Quote from: Exploderwizard;865836Nope. Having multiple people with similar talents is beneficial to the group.

What happens if one of them is incapacitated or killed?

What happens when one of them has had bad experiences with an NPC who really needs to be negotiated with?

Remember- two is one and one is none. Always have a plan B.

Exactly. One of the reasons the group had me memorize Knock was in case the thief got nailed by a trap or whatever. (We lost about as many thieves in one campaign at lower levels as I lost magic users. ahem...)

The problem comes when you have one player who is geared for X and out of the blue another player starts muscling in on their focus that is not RPing. Sometimes for no good reason other than to steal the players limelight.

IE: A wizard who stocks up on duneoneering spells/skills and uses them incessantly when the group allready has a thief. This is different from the wizard who keeps some backup dungeoneering spells but does not use them unless the Thief or group ask him to.

Though sometimes this sort of overlap situation comes when you have players creating individual characters with no knowledge or discussion with the rest of the group. For some groups overlap is fine or even vital. For others it can turn into a limelight war or the DM having to figure out convolutions to enguage everyone. Or lay down the law if it looks like one player is just messing with the other.

When I was running Red Shetland, on one site there was a big political intrigue plotline and that attracted various players geared for diplomacy or because the outline interested them. The trick was to have the NPCs react naturally. what did the PCs say? Which one spoke better? Or even which one was more interesting or fit their plans better.

And sometimes barging in on someone elses limelight can be a very-bad-idea.

The orcs token of peace is poisoned. Congrats. You just saved the groups normal negotiator. Now make a poison save in a few hours or die on the spot.

You barged in front of the thief and popped the chest with Knock. Congrats. Have a cloud kill trap only you are in range of. (because you just had to get right up close to it in case there was something good in that chest.)

So overlap. Good. Bad. Not an issue. As usual, varies wildly from group to group.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;865941I'm not actually the one running the game; it's a friend of mine who's in the game and bothered by the whole niche protection thing so I was wondering what the general expectation for this was and how people approach it ...

Though I've noticed in general that playing passively in RPGs tends to not be as fun as playing actively, at least for me. When you're passive you're just hoping something falls into your lap, and you never know if it will.

I know I've said this to you before, and it warrants repeating: screw "general expectation."  How I play the game, or Gronan plays the game, or Asen plays the game, or the guys in the next town over do, shouldn't matter jack shit to you -- except in so far as any of us are doing something that strikes you as neat.  You and your circle need to please yourselves.  There's no earthly reason why you need to conform to anyone else's expectations.

On the second bit, yeah, you're right.  Passive players can be very much behind the 8-ball at the RPG table, especially since there pretty much always is at least one other player eager to grab all the face time anyone else doesn't seize first.

The only way to handle it is an imperfect solution: "Scott, I've heard from everyone else what they're doing.  What is San Marsilius doing with the rest of the morning?"  "No, hang on, Dave, I just dealt with you talking to the Chancellor and to the Grand Master.  It's Amanda's turn."  Imperfect because you can't make someone interact.  Some people really only to want to speak when they're spoken to and roll dice only when they're called upon to do so.

But this is the real issue at hand.  It's not so much that people are jealous of their "niches" or their "roles."  It's that they want their share of face time.  To the degree you let one or two players hog the stage, and the rest are sitting with thin lips staring at their electronics, they're being shortchanged.

Quote from: Ravenswing;865960The only way to handle it is an imperfect solution: "Scott, I've heard from everyone else what they're doing.  What is San Marsilius doing with the rest of the morning?"  "No, hang on, Dave, I just dealt with you talking to the Chancellor and to the Grand Master.  It's Amanda's turn."  Imperfect because you can't make someone interact.  

True. As the GM, I can make sure we take turns. I can't make someone an active turn taker.

Quote from: Ravenswing;865960I know I've said this to you before, and it warrants repeating: screw "general expectation."  How I play the game, or Gronan plays the game, or Asen plays the game, or the guys in the next town over do, shouldn't matter jack shit to you -- except in so far as any of us are doing something that strikes you as neat.  You and your circle need to please yourselves.  There's no earthly reason why you need to conform to anyone else's expectations.

My questions aren't to conform to peer pressure, it's to find out the "body of research" that already exists out there, just like when you want to publish a paper. It might present answers I'd never thought of, or evolve my thinking in some way.

Quote from: Ravenswing;865960
The only way to handle it is an imperfect solution: "Scott, I've heard from everyone else what they're doing. What is San Marsilius doing with the rest of the morning?" "No, hang on, Dave, I just dealt with you talking to the Chancellor and to the Grand Master. It's Amanda's turn." Imperfect because you can't make someone interact. Some people really only to want to speak when they're spoken to and roll dice only when they're called upon to do so.

