Key Our Cars

I’m listening to a podcast and the group has an obvious new player into a group that’s been together for awhile.  Their character is playing essentially an ass.  This leads what are obvious to me listening to certain gaffes and reactions from players that match their characters and becomes almost painful to hear at times.   They can be asses to each other because they have long running familiarity and friendship with each other.  Someone for all intents and purposes they do not know who’s an ass to them is going to strike irritation which doesn’t make for a good time.

Listening to this has me pondering my own experiences.  Frankly even with long term gamers I’ve never found intra-party conflict to be viable. It’s just a lot better, in my experience, for the characters to get along so the player’s get along.

Having characters that are argumentative to other characters seems to be very dangerous territory because it invariably seems to lead to players that are argumentative to other players.

While it could be said I suppose that such parties are self correcting in that eventually the majority of the party that does get along will split off, arrange for the ass to die in some fashion or otherwise deal with it, this can lead to the group self destructing.

I know I’m likely to get comments about the “We had an assassin and a paladin and they hated each other and we played around it and it was a blast.”  But for every time that it works I wonder just how many times it doesn’t and groups split or break up.

I think most people tend to reflect their character, if someone’s being an ass to their character then it’s hard for them to disengage the player from the character and not take affront.

As a very strong warning sign if it devolves into one player rolling dice and going “would that hit them?” then you know you’re approaching the saturation point where character emotion becomes player emotion.

So I’d like to offer the thought for consideration, that as a player you maybe not play the lone dark elf with a chip on their should to everyone including your party and instead perhaps treat the other members of your party like the people that are literally going to save your ass.

On a related note, from a DM’s perspective, at least this DM, don’t be a ass to the NPC’s.  I have to either ignore it, or do the realistic thing and have the powers that be take care of the problem.  You don’t have to be nice to NPC’s but at least be realistic in your behavior.   Because NPC’s have feelings too and they might just have some pretty powerful friends.  And a knife in the back is pretty easy to arrange in a crowded street.  And since I use this house rule, it might mean a little more than 1d4+3 damage.

Of course your group may thrive on conflict but if it does I would wager a small bet that it’s a long term group.  For you new players to a group, I’ll offer this advice, ease into the group dynamics, let them get to know you, much like you’d ease up to a dog.  Until you know if it’s going to bite or not, why take chances and yell at it and hit it with a stick?

Anyway, just wanted to put it out there that in my opinion, a party that gets along with other and is civil to NPC’s is much more likely to be a long term group on average.

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