That's a quote from another site, talking about why people don't want to play healers, it made me think about some of the posts I've seen on here lately about how people need something from somebody else for their character to be effective.

Sometimes I tell a story about a guy at the outset of the campaign, who built a character with massive horns ( a dark kin trait that was only useful when you charged) and he didn't (effectively) wield any other weapon. He expected me (playing as SorPriest) to heal him the entire time. needless to say he dropped very quickly after I quit healing him and He and I (and the other players) had a Negative Play Experience (NPE) because of this.

Now I bring this up and the first thing people are going to jump on (oh that guy had a bad build) and sure that's part of it, but the biggest part of it is that he had the wrong attitude towards group play. Effective combat in Arcanis is all about teamwork.

Lets talk about "Active Teamwork" first, this is what people think about usually when we talk about team work, this is as simple as stay out of the fireball area, or placement to prevent your caster from getting charged etc. Simply expressed, it is doing something that has some or no drawback to you to allow someone else to be more effective. What it is not, is disregarding everyone else's possible actions /intentions to take your optimum action.

Example of Active example:
Gallant the Melee character moves to engage the lieutenant instead of the Big Bad, allowing the Casters to carpet bomb the minions surrounding him.
A counter example, Goofus charges the Big Bad and prevents the casters from AoEing without hitting Goofus. and leaving the lieutenant to run rampant through the casters.

So also there is "Passive Teamwork" and these are things that people don't think of as teamwork, they are the things that prevent you from taking up other peoples resources. Low Armor Values, Low Defenses, excessively damaging yourself ALL end up taking other people resources.

SO.... With that in mind, here is the thing, EVERYBODY makes choices that are not team oriented, but there should be a balance in both the active and passive sense of individuality and team work. everyone has a different balance in that sense, and people with a similar sense of balance will have a more enjoyable time sitting at a table with similar teamwork values.

YOUR values might be correct for YOU, but they may not be correct for someone else, so unless you know what other people like, don't tell people how to play their character (that fails Wheatons Law btw) You may think its perfectly acceptable to just charge in and do whatever pleases you, or yell medic and expect another player to drop everything and heal you, but you are at one end of the spectrum. I personally prefer a much more tactical view of the game, and I have to work at not getting too frustrated at other players demanding things from me or, cutting off other players good moves.

Josh,

This is a well crafted and insightful post. I struggle with these problems at the table from both sides just as you explained.

To everyone else struggling with these issues,

I have a suggestion for that works well for a couple of my friends who attend the larger cons. Create yourself a distribution list of about 12 players who you see regularly at the cons you attend or one distro per con. Send out a spreadsheet with what slots you want to play when and what character you want to play. Coordinate your table ahead of time, and discuss tactics and characters in online chats or on the thread itself. The coordination is kinda like a teaser for the con in and of itself.

I do really like the "Prior Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance" method of table optimization, but I'm not sure if it is the best idea overall. I know that I have come to Cons where I am either by myself or with only a single other person sitting at the table that I actually know. This becomes a MAJOR concern if you are a new player to the game, which is ultimately what we want to see at more tables.

I am always of the character-generation paradigm that every character should be able to do at least one thing well, and that doesn't necessarily have to be combat. Of course, this can be something of a trap because you can always get a path where you all made rogues who are experts at picking locks and you are stuck with a fight against a hoard of giants out in the open. The same is true with D&D but with the classless system of Arcanis it is harder to advertise yourself as a specific gaming-archetype. As such, you really still need to advertise yourself based on what you are when you form a table, and hopes of finding a balanced party. "I'm the Battle Cleric" or "I'm a talker" are all viable options.

As to the player who refuses to play as a team member. . . my experience is that you'll always find people who do this, and that ultimately while they may poison a gaming session they are a generally self-correcting system. If a person intentionally does the stupid or counter-intuitive thing to the detriment of fun for the players, then those players will not want to play with that person any more. This can lead to some bad blood, but ultimately there will always be that one person who just doesn't want to play the game and use it as a means of trolling or wish-fulfillment fantasy to the exclusion of others. All I can really say is that this is generally not good for anyone and should ultimately be avoided.

For example: I play a Coryani Nierite Paladin-type, and I'd love to play my character as a religious zealot and be racist and whatnot, but it really doesn't jive well with playing with other characters (or many of the stories, for that matter). As such, I have toned down a lot of his character to keep the basics of his personality intact while keeping it to a point where EVERYONE can have fun and not just me.

Cody, if the system had corrected itself I wouldn't have felt the need to post.

There is also the option of staying in character and dealing with the nuisance in game. Annoying person runs up to the wrong place? Fireball..I mean elemental bolt the area anyway. Racist character messes with the Darkkin too much? Mug him. Wizard gets too needy? Harvesters. After all, actions have consequences and so long as the character isn't permanently killed (which could happen if circumstances are dire enough) then maybe the player will learn eventually as he sits out scenes.

