Roleplayers, their classes, and you

[Findecano]

So I am a brand new Wizard, a Drow. I was fretting over which spells to choose over others when in the Tavern, when I thought "it'd be nice to just specialize in just a couple schools of magic, but PUG's probably wouldn't like that too much." I'm a RPer, so I tend to build my classes to fit a particular personality and style.

My questions is: If you had a player who is a RPer in your PUG, would you boot him if he didn't play his class the ideal way?

For Example:

An Evil Cleric who concentrates on melee/tanking and harming magic, instead of healing.
A Wizard who chooses the Conjuration and Necromancy schools and only uses those schools in every dungeon.
A Barbarian who races ahead of the group enraged into the thick of battle, because of his lack of intelligence and big b*lls.

I'm just curious how RP friendly the general community is across the servers. I already am in a RPing guild who doesn't discriminate against builds designed around a character, instead of around DDO content.

[Arianrhod]

My questions is: If you had a player who is a RPer in your PUG, would you boot him if he didn't play his class the ideal way?

For Example:

An Evil Cleric who concentrates on melee/tanking and harming magic, instead of healing.
A Wizard who chooses the Conjuration and Necromancy schools and only uses those schools in every dungeon.
A Barbarian who races ahead of the group enraged into the thick of battle, because of his lack of intelligence and big b*lls.



Depends on the group, mostly. Some are more accommodating than others. Also depends on how tough the quest is for the group. A group breezing through Info is Key on Normal is likely to be more forgiving than one struggling through Butcher's Path on elite. Tempers get short when things are going against you ;)

People tend to be disinclined to boot someone from a group in the middle of a quest if they can complete it without doing so, just because the whole group would have to recall, break group, reform, and start the quest over from scratch to do so if the offending player didn't voluntarily agree to recall and drop group. For the most part, groups are stuck with who they get, and will grit their teeth and put up with it as long as the quest gets done. Then they'll suddenly have urgent appointments elsewhere, and make a note never to group with the offending player again.

As for the specific examples you gave - clerics can't be evil in this game; they all have cure spells automatically prepared whether they wnat them or not. They can still specialize in negative spells and choose to only cast those, but they can't choose not to prepare them, and I'm afraid most groups won't take "that's not how I'm specced" as an excuse for not healing at all, unless they specifically agree to it in advance.

As for the wizard - the main (only?) strength of a wizard over a sorceror in this game is flexibility; the ability to prepare just the right spell for every situation. One who limits him/herself to a narrow selection of spells will likely be advised they would have been better off as a sorceror ;)

And as for the barb....well, chances are once the rest of the group finds his soulstone, they'll pick it up and drop it at a shrine somewhere, but if he does it a lot, they might just leave him dead & save themselves the trouble :D

[Talon_Moonshadow]

RP and DDO really don't mix well IMO.

But Ive made a few chars that might qualify. One definately does: Drkpriestess AlmostEvilBattleClr.
CN Drow...TWF prefers spells like Bane, Bestow Curse, Poison, Cause Disease, Slay Living and especially Inflict Wounds.

In reality not a very good char and not received well at all by most.

I've never been booted, but I've done my best to only join groups that already had another Cleric. And I do heal if needed, and do carry wands or scrolls of other curing spells.......so I try not to let the RP thing gimp the party too much.
Plus I am an experianced player and I do help out others.

But yeah, there is still a lot of hate. It seems I always get into a group were the other cleric is bad, and the rest of the party is even worse.
I get comments like "pretty good healing for a Battle Cleric"......when that is the last thing I wanted to do.

I've chosen my armor and shield and even a couple weapons for looks alone......actually she looks amazing, and I get a lot of questions about the armor.

Most of the "evil" spells in DDO are sub-par for players to cast. Bane for instance, is hated when a Kobold casts it on you, but does little to them.....since they die so fast anyway.
Max/Empowered Poison, Cause Disease and Mass Inflict Light Wounds can be impressive......but use up a Clerics mana in no time flat.
Cause Blindness and Bestow Curse may be her best spells..........that and Slay Living.

