I am DMing for the first time and one of my players who is a long time DnD player both as a DM and player has chosen to play an Aarakocra Monk who has little concept of common customs, little to no knowledge of Common language, and has spent his time solitary in the mountains. On the outset that seemed fine but I don't think i grasped to what extent this would be difficult to manage.
For example, when they went to stay in an inn, all characters took the keys they were given by the innkeep, went upstairs and went to their rooms. This character (who so far hasn't said a word) stood there, not understanding the concept of a room and started wandering aimlessly until I got the innkeep to literally guide him to his room. Another example is when tasked to ride a wagon to their destination, he didn't understand the concept of a oxen drawn carriage and stood there until a player guided him to sit on the back of the carriage.
Essentially I feel like I have to anticipate everything that might not be understood by this character and and spell it out to the letter. A bit like a programmer writing code.
As a DM how would you deal with a character like this? I'm struggling to decide whether to talk to the player and ask him to tone it down (or up in this case!), anticipate every little aspect of his quirk or DM normally not catering to him and see how it goes.
Why is he a member of the party anyway ? He certainly was not recruited for being useful at anything...
This was my first thought. I'm a big fan of giving the benefit of the doubt for a unique character, butttt it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Basically someone who can't talk and has trouble understanding Common language in my opinion means that it's up to the rest of the party to try to bridge the communication gap, which doesn't seem fair. The lack of knowledge in Common customs seems fine to me, it creates opportunities for funny misunderstandings--don't pull punches just make the outcomes the worst possible even if that jeopardizes the rest of the party's good standing. In a sense this is no different than a "edgy rogue loner" character that's doing her own thing without regard to consequences to others. But that basically reduces this character to a comic relief who for reasons unknown is just going along with a group of random strangers and occasionally engaging in combat with them?
Again, I'm a fan of giving the benefit of the doubt----but the player needs to give you some sort of explanation as to how to make the communication barrier work (or it's all entirely metagaming in terms of knowing what's going on) AND have an idea for character development and growth that actually benefits the party.
So I'm going to second the advice of talk to the player letting them know how it is going for you. I might suggest seeing of the Monk player is comfortable having another PC become a tutor/guide/friend who makes sure they arn't left behind(such as with the ox cart). That could lead to great rp if another player is on board to do that, especially if that other player is more of a trickster personality(sure he makes sure you get the room key, but he also will teach you the oddest/most archaic way to say thank you).
Let's be blunt about it. He's being selfish. He's the guy sitting down at a co-operative board game and not cooperating. Tell him his character isn't working for your game and change it. Tell him why (as you stated here). If he changes it, you might be good. If he doesn't kick him out of the game. It's a simple fix really (not easy).
Talk to the guy and tell him that his character is not suitable as is, as you are a first time DM and expect the players and characters to cooperate a bit.
I've had countless problems with players like this, tbh, who think that their roleplaying idea is fantastic and more important than the overall fun at the table and place the onus of finding solutions on the other players and the DM (while some of them secretly laugh behind their back at what they are imposing, and finding everyone else an idiot for seeing the obvious solution (s); I'm not saying that this is the case of that player, but he shows some signs).
Moreover, this is a boring character to play, so unless the player plans on having him evolve at some point, he will get bored to, so IMHO he might as well hutty up things and make him interesting and stop having the rest of the players and DM jump through hoops to satisfy him.
Why is he a member of the party anyway ? He certainly was not recruited for being useful at anything...
I like your avatar, by the way. :)
Thanks for the reply!
The adventure hook was that they're all freelance adventurers who answered a notice in a guild and the adventure started with nearly all of them already gathered. Boring I know but wanted to stay safe for a first session.
I don't think it's anything malicious, just a dedication to RPing his character properly.
The player does like character and world building so I imagine he has an evolution in mind but would have to see how it evolves in the coming session(s).
So I'm going to second the advice of talk to the player letting them know how it is going for you. I might suggest seeing of the Monk player is comfortable having another PC become a tutor/guide/friend who makes sure they arn't left behind(such as with the ox cart). That could lead to great rp if another player is on board to do that, especially if that other player is more of a trickster personality(sure he makes sure you get the room key, but he also will teach you the oddest/most archaic way to say thank you).