This is actually exactly what I do at my table IRL because there's one player who just brazenly talks over everyone and even tries to speak for them half the time.

Guy: "OK, we all gather up our stuff and go he--"
Me: "You mean YOU go and do that. The others haven't said anything."
Guy: "Yeah but we're obviously all going to go."
Me: "It doesn't matter, they have to actually say it."
Guy: "I'm just saving us some time!"
Me: "You don't actually know what they'll do. They might want to do something else. OK, so you're doing that. What's everyone else doing?"

After doing that enough times it's become more manageable. Before that everybody would put up a resistance but eventually just give up since a) his ideas were actually tactically sound, so there wasn't a strategic reason to deny it, b) they didn't want to turn it into a long argument.

Quote from: Ravenswing;865960I know I've said this to you before, and it warrants repeating: screw "general expectation."  How I play the game, or Gronan plays the game, or Asen plays the game, or the guys in the next town over do, shouldn't matter jack shit to you -- except in so far as any of us are doing something that strikes you as neat.  You and your circle need to please yourselves.  There's no earthly reason why you need to conform to anyone else's expectations.

On the second bit, yeah, you're right.  Passive players can be very much behind the 8-ball at the RPG table, especially since there pretty much always is at least one other player eager to grab all the face time anyone else doesn't seize first.

The only way to handle it is an imperfect solution: "Scott, I've heard from everyone else what they're doing.  What is San Marsilius doing with the rest of the morning?"  "No, hang on, Dave, I just dealt with you talking to the Chancellor and to the Grand Master.  It's Amanda's turn."  Imperfect because you can't make someone interact.  Some people really only to want to speak when they're spoken to and roll dice only when they're called upon to do so.

But this is the real issue at hand.  It's not so much that people are jealous of their "niches" or their "roles."  It's that they want their share of face time.  To the degree you let one or two players hog the stage, and the rest are sitting with thin lips staring at their electronics, they're being shortchanged.

In some cases, some of these problems are solved by the now-largely-discarded concept of the 'caller', which in old-school games was one player who would co-ordinate what every player was doing and then communicate that to the GM (something that was vital in some of the old D&D dungeon-crawls where you might have 17 players!).  The DM just has to make sure the caller is being honest, and acting as the guy who makes sure everyone says their piece rather than the guy that just tells everyone what to do.

Ultimately, what I've found is that there's some players who always want to be doing everything. Some guys who literally can't just be standing there in a scene and not do anything; I've seen more than a few who will totally fuck up a situation they had no business being involved with in the first place just for the sake of doing something themselves when they could have just done nothing.

But there's also some players who don't want to do a whole bunch of things. Players who don't always want to be in the spotlight. And I've found that some of these react well to gentle encouragement to come out and participate, while others freak out when you do this, and may even quit a game because they feel like there's too much performance pressure.

In the long run, I've come to the conclusion that it's better to let the players police the first type of guy. If the other players don't actually want to stop the glory-hound from fucking up things for everyone else, they can watch their plans fall apart because of him. Of course, if they do want to do something about it, the GM should back their play.
As for the second type, I've come to the conclusion that the only thing a GM should do is always make it clear the player has the option to jump in, role play, or do things, but if they don't really want to be one of the high-activity players, just let them not be.  As long as they keep telling you they're happy with playing and how the game is going, the GM should probably BELIEVE them on that.

Quote from: RPGPundit;866347In the long run, I've come to the conclusion that it's better to let the players police the first type of guy. If the other players don't actually want to stop the glory-hound from fucking up things for everyone else, they can watch their plans fall apart because of him.

Sometimes the players dont know to speak up. Or in the wallflower cases. Dont have the nerve to. They may think it is the DMs authority only to speak out about what is good and bad play. Especially if they are new to RPGs and just learning the ropes.

Quote from: RPGPundit;866347In some cases, some of these problems are solved by the now-largely-discarded concept of the 'caller', which in old-school games was one player who would co-ordinate what every player was doing and then communicate that to the GM (something that was vital in some of the old D&D dungeon-crawls where you might have 17 players!).  The DM just has to make sure the caller is being honest, and acting as the guy who makes sure everyone says their piece rather than the guy that just tells everyone what to do.

Ultimately, what I've found is that there's some players who always want to be doing everything. Some guys who literally can't just be standing there in a scene and not do anything; I've seen more than a few who will totally fuck up a situation they had no business being involved with in the first place just for the sake of doing something themselves when they could have just done nothing.

But there's also some players who don't want to do a whole bunch of things. Players who don't always want to be in the spotlight. And I've found that some of these react well to gentle encouragement to come out and participate, while others freak out when you do this, and may even quit a game because they feel like there's too much performance pressure.

