken on this responsibility as the veteran of one of our groups, or anytime somebody newer wants to DM. I will do my best to incorporate everybody else. A lot of the time I feel locked into some leader-worthy PC (though I do thoroughly enjoy it) in order to help lead encounters of all sorts.

[gbaji]

When I am a PC, I always find it very nerve-wracking to talk strategy, as I feel like I am dominating the table and taking away other people's fun, and I don't want to fall into the trap of gatekeeping or metagaming or mansplaining or any of the other buzzwords when there are less experienced players present.

In the last game I was a player in, I had one situation where I made a tactical suggestion to another player, and he got really mad at me OOC because he was trying to RP his character's flaws and intentionally making sub-optimal tactical choices, and felt like I was overstepping my bounds and bossing him around.

That's a tough one. As a GM, you can nudge your players towards more cooperative play. Sometimes that works. Sometimes it doesn't.

As a player, in that example, I'd respond in character as well. It's just as legitimate for you to RP a character who wants to succeed at the mission/encounter/whatever, and suggest to other characters what they could do in terms of their own abilities to contribute. If the other player is RPing a character that makes poor decisions as a flaw, that absolutely would include not coming up with great ideas, but it does not preclude another character responding by suggesting another course of action. Taking that as an OOC conversation is bad play on the part of that player, not you.

On the flip side, you are correct that it's a good idea to avoid having one player always coming up with the suggestions and "leading the team". Um... IMO, that can tend to happen anyway. Doubly so if one player has more experience at the game and/or greater knowledge of the rules than other players.

Contributing to the decision making process is not always the same as "everyone does what I say". And the player who insists that since their character really wants to do "some really bad idea" and RPs that action at the table is just as much imposing their decision on the rest of the table as the player who maybe dominates the discussion in terms of decision making. The difference is that one at least engages the rest of the table in the discussion, while the one person who decides to have their character run off and do their own thing is just being disruptive.

I tend to frown on RP actions at my tables that are directly causing negative outcomes on other characters. Again, this assumes a PC group dynamic in the first place. So if our band of heroes have formed together and agreed to work together to do whatever it is they are doing, the RP decisions made should reflect that starting assumption. Intentionally sabotaging the rest of the PCs just because "well, I was RPing my flaw", is not going to go over well with the other players. RP the flaw in the color/RP portions of the game. Try to avoid doing that in the middle of combat. Or if you want to, find ways to do so that reflect the RP aspects of the character but that don't cause more than maybe a mild annoyance (or different set of choices) by the other PCs.

It's one of those things that we see all the time in film/TV, and works in that media because there's a writer writing the story. So the character that does some zany thing that causes mayhem for the rest of the characters in the middle of a mission is funny and creates drama and whatnot, but ultimately works out because there's one author writing all of this, so they write a way out of it. That's not the case with a RPG game. That zany action from the character who's always doing crazy/silly things cause it's just the way they are, doesn't come with plot armor. It just causes negative's for everyone in the group.

[Quertus]

Does anyone have any good advice or anecdotes about building teamwork in a positive way or know how to square the apparent contradiction between RPing someone with flaws and limitations and RPing a competent adventurer who knows their business and is fighting for their life?

Thanks!

Honestly? I don’t think “teamwork” is a possibility for you and your table. I think that all the wrong lessons are too deeply rooted in y’all’s culture and gaming style for lasting “teamwork” to ever be a reasonable expectation.

And that’s not just your table’s flaws - even opposed virtues (like “self-sufficiency”) can be a hindrance to teamwork.

If anyone at your table does undergo a radical change, to reject the table culture and their former self, I suspect it’s more likely that they’ll simply leave, rather than that they’ll drag the rest of the table with them to a place where teamwork is possible.

You are, IMO, better off making the best of what you’ve got, optimizing for your current culture, than trying to change the culture that way. To that end…

Roleplaying a competent adventurer? IME, a competent anything knows how to ask for help. It’s only (again, IME) incompetent fools too embarrassed by their own inadequacy, or too stubborn in their desire for self-sufficiency, who cannot ask for help. Of course, it can be hard for the player to roleplay such a character if, say, the table has a strong “self-sufficiency” culture (“the Fighter should buff himself”), balance culture (“what does the Fighter bring to the table, to make him worth these buffs?”), or one that is likely to shame the player for their character’s failings (“remember the time the Fighter needed…”). As I think your group hits at least one of those checkboxes, it’ll be much easier for them to roleplay as and have their characters characterized as 3-stooges incompetent buffoons, just leaving you with the issues of their blowups when the reality of their buffoonery contradicts the mental image of their competence that they have.