I've had some success stories, but it was usually because the rest of the group was new and didn't have impressive chars.

Despite the hate, she is one of my favorite chars and I really want to do Running with the Devils with her someday. Max/Empowered Unholy Blight.....take that you fien...er.....good aligned outsiders! :)

[unionyes]

I wouldn't boot them if I knew they were RP'ing, and if it didn't damage the party too badly.

However, if I was RP'ing my character too, and the 'role' I had selected was one where I didn't want to die, and you were 'RPing' your character and making me die, I would RP too, and drop group to live to fight another day.

[liamfrancais]

Seeing as you are on Sarlona and in forsworn I feel you have probably had some difficulties in groups already, you know that if a group is looking for a cleric they want someone to heal them while they kill stuff not to kill stuff while they stand idly by, personally I would not kick anyone from a group because they were playing their game their way only reason IMHO to kick someone from a group is if they are badgering others or preventing others in group from having a good time.

[Guildmaster_Kadish]

So I am a brand new Wizard, a Drow. I was fretting over which spells to choose over others when in the Tavern, when I thought "it'd be nice to just specialize in just a couple schools of magic, but PUG's probably wouldn't like that too much." I'm a RPer, so I tend to build my classes to fit a particular personality and style.

My questions is: If you had a player who is a RPer in your PUG, would you boot him if he didn't play his class the ideal way?

For Example:

An Evil Cleric who concentrates on melee/tanking and harming magic, instead of healing. Perfectly fine, as long as he steps back and does the healing when it's necessary, or at least tells the group up front that he won't be doing healing.
A Wizard who chooses the Conjuration and Necromancy schools and only uses those schools in every dungeon. Probably wouldn't be too feasible. People expect buffs, and they expect nuking capability... I'm sure you could get away with a focus on certain schools, but you probably ought to make sure you've got some of the general staples as well--no one is going to like a caster who refuses to do haste, blur, firewall, etc.
A Barbarian who races ahead of the group enraged into the thick of battle, because of his lack of intelligence and big b*lls. As long as you don't die doing it. :)

I'm just curious how RP friendly the general community is across the servers. I already am in a RPing guild who doesn't discriminate against builds designed around a character, instead of around DDO content.


Overall, if you are not grouping with other RP'ers, it's best to inform the group that you may not be doing the "standard" stuff (although barbarians zerging ahead is a fairly common standard :)). If you tell them what you will and/or won't be doing, chances are they'll be a lot more likely to be ok with it.

[Findecano]

Thanks for the responses and contributions to the discussion.

Having gamed in MMORPGs for over 7 years now, I am well aware that people expect a certain thing from certain classes. So I of course am not surprised that people would get upset for not playing the generally accepted role of a particular class.

I am in a RPing guild on Sarlona, yes, however I PUG most of the time and have never had a problem. Of course, I have only been playing my Barbarian which uses a greatsword and picks feats to help out with damage. So it is hard to hate a Barbarian that is making kills and rarely dying. However, I just unlocked Drow and decided to roll a Wizard. I chose Wizard over Sorceror, because I wanted my caster to be intelligent. Yes, I think about how stats will effect the way I RP a character. This is why my Barb has a Wisdom score of 12. 10 seems to be the average score for anything, so 12 would mean I have an above average wisdome for a person living in Eberron. This makes sense, since I am a Barbarian and common sense in battle is what keeps me alive. However, I am of average intelligence and cannot read.]

My Drow Wizard is being RPed as a Necromancer/Conjuror. I will pack only Necro spells, if I have room, Conjuror spells, and if I end up having more room, Evocation. Me being an experience gamer and all, I already know there will be some ****ed off power gamers who want me to buff, CC, and destroy mostly. Thing is, Drows don't help other people. Also, Drows tend to focus on necromancy.

I just wanted to ask a large sample of players, such as you all--how many powergamers are there that really will hate grouping with a Necro.