In the long run, I've come to the conclusion that it's better to let the players police the first type of guy. If the other players don't actually want to stop the glory-hound from fucking up things for everyone else, they can watch their plans fall apart because of him. Of course, if they do want to do something about it, the GM should back their play.
As for the second type, I've come to the conclusion that the only thing a GM should do is always make it clear the player has the option to jump in, role play, or do things, but if they don't really want to be one of the high-activity players, just let them not be.  As long as they keep telling you they're happy with playing and how the game is going, the GM should probably BELIEVE them on that.

I thought of the caller concept, but isn't that just what the GM should be doing anyway? It just adds an extra buffer between the problem but doesn't change anything.

Plus what I'd expect is that guy who never shuts up is just going to do the same thing when everyone is trying to coordinate with the caller. Or do you mean the caller actively goes around the table and polls each player, then picks the majority option or something?

It really becomes a problem when you combine the first type of overbearing player with the second type who doesn't enjoy having to constantly police him. Then the game becomes a chore.

This is something I have seen people argue a lot about on the internet but not something that has ever actually been a problem for me at the tabletop.  I have never seen characters that were so narrowly specialized and overlapped so much that anything like this actually happened.  What ability would come up during play enough and be important enough for this to actually be an issue that would also be dispensable enough that the group could afford to have only one person who can do it?  This seems more like theoretical nonsense for people to argue about on the internet than a real issue.

Quote from: yosemitemike;866365This is something I have seen people argue a lot about on the internet but not something that has ever actually been a problem for me at the tabletop.  I have never seen characters that were so narrowly specialized and overlapped so much that anything like this actually happened.  What ability would come up during play enough and be important enough for this to actually be an issue that would also be dispensable enough that the group could afford to have only one person who can do it?  This seems more like theoretical nonsense for people to argue about on the internet than a real issue.

People getting butthurt because they feel that their little snowflake isn't special enough is sadly a real issue.

Granted, I didn't remember it being much of an issue back in the old days. I think the problem has become more common because there are more players these days who play as a form of ego stroking wish fulfillment instead of enjoying a simple game.

If you allow what happens in a silly elf game to impact your sense of self worth the amount of butthurt generated by the game rises exponentially.

I'm new here, but I'm pretty sure I've been making this same argument for about 15 years now. It certainly goes as far back as Joe the Fighter vs Fred the Fighter.

I like to use an especially warped example of Joe vs Fred to really drive the point home that every character is useful. I imagine Joe and Fred not just having the same character class, but they rolled all the same attributes, too. But worse still, this is old-school, so they rolled for hit points and Joe got 10 where Fred only got 1. So Fred is exactly like Joe, only useless, right?

Well, no. See, for the party mage to get off his spells, which have really potent offensive capability, he's got to be protected. That means having a strong front line. It's so important to have that strong front line, that Joe, with his 10 hit points, is too important to use for anything else. He's got to be there. This allows Fred the fighter hang back and take up the role of archer. Joe can't be the archer. His role as a tank is too important.

Call it opportunity cost. It's also why I've always thought the "battle mage" is such a goofy character idea. Great. You can swing a battle axe AND cast magic missile. Only you can't do both at once. So I guess some rounds you're just a plain old fighter, others your a plain old mage, but on all rounds you're less powerful than your straight fighter or mage counterparts. Way to go!

Right. Opportunity cost. This brings me to point #2. There seems to be a lot of confusion (not necessarily in this thread, just in general) about archetypes vs niches, and that can shape players' expectations. Archetypes are like classes in D&D, they're convenient things that you can choose during character generation. Niches, however, cannot be chosen. They emerge from actual play. From the party's and campaign world's "chemistry."

Some gamers (over on that other RPG forum website) have taken to fussing over "niche protection." Only problem is there ain't no such thing. Yeah, it's great to have an opinion, and liking a protected niche sure is an opinion, but because niches emerge from actual play, nobody can predict your niche 100% of the time, let alone design rules to protect it. Good luck finding Bigfoot.

That in mind, I think the irony is that people often think that class-based systems, with their strong archetypes, are ideal for niche protection. Nope. In my example of Joe vs Fred, once Fred's role as the party archer emerges, wouldn't it be neat if he could then focus and specialize as being an archer as he levels? Then he'd definitely be differentiated from Joe the fighter for sure!

In some versions of D&D, that is totally do-able to one degree or another. Skill-based games, far more so. But the key take-away here is, the more rigid the class definition, the less you can do to specialize in your niche once it emerges from play. So class-based games don't provide niche protection. They provide archetype protection, which in turn frustrates niche specialization.