Instead, you’re probably better off letting them play hyper-competent-via-Omni-Competence characters, who are expected to exist as self-sufficient silos, and who know that they’ll be shamed by their peers if they cannot figure out a way to cobble together a Silence effect from their vast toolkit, or defeat the GM’s scenario in the only way they’ll accept (perceptions, amiright?), or otherwise excel at all things gaming.

Double down on a “git gud noob” table culture, shame those who fail to utilize the provided tools, and forget your impossible dream of teamwork from this group.

Color blue to taste?

In my groups players tend to keep such talk strictly in-character.

people restrict their advive to stuff their own character knows.

People generally want to play their own characters and make their own decisions, not just being a tool for someone else to use to achieve adventure success. There might also be some indignation that you presume others need your guidance.

These are some interesting ideas. I certainly have seen plenty of times when it was “right” (or at least not wrong) to ignore every bit of that when teaching a new player the rules / the ropes, but… as a general policy among RPG “veterans”, I really like it. Done right (for example, if it was obvious what was IC vs OOC (affecting accents, play by post with separate IC vs OOC chat, etc)), I’d like to think that going back in time and retroactively implementing such policies might produce an alternate timeline with fewer of Talakeal’s horror stories. Kudos!

[Talakeal]

As the GM, you might encourage strategy and teamwork by including a formal or semi-formal strategy period at the beginning of every combat - make it part of the game. The miniatures are placed, the known enemies positions and the environment have been established, the players now have up to five minutes (or whatever you think is appropriate) to confer and discuss strategy- this is when it's ok for everyone to metagame a little bit, talk about what abilities they have and suggest things to each other out of character. Encourage them to look at contingencies, remind them that the battlefield will constantly be shifting, think about not just what to do on turn one, but also how things might go as the enemies start moving. Discourage table talk/metagame and encourage RP once individual turns begin...possibly even enforcing a time limit on deciding individual actions to keep combat moving, when your players get better at thinking ahead. Of course, make sure it is clear that nobody is locked into anything they talk about during the strategy time- their turns and actions belong to each player individually, no one should expect the other players to absolutely follow preestablished directions. The strategy time is to help speed up their decision making and help coordinate abilities, not to allow one player to give others orders that they need to follow. Of course, the assumption is that the characters are all on the same team and want to help each other succeed and survive the fight, and might have these sorts of strategy sessions at unspecified times.

Depending on the system and how combat turns and rounds are structured, there could even be new strategizing at the top of each round- shorter than the pre-combat session, maybe 1 or 2 minutes - but only if it's helping to speed up each individual player's turn. Note, when I'm talking about speeding up turns, I mean the player's decision making time, not the time it takes to roll the dice and do the math to resolve actions - I don't count that against their turn time.

This is excellent advice!

I will try it next time and let you know how it goes.

Thanks!

Honestly? I don’t think “teamwork” is a possibility for you and your table. I think that all the wrong lessons are too deeply rooted in y’all’s culture and gaming style for lasting “teamwork” to ever be a reasonable expectation.

And that’s not just your table’s flaws - even opposed virtues (like “self-sufficiency”) can be a hindrance to teamwork.

If anyone at your table does undergo a radical change, to reject the table culture and their former self, I suspect it’s more likely that they’ll simply leave, rather than that they’ll drag the rest of the table with them to a place where teamwork is possible.

You are, IMO, better off making the best of what you’ve got, optimizing for your current culture, than trying to change the culture that way. To that end…

Roleplaying a competent adventurer? IME, a competent anything knows how to ask for help. It’s only (again, IME) incompetent fools too embarrassed by their own inadequacy, or too stubborn in their desire for self-sufficiency, who cannot ask for help. Of course, it can be hard for the player to roleplay such a character if, say, the table has a strong “self-sufficiency” culture (“the Fighter should buff himself”), balance culture (“what does the Fighter bring to the table, to make him worth these buffs?”), or one that is likely to shame the player for their character’s failings (“remember the time the Fighter needed…”). As I think your group hits at least one of those checkboxes, it’ll be much easier for them to roleplay as and have their characters characterized as 3-stooges incompetent buffoons, just leaving you with the issues of their blowups when the reality of their buffoonery contradicts the mental image of their competence that they have.

