Cultural Idiosyncrasies - and Bullheaded Players

[Malruhn]

Has anyone set up a nice culture - and had a player roll up a character from that area - and totally ignore the culture?

As an example, how about a nice Norse-like culture (barbarians and going a viking), and the person wants to get decked out in plate armor and a katana...

Or a nice Japanese-like culture (ronin, samurai, etc), and the player wants to be named "Bob Smith" and have blond hair and use nothing but western equipment???

I am putting the final touches on my campaign world - with rich cultures and idiosyncrasies - with stuff like hair styles (colors), dress, arms and armor types, and even naming conventions (some have familial names, others have clan/regional names, etc)... and I had a sudden thought that it may be for naught.

Will I end up with lots of resistance from new players in my group (when I get a new one started?)? Would YOU have problems with stuff like this? If YOU had players that didn't want to "conform", how would you handle them?

Thanks!!

[Sascha]

Some tips to avoid confusion.
* Prepare a list of sample names, appropriate to the culture/setting.
* Tailor the equipment list to regions. If a culture doesn't have <item x>, take it off the table as starting options.
* Most importantly, make sure these limitations are communicated *before* character generation. (And preferably, also during character generation.)

Some tips to deal with confusion.
* Bring up the mismatched item (name/gear/whatever), in a neutral manner.
* If the player can't think of an appropriate change, suggest one that fits. If it helps, get the rest of the group involved in the process.
* If the player won't think of an appropriate change, politely part ways for the duration of the game.

Seriously, this is not a burden the GM shoulders alone. The player is as responsible for making the game enjoyable for all involved as the GM. When their character detracts from anyone's fun, it's time to reexamine the situation. The way I see it, the game is a social contract and by participating, you're agreeing to abide by its terms (setting conceits, in this case).

[Umiushi]

(I see that while I was writing this, Sascha has come up with a more concise post containing very good advice. This is advice I generally follow, and much of my post assumes that the GM has taken similar steps.)

Has anyone set up a nice culture - and had a player roll up a character from that area - and totally ignore the culture?

I have occasionally created a setting reflective of one or more specific cultures and had one or two would-be players blithely ignore my work. Since I take some trouble to explain the details and restrictions that I care about in advance of play, I assume this is due to my material not being read. That's sort of like raising the death flag for being in a game of mine.

I've also had players who understand the setting politely ask if they can do something different, in which case I have to evaluate whether I can go along with their request, we can find some common ground, or I have to refuse.

The corollary to this is that it's my responsibility to explain what, if any, cultural basis there is to the campaign, especially if it differs from the norm of the system I'm using. Players can't read my mind, after all. Also, players are not necessarily as familiar with the cultures I might wish to use. The flip side is that some players might be more familiar with the cultures, but that's a different matter.

Of course, I'm not perfect: I overlook things; I'm pressed for time; I take things for granted when I shouldn't. When something like this happens, then it's a test of the rapport you have with your players.

Or a nice Japanese-like culture (ronin, samurai, etc), and the player wants to be named "Bob Smith" and have blond hair and use nothing but western equipment???

This would be dependent on how much foreigners are tolerated in the setting. I run at least one setting where there are no "strangers from faraway lands" permitted, and it's important to state that at the outset. It's also fair, even if there are such persons, to limit them to NPCs, but again it's important to state that at the outset.

Even in the case where PCs are foreigners, some types of foreigners are simply not acceptable. In a relatively serious game, a poorly-chosen name can grate on other players as well as the GM.

Will I end up with lots of resistance from new players in my group (when I get a new one started?)?

It depends, doesn't it?

If I come to a group of players and say, "I'd like to run such-and-such," and they suddenly discover that their favorite reruns are airing during the scheduled game time, that's a good signal that I need to rethink what I'm doing. The best way to avoid situations like this, if you already have an established group, is to poll them about the kind of game they want, decide if that's the kind of game you want to run, and negotiate the details in advance. That's worked reasonably well for me over several years of offline play.

Now I understand that, if you don't have a group of players lined up, but you've spent a significant amount of personal time working on your campaign, the situation is different. In that case, it's just a matter of how well you promote your setting. That's where you find the balance between how much you want to run a game in general vs. how much you want to run your specific game.

If both of these are really important, rather than compromise, the best approach might be to save your labor of love for some future gaming group, and start afresh by asking what the players want to play.

Would YOU have problems with stuff like this?

I've had situations reminiscent of this, both on a group level and on an individual level, as described above.

