When you dont want a PC in your group

[jrizz]

This came up the other day and IMO was handled in the worst possible way it could have been. Without any names I will give what happened and how it should have been done.

What happened:
Group A encounters Player B at a gathering point, Player B has traveled many times with the members of Group A. Player B is still in reflection mode so says to Group A I will join you after I rest a bit. Group A goes on its way. A little while later Group A comes back to the gathering point Player B has recovered so he follows Group A onto their next task. He goes up to them and RPs for a while about feeling better and resting and finding them easy from the screams of battle. They talk for a bit Player B assuming he was going to go with them. So player B sends a Tell to one of Group A's members. The response he gets was this is Player C's group (leader of Group A) so I will ask him. The reply all done by tells was no he does not want you here. So Player B leaves. Later Player C sends a tell to Player B saying sorry but your PC was mean to my PC once so he does not want to run with you (mind you he was in a group with Player B earlier that same day).

Ok it is all fine if one PC does not want to run with another PC. But in the above situation you REALLY should RP it out. Otherwise you leave a PC wondering why his friends dont want him there. It does not matter how awful or great you are at RP, this is a RP server and the ABOVE situation should have been done through RP.

Here is how it could have gone:
All the same as above but when it came time for Player B to join Group A then Player C should have said something like one of the following:

"I am running this hunt and I dont want you to come along"

"This is my hunt and I think we have enough folks for it"

"We are on a mission that I cant talk about but I am sorry you cant come with us" (this one is the nice one)

or any number of other things besides doing it by tell.

NOTE: The above situation is VERY different then when you are forming a party by Tell.

[s0ulz]

It's disheartening, but IC conflicts happen and are real.

What is the key here is to keep the way your character acts to said PC the same at all times.

While yes treasure is a very good incentive to try and travel with any character (there are extreme exceptions of course), if your character has once allowed this to happen, it probably should happen again. That'd mean the conflict isn't that deep.

On other occasions, OOC reasons, like the disliked PC being vital for the group to succeed, should not overwrite IC feelings of characters.

On your example I agree, you should've been allowed to approach the group in some manner, since participants in the group have say too. They can easily convince by sheer numbers for the PC to be allowed to come with. You were denied of an IC chance by an OOC measure, so sure, it was done unappropriately.

But at some points it seems that this is how some people roll...

[Dorganath]

Well, I think the point that was missed above is that if Player C had an IC conflict with Player B, he/she should have said that IC, not in tells or through a third-party.

Whether Player B was ultimately allowed to join or not is not really the problem as I see it.  What needed to happen was some discussion and/or debate, not some back-channel Tell conversation.  The impression that gives is one of OOC rudeness, cliqueishness (if that's a word) and elitism. And people will tend to take such things OOC rather than keeping them IC as they should have been.

[lonnarin]

If the conflict is IC, then exclusion should be discussed and RPed IC.  For example, Ogzug'himmal the character does not like Randi or Lance the characters IC.  When they met in party and Ogzug was leading, Lance made fun of Ogzug's voice and was generally rude to him IC, and Randi looted when Ogzug was looting which angered him.  Then Randi asked Ogzug what his problem was and he went on a tirade screaming "YOU are my problem!" listing the things about them that angered him and yelled at them to leave.  Then Randi sent Ogzug a tell asking him if it was just IC rp, and I confirmed via tell "yes, I'm not personally angry at you, Ogzug is just ticked because you two were mocking him when you met and refusing to do as he said when he was leading".  No hard feelings either way in that example... I certainly am not angry at the people who play Randi or Lance OOC, just that their characters rubbed my character the wrong way.  As players I love their RP and would group with them with any other character I have, or that they have.