Instead, you’re probably better off letting them play hyper-competent-via-Omni-Competence characters, who are expected to exist as self-sufficient silos, and who know that they’ll be shamed by their peers if they cannot figure out a way to cobble together a Silence effect from their vast toolkit, or defeat the GM’s scenario in the only way they’ll accept (perceptions, amiright?), or otherwise excel at all things gaming.

Double down on a “git gud noob” table culture, shame those who fail to utilize the provided tools, and forget your impossible dream of teamwork from this group.

Color blue to taste?



These are some interesting ideas. I certainly have seen plenty of times when it was “right” (or at least not wrong) to ignore every bit of that when teaching a new player the rules / the ropes, but… as a general policy among RPG “veterans”, I really like it. Done right (for example, if it was obvious what was IC vs OOC (affecting accents, play by post with separate IC vs OOC chat, etc)), I’d like to think that going back in time and retroactively implementing such policies might produce an alternate timeline with fewer of Talakeal’s horror stories. Kudos!

Well, a fool can hope.

I am about to become a player again though, so even if I can't help the others, I can still train myself.

[Vahnavoi]

How to square the apparent contradiction between RPing someone with flaws and limitations and RPing a competent adventurer who knows their business and is fighting for their life?

You don't.

Flaws make you worse at something - every real flaw you have and every additional flaw you choose to portray in your character creates more room for teamwork and competence of your character to fail.

So you have to choose: either work to the limit of your real teamwork skills, ditching any character traits that get in the way of that, or accept that your decision to deliberately act at lower capacity means you will make teamwork harder for yourself and others.

[Quertus]

You don't.

Flaws make you worse at something - every real flaw you have and every additional flaw you choose to portray in your character creates more room for teamwork and competence of your character to fail.

So you have to choose: either work to the limit of your real teamwork skills, ditching any character traits that get in the way of that, or accept that your decision to deliberately act at lower capacity means you will make teamwork harder for yourself and others.

Ah, you took those words a different way than I did. Hmmm… yeah, I think “intentionally handicapping yourself” when already in Bizarro World is probably “???” level of suboptimal.

Well, a fool can hope.

I am about to become a player again though, so even if I can't help the others, I can still train myself.

As a player? Hmmm…

Reread Angry’s “eight kinds of fun”. Think in terms of “your desire for teamwork is stepping all over their ‘every man is an island’ ” fun. And accept that your “teamwork” will be treated as toxic.

You don’t want to be labeled a toxic player, or to even further cement their anti-teamwork beliefs with your toxic meddling. What can you do? You can’t ask for or offer help without breaking the unspoken social contract and taking a dump on their fun.

So start small. I mean really small. Like, maybe say “thank you” when someone accidentally does something that benefits your character. (if you’re secretly a… whatchamacallit… “mastermind”, maybe?… irl, then you can maybe plot and scheme to manipulate the scenario / battlefield / conversation / whatever to give yourself as many opportunities to say “thank you” as possible. For example, if this were 3e, abilities that let you auto-pass (or skill check - same difference) saving throws, but leave you prone/vulnerable afterwards. Or Celerity… but not to *end* the encounter.)

And… that’s it. That’s all you can expect out of one campaign of remedial teamwork training: Pavlovian conditioning that, rather than “toxic”, helping and working with others can result in positive feedback.

That said, still expect lots of negative feedback - they’re still your players, after all. Expect that they’ll either call your “remedial teamwork-building” powers OP, and/or taunt you for the rest of your life about how useless your character was / how they had to save you / whatever.

That’s the high price of slowly, gently introducing remedial teamwork concepts to your group.

Don’t expect it to stick.

[Thrudd]

RE:Flaws...Characters with too many or too severe flaws, who find themselves in many deadly serious situations, may understandably not live long. It might be possible that, even though the system allows it, taking a series of crippling flaws in return for being able to boost one ability to superpower levels might not be a good long term strategy. I would let the consequences of those choices play out (after recommending against it during character creation), let the dice fall where they may, and perhaps players will learn that it isn't a great idea to build characters like that. Maybe it's smarter to be just good at a couple things and only have minor flaws, and gradually improve your abilities and reduce your flaws over time, instead of trying to start out with the highest possible ability in something.

Of course, it might also be an option to design the game such that it isn't possible to build a character that is crippled from the start. Don't even allow the temptation of making a single-trick glass cannon character with poor long-term survival prospects, nor of choosing character flaws that will make teamwork and strategy impossible while still RP'ing those flaws - especially if a major component of the game is strategic and tactical challenges that often expect teamwork to succeed.