Luckily, one of the other players is a Firbolg who is looking to learn about the world and nature in particular so he has fallen into this role to an extent, helping the Aarakocra as a way to learn more about his species and his behaviours.
Even so i don't want to leave it to him to essentially babysit the player as i imagine he might have his own story he wants to develop.
I'm not really seeing the problem here, except that I think you and he should sit down and discuss the evolution of the character. It's OK for players to keep secrets from each other (usually). It is NOT okay for the player to keep secrets from the DM. You can't possibly be expected to run a game in which you don't know what your players are up to. So you need to sit down with this player and talk about the evolution of the character.
However, having him not know how to use an inn room -- I'm not seeing why that is an issue. It's a roleplay opportunity. Having him not know how to use a cart -- well logically, why would he? Aarakocra fly around all the time. Carts would potentially be alien to him.
But I think also you need to consider where Aaarkocra fit into your world and how they actually function. I say this because I have already done this with my world... it is set in the Roman Empire, and I decided that the island we call Sicily (they have another name) is where the Aarakocra live. One of my players decided to play one, a cleric of Apollo, and his character is only 3 or 4 years old (because they age quickly, these Aarakocra). As we talked about what this would mean, he came up with an awesome idea -- that Aarakocra learn by imprinting (they are birds) so that they can be adults at 3 -- they imprinted rather than having to learn the way we would in school. This allows him to be a grown-up intellectually, but he is still rather inexperienced in the world, so he does some very "newbie" kinds of things.
Again, I think this could be a very good way to set up some interesting RP... but you and the player need to agree how this will work.
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The adventure hook was that they're all freelance adventurers who answered a notice in a guild and the adventure started with nearly all of them already gathered. Boring I know but wanted to stay safe for a first session.
That is absolutely fine by me, but how did the Aarakocra, who has no concept of a notice (and probably not a guild either) and who cannot understand the language it was written in not only present himself for recruitment, and in the end be recruited ? :D
In fairness that's on me for assuming his character would be able to navigate a guild and pick up a quest before he sat at the table... hahaha I really thought he would be a whimsical, gullible and naive PC rather than... this.
I'm not really seeing the problem here, except that I think you and he should sit down and discuss the evolution of the character. It's OK for players to keep secrets from each other (usually). It is NOT okay for the player to keep secrets from the DM. You can't possibly be expected to run a game in which you don't know what your players are up to. So you need to sit down with this player and talk about the evolution of the character.
However, having him not know how to use an inn room -- I'm not seeing why that is an issue. It's a roleplay opportunity. Having him not know how to use a cart -- well logically, why would he? Aarakocra fly around all the time. Carts would potentially be alien to him.
But I think also you need to consider where Aaarkocra fit into your world and how they actually function. I say this because I have already done this with my world... it is set in the Roman Empire, and I decided that the island we call Sicily (they have another name) is where the Aarakocra live. One of my players decided to play one, a cleric of Apollo, and his character is only 3 or 4 years old (because they age quickly, these Aarakocra). As we talked about what this would mean, he came up with an awesome idea -- that Aarakocra learn by imprinting (they are birds) so that they can be adults at 3 -- they imprinted rather than having to learn the way we would in school. This allows him to be a grown-up intellectually, but he is still rather inexperienced in the world, so he does some very "newbie" kinds of things.
Again, I think this could be a very good way to set up some interesting RP... but you and the player need to agree how this will work.
Yes for sure, that's why I'm asking here, so i don't have to put restrictions and let him RP how he wants. Everything you've said and the way he interacts with the world is fine in his lore, however it is slowing the game down and it's not fair on those who have more "standard" characters who have to account for his actions, a bit like the loner rogue character mentioned above.
Player Characters with severe social disfunction are difficult to use for long periods of time. A Player Character like that usually cumulatively impacts the enjoyment of the game - going from a running gag to an old, tired joke.