So what do you do about two diplomacy guys? I always thought it was wise when seeking fame and fortune to play to my strengths. A party with two diplomacy guys, diplomacy has gotta be high on their list of strengths. So what sort of all-important diplomacy adventures has this party been on? Do you find they come down to persuading some all-important NPC? If so, the higher skill diplomacy guy needs to be on that. He's too valuable to do anything else. Maybe that means he's always gotta play good cop. Guess what? That means the other diplomacy guy is needed to play bad cop. Let the player choose skills going forward that reflect specialization in that niche.

I think the idea of a "battle mage" is legitimate if done right. Think of the Jedi from Star Wars or Richard Rahl from The Sword of Truth series. It can come down to: "Is there an enemy next to me? If yes, then swing ax. If no then cast spell at an enemy." I like the idea of a guy who can cut down an orc one round then throw a web or sleep spell at an orc 30 yards away the next. You can even go more subtle. I often like to play characters who appear meek but are packing power. Imagine a scrawny mage who casts one spell and now has double strength. He casts a second spell and a small stick is now a battleaxe. I'm currently playing an Amber game and my character doesn't look like much nor talk tough. You'd never guess that he can alter the whole planet if he wanted to.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;866386People getting butthurt because they feel that their little snowflake isn't special enough is sadly a real issue.

I have seen the occasional Arnold Horshack player. (If you are too young to remember Welcome Back Kotter. Horshak is the guy who raises his hand and keeps saying Me. Me! ME! until he gets to do something. Anything.) So Horshak races up to first aid your character but he isn't a medic, which means his PC is shit for first aid, so he puts a tourniquet around your favorite character's neck to slow the bleeding from his head wound.

Quote from: Doughdee222;866441I think the idea of a "battle mage" is legitimate if done right. Think of the Jedi from Star Wars or Richard Rahl from The Sword of Truth series. It can come down to: "Is there an enemy next to me? If yes, then swing ax. If no then cast spell at an enemy." I like the idea of a guy who can cut down an orc one round then throw a web or sleep spell at an orc 30 yards away the next. You can even go more subtle. I often like to play characters who appear meek but are packing power. Imagine a scrawny mage who casts one spell and now has double strength. He casts a second spell and a small stick is now a battleaxe. I'm currently playing an Amber game and my character doesn't look like much nor talk tough. You'd never guess that he can alter the whole planet if he wanted to.

I actually agree. I was just being a jerk to make a point. I would play a fighter/mage. I just wouldn't want to load up on combat spells if my guy already knows how to deal damage. I'd be down with a magic missile, because it always hits and is magic for those creatures not harmed by normal weapons. I'd want to pick my spells, not to deal maximum damage, but to complement fighting skills. They'd probably be heavily skewed towards "miscellaneous" spells, hence I don't think MY fighter/mage would necessarily fit the mold of "battle mage," but certainly buffs are a great idea. Using magic to leverage fighting skills. Not exactly a "front-line" type, though, since you don't want to be that exposed to the enemy while getting your buffs up.

What the hell happened to the days when having several fighters in a group was a good thing? Or having an all thief party? People have been playing this just fine since the get-go.

Apparently at some point players started getting territorial of "their class" shtick and things like teamwork and backups or, god forbid, thinking, went out the window.

Quote from: Omega;866474What the hell happened to the days when having several fighters in a group was a good thing? Or having an all thief party? People have been playing this just fine since the get-go.

Apparently at some point players started getting territorial of "their class" shtick and things like teamwork and backups or, god forbid, thinking, went out the window.

I believe it was the evolution of game balance.

It's like people used to think game balance was like balancing on a pin point. You had to design the game juuuust right to get it. And then if so much as one person house ruled one thing, or even just used one monster too often, it would topple the whole thing.

Obviously this was absurd. So it almost seems like "game balance" forked in two directions from there. One was "combat balance." Which I guess is the idea that being good in combat equates to being good at survival (odd, I'd think your chances at survival would be better if you avoided combat), and survival is what allows you to do all those superfluous, non-combat abilities to your heart's content.

The other prong was the shtick school of thought. Where you may be so awesome in combat that you can split the Earth in two on a critical hit, but my character has above average skill in antique cars, so.. you better hope you're not my opponent if that's the category in Final Jeopardy. Because that's my time to shine.

Of course, there's a problem with the shtick school. I mean, really, how many times can antique cars possibly be the category on Final Jeopardy? It would seem Earth splitter would be more useful more often. This led to the spotlight time school of thought.

Kind of strange when you think about it. When I'm really great at something, I tend to be able to do it quickly and easily. If I'm terrible at something, it can take a long, long time. If the central conflict in the story is finishing a jigged saw puzzle, and my guy sucks at it, it would seem like the spotlight would spend more time on me, not less.


The things people come up with in the name of some kind of game balance. Personally, I like battle royal style game balance. Everyone teams up on whoever seems too likely to win. That'll cut his odds down.