It may be appropriate to make sure everyone is aware that choosing to roleplay your character in a way that hampers the survival prospects of themselves and the rest of the characters may be a bad idea, when you intend to run the game as a series of deadly challenges in which character death is a real possibility. If you don't intend to go easy on them and give plot armor for the sake of narrative drama, then they should consider carefully the type and extent of the personality flaws they want to portray.

[Slipjig]

Coming up with a plan is not "bossing people around". Now, if you come up with the plan on your own and reject any and all modifications to it, then you might be bossing people around. If you are planning strategy ahead of time, maybe ask the belligerent player what they think the party should do before offering up your own idea.

If one of your players complains about you QB'ing too much mid-fight, call your suggestions in-character (and keep them to less than 6 seconds/round), then he's free to act on them or not. If he ignores your suggestion, that's his decision, both as a character and a player.

On the flip side, the characters who refuse to stick to the plan (e.g. your hydra example) may need to suffer some in-game consequences from the rest of the party. PCs regularly face life-or-death situations, and somebody who can't follow the plan is likely to get you killed. It would be 100% appropriate for the PCs to (in-character) chastise someone or even boot them out of the party if he repeatedly endangers everyone, especially if he's gotten other PCs killed. You seem to have a uniquely dysfunctional table, a dose of (appropriate, in-game) consequences might help rein them in.

-edit-

Please note that this advice is very dependent on what your group is accustomed to. If your table has an established pattern of, "Player does something stupid, cartoonish hijinks ensue, but everything turns out okay in the end", then suddenly imposing realistic consequences would probably do more harm than good. But it sounds like your table has at least some history of, "Willfully stupid action --> TPK", so I think it would be reasonable for one of the characters to say, 'Wait a minute, why DO we put up with this idiot?"

[gbaji]

Yeah. I've got to question the player who chose a flaw like "Solitary: refuses to work with others and will automatically reject their plans and instead do their own thing", or "Incompetent Planner: always comes up with the worse idea possible for a situation and refuses to accept alternatives", or "Spy/Saboteur: Secretly wants the enemies to succeed and the players to fail", or other such nonsense. Sure. I'm being a little tongue in cheek, but from some of the descriptions, it's not that far off.

Many games have the concept of flaws/weaknesses, and when done correctly they act as wonderful tools for rounding out a character. They should have occasional impact on the actual play outcome, but mostly should be colorful additions to the game session (IMO). But yeah. If a player is buying a huge amount of extra power by taking a ridiculous number of such things, such that they can no longer possibly be a useful member of a player party, then you have to ask why they joined a party in the first place? That's the point at which the GM should maybe pull the player aside and discuss things with them. At the end of the day, the assumed purpose of playing the game is to at least "try" to succeed, right?

I think that players *can* take such things (well, less absurd than I actually wrote), but they have to look to media for examples of how this can and should work in a group setting. Batman is a notorious loner, yet manages to work with a team anyway. His paranoia and need to control things manifests as him always having backup plans for his backup plans for when one of his teammates inevitably fails in some way, but he still at least makes the effort to work with them anyway. And in many cases, his "flaws" can end up saving the day. That's how you play such things without having a serious negative impact.

Somewhat feels like some of your players are just going full tilt into negative impact of their flaws and calling that RP. Good RP is finding ways to implement such things in a way that fits the spirit of the flaw, while stopping short of it actually being an automatic fail condition. I also am not sure if there's an easy way to fix this behavior. Maybe just let them fail a lot until the hoped for lightbulb moment occurs? Might consider encouraging the players (could be in-character as well) into having a post session discussion. What went right? What went wrong? Why? That sort of thing. At least there will be some sort of awareness that the failures are the result of poor choices and not because the GM is just being a meanie or something.

[Talakeal]

For the record, I am not really talking about mechanical flaws so much as just the character having a personality.

The players in my regular actually tend to forget all their flaws and go into win at all cost tactical murder hobo mode once the dice start rolling.

I am actually much more likely to RP a flaw in combat than any of my players, to the point where when we switched to 4E D&D they told me that one of the rules of fourth edition was that you were not allowed to RP outside of designated dialogue scenes and that it was expected that all players treated combat with chess-like mechanical detachment.

Other groups, I have played in have a much more holistic approach to RPing in combat.

[Quertus]

For the record, I am not really talking about mechanical flaws so much as just the character having a personality.

The players in my regular actually tend to forget all their flaws and go into win at all cost tactical murder hobo mode once the dice start rolling.

