In a recent Iron Heroes game we wrapped up the current story arc where we had discovered and had beaten a minor demon.  The demon, while evil, wasn't the evil mastermind but was in service to someone who was but we defeated the mastermind and in gratitude the demon offered us a wish of our choosing.

It was obvious that the ideal wish would have been for more information about the evil mastermind: his goals, who's higher up the ladder, etc.  But my character is from a Germanic-like country that is steeped in all sorts of fantastic evils and vile sorcery so I made it clear that I wanted nothing to do with this sort of thing.  There's another character from a similar country but is the party arcanist (using the True Sorcery rules for magic).  Part of her character's theme is finding all sorts of arcane knowledge and such.  I think the obvious thing for her to do was to deal with the demon herself however she decided to try and banish the demon before any wishes could be granted.  While I thought this was going against her character, I figured she had her own reasons for doing so and respected her decision.

But upon hearing this one of the other players, playing a thief, threw a heated argument along the lines of, "That's not what your character would do.  She's a seeker of arcane knowledge and should do everything she can to learn from this demon!"  This went back and forth for several minutes (an eternity in awkward tabletop time) that ended with the arcanist simply leaving the area (the character, not the player).  The twist here is the thief's player didn't want to have anything to do with the demon either, so my hunch is she wanted to make sure someone would do the obvious thing and pump the demon for more info.  Eventually the GM had an NPC ask the questions for us so all went well in that regard.

I usually welcome OOC suggestions and advice about what to do in any given situation, anything from combat advice to what to say to an NPC, but even if what I'm doing is suboptimal -- especially in a situation where all we were doing was some aftermath roleplay -- I would expect the arguer to respect the fact that this is my character and this is what I want him to do.  The thief's player had a valid point but I think her mistakes were getting too frustrated about it and not backing down after the point was made, considered and discarded.  

Anyone else have any dealings with these backseat character lawyers?

Quote from: MoriartyAnyone else have any dealings with these backseat character lawyers?

The few times I've had, I usually just ask the backseat character lawyer how the Hell do they know what somebody else's character is thinking?

I had one player in a game I was in several years back tell me how 'impressed' my (dwarf fighter/cleric) character was with her elf's pretty hair and eyes.  And also many other things that my character thought about hers.

At another time, she said "You all look on, impressed, as she vaults gracefully over (some obstacle or another)"

I told her to fuck off and stop narrating what my character thought or said.

This player was running an elf fighter/wizard/thief...  And somehow managed to have way more XP than the rest of us, too.  It was like having an uberpowered DM-PC in our game, only it was run by another player.

-O

Quote from: obrynI had one player in a game I was in several years back tell me how 'impressed' my (dwarf fighter/cleric) character was with her elf's pretty hair and eyes.  And also many other things that my character thought about hers.

In the parlance of online gaming, that's known as "godmoding". Some folks seem to have a little trouble understanding that the other characters aren't theirs to play with.

I don't mind limited comments about the silliness or unreasonability of someone's actions if they do something really stupid or annoying. "Why on earth are you doing that?" etc. Arguing about it at the table is a good way to kill a game though.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineI don't mind limited comments about the silliness or unreasonability of someone's actions if they do something really stupid or annoying. "Why on earth are you doing that?" etc.

Loth as I am to criticise others IC decisions it's sometimes unavoidable. One player in particular I used to GM for springs to mind, he might as well have renamed every character he played as 'Avatar of the Nonsense God.' No matter what class, alignment or backstory he was provided with his characters inevitably ended up acting like a cross between the Joker and a spastic Bond villain. Eventually I had to ask him to leave- there's only so many random stabbings, arson attempts and tourettes-style negotiations one can put up with per hour.

QuoteArguing about it at the table is a good way to kill a game though.

Agreed, although sometimes the behaviour is so extreme that the only option is to call for a timeout and try to resolve the issue.

I think that often these complaints spring from the feeling one player has that another player is acting out of character because of things the PLAYER and not his PC, knows.  Metagaming, in other words.

When these things happen, as the GM you have to figure out just how blatant the situation is, and judge accordingly. In general, though, its important to remember that the player should have control over his character and the character's actions, though its certainly not wrong of the GM (or even another player) to demand that the player in question explain WHY their character would suddenly act a given way, that might be contrary to their character's express or RPed personality thus far.  And the player should be able to do a good job of explaining it.