Such a PC needs to evolve quickly or it would be proper in RP for the party to consider the eventual dead weight to be something that cannot be appropriately managed by the group within the tasks set before them. The party offloading the PC to a scenario more suited to the PC's needs is a logical action. Sending the PC to a remedial school for social and language training is a good choice.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Slowing the game down -- but really, what is the rush? It doesn't seem like he is slowing down combat... He is just, in a sense, "forcing" them to RP in response to his character's actions. I still do not see what's wrong with this.
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Yeah I'm more on the side of Bio in this case. I love the idea of a not used to customs of the world PC, however, from a story stand point there is little to no way it can be a complete blank slate from Session 1. I mean he had to figure out somethings in order to get to the quest point right?
I also think this is simply a discussion that needs to be had. Just a thought to add, if the player is not doing anything to help with this RP and is relying on you on the others to guide him that is a lot. I don't know if the player said anything or did stuff in those two descriptions but he should definitely be describing his characters confusion better to help with the RP. PCs can be silent and mute, but the player should still be saying things like "My character picks up the key and slowly turns it in his hand looking confused at the piece of metal he was given." PCs don't have to talk, but they should be conveying the characters emptions since it's hard for others to just "know" things
I've dealt with a number of good and well-intentioned players who intentionally create hard-to-work-with characters because they think it'll be funny. The most recent was a grown man in the body of a baby. Aside from his intelligence, though, nothing proved he wasn't just a baby, so the players and I had to jump through hoops to justify his presence. The guy's a great friend and an awesome player, but that particular character needed to be addressed. My best advice is to talk to the player. He probably doesn't realize he's being frustrating or disruptive, that this annoying silliness wasn't what everyone else was envisioning when they decided to play, or that it's selfish as a result. I'd just ask him to tone it down a bit. A barbaric or hermit character who speaks broken Common and laughs at stupid, complicated customs like paying for a room is one thing, a character who might as well be an animal is another.
Man so many people here talk about this one player being selfish but refuse to want to work with this character to make this a game fun for ALL. Yes is this character possibly making the game less fun for others; sure. But to tell this person their idea of fun is wrong and needs to be removed seems not like the right move. You are sayig that he can't have fun because the others need to have fun. Where is the compromise? Two sides of an issue need not have one give in, they need to reach a compromise so everyone can have an enjoyable experience. Seeing as this is a new DM, and something that happened maybe for only 1 or 2 sessions so far why is this advise "throw this character out and force him to make a new one" when 1) no OOC conversation has occurred yet and 2) compromise has not been tried first.
If the other PCs are having an issue (I don't remember reading that but I might have glossed over it) than not only do you need to have a 1 on 1 but maybe a Session 0.5? SO they can all talk about their characters and how they might mesh together. While that can be a bad idea too, if you are all friends this should be a simple and easy 30 min conversation about what is fun for everyone, and where they are not having fun. So as a table you can ALL have a chance to have fun.
End of the story the biggest and best advice you can always do is talk to your players. This is for anything. Rather than asking us DMs online simply talk to the players about your issues and frustrations. We can also give advise on the cut and dry solutions, which are usually extreme in how they handle things.
Slowing the game down -- but really, what is the rush? It doesn't seem like he is slowing down combat... He is just, in a sense, "forcing" them to RP in response to his character's actions. I still do not see what's wrong with this.
there is no rush, it's slowing down the pace of the game in ways that are useless. If the simple act of taking a key and going to your room requires other characters to teach you how to do so, it can be fun and quirky at first but having to do that all the time can be a drag. Additionally it makes a lot of interactions center around one, difficult PC which isn't fair to the others.
Sounds like this is just something to discuss with the player should things not evolve!
It sounds to me like this is a deeper issue than the Aarakocra not being familiar with culture. Rather, I get the sense that this one player (who is coincidentally RPing a confused Aarakocra) wants to RP about what we might call the "minutiae", and you want to hand-wave past those, just say "You guys take your keys, go to your rooms, take a long rest, it's morning."
If that's the case (and I could be wrong -- I am not sitting at your table), then the unfamiliarity with culture is a symptom of a very different problem. Even if this person played a normal human Paladin, it might well be that he would want to have direct, minute interactions between his character and every NPC, and if you and the rest of the table don't want that, but instead want to be able to say "We just get into our carts and go to the dungeon" without RPing details along the way, then whatever this player decides to RP will be seen as "bogging down" the party.
