Questing with Others.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

I'll put this (these) question(s) out there...

Is it acceptable to refuse, as a player/character, another character admittance to a quest?

If so, under what circumstances?

What happens when this cuts into the Fun Factor?

Should we try to "stretch" the RP a little bit in order to preserve this Fun Factor?

[Dorganath]

Well...

What are we talking about here?

Player-run events? GM-run events?

For the former, if you're organizing it, then RP it as you would.

For the latter, what authority would one player/character have to refuse another admittance on a quest?  You must realize this is a slippery slope and usually comes back to us in the form of "favoritism" and/or "metagaming" and/or "griefing" and/or "OOC conflicts becoming IC" and so on.

For a CDQ, it's up to the player for which it is being run who comes and who doesn't. That is of course the exception, as they can be as exclusive or inclusive as the player wishes them to be.  

For generally-scheduled quests...well, it's very difficult to answer that, so I'm not even going to try.  There are too many permutations to even start considering guidelines for answering such a question.  I'll say personally, I find the concept to be very tricky, touchy and will probably end in hurt feelings if players start blocking or refusing admittance to GM-run events.

I guess the only thing I'd even begin to say is that the reasons have got to be completely IC.  There's no room for OOC conflicts for quest attendance.  None.  As a GM, I'd remove both parties for engaging in that kind of behavior, even though it might end up making things unfairly difficult for the rest of the group.

[Gulnyr]

This touches on this thread a little bit, and this one quite a lot.  

In my opinion, with the wide range of characters and personalities, plus the actions and interactions of those characters, plus the current dark, gritty nature of the game world, having characters rejected or refused is just going to happen.  It isn't fun to be turned away, but if there are really good in-character reasons for it then it's not unfair or unreasonable.

That does not mean I think it should be done often, and it should never, ever be done for OOC reasons.  It does mean that I think "stretching the RP" is a cop-out excuse for allowing characters with certain stigma (like being Dark Elves or known Corathites, say) or are unpleasant/untrustworthy/etc. in some way to "get away with it" without consequence.  All actions should have consequences, and people should know what they are getting into when they choose to play any race or affiliation.  As the posts in the various Drow threads have stated, if you decide to play a Dark Elf, you have to expect to be shunned, and a similar thing should be expected if your character has a loathsome personality or whatever.  Even the goodest goodie-goodie can expect to be turned aside sometimes.  It all depends on the nature of the quest and the IC relations between the characters.

But, like I said, I don't think people should be turned away often.  Everyone is here to have fun, and we all want to belong in the Layonara family.  There also seems to be a general consensus among us that some conflict is good and healthy.  Remember the real people sitting in front of the other monitors, allow their characters into quests, enjoy the conflicts, and, on rare occasions, let the conflicts between characters cause some to be rejected.

[stragen]

Quest are scared for the most part.

If you enter a quest and there are characters in the party who you would NEVER work with.  Then you have the option of leaving the quest.  It would be polite sure to send the player a tell to reassure that it is their 'character' not their player they cannot work with.

I would not force another character to leave a quest unless to situations are met
1. The player is experienced on the server
2. They are a friend of yours
3. They are happy as a player for their character to leave the quest (check with a tell) and willing to roleplay a conflict.

Quests are the best part of this game.  It is vital that we ensure that all infrequent quest goers and new players get a taste of questing.  If that means creative roleplay; then roleplay creatively!  Have the thief shadow the party instead of being a part of it.  Two old enemies could make a grudging alliance for the sake of mutual survival.  The 'Evil' one might be willing to put aside an old grudge for the sake of the quest reward, while the 'Good' one will put aside his hatred of 'the Evil one' for the sake of the greater good.

Stragen

Edit:

On a recent quest I attended  one of my character's 'old enemies' also attended.  There were two clear groups in the party the 'Good' and the 'Evil.  War was almost declared in the Hall of Weave.  However, the entire party helped create a solution to the quest.  The 'Evil' wanted the access to the knowledge of cause of the mutations for their own dark purposes, while the 'Good' wanted to help the city.

