21 hours ago, Archlyte said:

Oh man thanks for posting this, I thought this was great. How did you think the Loot ***** personally reacted to his comeuppance? Did he enjoy it or did he get miffed? If I am playing a selfish guy then my character may hate what they did, but as a player I would be entertained by the group refusing to help me after the character was a jerk like that. This was very entertaining Mark, thanks again

I'm using the wrong term. Loot Hog might be more appropriate. (But I think I've heard Loot ***** on SethSorkowski's YouTube channel).

Well, he was obviously miffed, but took the issue in stride.

We may be able to smooth the issue over in time and we really haven't had time to sit down and split out ALL of the loot yet. However the character being run by the Loot Hog has an LE alignment and he runs him like a Lawful Jerk. (At the gaming table we use another name besides "Jerk" but FFG would DEFINITELY censor that word).

On 3/4/2018 at 1:56 PM, Archlyte said:

But there are often characters in fiction who are personally unpleasant while still being a part of the group. Some things are hard to translate from Film/Book to Game, but I think it can be done if there is some cooperation.

I was thinking of some guidelines, and wanted to see if this was something anyone here might find interesting, or could add to with their own take on this situation.

• Everyone at the table needs to be able to separate dialogue and actions that are fictional from the real people at the table. Taking things personally will result in real anger.
• Evil characters should not be sprung on the players and the GM as an ambush. If you are going to play a character who is inherently dangerous to the group, this needs to be something that everyone is on board with ahead of time. If your group is sufficiently accepting and story-driven to the point where they would welcome such internal group danger then this doesn't apply.
• If you are going to play a character who is argumentative or unpleasant, it should have a reason and a purpose. The character should have an arc or conditions where this mask falls away at least temporarily to make the other players see the value of the character beyond his behavior at some point. With out some value the character will be ditched or killed by the other PCs in my experience.
• If you are going to play out conflict with another player, the two of you should both be in on the intent of the exchange and not be reacting personally. There should be a way for the parties involved to have a signal that it's gone far enough, and an agreement on how far it will go to prevent incidental PvP (if that is not ok in the campaign).

Thanks for any discussion or input.

Those are pretty good points, and a good example of most of them is in Jane from Firefly. He was an a-hole, sometimes to the members of the party (the dinner scene where he embarrasses Kaylie is a good example, as well as inter-group conflict when Mal told him off), but he was also watching the Doc patch up Kaylie later on, because despite what he said, he cares about her. In later episodes, we see him do jerk things, but there was a motivation for it, and he even showed regret for his actions at times. He also was happy to play that sports game in the ship, and just have fun with the crew.

Bottom line, he wasn't an a-hole 24/7, and I think that's the thing. There should only be like 1-2 character traits that are intentionally confrontational about the character, but in the other ways, the PC gets along with the rest of the group. For Jane, it was Money, and No Tact. He would just say what he thought, without caring what it did to others, and if there was enough money on the line, he'd seriously consider betraying people. But otherwise, he was a fairly ok person to hang out with.

That's the key. If the PC is just constantly being confrontational, on EVERYTHING, with EVERYONE, all the time, nobody would put up with that. A real group of people would remove that person from their circle of friends, not trusting him, and also just to avoid the constant stress of dealing with a 24/7 A-hole.

The bit about having both people on board with a confrontation is a good thing too. I can personally attest to this from roleplaying on some chat based sites for World of Darkness back in the day. It was a live chat thing, where we would post in character, and use a dice roller for stats. But it was pretty standard to message someone and say something like "So I feel like having a bit of an argument tonight with your character, given their shared history with this other person, but differing opinions on how to deal with that person. You cool with having a bit of a Jerry Springer episode?" And usually the person would be like "Yeah sure, sounds fun." And then we'd go at it, and since it was understood to be an act, there was little to no friction after. Me and the person would usually message each other with lols about how crazy it got, and had fun, and that would be it.

But it was always tricky if there wasn't that buyin up front. Some people WOULD take it personally, and get butt hurt.

So if someone is going to play that kind of character, I think it's common courtesy, and helpful as well, to declare that. "Ok guys, I'm playing something of an A-hole, kind of like Jane. You guys cool with occasionally butting heads with him over some issues? And understand it's all the character." If the group is mature enough to play the game, they should be mature enough to deal with this.