I say this because your comments remind me of my old City of Heroes days. That is an MMORPG. You would get onto a team of friends, up to 8 people, and go into a mission and fight villains. Along the way, although the villains, run by the computer, said nothing and just fought you, there would be clues you would get, with paragraphs of text to read, and often the villains spoke to you in those clues. Technically you did not need to read the clues to complete the mission... if the mission said "defuse 5 bombs and defeat the boss," you could just click on the bombs and beat the boss -- you didn't need to read the 3 paragraphs of text in which the villain explained why he was bombing the city council. And most of my friends -- in a roleplay guild, mind -- wanted to just "click objects and beat up villains." I would stop and read the clue and then try to RP with them, and I would find they had already moved onto the next room and started the next fight without me. When I complained about this, they said I was "slowing them down."
Now, they weren't playing the game wrong, nor was I. They were just interested in getting something different out of those missions than I did. For them, our "RP" for the guild happened during weekly Supergroup meetings, but missions were about "playing the game" and I was not to "bog the game down" by taking the time to read the clues or RP about missions. My solution was to say "Let's do YOUR missions," when we grouped up, and then later, by myself, I soloed my own missions so I could actually take the time to read the text and appreciate the story.
My point here is that, if the Aarakocra player is just trying to "stop and smell the RP roses," he is likely going to do that regardless of what character he's playing, and if this annoys the other people at the table, then it could indicate an incompatibility -- just like there was an incompatibility between me, and the rest of the guild, during COH missions.
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At a table of multiple people no one player should deliberately require or consume more time and/or attention from the dm, other players, or the game.
In certain instances, obviously, someone takes center stage. As a consistent thing, it should NEVER happen. I don't care how cool or interesting your story might be.
If the other players would RP with him instead of just trying to move on, that player would not be getting any more attention than anyone else. The fir bolg who takes him in hand and shows him how to use a cart or mount a horse, is also RPing, isn't he?
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
If the other players would RP with him instead of just trying to move on, that player would not be getting any more attention than anyone else. The fir bolg who takes him in hand and shows him how to use a cart or mount a horse, is also RPing, isn't he?
Yep, the more people comment the more I think Bio is right. This is a conflict of playstyle really going on.
I can see and somewhat agree that at a table no one person should get more spotlight than others. But if one person is trying to RP and get the group involved and they are not biting. That is NOT said payer getting more spotlight than the others. That is a player trying to get a Roleplaying game to roleplay but the others seem to be not into that which is fine. I play several games a week and they all have different levels of RP, but I being a heavy RP type player adjusted my character to fit those more "Beer and Pretzels" style games. Although I have gotten said "only in it for the combat" to also RP a little by being the RPer. So really I'm just going to broken record this and say the group should sit down and talk about what they want out of the game - so everyone (including the DM) can enjoy the game and get something out of it.
At the end of the day, it comes down to how much work 'work with' entails. Some players going with such concepts are reasonable about it and indeed make an effort from their side to find solutions or otherwise grow beyond the limitations.
However when they do not and expect the party to simply put up with them or be the ones to adapt, well.... that pretty much never works.
Seeing as we don't know the players nor how long this has gone on for in their game - I see the need for your opinion, but it is not helpful in helping to fix this problem in it's current state. Yes some players can be hard to work with. But I don't see why in this scenario the mute player is the only "Hard to work with" player when no one is jumping in. Frankly they are being just as hard to work with.
I definitely thing this is a playstyle conflict. Because I could easily see my group having fun with this player, and I would probably enjoy the RP as a DM... but this group and DM find the player trying or frustrating by doing the same sort of RP that I would find interesting.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
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Hi everyone,
I am DMing for the first time and one of my players who is a long time DnD player both as a DM and player has chosen to play an Aarakocra Monk who has little concept of common customs, little to no knowledge of Common language, and has spent his time solitary in the mountains. On the outset that seemed fine but I don't think i grasped to what extent this would be difficult to manage.