RPGPundit

Sadly, I've see a lot of Game Masters who do this.

For example, in a very shortlived Dark Matter campaign that was supposed to be something like the X-Files, my character (an on-duty FBI agent) met with a contact at a local bar -- the contact was drinking as I spoke with him. After the conversation, I left the bar and got into my car. The GM had me make a series of driving rolls, after which I wrecked my car.

The GM told me that I was drunk, to which I replied that I had never taken a drink in the bar. He proceeded to inform me that because I never said I didn't drink and he pictured my character as being an alcoholic, he was ruling that my character drank and got drunk because "That's what I feel your character would do!" :mad:

[Note: I am a recovering alcoholic and the GM knew this.]

This is not an isolated incident and not limited to that one GM, as fifteen years of gaming has taught me. Sadly, there are a lot of clueless dickheads out there who are under the mistaken impression that a roleplaying game is only about their wish fulfillment and that the other players are just there to assist in that achieving that goal.

I don't think this is a black-and-white question. Yes, sometimes players get presumptuous, mostly out of egotistical reasons. But that's not always the case. Occasional players just want to help, or understand the characters. Sometimes we have our bad days. Sometimes we forget about backgrounds. And then friends are there to help us.

It's "No, your character would not do that!" vs. "Erm, don't forget that in this world, elves don't drink milk...".

Quote from: jdrakehFor example, in a very shortlived Dark Matter campaign that was supposed to be something like the X-Files, my character (an on-duty FBI agent) met with a contact at a local bar -- the contact was drinking as I spoke with him. After the conversation, I left the bar and got into my car. The GM had me make a series of driving rolls, after which I wrecked my car.

The GM told me that I was drunk, to which I replied that I had never taken a drink in the bar. He proceeded to inform me that because I never said I didn't drink and he pictured my character as being an alcoholic, he was ruling that my character drank and got drunk because "That's what I feel your character would do!" :mad:

[Note: I am a recovering alcoholic and the GM knew this.]

That's just plain asshole behavior by the GM. Its particularly loathesome because the GM knew you had a problem in your past and it looks like he intended to mess with your head about it.

Quote from: PeteAnyone else have any dealings with these backseat character lawyers?

No (aside from saying, "Don't do that"), but I know one. I'll be following this thread closely.

Seanchai

Quote from: jdrakehSadly, I've see a lot of Game Masters who do this.

Setting aside complete stupidity such as you described, one difficulty is if a player is fairly reactive or passive, the GM will be tempted to make suggestions. "Hey, perhaps your character might...?" And that player and others may take that as the GM trying to play their character for them - when really it's just the GM trying to bring the player more into the events of the game session.

But it can be a difficult balance between "suggestions" and "stealing the character" - what's one for one player will be the other for another.

I had a fucking annoying GM that use to pull some of this shit.  He'd frequently try and coerce players towards particular actions.  I remember him practically begging the group not to sell a magic item we recovered - no-one particularly wanted the item and we figured it was worth a fair bit.  He must have spent 30 minutes telling us why we were stupid to be selling it.
 
Sometimes he'll just flat out veto the actions of a player on the grounds that they were not "in character".
 
But he also makes recommendations to the players every time their characters level... trying to help them to make optimal character builds.  Sometimes he even go so far as to edit character sheets with all his suggestions.   "I just wrote down the spells I think you'll want.  Of course, you can change them if you really want."
 
It's like he wants to be the GM and all six players as well.

Obviously the pesky players were interfering with his Creative Agenda!

For me, there's nothing wrong with OOC tactical suggestions - "Maybe your Eagle Claw technique will be useful against this guy, try a Quick Rip!", "Don't forget to ask him about the Black Musician!", that kind of thing is fine by me.

But yeah, you cross the line when you make judgement calls about how other peoples' characters would behave. That's something only the player can make a call on, even if it's inconsistent with the character's previous behaviour - real people sometimes change, real people are often inconsistent, why shouldn' characters be the same? If the player wrote down at game stuff "my character would do anything to get more arcane knowledge," but then decides the character would balk at asking a demon for occult secrets, then that's not an inconsistency - that's them discovering something about the character they didn't know at game start.