How do you deal with PC's with Main Character Syndrome? The kind that constantly try to shift the narrative over to their character even when it's not relevant to them in the slightest.
I figured it was just him joking around with his character being something you'd expect a weaboo to roll, but it's been happening frequently. So much to the point where it's starting to get in the way of what I've been planning for my other PC's.
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Take the wind out of their sails with some goofy shit.
I mean i can't just throw goofy shit out of the blue. The campaign itself isn't this edgy grimdark setting, and the rest of the party is doing a good job. I don't want to penalize all my PC's by trivializing their story arcs with goofy shit just because one PC is trying to constantly steal the spotlight.
Have you tried talking to him like an adult?
He's probably not an adult
This is a non-issue.
>So much to the point where it's starting to get in the way of what I've been planning
No plan survives contact with the players, and you're not writing a book. Collaborative storytelling goes through the PC involved as well. The main factor is: what do the other players think of this?
Remind him that 1)actions have consequences and 2)failure isn't the end of the story.
He should become more wise once everyone ignores him, or when some big evil bashes his head in for trying to meddle constantly.
What kind of character is he playing compared to the rest of the party, btw? It may be a mean for him to stay relevant/busy in scenes where his character doesn't shine.
I've got a few non-combat focused chars that were getting cinematic during fights to maximize their damage output. It's easy when you're a burly warrior, but the lanky scribe usually has to use the scenery or something to keep up, which can end in stealing the spotlight.
Also, this Use "I think/I feel that", ask for his opinion and the reasons behind his rp.
I dealt with it by emotionally torturing the player and dumping shit all over the character.
Out of the party he stands out the most. Stop me if you heard this before. He's a human Magus with amnesia and the only thing he remembers is his name and that he's some unrivaled swordsman with powerful magic. He's traveling to find the secrets of his past and he believes the key to unlocking them is this Katana I let him start off with.
The rest of the party is pretty great though. I have a Gnome sorcerer with the from a prestigious family with the Ectoplasm Bloodline. Comes from a long line of ghost hunters and exorcists who were employed by many nobles and kings to perform exorcisms and purge their homes of evil spirits. He set out into the world to make his grand-pappy proud by solving the mystery of his father's disappearance and stopping spooky occult shit along the way.
I have a half-elven ranger who was born and raised by an island tribe of fishermen and hunters. Because the traditions of the tribe focus almost exclusively on hunting, nearly every tribe member proves their worth to the tribe by hunting down a great monster and harvest their remains to provide as a gift to their gods. As a coming of age ritual, every Tribe member must go on a pilgrimage and hunt down a powerful creature. The greater the monster, the more of a legend to the Tribe you are. Because of her Elven blood, she felt she was never truly accepted by the tribe, and she believes if she kills the greatest monster the tribe has ever known for her pilgrimage, she would finally be fully accepted by the tribe.
Ive got a pair of human siblings. One's a Paladin and the other a Druid. They came from a noble family who's town were overrun by Werewolves when they were in their late teens. Much of their family were either killed or infected. The brothers managed to escape but one of them got bitten before the army of a neighboring kingdom came to stop the Lycanthropy from spreading. The infected one was rehabilitated and trained by the kingdom's Archdruid, and the other became a Pally
I have. Most of it boils down to him going "Hey man I'm role playing."
Well, that's your problem right there. You allowed him to start with all the shit that's now annoying you.
Why the fuck would you allow one character to dictate he's actually some kind of unparalled swordmaster and powerful magician who's lost his memory, when something like that is completely up to you to greenlight?
Basically, player asked if he could play an anime main character, you said yeah, and now you're crying that he's playing an anime main character.
From what I've set up with one of the party members I could tell she was enjoying where I was taking her character. I try my best to put them in a position of crucial decision making while making sure they know that they still have 100 percent control of where their character's story goes.
>Where I was taking her character
>100 percent control of their characters
You're contrary as fuck, and your biggest problem is that you want to dictate the story, but can't actually admit, and someone having a strong idea about their character's direction now chafes you something fierce since it's making it harder for you to tell your story.
Well the easy counter to that is "your roleplaying is killing the fun for everyone else including myself, so if you don't knock it the fuck off you can and will get the fuck out."