For example, when they went to stay in an inn, all characters took the keys they were given by the innkeep, went upstairs and went to their rooms. This character (who so far hasn't said a word) stood there, not understanding the concept of a room and started wandering aimlessly until I got the innkeep to literally guide him to his room. Another example is when tasked to ride a wagon to their destination, he didn't understand the concept of a oxen drawn carriage and stood there until a player guided him to sit on the back of the carriage.
Essentially I feel like I have to anticipate everything that might not be understood by this character and and spell it out to the letter. A bit like a programmer writing code.
As a DM how would you deal with a character like this? I'm struggling to decide whether to talk to the player and ask him to tone it down (or up in this case!), anticipate every little aspect of his quirk or DM normally not catering to him and see how it goes.
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
This was my first thought. I'm a big fan of giving the benefit of the doubt for a unique character, butttt it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Basically someone who can't talk and has trouble understanding Common language in my opinion means that it's up to the rest of the party to try to bridge the communication gap, which doesn't seem fair. The lack of knowledge in Common customs seems fine to me, it creates opportunities for funny misunderstandings--don't pull punches just make the outcomes the worst possible even if that jeopardizes the rest of the party's good standing. In a sense this is no different than a "edgy rogue loner" character that's doing her own thing without regard to consequences to others. But that basically reduces this character to a comic relief who for reasons unknown is just going along with a group of random strangers and occasionally engaging in combat with them?
Again, I'm a fan of giving the benefit of the doubt----but the player needs to give you some sort of explanation as to how to make the communication barrier work (or it's all entirely metagaming in terms of knowing what's going on) AND have an idea for character development and growth that actually benefits the party.
Boldly go
So I'm going to second the advice of talk to the player letting them know how it is going for you. I might suggest seeing of the Monk player is comfortable having another PC become a tutor/guide/friend who makes sure they arn't left behind(such as with the ox cart). That could lead to great rp if another player is on board to do that, especially if that other player is more of a trickster personality(sure he makes sure you get the room key, but he also will teach you the oddest/most archaic way to say thank you).
Thanks for clarifying(thought that was covered with the "if another player is on board" but always better to have it directly stated online)
Let's be blunt about it. He's being selfish. He's the guy sitting down at a co-operative board game and not cooperating. Tell him his character isn't working for your game and change it. Tell him why (as you stated here). If he changes it, you might be good. If he doesn't kick him out of the game. It's a simple fix really (not easy).
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
Thanks for the reply!
The adventure hook was that they're all freelance adventurers who answered a notice in a guild and the adventure started with nearly all of them already gathered. Boring I know but wanted to stay safe for a first session.
I don't think it's anything malicious, just a dedication to RPing his character properly.
The player does like character and world building so I imagine he has an evolution in mind but would have to see how it evolves in the coming session(s).
Luckily, one of the other players is a Firbolg who is looking to learn about the world and nature in particular so he has fallen into this role to an extent, helping the Aarakocra as a way to learn more about his species and his behaviours.
Even so i don't want to leave it to him to essentially babysit the player as i imagine he might have his own story he wants to develop.
I'm not really seeing the problem here, except that I think you and he should sit down and discuss the evolution of the character. It's OK for players to keep secrets from each other (usually). It is NOT okay for the player to keep secrets from the DM. You can't possibly be expected to run a game in which you don't know what your players are up to. So you need to sit down with this player and talk about the evolution of the character.
However, having him not know how to use an inn room -- I'm not seeing why that is an issue. It's a roleplay opportunity. Having him not know how to use a cart -- well logically, why would he? Aarakocra fly around all the time. Carts would potentially be alien to him.
But I think also you need to consider where Aaarkocra fit into your world and how they actually function. I say this because I have already done this with my world... it is set in the Roman Empire, and I decided that the island we call Sicily (they have another name) is where the Aarakocra live. One of my players decided to play one, a cleric of Apollo, and his character is only 3 or 4 years old (because they age quickly, these Aarakocra). As we talked about what this would mean, he came up with an awesome idea -- that Aarakocra learn by imprinting (they are birds) so that they can be adults at 3 -- they imprinted rather than having to learn the way we would in school. This allows him to be a grown-up intellectually, but he is still rather inexperienced in the world, so he does some very "newbie" kinds of things.
