Quote from: sureshot on January 15, 2021, 08:46:48 AMIt's not so much wanting to play a disability that I take issue with it's wanting to play with one while having zero negative consequences for doing so. Playing a character with a limp and somehow the chasing monster is not going to focus on the character. Or wanting to cast all spells perfectly with their feet at no penalty. If one dares to say anything about it one is called ableist.

Same here. A handicap should never just be something you can jot down on your character sheet and go "ha-ha! No penalties!" Even Daredevil still had to deal with various problems of being blind.

As for being able to cast spells with their feet. That would work if either the character was born without arms, or had been without long enough that they have adapted. If it is a relatively recent loss then I'd impose a penalty till it felt like enough time had passed to fully adapt.

And obviously they can not move while casting so that is a potential built in problem.

Yeah, as said, the onus on the player is to both choose actions, in the moment, which don't ruin the other players' fun, and to bring a character to the table which makes that simple. 

But it's important to remember that people are people, and tend to rely on other people for many things, and as long as you can work out-of-game with other players around potential problem areas, and work in-game with the understanding of where the Line is that other people stop having fun, it's not super-difficult to make even black-hearted knaves play smoothly with others.

Also, it's important to remember that at the same time mirror-evil-you is deciding to teleport out because you don't value your mirror-evil party, mirror-evil-rogue is taking that AoO and shanking you because you have loot he needs to hurt good-rogue, while mirror-evil-bard is attacking both of you to set up his "I actually have free will and am choosing goodness" justification for betrayal down the line, and mirror-evil-cleric just pledged herself to the demon lord Pazuzu and committed suicide to work to dethrone Cleric's god in a few centuries.

Quote from: sureshot on January 15, 2021, 08:46:48 AM
Well if the new book and so called Wheelchair of Representation is anything to by they already seem ready to focus on their woke agenda even if it harms the rpg as a whole.

First of all, there are lots of liberal gamers as well as lots of conservative gamers. I think to match the market, there should be some liberal-themed RPG books, as well as some conservative themed, and some neutral or other. I think matching the market is good for RPGs as a whole.

Also, the Candlekeep Mysteries book isn't out yet, and I can't tell that the wokeness in it amounts to much. The woke agenda could be comparable having to two gay NPCs out of dozens in an adventure book, where if you just replaced one "M" to "F" it would be gone. In this case, it could be that someone who is reading the module might not notice at all how a given dungeon is wheelchair accessible -- it could just be all one level.

Quote from: Omega on January 15, 2021, 09:11:58 AM
Though there is a 3rd possible reason. The place is not really handicapped designed. It is actually designed to accomodate certain non-human visitors or are accessways for wagons or something else that just happens to also be useful for non-related use.

This is why "wheelchair ramps" show up so often in Hutt Space. The Hutts are all into making sure beings without working legs can get around them--so long as they're Hutts. For everyone else that it might benefit, the Hutts care not at all.

Yep, Lamias and other snake-kin I can totally see have a 'ramp culture'.

QuoteYou wouldn't want me in a "proper" evil campaign. Most people have zero concept of what actual evil looks like. They think is something edgy or cool. It's not. It's cruel, vindictive and ultimately nihilistic.

Well as a Catholic I have to disagree - while yes that's probably fine Evil Outsider - aka demon description, I think most of human evil is very... banal, almost boring, not really even criminal.
Of course in D&D it's all much more murky - but I prefer a way when you have a lot of perfectly socially adjustable people whose current karmic-sheet says EVIL (as usually I like to treat D&D alignment in a karmic way more than = oh look there is only 9 personalities).

In 3,5 Ultimate Scoundrel there was good example of it - and I love it - they counted Jack Black's character from "King Kong" the fat director who wanted to film King Kong - as Chaotic Evil, and I was like - excellent! He is no mad cultist, he is no mass murderer, he is not cruel or vindictive - he is just sort of uncaring about consequences in a massive way as long as his purpose if fullfilled.
In other way - you do not need to play Evil Incarnated to play character with evil alignment in evil campaign.

But I agree it's usually not cool or edgy.

QuoteSee, the thing about playing a "goody-two-shoes" is that you care about a lot of people and help alot of people. So I told the DM that if my goal is "hurt my good self as much as possible" they wouldn't stay and fight... they'd immediately teleport away, leaving their mirror allies in the lurch and start systematically murdering everyone my PC had ever loved or helped (which included a lot of the DMs favorite non-combat NPCs), get a copy of the animate dead spell to turn everyone killed into skeletons (because in 3e your soul can't move on to the afterlife or be resurrected while it is undead) and then scatter them with commands to lay buried and motionless for eternity so their souls would be trapped forever and denied the afterlife. Then I'd send my PC a message via spell of what I'd done and that if they ever helped another soul I'd do the same to them.

That's absolutely wonderful idea - but then you were playing very malicious mirror clone, not just evil dude like dunno Edwin or Eldoth from Baldur's Gate.

QuoteI play only good PCs not because I don't know HOW to play evil, but because I cannot understand why anyone would ever WANT to.

Simply because well dependent on how your team understand alignment because I'm sure some would count what I'm gonna to say as barely Neutrals - there are multiple characters in stories I count as Evil - that are no looney, vindictive, mass murderers. Outsiders are literally made from Good and Evil. Mortal beings are not.
Walter White was evil, yet he still risked his life and fortune for his wacky sidekick (to some point at least), Darth Vader was quite way gone, but still cared about his family.
Precise interesting point about Evil-Doers is that they are not evil to everybody. And many are perfectly suitable to teamwork - still Evil in Alignment Chart.

And why would you want to play it? To explore such uncertainities. Duality of man. Unfairness of judgement. To explore how in many ways evil, sin, corruption is not this blatant Satanic choice to become bloodthirsty monster but slow, slow, slow corruption and even in corrupted man some aspects corode fast, while others can survive.

