[UA] Unbeatable PCs

[con_job at excite.com]

 --- On Mon 04/15, Royal Minister of Stuff  wrote:
> 
> --- "con_job at excite.com"  wrote:
> > 
> > Why not just tell the guy to play his murderous
> > software magnate somewhere else? 
> 
> Colorado Springs has a sparse supply of gamers who are
> willing to let me GM at all.  Besides, my group is
> made up of (mostly) gamers who've been kicked out of
> everyone else's groups.  There's an unspoken agreement
> that it won't happen here (but we reserve the right to
> get made and sulk.)

I don't know about the history of gaming in Colorado Springs, or what it's like to be you there, but when I go to the local game store there are always a half-dozen gamers kicking around talking about wanting to be in a game of something.  If I wanted to I could probably be running or playing in seven different games a week with seven gaming groups.  It's not that there's a huge gaming contingent here, I just know that most gamers are always looking for a game (in the abstract if not the concrete).

I also don't know what it's like for your gaming group, and maybe all the members in it have similar issues with inability to find a game, but I know that I have left gaming groups because there was one lame guy who insisted on playing things that didn't fit.  

My Sunday night game and I have been playing different games for over two years now.  Every time we're going to change games, PC's, or GM's, we take one week off from playing, talk about the sort of game we're going to run, and what will and won't fit in  it.  If someone has zero interest in a particular game, people have left for the duration of that game and then come back when we switched.  This creates a win-win situation, where the group can play a fun game, the one person not interested doesn't have to play a game he doesn't like, and it spares you having a game that no one wants to play where you make a group of completely innapropriate characters who do something innappropriate for the game.

I can't imagine anything about the situation you described as being even win-lose, much less win-win.  It sounds like a miserable lose-lose situation. 

> > I've noticed a
> > tendancy in many games I've played for a GM to let
> > themselves be bullied by one player who isn't having
> > fun.  If he isn't having fun, tell him to leave and
> > replace him with someone who will.  
> 
> Like who?  Besides, not only do I not have any power
> in my own particular group, I don't WANT that much
> power.  We try to share responsibility for decisions
> like that. Besides, today that one guy wasn't having
> fun, tomorrow it may well be me.

Not having fun a particular night isn't grounds for expulsion or being told to sit this game out, but be reasonable.  If you bought Advanced Recon (tm, copyright, etc.), and told your gaming group you were interested and all but one said, "Wow! roleplaying in Vietnam, cool!" then started arguing about who gets to be the southern drill sargeant with the squad sixty, and one guy grumbled that he'd rather play a mage, you'd insist on ignoring all the excitement about a new game and running D&D instead?  

Don't get me wrong, I think third ed D&D is wet your pants good, but I find the whole idea of letting one guy change the game from something he wasn't interested in to something that as you described no one was interested in, that sounds like the gaming equivalent of a disfunctional abusive relationship.

> 
> > There are always
> > more gamers, and if there aren't there's no rule
> > saying you can't play smaller games.  
> 
> A course of action which invariably ends up with me
> sitting alone on gaming night.  It's like ordering
> your last soldier to execute himself as an example to
> the others.

Asking one person to leave for a few weeks so everyone else can play, or inviting one person to replace someone who isn't having fun isn't "executing your last soldier."  If that's your only player, then your definition of everyone is a little skewed and you should say me, but the description you used the phrase "he didn't like the idea... and was even more incensed that everyone else did."  That implied he wasn't the only player in the game.  

You also noted that he was unwilling to "make any concessions to the rest of the group."  Pardon me if that seems like a warning sign.  I thought role-playing games were all about interacting with others and being part of a team.  I didn't realize acting like a baby who took his ball and went home was the sort of behavior you want to encourage.



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