Again, I think this could be a very good way to set up some interesting RP... but you and the player need to agree how this will work.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Also on a wild tangent, The Arakroca seems like they would be a hilarious NPC. I wonder if they got stuck in DM mind when designing the char.
In fairness that's on me for assuming his character would be able to navigate a guild and pick up a quest before he sat at the table... hahaha I really thought he would be a whimsical, gullible and naive PC rather than... this.
Yes for sure, that's why I'm asking here, so i don't have to put restrictions and let him RP how he wants. Everything you've said and the way he interacts with the world is fine in his lore, however it is slowing the game down and it's not fair on those who have more "standard" characters who have to account for his actions, a bit like the loner rogue character mentioned above.
Player Characters with severe social disfunction are difficult to use for long periods of time. A Player Character like that usually cumulatively impacts the enjoyment of the game - going from a running gag to an old, tired joke.
Such a PC needs to evolve quickly or it would be proper in RP for the party to consider the eventual dead weight to be something that cannot be appropriately managed by the group within the tasks set before them. The party offloading the PC to a scenario more suited to the PC's needs is a logical action. Sending the PC to a remedial school for social and language training is a good choice.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Slowing the game down -- but really, what is the rush? It doesn't seem like he is slowing down combat... He is just, in a sense, "forcing" them to RP in response to his character's actions. I still do not see what's wrong with this.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Yeah I'm more on the side of Bio in this case. I love the idea of a not used to customs of the world PC, however, from a story stand point there is little to no way it can be a complete blank slate from Session 1. I mean he had to figure out somethings in order to get to the quest point right?
I also think this is simply a discussion that needs to be had. Just a thought to add, if the player is not doing anything to help with this RP and is relying on you on the others to guide him that is a lot. I don't know if the player said anything or did stuff in those two descriptions but he should definitely be describing his characters confusion better to help with the RP. PCs can be silent and mute, but the player should still be saying things like "My character picks up the key and slowly turns it in his hand looking confused at the piece of metal he was given." PCs don't have to talk, but they should be conveying the characters emptions since it's hard for others to just "know" things
I've dealt with a number of good and well-intentioned players who intentionally create hard-to-work-with characters because they think it'll be funny. The most recent was a grown man in the body of a baby. Aside from his intelligence, though, nothing proved he wasn't just a baby, so the players and I had to jump through hoops to justify his presence. The guy's a great friend and an awesome player, but that particular character needed to be addressed. My best advice is to talk to the player. He probably doesn't realize he's being frustrating or disruptive, that this annoying silliness wasn't what everyone else was envisioning when they decided to play, or that it's selfish as a result. I'd just ask him to tone it down a bit. A barbaric or hermit character who speaks broken Common and laughs at stupid, complicated customs like paying for a room is one thing, a character who might as well be an animal is another.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Man so many people here talk about this one player being selfish but refuse to want to work with this character to make this a game fun for ALL. Yes is this character possibly making the game less fun for others; sure. But to tell this person their idea of fun is wrong and needs to be removed seems not like the right move. You are sayig that he can't have fun because the others need to have fun. Where is the compromise? Two sides of an issue need not have one give in, they need to reach a compromise so everyone can have an enjoyable experience. Seeing as this is a new DM, and something that happened maybe for only 1 or 2 sessions so far why is this advise "throw this character out and force him to make a new one" when 1) no OOC conversation has occurred yet and 2) compromise has not been tried first.
If the other PCs are having an issue (I don't remember reading that but I might have glossed over it) than not only do you need to have a 1 on 1 but maybe a Session 0.5? SO they can all talk about their characters and how they might mesh together. While that can be a bad idea too, if you are all friends this should be a simple and easy 30 min conversation about what is fun for everyone, and where they are not having fun. So as a table you can ALL have a chance to have fun.
End of the story the biggest and best advice you can always do is talk to your players. This is for anything. Rather than asking us DMs online simply talk to the players about your issues and frustrations. We can also give advise on the cut and dry solutions, which are usually extreme in how they handle things.
there is no rush, it's slowing down the pace of the game in ways that are useless. If the simple act of taking a key and going to your room requires other characters to teach you how to do so, it can be fun and quirky at first but having to do that all the time can be a drag. Additionally it makes a lot of interactions center around one, difficult PC which isn't fair to the others.