Why is it that there aren't a lot of RPers in DDO? The majority of pnp DnD players are RPers, and it is only natural to assume DDO players are big DnD fans. So why are DDO players so stuck up when it comes to playing classes? Why are people after the most optimized of optimized uber builds? Why do people pigeon hole classes in DDO, when a strength of DDO is the fact that you can play a class many different ways? It just boggles my mind of the ignorance and stupidity a lot of players have. Can they not see the benefit of every class? Sure it might not be optimal, but everything has a benefit. A good player knows how to take a groups benefits and apply them approprietly to take down a foe. Granted, you really do need certain roles filled for some quests and that is understandable. Group leaders should really ensure those roles are filled and stop assuming a certain class will fill it just because they have an icon that says Cleric, Fighter ...etc.

[Arianrhod]

Why is it that there aren't a lot of RPers in DDO? The majority of pnp DnD players are RPers, and it is only natural to assume DDO players are big DnD fans. So why are DDO players so stuck up when it comes to playing classes? Why are people after the most optimized of optimized uber builds? Why do people pigeon hole classes in DDO, when a strength of DDO is the fact that you can play a class many different ways? It just boggles my mind of the ignorance and stupidity a lot of players have. Can they not see the benefit of every class? Sure it might not be optimal, but everything has a benefit. A good player knows how to take a groups benefits and apply them approprietly to take down a foe. Granted, you really do need certain roles filled for some quests and that is understandable. Group leaders should really ensure those roles are filled and stop assuming a certain class will fill it just because they have an icon that says Cleric, Fighter ...etc.

I can only speak for myself, but here's my take. I consider myself "rp-lite"; I enjoy a bit of RP as long as it doesn't get in the way of getting the quest done. I do want to do all the quests, though, and that's getting harder and harder as I finish the lower level ones and have only higher level quests left on my "to-do" list. When I put together a PUG, my only real goal is to get the quest done. Having a good time in the process is a definite plus, and roleplaying can be a part of that. However, even a necromancer (going from your example) presumably wants to get the quest done if he joins the group, and so (being intelligent), would pick appropriate spells for the task, even if they aren't exactly in his area of expertise. I've got a turning-specced cleric who really wants to destroy undead, but if turning them and making them run off in all directions makes them harder to kill, she's willing to use her turns to DV the mage roasting them in a firewall instead.

[dragons1ayer74]

I absoultley love to role-play but DDO does not really lend itself well to support role-playing. Yes you can use emotes and yes you can RP your characters but really their is not a lot of real choices in the game (dialog wise and quest completion wise) also if you want favor (possible xp) you will need to rerun quests and doing the same thing defiantly dosn't lend to rp. My friend and I will role-play light and jokingly, but we play more for the comradere ship and just to have fun. A bonus seeing as we are physically seperated by hundreds of miles is we can catch up and visit. We go at our own pace (zergin sometimes or snails pace other times), if you want a real RP experine try a custom NWN with a good live DM (too bad NWN2 player user interface was amoung the worst of any game ever). Please don't take my post the wrong way etheir, if role-playing in Stormreach is fun for you then keep doing it, first priorty of the game should be to have fun and I am sure you can find other like minded players.

[tihocan]

A Barbarian who races ahead of the group enraged into the thick of battle, because of his lack of intelligence and big b*lls.
Better avoid that one, because it's a common pretext to playing stupid: "I'm RPing a stupid character!". Doesn't work too well in a game focused on group cooperation.

[Solmage]

What do you want to hear, that it's okay to purposely sabotage a group's goals (namely to complete a quest as efficiently as possible) so that you have fun because you're "RPing"? Sorry, it's not.

Join a group, tell them upfront you don't heal, you don't haste, you don't buff, you don't do crowd control, you don't do nuking, and in general, and when all things considered, will be contributing less than an empty slot since you will use up healing. If after that, they decide to still take you along, then everything's fine and there are no issues. Just don't wait for the middle of the quest to point out that you're a "selfish drow who doesn't help others", or you'll find yourself on the black lists of a lot of people.