I don't mind that he's playing an anime character, that's fine. what bothers me is when theirs a moment in the story that is almost exclusive for the story arc of one party member, he's trying to make his blank-slate backstory relevent to theirs.
Cut his tongue out.
Let him die a hero.
Forcefully.
Maybe I worded that incorrectly. What I mean't with "where I was taking her character," I was talking about bringing up something relevant to their backstory for them to pursue and they take the reigns from there. Obviously I'm not going to force something upon a PC because their decisions can easily let me know whether or not they're interested in the line I'm throwing their way.
A dominant player isn't an issue as long as others aren't taking issue with it. It's natural for a strong personality to play strongly and try to be the center of attention a lot, and naturally there will also be players who don't feel so compelled to do that.
As long as it's not a problem for your players, it's fine. It doesn't matter if him having a part in the other characters' stories isn't what you want. As long as the other players are fine with it, it's fine.
And no, you don't get to decide whether or not they're fine. If you think they have an issue with this, ask them. Take up the matter like an adult, at the table, and ask everyone about how they feel. Then resolve the situation. As a group. Not any of this "take him aside" shit. Be adults and solve it like adults.
>Let him die a hero
You might be on to something
If I did that it would cause unneeded butthurt, which is what I'm trying to avoid in the first place. I've talked to everyone at the table and there's already been a consensus for him not to interject himself onto personal story arcs. If I were attempt to kill him off it would fuck up the trust I've been building with the rest of the party.
Still, I'm not entirely if I should wait for the rest of the party to step in, or if I should enforce it myself.
So wait, if there's been a consensus, and you've talked with everyone, and the problem has been acknowledged and all, then what the FUCK is still the problem?
Why are you putting up with a problem player constantly perpetuating a problem that has been identified as a problem and agreed upon, as a group, that he needs to cut back on it? Why are you tolerating the behavior?
Why the FUCK are you even asking us if your should enforce this? Take your testicles or ovaries, put them into their place, and take some responsibility as the DM.
This is your fault now. Fix it.
Have you played Metal Gear Solid 5? Because with that kind of backstory its easy to add a "good" twist having played the game.
If not Make his memories be false, implanted by the followers of the real swordmaster that had to go into hiding and finded someone that could look the part with a bit of magical tampering on his memories.
It sounds more like the player has already agreed to step back. That is what the word "consensus" means. So I have no idea what he's looking for.
Well, if the player has actually agreed to step back, and then doesn't, then it's exactly the same thing: OP should stop being a pussy and actually do something instead of whining anonymously about it and avoiding responsibility.
From weaboo swordsman to the Mam Who Sold the World? I like you, user.
>Shirou's fetish is swords
>Unlimited Blade Works is filled with nothing but swords
>Ionian Hetaroi is Iskander's ideal battlefield & his army
>Reality Marbles turn the world into the user's magical realm
Like normal PCs, I guess. They are the main characters, after all.
Veeky Forums, I've been having a problem with this for a while now in the campaigns I participate in. Apparently the other players and GM think I make nothing but 'main characters'. I really don't see it, and I'm hoping maybe you guys can help shed some light on their logic so I don't become that guy.
Basically, my thought process in character creation is this: my character should be tied, in some way, to the plot that the GM is trying to craft. I feel that, while I could play a character who's in it for gold or just along for the ride, that gets boring after a while. Examples include:
In a campaign about going to the setting's equivalent of China, I played a wizard formerly of a merchant family looking for someone lost in the far east.
In a campaign about being mercenaries, I played a swordsman desperate to prove he's the best as the company champion, with lots of hooks to his backstory for the GM to use if he so wished.
In a campaign about conspiracies in human-centric countries, I make someone whose father fell victim to one such conspiracy.
In a campaign about being on the road, I made young knight-errant struggling to be an ideal knight.
I feel they get called 'main characters' because, when we actually get dropped into the game, very few of the other PCs actually attempt to interact with the world. I've noticed that many of them sit and do nothing in the hub, waiting on plot to come to them. A few of the GMs also divide the party outside of major events, so there's little party unity. Meanwhile, I have my characters pursue their goals during downtime. I even tell the GMs that it doesn't need to be on-screen if they wish to move on, but they focus on it anyway.
I attempted to start bringing other party members along with me on these private ventures but even this failed to satisfy the GM, who complained that everyone was seeing the story through my character rather than on their own.