When you sit down at a table to play a mod it's probably worth a quick out of character discussion on characters' strengths and weaknesses. Weaknesses can be flaws (Bloodthirsty), characteristics (low defenses/stamina) or limited contribution (I'm fine in/out of combat but not the other). Talk about play styles and see what can be done to make sure everyone has fun. If I didn't design a character to play dedicated healer and I'd rather blast, then make sure the party knows it. Tactics in combat may change because of it, but at least they're aware. If the charging 1 trick pony dark-kin needs to have healing available, then they need to make sure they find a table that has it, buy some potions to address it or limit how often they charge so that they're still effective, but not as much as they'd prefer to be.

If a character is a heavy RP character who entertains everyone there but isn't useful in combat or outside of it, then as long as people understand that that's the player's contribution and are ok with it, it can work.

Personalities and expectations are going to clash. Polite suggestions to the one-trick dark-kin's player about "if you think you'll end up in a lot of pick up games, you might want to consider X to be more self-sufficient" might really help. It won't fix what just happened, but it can help avoid more in the future. Try and be respectful, realize that if they're already unhappy they're likely to be defensive so who and how you approach them will go through that filter. We're all in this to have fun. Concepts evolve and with a few well placed suggestions, hopefully everyone ends up with more of a win-win.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

I've always been lucky to be pretty easy going when it comes to the Convention pick up for mods. At least, I hope I am! I think it takes a lot to turn me off from a table. But everyone has to accept the odd lemon once in awhile. I've only had one bad experience from players ... during To Kiss the Beautiful Devil one guy I played with had a gnome of chaos who wanted to pilfer and cause trouble essentially for the sake of causing trouble. I found his actions OOC to be selfish and he ended up screwing my PC. OTOH maybe I'm biases since my PC did get worked over. I think some of the other players really enjoyed his PC.

Despite my best efforts I sometimes buy tickets for movies I end up disliking too. But what are you going to do? Stop going to movies?

so the responses im seeing range from suck it up and deal with it, to avoid playing with those people.

Ignoring problems wont make them go away

I removed this post because it made some potentially insulting false equivalence arguments. I know Josh didn't mean to offer any insult, but not everybody knows him personally.

The crux of the point is that if you see somebody being an issue at the table, don't feel constrained from letting them know. Just be nice about it.

I would like to remind people of the 2 cardinal rules for the Legends of Arcanis campaingn:

1. Have fun
2. Don't be a jerk.

Eric

I tend to play a charcter with massive weaknesses. Some people would construe him to be someone who demands a lot of resources by looking at the character sheet alone.

There's one big rule when you make these characters and it's one I live by when I do:

Don't expect the party to pull you through.

If you build a character that might require a lot of healing (My main has 1 wound and low defenses, I'm never raising them on purpose as that's the flavor I built) don't expect that healing to come raining down on you. I don't care if this character bites it, and he'll darn well do so while helping the party. And that's just it. You have to accept that by building these weaknesses you will most likely die (I'm surprised he's lived this long but he hasn't played since the end of the Crusade). It's a trade off.

That said, my character is delightfully creepy because I built him this way and does not take up a position vital to the continuance of the party.

If I die, I die, and probably in a much more heroic way than the character deserves.

You are correct that silence is complicity, but as I suggested: If you don't like how a person plays a game, you don't have to play with them. Feel free to mention "I don't like the way you are playing" and explaining to them why this is, but also remember that stating that they are wrong simply because they do not ascribe to your own personal views of what 'right' is doesn't mean that they should be punished for this.

And no, this is not directed at anyone in particular. I've played with people in different games who absolutely hate 'suboptimal characters' and the way people play them all the time. A good example of this was a D&D player who basically thinks Bards are the most useless things in the game, and therefore anyone playing a Bard is therefore useless. This person could go out and say "You shouldn't play a Bard because they suck!" and in their minds be right, but to another person a Bard is a perfectly acceptable choice. Similarly, you can make a character build which sucks at one aspect of the game, but still be good in another one. Arcanis (like most Fantasy RPG games) is fairly heavy on the combat so if you intentionally make someone not-keyed to this area you come off as useless and could infuriate others. However, that same character may be able to save another character from making a faux pas in a social situation which could LEAD to a Combat, making them not-useless.

As to the personality who just wants to see the world burn, I do agree that these people can poison games. That said, they don't ALWAYS have to do so to every player they came across. I have played with an individual who intentionally played his character as chaotic as he could, which often lead to the rest of the party missing out on parts of the adventure or XP. That said, about 60-70% of all the players who played with him LOVED the character because he was fun to roleplay with, adding a level of silliness that they appreciated in a fantasy adventure. That also says that 30-40% hated what he was doing and rather he did NOT do it, but does this make him wrong?

As stated above, remember Wheaton's Laws whenever you play--"Don't be a dick!"--and you will be able to make everyone's games better. If you do not like how someone is playing their character--especially if others do not share your opinions--you can always not play with that person. If multiple people do this, than the other person cannot find a table and as I said it SHOULD be a self-correcting problem. However, some people are as thick as lead sometimes (I am one of them) and do need to be talked to about it. Just remember that, when you talk to them, to treat them with the respect you would expect directed at yourself and try to be as positive as possible instead of raging against how horrible they are, as people do not respond well to straight criticism, especially when they do not think they are doing anything wrong.