That being said though, gamers tend to be socially awkward, and I've seen it at my table a lot. The player who tends to want to play an A-hole, is usually the person in the group who tends to be an A-hole IRL, even if only a little. Or at least someone who is really good at verbal jousting. The problem I've seen, is that this person, when roleplaying the A-hole bit...is opposite one of the socially awkward types, who already find socializing and quick conversation difficult, and it's now coupled with the person across the table yelling at them. Sure it's not real, but it's still another human yelling at them, and the human body does react to that kind of stimulus, fake or not. I've seen them get frustrated and flustered, because they now have the added social stress of needing to "act right" for the scene, and they're already awkward about that kind of thing anyway. Which just compounds the problem for them.

Sure not every group is like that, but I'm willing to bet that everyone reading this post has gamed with at least a couple people who fit one of those 2 archetypes I described, and know what I'm talking about. Reclusive, introverted players tend to play introverted PC's, and the more socially outgoing players tend to play the Face characters.

21 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

Those are pretty good points, and a good example of most of them is in Jane from Firefly. He was an a-hole, sometimes to the members of the party (the dinner scene where he embarrasses Kaylie is a good example, as well as inter-group conflict when Mal told him off), but he was also watching the Doc patch up Kaylie later on, because despite what he said, he cares about her. In later episodes, we see him do jerk things, but there was a motivation for it, and he even showed regret for his actions at times. He also was happy to play that sports game in the ship, and just have fun with the crew.

Bottom line, he wasn't an a-hole 24/7, and I think that's the thing. There should only be like 1-2 character traits that are intentionally confrontational about the character, but in the other ways, the PC gets along with the rest of the group. For Jane, it was Money, and No Tact. He would just say what he thought, without caring what it did to others, and if there was enough money on the line, he'd seriously consider betraying people. But otherwise, he was a fairly ok person to hang out with.

That's the key. If the PC is just constantly being confrontational, on EVERYTHING, with EVERYONE, all the time, nobody would put up with that. A real group of people would remove that person from their circle of friends, not trusting him, and also just to avoid the constant stress of dealing with a 24/7 A-hole.

The bit about having both people on board with a confrontation is a good thing too. I can personally attest to this from roleplaying on some chat based sites for World of Darkness back in the day. It was a live chat thing, where we would post in character, and use a dice roller for stats. But it was pretty standard to message someone and say something like "So I feel like having a bit of an argument tonight with your character, given their shared history with this other person, but differing opinions on how to deal with that person. You cool with having a bit of a Jerry Springer episode?" And usually the person would be like "Yeah sure, sounds fun." And then we'd go at it, and since it was understood to be an act, there was little to no friction after. Me and the person would usually message each other with lols about how crazy it got, and had fun, and that would be it.

But it was always tricky if there wasn't that buyin up front. Some people WOULD take it personally, and get butt hurt.

So if someone is going to play that kind of character, I think it's common courtesy, and helpful as well, to declare that. "Ok guys, I'm playing something of an A-hole, kind of like Jane. You guys cool with occasionally butting heads with him over some issues? And understand it's all the character." If the group is mature enough to play the game, they should be mature enough to deal with this.

That being said though, gamers tend to be socially awkward, and I've seen it at my table a lot. The player who tends to want to play an A-hole, is usually the person in the group who tends to be an A-hole IRL, even if only a little. Or at least someone who is really good at verbal jousting. The problem I've seen, is that this person, when roleplaying the A-hole bit...is opposite one of the socially awkward types, who already find socializing and quick conversation difficult, and it's now coupled with the person across the table yelling at them. Sure it's not real, but it's still another human yelling at them, and the human body does react to that kind of stimulus, fake or not. I've seen them get frustrated and flustered, because they now have the added social stress of needing to "act right" for the scene, and they're already awkward about that kind of thing anyway. Which just compounds the problem for them.

Sure not every group is like that, but I'm willing to bet that everyone reading this post has gamed with at least a couple people who fit one of those 2 archetypes I described, and know what I'm talking about. Reclusive, introverted players tend to play introverted PC's, and the more socially outgoing players tend to play the Face characters.

This is an amazing post and sage advice. I think you are totally right and the examples are great. I recently had a couple of players who were socially awkward who were trying to deal with a player who was quick and wanted to over-play the a-hole. The ability to see how much it should be used is important when you want to be the guy who introduces conflict. The more you do it, the less it contrasts, and the more the group simply regards you as more trouble than you're worth. Really great stuff, thank you for writing this up.