I have also been on a quest series, where the party was working for Mother Ocean.  During one session a world-leader and cleric of Mist appeared.  In this session the entire party did shun the 'aid' of that cleric.

[Chuckles_McChuck]

I think this has been answered best already, I just want to add 2 more points really.

As the previous posters said, it shouldn't be done often at all, and Stragens examples at the bottom were great on how it should be used and how great the RP can be if its not.  Personally, I think it takes a better person, OOC, to leave the quest themselves if their character can't work with the other character, instead of trying to make the other character leave (I'm of course saying for IC reasons, but it also works for OOC reasons and should be the only practice used if there are OOC reasons, without deliberately hurting feelings of course.  One would like this to be one big family, but Layonara has gotten quite popular through the years and you can't expect everyone to like everyone on the server).

That said, if you try to lets say ban another character from a quest (due to IC reasons) remember that the person does have a real life and could have made some real life sacrifices to make said quest.

[lonnarin]

Now if this is an open GM quest, yes, it's up to the better person to just leave since *everybody* got the invite from the GM, and its respectful to the GM not to bog down his questtime with OOC drama.  Don't argue about who should stay, just leave.  Ultimately in this case, the GM is the "team leader", and whatever factions or OOC ill-will should be put to the wayside for the benefit of the most people just trying to have fun.  In any case that the two players DO get into arguing, the DM should just boot them BOTH for the sake of the quest.

In the cases of CDQs focused on your own player's character, or freestyle adventuring with your own team however, I see no obligation to positively reinforce negative people with gold, xp or interaction.  If somebody insults me in a tell telling me I'm a horrible RPer because I didn't stop everything I was doing to stop and talk to them for 30 minutes when I really just want to go to the bank and log; after telling them IC "sorry, I'm in a hurry, another time perhaps" they feel necessary to dig into me via OOC tells, I simply do not accept that kind of behavior.  Same with people who steal loot from my kills and threaten to kill all my characters nonstop at the drop of a hat because of some OOC garbage involving another character.

There are 2 people out there who if I see them on a quest I signed up for, I will immediately leave.  (was one other, but he's perma-banned)  One time it happened even when my character was one of the ones with the 4 original plot items.  I gave the plot item to another player on that quest and just excused myself.  If I'm following a party and the party leader invites them, I'll just leave the party and venture on my own.  If I have the little crown over my head and spent all the time and effort organizing the venture however, they will not get an invite and if they are side-invited by another player in the group, they will immediately be booted from the party.

Life's too short to get caught up in OOC drama and escalation.  I far prefer being forthright with telling the person when what they do is unacceptable, and then just staying far, far away from them if they refuse to knock it off.  If they so chose to follow me thereafter with a vendetta, then I make a griefing report.  One should never be forced to put up with gross disrespect and bullying tactics, in any case scenario.

Now in terms of IC conflict, yes certainly you should not be grouping with somebody like my buddy Czukay or if you're a Paladin, or for my Grandite orc Kor to ever stay in a party with even a single dwarf in it.  This is totally in character and helps heighten the RP of the game.  For example, Gimli and I are very good friends OOC and group together as Farros and Gimli, but under no circumstances will IC Gimli and Kor EVER get along.  Whenever we see eachother in the crafthalls, we growl at and threaten eachother IC, and try to avoid eachother's presence as much as possible.  With Pooser's orc Rak, Bjornigar will always heckle and snub him, despite us being OOC good friends IRL.  Certainly priests should not be casting protections or raising people they know to be followers of gods detrimental to theirs, that borders on losing priestly powers!  I remember on a recent trip a Folian cleric wouldn't deathward Xeenie Farros, which was excellent RP.  Farros started going off into mocking "oh woe is me, the loinclothed animal-elf doesn't like me" monologues.  It was great RP on her part and I respect that.  

Inter-Character conflict on this level certainly spices things up and makes for some fun moments, so long as everybody remembers to keep their conflicts IC.