If however the conflict between two players is totally OOC, then I think it is acceptable to keep it in tells.  If somebody decided to bash my RP in a tell for not dropping everything to powerlevel them during double xp weekend, for example, then I will not be grouping with that person and they deserve no IC interaction to that effect... they insulted me personally.  If somebody is very rude to you one day OOC and then tries to weasel into a party you are heading, boot them and send them a tell "sorry, I don't like you personally.  Leave me alone".... *boot*.  If they keep hiding behind RP reasons like "well, that person in your party likes me so I'm following you anyways" then it gets into the realm of griefing.  Nobody here is *forcing* anybody to group with people who abuse them... just be sure to be clear when conflict is IC and OOC, and keep the IC conflict openly roleplayed and the OOC conflict in tells.  There should be no reason for a dwarf to use a tell to explain that he doesn't like orcs, or for somebody to RP hatred of a character they never met because of their hatred for his player.  Please keep all conflicts Player vs player and character vs character, in OOC and IC respectively.

[jrizz]

Good point about PvP and CvC. There is one dimension Player vs GM.

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

I hope yer not talking about that incident last night in Thunder Valley, jrizz...  =\

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

As much as I hate (as a player) excluding other players from anything (most especially quests!) Pyyran is rather firm in his statements about who he does and doesn't want along, mainly because of his usually-apt theories about who will help get him, themselves, or someone else killed.

While I enjoy the occasional TPK (they're just funny), Pyyran has gone so far as to say that he simply would not travel with other characters... And it all turned out to be great RP. Either P or the other left the group, it was all IC, and everyone went home happyish (with me sending Tells to the person P has a problem with telling them I don't have a problem with them, most times).

The distinction, as Dorg so wonderfully put it, is that it's IC rather than OOC conflict. I LOVE IC conflict. I'll go so far as to think up inventive ways to stir it up. But I HATE OOC conflict. It's not helpful, it makes people feel bad, and it's what gets about half the banished banned.

Edit to Shiff: The incident last night was my fault, taking something I thought I remembered and running with it... While most of it was perfectly reasonable for my character to assume with absolute certainty (and in this case be right about), the deity aspect was one that I was just about to send a PM off to find out whether or not he'd have enough information on the deity to make the connection for. It's a relatively unknown deity, so it's reasonable to say that my character may well not have known about the deity to make the connection. Or even if he did know... You get the idea. It was a rather largish mistake on my part, and the player whose character was on the other side of it was AFK for 90% of it anyhow. *Chuckles.* It was my mistake, apologies were made, everything was cool, and I'm headed to find out just how much information my character reasonably has... Now.

Oh, and that wasn't so much one character wanting to join the group as much as one character spotting another and going ape-dung from what he's guessed over the years.

[jrizz]

Shif this is not about that event. It is just about keeping PC issues IG and IC and dealing with them by RP.

[lonnarin]

Keep in mind too of OOC conflict; don't stay angry at the same person forever based off of a first few interactions... it's just a game!  Falonthas and I got off to a rocky start here OOC and even had to be mediated directly by Leanthar a few times.  But people make mistakes and they can change, now that's all water under the bridge to me, and I fully look forward to any time Khuren joins the party.

If OOC conflict really gets to you, ask in the Disputes Forum for some GM mediation and counseling with the other player.  Leanthar really does care and will schedule time out of his weekend to help players get along, as long as you tell him what's up!

[Drizzlin]

I can't begin to tell you how many times stuff like this has happened to me in game. Some great ones i remember.

// OOC I personally do not want to go with a dark elf, can we vote him out without having him roll to make the quest?

// my pc will not go with a dark elf, so I vote that he can't come

// My pc really doesn't like yours, so sorry you can't come, even if the other 8 in the group want you too

I can go on and on with these.

As the point of this thread, keep it IC. It is ok to send tells to explain why your pc is behaving the way they are, but make sure they actually behave that way IC!!!

=)

[iceyfire]

Dark elves should be tricky enough to avoid those know who they are, saira will usually camoflage herself in disguises when she is unsure of who she is going to meet up with, then she will bide her time for the right moment to strike if such an opportunity arises *Cough black widow*
Or maybe she will strike with love, who can truly say .