I am actually much more likely to RP a flaw in combat than any of my players, to the point where when we switched to 4E D&D they told me that one of the rules of fourth edition was that you were not allowed to RP outside of designated dialogue scenes and that it was expected that all players treated combat with chess-like mechanical detachment.

Well, there’s your answer for how you can practice good teamwork while you’re a player: become a good little machine during combat. Build your personality accordingly.

[Talakeal]

Well, there’s your answer for how you can practice good teamwork while you’re a player: become a good little machine during combat. Build your personality accordingly.

That still has little or nothing to do with teamwork though; even if they refuse to RP and act as efficiently as they can, they are still doing it solo and not taking the other players into consideration, let alone actually working together.

[Quertus]

That still has little or nothing to do with teamwork though; even if they refuse to RP and act as efficiently as they can, they are still doing it solo and not taking the other players into consideration, let alone actually working together.

Right, but you can take the other players into consideration when building your character, show good teamwork for not trampling over their fun, by building “the robot of combat”. Who can have all the personality they want outside of a fight, but the oil runs cold in their veins once the dice come out.

Because, really, if you’re failing at teamwork with the other players, and trampling all over their fun, who cares about whether the characters get the concept?

EDIT: I am so glad I don’t game in Bizarro World, and can actually roleplay, even in combat.

[Talakeal]

Right, but you can take the other players into consideration when building your character, show good teamwork for not trampling over their fun, by building “the robot of combat”. Who can have all the personality they want outside of a fight, but the oil runs cold in their veins once the dice come out.

Because, really, if you’re failing at teamwork with the other players, and trampling all over their fun, who cares about whether the characters get the concept?

EDIT: I am so glad I don’t game in Bizarro World, and can actually roleplay, even in combat.

Do you not see a difference between respecting peoples fun as individuals vs. developing teamwork?

Like, to use a more direct metaphor, do you really think the coach is going foster teamwork on the day of the big game by allowing the players to regularly skip practice and stay home playing video games by themselves?

I don't think conflict avoidance and team building are in any way the same thing, and my easily by counter productive.

[Satinavian]

Like, to use a more direct metaphor, do you really think the coach is going foster teamwork on the day of the big game by allowing the players to regularly skip practice and stay home playing video games by themselves?

But you are not a coach.

One of the thing that is pretty clear about your group is that bristle at anything that even suggests you have authority over them as people or are generally more knowledgable/experienced than them.

You are never going to teach them anything they don't see the need and have the innate desire to learn themself.

[Talakeal]

But you are not a coach.

One of the thing that is pretty clear about your group is that bristle at anything that even suggests you have authority over them as people or are generally more knowledgable/experienced than them.

You are never going to teach them anything they don't see the need and have the innate desire to learn themself.

Don’t disagree.

Still though, my point still stands, that letting people do whatever they want for the sake of avoiding conflict is only tangentially related to team building at best.

I wasn’t asking about how to work with any specific group of players, I don’t just game with one group, and the guy who made up the 4E rule hasn’t played with us in years. This is more of a generic request for advice than trying to wrangle with any specific problem player.

[Satinavian]

Well, i wrote above how we play. We do that because we find that enjoyable.


I don't have any advice on "How do I get my group to do more teamwork", because i am sceptical something like that can be done without explicite buy-in. It is similar to most other attempts to change an existing group. Unless you agree with the other players that the change is necessary or at least welcome, it won't work. Changing groups is never a on-person-task.


If it is not the group, only a specific problem player, any solution must be custom made to this specific problem player. There is no catch-all strategy for those.

[MoiMagnus]

Does anyone have any good advice or anecdotes about building teamwork in a positive way or know how to square the apparent contradiction between RPing someone with flaws and limitations and RPing a competent adventurer who knows their business and is fighting for their life?

Thanks!

I believe you're putting together two distinct problems:

1. Realistic characters being flawed/suboptimal
2. The tension between cooperation and "hive mind" in games.

If the issue was only the first one, then the solution would be the following: each player would do their best to clearly explain what the personality of their character is, so that those additional constraints are added to the "team optimisation" as if they were mechanical flaws. Sure they're not as perfectly defined as mechanical flaws, but it would still work reasonably well.

This leads to the second point, which is IMO the real issue here. I'd like to talk about cooperative boardgames. I'll take Gloomhaven as an example, but many boardgames have similar rules.