(Keep in mind you're talking to someone who actually does enjoy RPing, although not in DDO, so at least I have some understanding. But my roleplaying position would be quite similar actually: If you aren't contributing to the party, you have no place in it)

[Borror0]

If you had a player who is a RPer in your PUG, would you boot him if he didn't play his class the ideal way?

Only if he is a treat to the success of the quest.
He should, however, let us know out of character that he is going to RP that way.


For Example:

An Evil Cleric who concentrates on melee/tanking and harming magic, instead of healing.
A Wizard who chooses the Conjuration and Necromancy schools and only uses those schools in every dungeon.
A Barbarian who races ahead of the group enraged into the thick of battle, because of his lack of intelligence and big b*lls.

Cleric:
Depends of the quest and skills.

Wizard:
Nope. But please, know how to use these spells efficiently!!

Barbarian:
Yes, and I would tell him that is poor RP skills. One dimensional character are lame, he shoudl create something deeper.

[Nevthial]

So I am a brand new Wizard, a Drow. I was fretting over which spells to choose over others when in the Tavern, when I thought "it'd be nice to just specialize in just a couple schools of magic, but PUG's probably wouldn't like that too much." I'm a RPer, so I tend to build my classes to fit a particular personality and style.

My questions is: If you had a player who is a RPer in your PUG, would you boot him if he didn't play his class the ideal way?

For Example:

An Evil Cleric who concentrates on melee/tanking and harming magic, instead of healing.
A Wizard who chooses the Conjuration and Necromancy schools and only uses those schools in every dungeon.
A Barbarian who races ahead of the group enraged into the thick of battle, because of his lack of intelligence and big b*lls.

I'm just curious how RP friendly the general community is across the servers. I already am in a RPing guild who doesn't discriminate against builds designed around a character, instead of around DDO content.

Those examples listed above would be fine recruits were I looking. Bring 'em on.

[Noctus]

If you had a player who is a RPer in your PUG, would you boot him if he didn't play his class the ideal way?

There is no the ideal way. Just people who think they can judge by the amount of levels you have in your classes which is the best way for you. And may get angry if you dont "behave".

For example one Rogue 10 / Ranger 2 can be a dual-digit-HP trapmonkey who basically watches the group untill a trap comes along while shooting some arrows when he feels save enough not to drwa aggro, while the other can be a Melee-Killing-Machine with high AC who tanks mobs and gets yelled at by the cleric because the Charisma-Paladin with STR 13, DEX 14 and no intimidate should do the job, as this is a melee-class and Rogue isnt....


Generallyas PUGs are like a box of choclates, i mostly like the new flavors and styles which you will find in there. I would only boot someone (or put on Blacklist if too deep in the quest) if he repeatedly acted against the group.
Like picking another fight again, before the group could heal up afther the last fight. Or like an "I am enchanter so i enchant in every fight"- Caster who makes the group wait for minute afther minute for the last Pinkhead to break so the door will open. And ignoring other players pleas to stop doing that.(Once had that in Butchers, halfway through i dropped group. Never grouped with him again.)

Roleplaying is nice and i personally enjoy some light roleplaying in the PUGs i run with, but if you are into rather Hardcore-things (no-Healin-Clerics, No CC-Wizards)state this at the moment you enter the group so the other members know what to expect and plan accordingly. And if they still want you in the group. So you will get much fewer angry complains.

[branmakmuffin]

My questions is: If you had a player who is a RPer in your PUG, would you boot him if he didn't play his class the ideal way?
If you can find a PUG willing to RP, I'll eat Minsc's miniature giant space hamster.

[Venar]

Sadly, DDO is a game with inflated challenge, and if your RPing means a sub-par character, then your problem is not the RP per say, but the inefficacy of your character. RPing is not an excuse to play a bad, group-hindering character.