And I mean even in most blatant way you can make LE mercenary that always hold his end of deal.

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 13, 2021, 08:41:42 AM

Quote from: robh on January 13, 2021, 08:06:09 AM

Quote from: Torque2100 on January 13, 2021, 07:31:14 AM
.......You play your character, your character doesn't play you.......

Absolutely, the issue is with the player. 
As already said Thieves and Paladins seem to attract a certain disruptive element. Both classes have scope for causing friction within a party and as a GM you need to be wary of whether a given player is capable of playing the role. This friction is a necessary element of the classes but there is a fine balance between disrupting and damaging party cohesion.

But it can also arise from stat driven games; A character with a very high Charisma or very low Intelligence score can lead to problems within the group if handled badly. Roleplaying borderline stupidity without being stupid takes a very skilled actor, I have never seen a player able to pull it off. Likewise high Charisma tends to result in players seeing the character as arrogant and/or conceited, and frankly no party needs a Kardashian.

For "borderline stupidity without being stupid" I use the example of Johnny Lawrence from the Cobra Kai series. He's a great character IMO.

  And a great example of having a high charisma coupled with borderline stupid and what havoc it can birth.

Quote from: jhkim on January 15, 2021, 11:15:23 AM

Quote from: sureshot on January 15, 2021, 08:46:48 AM
Well if the new book and so called Wheelchair of Representation is anything to by they already seem ready to focus on their woke agenda even if it harms the rpg as a whole.

First of all, there are lots of liberal gamers as well as lots of conservative gamers. I think to match the market, there should be some liberal-themed RPG books, as well as some conservative themed, and some neutral or other. I think matching the market is good for RPGs as a whole.

Also, the Candlekeep Mysteries book isn't out yet, and I can't tell that the wokeness in it amounts to much. The woke agenda could be comparable having to two gay NPCs out of dozens in an adventure book, where if you just replaced one "M" to "F" it would be gone. In this case, it could be that someone who is reading the module might not notice at all how a given dungeon is wheelchair accessible -- it could just be all one level.

  I think theming games liberal or conservative is a big fucking NO.   

Well one major sign that the player will be disruptive and use alignment as an excuse to myself at least, is the player demanding to play a Chaotic Neutral Barbarian. Everytime I allow one they end up just being fucking annoying and claiming that if they cannot play anything, else the DM is restricting their "creative" freedom. Yeah no nice try it's almost as bad as the time I had the real life atheist who played one in character in a Pathfinder campaign set in Golarion. While the play kept wondering why none of the religious npcs wanted to heal, help or even sell items. How about not insulting every religious npc by claiming that religion is useless and for sucker then asking for negative levels to be removed.

It's what my character wants to do is code for what I want to do and then blame the "character" when it annoys the players and or/DM.

QuoteI think theming games liberal or conservative is a big fucking NO.   

Disagree. There are games with politics within - both intrigue or revolutionary method, so in such game it's on place.

QuoteYeah no nice try it's almost as bad as the time I had the real life atheist who played one in character in a Pathfinder campaign set in Golarion. While the play kept wondering why none of the religious npcs wanted to heal, help or even sell items. How about not insulting every religious npc by claiming that religion is useless and for sucker then asking for negative levels to be removed.

Then you have whole atheist regime in Northern Garund.

Quote from: Wicked Woodpecker of West on January 16, 2021, 11:04:44 AM
Then you have whole atheist regime in Northern Garund.

His whole outlook might have made sense if the character was from that area. Instead the character was the player. While also ignoring the subtle and not so subtle hints from both the DM (me) and the rest of the players to knock it off.

Quote from: oggsmash on January 16, 2021, 12:29:26 AM

Quote from: jhkim on January 15, 2021, 11:15:23 AM

Quote from: sureshot on January 15, 2021, 08:46:48 AM
Well if the new book and so called Wheelchair of Representation is anything to by they already seem ready to focus on their woke agenda even if it harms the rpg as a whole.

First of all, there are lots of liberal gamers as well as lots of conservative gamers. I think to match the market, there should be some liberal-themed RPG books, as well as some conservative themed, and some neutral or other. I think matching the market is good for RPGs as a whole.

Also, the Candlekeep Mysteries book isn't out yet, and I can't tell that the wokeness in it amounts to much. The woke agenda could be comparable having to two gay NPCs out of dozens in an adventure book, where if you just replaced one "M" to "F" it would be gone. In this case, it could be that someone who is reading the module might not notice at all how a given dungeon is wheelchair accessible -- it could just be all one level.

  I think theming games liberal or conservative is a big fucking NO.

Absolutely agreed. There shouldn't be either of those types of games in the hobby. There should just be games.

Quote from: jhkim on January 15, 2021, 11:15:23 AM
Also, the Candlekeep Mysteries book isn't out yet, and I can't tell that the wokeness in it amounts to much. The woke agenda could be comparable having to two gay NPCs out of dozens in an adventure book, where if you just replaced one "M" to "F" it would be gone. In this case, it could be that someone who is reading the module might not notice at all how a given dungeon is wheelchair accessible -- it could just be all one level.

This was my point with Essentials, Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annhialation, etc. The inclusions are meaningless as they have nothing to back them up. You can literally change the genders or even race and have no impact at all.

Speaking of our old friend Wheelchair of Representation.

There it is ridden by a new character in Idle Champions of the Forgotton Realms. A evil drow or tiefling thief in a wheelchair. Backstabbing people. And detaching rings on the back wheels and throwing them as chakrams. Its both jaw-droppingly blatant and yet kinda cool at the same time.

I want players to play their characters as they designed and envisioned their character.

However, the setting might push back on certain behaviors.