If YOU had players that didn't want to "conform", how would you handle them?

In either case, once the setting is established, on those points where it is necessary to conform, the players either conform or they are not my players. Where it is not necessary to conform, then it's in the realm of the players' choice, and becomes a matter of how well I "sell" the setting to the players. The more time and care I take to describe the setting, and the further in advance that I spell it out, the better it goes. What's "necessary?" I would say it's the minimum of what has to happen to keep me personally invested in running the game I'm proposing. In other words, the flip side of a GM keeping players is the players keeping the GM. A GM who is browbeaten into running a game that isn't interesting to him or her is a GM who's probably going to walk one day and leave the players hanging.

A lot of this is dependent on how much I want to run games. I like running games, so I'm willing to give leeway to players, especially the ones who have the potential to be a great benefit to the game. However, there might be a point where the game I have to be running in order to keep any players at all is some steps past the point of being a game I want to be running. That's when it's time to explore a different hobby for a while, and come back when either my preferences have changed, or the pool of available players has changed.

[Spiralbound]

One approach I've used in my campaign setting which also has distinctive cultures, is to take a two pronged approach.

1) The idea of foreigners being in a given region isn't unheard of. Sure in some regions or smaller villages, you'll get stared at for being different, but nowhere is it going to be a case of the whole society grinding to a halt because no one knows what kind of person you are.

2) I talk to the player about what kind of character they want to have and then make suggestions of where that sort of person would be from. So, when I ask the player to tell me about his character and the first thing he mentions is that he wants laminate armor and a katana, then I would tell him that if he wants those things, then his character has to be from Japan, look like so, and have a name similar to this list, and so on... Any additional character concepts the player wants which don't fit the suggested culture, ("but I want him to be 6'8" and blonde") would then be negotiated and either the ill-fitting traits would be modified, or the character's back story expanded to fit. (He's the son of a northern ambassador who grew up in Japan, adopting their culture despite his Norse heritage.)

This approach allows the player to maintain control over the type of character they play, while allowing me the control over ensuring that the character fits into the campaign setting.

[Malruhn]

And this is the stuff I wanted.

THANK YOU!

Again, after much work, I am second-and third-and fourth-guessing myself... wondering if I'm just wasting my time with mental masturbation that will be lost on players.

I appreciate the input.

[Sascha]

Glad to help ^_^

Again, after much work, I am second-and third-and fourth-guessing myself... wondering if I'm just wasting my time with mental masturbation that will be lost on players.

If you enjoy worldbuilding, it's really not wasted effort But its appreciation is very much dependent on the specific players, rather than a generalizable rule.

[nijineko]

the act of creation is never a waste. there are appropriate times and places for acts of creation, however. the corollary is also true.

i happen to be in just such a situation right now. an old friend and dm has decided to return after a long gaming hiatus. i tend to be greyhawk setting, however he really likes forgotten realms. knowing his play style, i decide it wise to be a utility character which can make access to gear and such-like more likely. an artificer is a natural choice for that. and a warforged is a natural fit for an artificer. and then i saw the cataclysm mage and went ooooh...

now i get all hung up on a character concept and the idea of a warforged who is trying to unravel the mysteries of how life so often ends up in a cataclysmic self-destruction appealed. however, i don't want to mess up the flavor of the setting nor of the dm's specific campaign.

so a little research into the history of faerun, and i am able to identify a number of cataclysmic events which match up fairly nicely with the eberron specific cataclysms named in the prestige class. there was even a dragon and giant war it turns out. i didn't know about that tidbit of faerun history.

furthermore, it turns out that in faerun there was a techno-magic ancient human empire that were even called the "artificers" due to their strange magics and science. a quick phone call to the dm and some discussion and we now have a faerun reflavored artificer warforged who will be able to qualify for cataclysm mage in due time. he was happy to work with me, since i made efforts to research and find suitable match-ups for what i wanted while also keeping in mind what he wanted.

[tesral]

Purple shirts as one friend calls them. Yes i have encountered these on a fairly frequent basis. Sacha's advice works.

Purple Shirt? If you tell a bunch of people to come wearing anything but purple, these people will wear purple, and complain that you are stifling their creativity with your color restrictions.

[Malruhn]

"Purple shirts" - I like that... and it describes them perfectly. "I wanna play a Hasidic Jew, but I wanna be a female Rabbi, blond, wear my hair in a huge Afro, drink alcohol like a fish, and flaunt my large bust with risque clothing!"