Gloomhaven is a fully cooperative games (as far as I know). Despite that, it has "secret objectives", and it forbids by the rules to talk too much about what you're about to do during your next turn (but you can still give an approximate description of it), despite the fact that teamwork and coordinating actions is extremely effective. Note that this is not a game like Hanabi where all the fun is in finding ways to communicate informations with the limited tools at your disposal. Gloomhaven is fundamentally a tactical game, and this rule of not communicating too much has some unclear boundaries.

Why would anyone make a tactical game where teamwork is the key to victory while saying to the players that they shouldn't "teamwork" too much? This is fundamentally a protection against "hive mind" cooperation, where every decision is taken as a group piloting the full team rather than as individuals acting with the same objective and having multiple small collaborations. And this is because a significant number of player hate "hive mind" cooperation. They play for the freedom to choose, and to try by themself to find the best plan. And more experienced players can "spoil" their fun of finding what's the best plan by giving it to them, and since that plan isn't their and they had no significant contribution to its elaboration, they don't feel the freedom of having "chosen" this plan. That make them feel like being a glorified NPC following the PC team and obeying to the team leader rather than an actual PC.

If you have players that hate "hive mind" cooperation, it's very difficult to have advanced teamwork. And IME one necessary condition for them to be part of some advanced teamwork is that every player should be of the same level so that no one is consistently coming up with the best plan by themself.

[Leon]

Once instead of a session of the super hero game were meant to be playing the DM showed us a section the Fantastic Four to highlight what a team of supers should be acting like instead of what were were doing.

[Vahnavoi]

But you are not a coach.

One of the thing that is pretty clear about your group is that bristle at anything that even suggests you have authority over them as people or are generally more knowledgable/experienced than them.

You are never going to teach them anything they don't see the need and have the innate desire to learn themself.

There's a reasonable chance that becoming a coach and actually diving into resources for how to coach people in team exercises is 100% what Talakeal ought to be doing. I would not proclaim the players uncoachable before giving it an honest shot.

---

Yeah. I've got to question the player who chose a flaw like "Solitary: refuses to work with others and will automatically reject their plans and instead do their own thing", or "Incompetent Planner: always comes up with the worse idea possible for a situation and refuses to accept alternatives", or "Spy/Saboteur: Secretly wants the enemies to succeed and the players to fail", or other such nonsense. Sure. I'm being a little tongue in cheek, but from some of the descriptions, it's not that far off.

Those are all perfectly good roles to put in a roleplaying game. They're only "nonsense" if you think teamwork is necessary across all games and game scenarios, or that the main goal is "100% unproblematic co-operation between player characters" instead of virtually anything else.

In reality, there are entire genres of games where the primary excitement comes from spotting the traitor or dealing with the fact that all of the characters are some degree of unreasonable.

The things you should question before you question the roles are things like "what role teamwork is supposed to play in this game?" and "is it my concern at all how well player characters work as a team?"

[Quertus]

Do you not see a difference between respecting peoples fun as individuals vs. developing teamwork?

Like, to use a more direct metaphor, do you really think the coach is going foster teamwork on the day of the big game by allowing the players to regularly skip practice and stay home playing video games by themselves?

I don't think conflict avoidance and team building are in any way the same thing, and my easily by counter productive.

But you are not a coach.

One of the thing that is pretty clear about your group is that bristle at anything that even suggests you have authority over them as people or are generally more knowledgable/experienced than them.

You are never going to teach them anything they don't see the need and have the innate desire to learn themself.

DonÂ’t disagree.

Still though, my point still stands, that letting people do whatever they want for the sake of avoiding conflict is only tangentially related to team building at best.

I wasnÂ’t asking about how to work with any specific group of players, I donÂ’t just game with one group, and the guy who made up the 4E rule hasnÂ’t played with us in years. This is more of a generic request for advice than trying to wrangle with any specific problem player.

Bad example is bad. That said, I am of many minds about that.

One the one hand, Talakeal, obviously, you going straight to thinking in terms of the coach is exactly why you should never, NEVER be the one attempting to improve the teamwork of your group of players. You have admitted to (in my words) a racial -20 penalty to Sense Motive checks, so you can't see when you're doing more harm that good.

On the second hand, I use "bad" analogies all the time. I firmly believe that, as a general rule, people should look more at what matches than at what doesn't.