Roleplaying is fine. Maybe you decided that your barbarian uses only natural weapons (clubs and greatclubs) because he's primitive. That's fine, can be a solid character. Now, if your roleplaying also includes wearing only hide armors, and thus you walk around with purposedly low AC, now that just makes you a bad group addition.

So basically:
Roleplay for fun? Sure.
Play an unusual build? Sure if you are still efficiant and usefull.
Use roleplay as an excuse to run a useless toon? No.

[Uska]

I am all for rp but you cant have an evil cleric here neutral at best, but I guess if you wanted to rp it you could but I would leave a group if he was the only cleric and not healing at all, I dont expect a cleric to be a healbot but I do expect them to do some healing. The others well if the barb wouldnt quit zerging I might quit healing him at some point and drop his stone in some hole somewhere, as to the wiz I could careless

[Uska]

Thanks for the responses and contributions to the discussion.

Having gamed in MMORPGs for over 7 years now, I am well aware that people expect a certain thing from certain classes. So I of course am not surprised that people would get upset for not playing the generally accepted role of a particular class.

I am in a RPing guild on Sarlona, yes, however I PUG most of the time and have never had a problem. Of course, I have only been playing my Barbarian which uses a greatsword and picks feats to help out with damage. So it is hard to hate a Barbarian that is making kills and rarely dying. However, I just unlocked Drow and decided to roll a Wizard. I chose Wizard over Sorceror, because I wanted my caster to be intelligent. Yes, I think about how stats will effect the way I RP a character. This is why my Barb has a Wisdom score of 12. 10 seems to be the average score for anything, so 12 would mean I have an above average wisdome for a person living in Eberron. This makes sense, since I am a Barbarian and common sense in battle is what keeps me alive. However, I am of average intelligence and cannot read.]

My Drow Wizard is being RPed as a Necromancer/Conjuror. I will pack only Necro spells, if I have room, Conjuror spells, and if I end up having more room, Evocation. Me being an experience gamer and all, I already know there will be some ****ed off power gamers who want me to buff, CC, and destroy mostly. Thing is, Drows don't help other people. Also, Drows tend to focus on necromancy.
I just wanted to ask a large sample of players, such as you all--how many powergamers are there that really will hate grouping with a Necro.

Why is it that there aren't a lot of RPers in DDO? The majority of pnp DnD players are RPers, and it is only natural to assume DDO players are big DnD fans. So why are DDO players so stuck up when it comes to playing classes? Why are people after the most optimized of optimized uber builds? Why do people pigeon hole classes in DDO, when a strength of DDO is the fact that you can play a class many different ways? It just boggles my mind of the ignorance and stupidity a lot of players have. Can they not see the benefit of every class? Sure it might not be optimal, but everything has a benefit. A good player knows how to take a groups benefits and apply them approprietly to take down a foe. Granted, you really do need certain roles filled for some quests and that is understandable. Group leaders should really ensure those roles are filled and stop assuming a certain class will fill it just because they have an icon that says Cleric, Fighter ...etc.


Says who? this eberron and not the better they were forgotten realms. drow are a bit different here.

[Venar]

So why are DDO players so stuck up when it comes to playing classes? Why are people after the most optimized of optimized uber builds? Why do people pigeon hole classes in DDO, when a strength of DDO is the fact that you can play a class many different ways? It just boggles my mind of the ignorance and stupidity a lot of players have. Can they not see the benefit of every class? Sure it might not be optimal, but everything has a benefit. A good player knows how to take a groups benefits and apply them approprietly to take down a foe. Granted, you really do need certain roles filled for some quests and that is understandable. Group leaders should really ensure those roles are filled and stop assuming a certain class will fill it just because they have an icon that says Cleric, Fighter ...etc.


Judging from your comment, and your signature showing a lvl 8 character, all i can say is that maybe you don't understand DDO as much as you think. You might wanna refrain from using the words "ignorance and stupidity" until you reach max level, and see what kinda quests awaits you there, and see if you enjoy un-optimized characters that much. Cause the mobs, believe me, are optimized.