[tesral]

"Purple shirts" - I like that... and it describes them perfectly. "I wanna play a Hasidic Jew, but I wanna be a female Rabbi, blond, wear my hair in a huge Afro, drink alcohol like a fish, and flaunt my large bust with risqué clothing!"

On the money.

[kirksmithicus]

LOL. I just don't understand the "purple shirt" thing. When I started running Dark Sun, we went over the list of campaign conventions. Chief among them was, NO DIVINE characters. I then had three players want to play either a paladin or cleric.

Now if any of them had bothered to do some work to explain how their character had gained access to such powers and a little back story, I probably would have said okay.

I also know players who won't play anything outside of what they already know. I don't have any other advice than ask them to give the game "as is" a chance.

or maybe you could put your foot in their .............yeah never mind that probably wouldn't help:P

[tesral]

or maybe you could put your foot in their .............yeah never mind that probably wouldn't help:P

It would never fit with their head in the way.

[Malruhn]

HAH! Very nice!

As a recently retired Master Chief, I'm used to close podi-rectal relationships, and I agree with Tesral about the lack of room with the rectal-cranial inversion reducing room.

Kirk, I had a similar situation about... well, a LONG time ago. No clerics was the rule for a new campaign arc (I was experimenting with no deities), and a player created this HUGE backstory with a family tragedy that seemed to indicate some sort of divine intervention. While ALL of the other characters played Atheists (since there were no deities, there was no belief system), this guy played a closeted Agnostic that thought there was a possibility that there was something out there. As the experiment played out and I realized that no deities wasn't working for me, the character began to discover little "abilities" that were clerical orisons (2nd edition minor divine spells - like cantrips - for those that don't know), before discovering a long lost, holy tome that helped this player become the first cleric in my newly revamped world.

THAT I have no problem with... it's the uneducated barbarian chieftain that has a full appreciation of classical literature and music and the arts and...

Why is it that we don't have problems with the RULES stuff - I've never had a druid character demand to wear metal... or a halfling demand to be tall. Why do we get people that want the benefits of playing a cultural niche-character that doesn't want to actually fit into that cultural niche? Is it just an attitude that since it isn't written as RAW, it can be ignored?

I'm sorry to work myself up into a lather here - it just bothers me. Perhaps it's just immature players that cause the problems. I remember doing much the same when I first started playing, and since I "grew up" since then, I think it could be that I just expect everyone else to have done the same. (insert pouty face here)

[Sascha]

Why is it that we don't have problems with the RULES stuff - I've never had a druid character demand to wear metal... or a halfling demand to be tall. Why do we get people that want the benefits of playing a cultural niche-character that doesn't want to actually fit into that cultural niche? Is it just an attitude that since it isn't written as RAW, it can be ignored?

No real simple answers ('cause, y'know, when is there :P). Some folks are just drawn to the outsider concept. Some folks have a character type they want to play, and in this case happen to be an outsider. Some folks are just not interested in the nuances of exploring the setting, rather than the adventure. None of these folks are objectively wrong, but they are ill fits for specific game contexts.

I'm sorry to work myself up into a lather here - it just bothers me. Perhaps it's just immature players that cause the problems. I remember doing much the same when I first started playing, and since I "grew up" since then, I think it could be that I just expect everyone else to have done the same. (insert pouty face here)

Expectations are the root of these issues, yep. And not everyone shares the same expectations, which is why clear and open communication is key to heading off potential problems and solving ones that emerge. It won't guarantee an issues-free experience, but it'll make dealing with them less taxing.

(Also social contract theory, but I'd have called you crazy six months ago if you told me I'd be using Locke and Kant in an RPG context :P)

[tesral]

Some people will kick against any perceived limit, even if it exists for a good reason. My late wife was bad for that. If you erected a limit she had to push it. I am very familiar with the type.

What I have come to learn is that limits are your fiends in a creative setting. The scariest thing on Earth is a bank piece of paper or canvas and no limit (or idea) of what to do with it. Boundries help set the creative process in motion. However it takes a certain level of maturity to understand this. As I'm fond of saying; "Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional." Some people never reach that point of maturity.

I'm trying a new class to me in Pathfinder. (Magus for this that need to know.) I'm being dumped in at 10th level so I'm juggling stuff I've not used before. I have a simple dicipline. Never try two unusual things at once. So while I like to play unusual races I put down Human male. I have enough on my plate with the class mechanics this time around.