On the third hand... if the basketball team - coach and all - *all* went for beer and hookers instead of practice every day, what, as a new player who just moved to town and wanted to join the team, could you do to "improve" the team? And would your "improvements" lead to more fun? That's the analogy you, Talakeal, need to take to heart. They're having their fun, don't BadWrongFun shame them. Instead, find ways to show that your way can be fun, too. This isn't about conflict avoidance, so much as... "don't be a **** like me unless you have a proven track record of getting results by being a ****". Pointless conflict just pushes people away from seeing your point (which, tbh, if morons can't see the message for the messenger, I personally am fine with them continuing to fail, which unfortunately means I lack that "success" incentive to be less like Bakugo. You, however, probably want to take a "better" path.). So I'm trying to show you a "not how I would do it" path, that would be approved by my... darn senility... "communications" class?

Also... the "generic" parts just don't fit your Bizarro World scenario. So there's no value to you for us to give them to you. Might be for the folks at home, though. So I'll see what I can come up with.

Still, "Remedial Teamwork" is probably a good place for anyone who has to ask "how do I engender teamwork?" to start. So I'll post more about Remedial Teamwork Theory in a later post.

Why would anyone make a tactical game where teamwork is the key to victory while saying to the players that they shouldn't "teamwork" too much? This is fundamentally a protection against "hive mind" cooperation, where every decision is taken as a group piloting the full team rather than as individuals acting with the same objective and having multiple small collaborations. And this is because a significant number of player hate "hive mind" cooperation. They play for the freedom to choose, and to try by themself to find the best plan. And more experienced players can "spoil" their fun of finding what's the best plan by giving it to them, and since that plan isn't their and they had no significant contribution to its elaboration, they don't feel the freedom of having "chosen" this plan. That make them feel like being a glorified NPC following the PC team and obeying to the team leader rather than an actual PC.

If you have players that hate "hive mind" cooperation, it's very difficult to have advanced teamwork. And IME one necessary condition for them to be part of some advanced teamwork is that every player should be of the same level so that no one is consistently coming up with the best plan by themself.

Very much this. I mean, I don't know the system you're talking about, but Talakeal's players are so Avatars of Chaos, that they'll take a dump on the plan "don't attack the Avatar of Violence" by attacking the Avatar of Violence (causing him to, like, reproduce or something, just like they saw him do the last time they fled from him, or something (darn senility)), just to not be following someone else's plan.

Once instead of a session of the super hero game were meant to be playing the DM showed us a section the Fantastic Four to highlight what a team of supers should be acting like instead of what were were doing.

Uh... ignoring the fact that (certain (movie?) versions of) the Fantastic Four are known for their lack of teamwork... care to give details on the difference between "what you did" and "what teamwork looked like"?

There's a reasonable chance that becoming a coach and actually diving into resources for how to coach people in team exercises is 100% what Talakeal ought to be doing. I would not proclaim the players uncoachable before giving it an honest shot.

Those are all perfectly good roles to put in a roleplaying game. They're only "nonsense" if you think teamwork is necessary across all games and game scenarios, or that the main goal is "100% unproblematic co-operation between player characters" instead of virtually anything else.

In reality, there are entire genres of games where the primary excitement comes from spotting the traitor or dealing with the fact that all of the characters are some degree of unreasonable.

The things you should question before you question the roles are things like "what role teamwork is supposed to play in this game?" and "is it my concern at all how well player characters work as a team?"

Talakeal has given it a shot. In the head. Repeatedly. This Zombie don't die that way.

I agree that "teamwork" isn't inherently the highest goal - or even necessarily a goal at all. I mean, I prefer... general teamwork (in the vein of "we're all trying to do X, not backstab each other" variety), but for Roleplaying to take priority over Hivemind optimization. But I agree, that's not the only valid way to play the game.

[gbaji]

For the record, I am not really talking about mechanical flaws so much as just the character having a personality.

The players in my regular actually tend to forget all their flaws and go into win at all cost tactical murder hobo mode once the dice start rolling.

I am actually much more likely to RP a flaw in combat than any of my players, to the point where when we switched to 4E D&D they told me that one of the rules of fourth edition was that you were not allowed to RP outside of designated dialogue scenes and that it was expected that all players treated combat with chess-like mechanical detachment.

Other groups, I have played in have a much more holistic approach to RPing in combat.

I may have mixed up which parts were about players fumbling around in the game whilst you were the GM versus players refusing to work well with you whilst you are a player.

I think that some players just have a strong "I need to make my own decisions and do things my own way" approach to gaming. Which is not actually wrong btw. But it can cause issues when they are playing what is essentially a group game, with group successes and group failures. A couple posters have mentioned a parallel to "coaching", and that's not wrong. There are similar things coaches teach you as a member of a sports team that actually are good lessons to learn for RPG sessions. How to work at a team is one. How to put your own desire for the spotlight behind the need for the "team" to succeed, is another.