Since she has growing death threats she needs to go make more disguises, hmm *Grins*

[Pseudonym]

[Qualification] These are my thoughts only. [/Qualification]

Just as an aside and slightly off topic as this thread was about how best to handle character exclusions but ... Sure it may be very well IC to exclude someone for quite legitimate IC reasons but I personally do always try to remember that there is a real live person behind a computer out there in the world somewhere who is playing that excluded character. Sometimes that group that has just told person B to p*** off is the only one on server at the time and if person A is excluded from them ... then it's turn-the-computer-off time for them.

Is that what I want to do to someone else in RL? Exclude them from having fun?

I'd prefer to bend a bit IC so as to ensure someone's fun in an OOC sense. Besides, to me, it's heaps more fun to have a little bit of RP tension in an adventuring group with people sniping at each other than seven LG Toranite paladins discussing what shade of shining white they are going to paint the new cathedral (or whatever they talk about) as they run around.

There is an IC community of Layonara and there is a RL community of Layonara. I try to remember both when I decide who can and cannot run with my characters.

[Lynn1020]

*points up at Pseudonym post*  He said it best!  There is a real person on the other end your turning away in tells.  If your pc doesn't like another it should always be taken care of through rp.  Then it doesn't hurt to seen a tell saying something like  "Are you okay with the way the rp is going?

But I think if you tried hard enough you could almost aways find a rp reason to let someone come along.  Traveling with an enemy or someone you don't care for IC can bring out some great rp.    Make it fun for everyone.    

[Fatherchaos]

I still remember when Pyyran and Dur'Thak first had at it - those were some tense adventuring moments (that left to the ic shooing away of one obnoxious Tiefling )

I completely agree that it's best to do the bit of rp to at least tell someone to bugger off, icly. Dur's had his share that's for sure!

And for those of you caught on the end of the OOC go away swatter - just send a nice comment back that your character is completely unaware of these feelings then prod them with the RP Maul. It's worked out for me thus far.

[Hellblazer]

I think its safe also to say that it also depends on the peoples mood. Some day you might not be up to get into heavy tension rp, other days you might.
 
As long as you let the others know, even if the day before you were with them and rp a fight, that today you are not feeling up to that kind of rp, this should in most cases diffuse any hard feeling someone could have toward you, if you had partied together before.

I personally wouldnt mind at all someone telling my char Brian (that can easily get into scruffs with people) that he/she is not up to that kind of rp today.

After all we are all here to have fun.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

It may seem like I spam the Thanks button, but outside Just For Fun, I only click it on posts which make good points.

I certainly remember the first time Dur'Thak and Pyyran met... And then, years later, the first adventures they had together. Excellent tension that, at the time, wasn't strong enough for Pyyran to tell Dur'Thak to leave or die. The first few meetings between a certain Darkear and Pyyran went similarly, only while Pyyran grew to respect Dur'Thak, he's grown to blindly hate the other.

Oftentimes it's great to have tension in a party. It helps with everyone getting their fair share of group time, and usually isn't so bad that the party starts breaking apart, or gets silly because the Voraxite Dwarf isn't slaughtering the dark elf on sight. While the former situation (the party polarizing on either side of a line in the sand over which blood will be drawn) would be GREAT for RP, the latter rather breaks immersion for at least those as nutty about details as I.

I suppose the point I've been making in all my posts (with my overwhelming tendency for the redundant) is that above all, OOC conflict should be avoided, but, barring that, there should always be a balance between not shunning players, and still playing your character as someone from Layonara who's grown up hearing horror stories about this and that. Or who just hates thieves.

Edit: I think the reason I emphasize the "Keep in mind how your character would feel" part is because this community is overwhelmingly friendly. Nobody wants to exclude anyone else. *Giggle.* I have to guilt my parties into saying no the monstrous races, and I often enough end up having Pyyran watch the "bad guy" with sword drawn the entire run. Rather amusing on this side of the screen, but sometimes a bit disappointing, too.