[Arianrhod]

Roleplaying is fine. Maybe you decided that your barbarian uses only natural weapons (clubs and greatclubs) because he's primitive. That's fine, can be a solid character. Now, if your roleplaying also includes wearing only hide armors, and thus you walk around with purposedly low AC, now that just makes you a bad group addition.


Actually, most of what I've read on the forums seems to indicate that (post-level 10, anyway) if you can't get your AC over 40, it doesn't really matter what "armor" you're wearing. So if you're playing a barbarian using 2-handed weapons, hide armor is just fine (not as efficient as robes, since it takes longer to switch to different ones, but otherwise just as good). It might even be a sensible choice, since good bonuses like fearsome and deathblock might be available at a fraction of the price a mithral full plate version would go for. Just make sure to concentrate on dealing damage, and not try to pretend that hide armor is actually going to protect you in a fight ;)

[Solmage]

So basically:
Roleplay for fun? Sure.
Play an unusual build? Sure if you are still efficiant and usefull.
Use roleplay as an excuse to run a useless toon? No.

/QFT


Actually, most of what I've read on the forums seems to indicate that (post-level 10, anyway) if you can't get your AC over 40 [..]

Well, considering that 42 was the AC of my ranger at level SIX, why, yes, you might imagine that at level 16 it might not be particularly useful. But just because you're a barbarian doesn't mean you should ignore damage mitigation, nor is it impossible to reach a decent AC. (enhancements that help you get more healing out of each cast (human), displacement (elf), DR docents such as defiance (WF), etc)

Having said that, yes the barb armor was a particular bad example from Venar. A better one would be one in which he doesn't use magic weapons because he's scared of magic. About as fun as the "wizard who got traumatized in an experiment and doesn't cast spells, just swings his quarterstaff", etc.

[branmakmuffin]

When I put together a PUG, my only real goal is to get the quest done. Having a good time in the process is a definite plus
I can't believe you wrote that. Think about what that means (yes, I know I snipped it, but not out of context). You're saying getting the quest done is the most important thing, and if it's also fun, then fine. That implies that if it's not fun, that's also fine.

If the game is not fun 100% of the time, why do you play it?

[Draccus]

True roleplaying, in any game system, requires a human DM. DDO is a fantastic approximation of tabletop RPGing but the lack of a human DM is the glaring reason why true roleplaying won't work here.

A human DM's job is to cater the encounters to challenge his players and make the game fun. If one of his players is an un-optimized, non-standard, unique character, he can easily adjust any aspect of the game to make it enjoyable for the party.

As an easy example, when I was a kid and playing 1st Edition D&D, we would have very different sessions if, say, the cleric couldn't join us that day. He could tailor the encounter to our current party, mood, or roleplaying attitude on the fly.

DDO can't do that. A human DM could probably make a non-healing cleric work but DDO can't...and shouldn't be expected to.

[VonBek]

For Example:

An Evil Cleric who concentrates on melee/tanking and harming magic, instead of healing.

Wat a minute, I run with this guy!

EDIT: direct answer: I would not generally boot someone for less than ideal play.

A few of us got together to build our own experience within DDO (the purple part of my sig). We wanted to build for our own idea of fun rather than min-maxing, optimizing, loot mongering, whatever... When someone outside of our group runs with us, we ask them how they like to play, and let them play the way they envisioned.

That evil cleric heals from time to time. But he's no healbot, by any stretch.

FWIW, It works pretty well when we run at an easy pace. It allows us to relax and read the DM text, admire the artwork, and pick some flowers.

[branmakmuffin]

A human DM could probably make a non-healing cleric work but DDO can't...and shouldn't be expected to.
What, you're saying we shouldn't expect any improvements over what we have now in the area of AI? We have reached the pinnacle of AI? So we'll never get to meet HAL, or WOPR, or Colossus, or C3PO?