Balancing the needs of each individual player to be able to express themselves in a game, and how to work together as a team is a hard thing to do. I guess I'd still just recommend maybe letting the chips fall where they may, but having some sort of communication after the fact to discuss how things went. Again though, that's tricky to do without it potentially coming off as blaming some players for their actions. So you kinda have to tread lightly.

Those are all perfectly good roles to put in a roleplaying game. They're only "nonsense" if you think teamwork is necessary across all games and game scenarios, or that the main goal is "100% unproblematic co-operation between player characters" instead of virtually anything else.

In reality, there are entire genres of games where the primary excitement comes from spotting the traitor or dealing with the fact that all of the characters are some degree of unreasonable.

The things you should question before you question the roles are things like "what role teamwork is supposed to play in this game?" and "is it my concern at all how well player characters work as a team?"

Yeah. I've lost track of which things I posted where, but I thought I mentioned somewhere that this is based on the assumption that they are operating as a group and the purpose of the game/adventure (at least to some degree) is for them to work together to achieve some common goal. If your party has assembled together to investigate the mysterious disappearances in the town, and this has lead them to discover the "evil plot" going on, and they've committed to stopping said evil plot together, then it's a bit odd to have members of that party who are, by character design, characters who would not want to work with others to achieve goals, or even deliberately want to cause them difficulty. Barring a game where having someone who is secretly working at odds to the party goals is part of the game (Paranoia anyone?), you have to ask "why did you join up with these people in the first place".


So yeah. This is very much game, world, and scenario dependent. I took the OP to assume that their actions were not because this is that sort of game, but that the expectation is that they are supposed to be working together to solve problems and overcome obstacles, but for some reason the players just... aren't.

[Quertus]

So, more on Remedial Teamwork theory. Or something.

My first suggestion involved engineering a character who maximize the number of times you got to say “thank you” when the other players happened to do something that benefited your character, as baby steps towards teamwork. My sample characters for that suggestion involved maximizing the number of times your character was vulnerable, through save boosters and Celerity. In this post, I’ll try and kick my senile mind enough to remember two more concepts to promote remedial teamwork.

The first is based on a character I’ve run. I’ll try and put this in 3e terms. So… imagine a Wizard… with cross-class ranks in Tumble… and a “reach” weapon (like a dwom, that they’re not proficient in), and the “count as being in every square they threaten” feat… with Boots of Striding… and strong Tank potential (DR (Quasilycanthrope), temporary HP, etc)… who Tumbles behind enemy lines before or after casting their spells for the turn. You could get to a similar place by, say, building a Factotum / Druid who crafts a Bogun for each party member, so they can all benefit from constant Aid Another.

The last idea to slightly less gently encourage teamwork: Padawan Berserker. So, imagine a PC who is a Jedi Padawan, who relied on their Master for every last instruction, but whose Master has just died. Many other backgrounds get to the same place, including roleplaying as an Isekai of a player with decision paralysis. The point is to make a character who is completely useless without someone telling them what to do, to get the other players thinking in terms of thinking about the actions of other characters, rather than just their own.

That’s what I’ve got for Remedial Teamwork character concepts.

[icefractal]

And this is because a significant number of player hate "hive mind" cooperation. They play for the freedom to choose, and to try by themself to find the best plan.

I'm not a fan of "hive mind" coordination myself. Like, I enjoy teamwork in the "every PC is important to our success" sense, and in dedicated support characters being worthwhile. But not in the "you need to move to this area and attack that foe immediately on the next round or else the opportunity expires" sense. 4E, for instance, puts too much focus on that kind of tight-coordination tactics for my taste.

[Duff]

The last idea to slightly less gently encourage teamwork: Padawan Berserker. So, imagine a PC who is a Jedi Padawan, who relied on their Master for every last instruction, but whose Master has just died. Many other backgrounds get to the same place, including roleplaying as an Isekai of a player with decision paralysis. The point is to make a character who is completely useless without someone telling them what to do, to get the other players thinking in terms of thinking about the actions of other characters, rather than just their own.

That’s what I’ve got for Remedial Teamwork character concepts.

This, on the other hand, looks to have a high chance of being forgotten and taking no action.
Previous stories make me think this character's ineffectiveness due to lack of instructions will not lead to other players reflecting on what they might have done differently.