Sounds like this is just something to discuss with the player should things not evolve!
It sounds to me like this is a deeper issue than the Aarakocra not being familiar with culture. Rather, I get the sense that this one player (who is coincidentally RPing a confused Aarakocra) wants to RP about what we might call the "minutiae", and you want to hand-wave past those, just say "You guys take your keys, go to your rooms, take a long rest, it's morning."
If that's the case (and I could be wrong -- I am not sitting at your table), then the unfamiliarity with culture is a symptom of a very different problem. Even if this person played a normal human Paladin, it might well be that he would want to have direct, minute interactions between his character and every NPC, and if you and the rest of the table don't want that, but instead want to be able to say "We just get into our carts and go to the dungeon" without RPing details along the way, then whatever this player decides to RP will be seen as "bogging down" the party.
I say this because your comments remind me of my old City of Heroes days. That is an MMORPG. You would get onto a team of friends, up to 8 people, and go into a mission and fight villains. Along the way, although the villains, run by the computer, said nothing and just fought you, there would be clues you would get, with paragraphs of text to read, and often the villains spoke to you in those clues. Technically you did not need to read the clues to complete the mission... if the mission said "defuse 5 bombs and defeat the boss," you could just click on the bombs and beat the boss -- you didn't need to read the 3 paragraphs of text in which the villain explained why he was bombing the city council. And most of my friends -- in a roleplay guild, mind -- wanted to just "click objects and beat up villains." I would stop and read the clue and then try to RP with them, and I would find they had already moved onto the next room and started the next fight without me. When I complained about this, they said I was "slowing them down."
Now, they weren't playing the game wrong, nor was I. They were just interested in getting something different out of those missions than I did. For them, our "RP" for the guild happened during weekly Supergroup meetings, but missions were about "playing the game" and I was not to "bog the game down" by taking the time to read the clues or RP about missions. My solution was to say "Let's do YOUR missions," when we grouped up, and then later, by myself, I soloed my own missions so I could actually take the time to read the text and appreciate the story.
My point here is that, if the Aarakocra player is just trying to "stop and smell the RP roses," he is likely going to do that regardless of what character he's playing, and if this annoys the other people at the table, then it could indicate an incompatibility -- just like there was an incompatibility between me, and the rest of the guild, during COH missions.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
At a table of multiple people no one player should deliberately require or consume more time and/or attention from the dm, other players, or the game.
In certain instances, obviously, someone takes center stage. As a consistent thing, it should NEVER happen. I don't care how cool or interesting your story might be.
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If the other players would RP with him instead of just trying to move on, that player would not be getting any more attention than anyone else. The fir bolg who takes him in hand and shows him how to use a cart or mount a horse, is also RPing, isn't he?
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Yep, the more people comment the more I think Bio is right. This is a conflict of playstyle really going on.
I can see and somewhat agree that at a table no one person should get more spotlight than others. But if one person is trying to RP and get the group involved and they are not biting. That is NOT said payer getting more spotlight than the others. That is a player trying to get a Roleplaying game to roleplay but the others seem to be not into that which is fine. I play several games a week and they all have different levels of RP, but I being a heavy RP type player adjusted my character to fit those more "Beer and Pretzels" style games. Although I have gotten said "only in it for the combat" to also RP a little by being the RPer. So really I'm just going to broken record this and say the group should sit down and talk about what they want out of the game - so everyone (including the DM) can enjoy the game and get something out of it.
Seeing as we don't know the players nor how long this has gone on for in their game - I see the need for your opinion, but it is not helpful in helping to fix this problem in it's current state. Yes some players can be hard to work with. But I don't see why in this scenario the mute player is the only "Hard to work with" player when no one is jumping in. Frankly they are being just as hard to work with.
I definitely thing this is a playstyle conflict. Because I could easily see my group having fun with this player, and I would probably enjoy the RP as a DM... but this group and DM find the player trying or frustrating by doing the same sort of RP that I would find interesting.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.