So, what am I doing wrong?
Nothing, the other players are just bad at playing and the GM has his hands tied.
The GMs (there's two) are my main critics, actually.
The GMs are criticizing you for actually engaging with the setting while everyone is just waiting to get railroaded to the next plot point? What the hell do they want you to do, then? It's the other players' faults that they can't get over murderhoboing.
I was waiting for this to be a troll post, but the punchline never came and you sound serious. You're also not really doing anything bad or wrong. It seems like you're a fatally interesting person who is just more engaging and confident than your group. I would suggest trying to be boring, but this can kill a group in a single session if your group is truly as boring compared to you as I assume.
What kinds of characters did everyone else make in a scenario such as the ones you told us about? If you were to leave, could the group function? Have you made any of these characters with the purpose in mind of *not* being the focal point?
Hmm, from how you've described the situation you aren't doing anything wrong but you're probably omitting something. Maybe it isn't so much what you're doing as how you're doing it, your characters' personal sidequests might overshadowing or derailing the main plot or the other characters
"Okay, please roleplay differently."
I'm going to be using the campaign about an expedition to notChina for most of my reply because it's the first one I joined and it's still going on, a year and a half later. The sad thing is that the campaign is so bloated that it could survive the departure of any one character. If I stopped showing up, the GMs would just have the plot keep happening while saying my wizard stayed in his wagon. That's also part of why them calling me the main character confuses me.
Almost every other character to a person is along for the ride. At this point, there's only one or two people even in it for the money the NPC leading the expedition is offering. 3-4 PCs have been recruited and this NPC literally refuses to pay them so there's no logical reason for them to be there beyond them being aware they're a character on the road to plot.
We have an Italian lady who sits during timeskips writing in a journal, a guy who made the poor mistake of blowing his exposition load on his backstory too early, a GMPC who's in it for the money because his town needs it, a GMPC on a quest for the holy grail, a halfling pirate there because he wants a boat, a redneck hunter, and a girl going to China because she needs a cure to a disease ravaging her people. There's big travel chunks and the GMs refuse to let me do my research/writing off-screen so we can get to stuff that involves everyone.
They also don't really like humoring requests. The first character I played in this campaign was a man with no name sort who was meant to be what amounted up to a quiet side-character who would occasionally hunt bounties on the side. I asked the GM to keep in mind when constructing scenarios that I'd like him to develop into a better person later on. His response was "It's not my job to give you character development". The next session, his GMPC, who was nowhere near his country, encountered refugees from his country who forced him to rethink his position on many things.
And, again, I try to involve others when it's clear we're not skipping to anything important. I spent last session writing travel primers on a variety of subjects for the other characters. I wrote a guide to the language of NotChina for the girl who needs medicine from there, a primer on locations of note for the Italian girl who wants to record the voyage so she knows what to look for, a book on famous pirates and what caused their downfall for the halfing pirate, and a treatise on the basics of magic for the GMPC that recently found himself a priest of his god.
So, my character tries to actively help the other characters. I think the reason that the GMs don't like it is because they think it takes away their agency as the people controlling the story. They've made it very clear that they like to control who gets what and when they get it. They don't like that I say the magic items we get are impersonal and so I try to make my own.
Maybe I'm just overthinking this a lot. Yeah, I probably am, but I'm glad you give me the benefit of the doubt and don't dismiss me as a troll or something.
I don't think I'm omitting anything. In the other campaign where I played the merc, I was the only person that even talked about my backstory with the GM before the first session.
>PCs "in for the money" working for an employer who never pays
>TWO GMPCs
>One of them on a quest for the Holy Grail....in Not!China no less
>GMs discourage character interaction
>don't like humoring requests
>"It's not my job to give you char development."
Get a new group.
Talk to him, ideally with the other players (if you haven't already). TTRPGs are a collaborative, group experience--and by putting in minimal effort anywhere other than himself, it undermines the enjoyment for everyone else. If they invest themselves in everyone else, then everyone can invest in him.
I'm guilty of doing this constantly.
From what I can tell, you can relax. You're not brute-forcing yourself into the limelight, but by being invested in the DM's story and trying to make shit happen you'll inevitably have the spotlight placed on yourself. Don't fret.
If you're seriously concerned, consider making someone who blends into the background a bit. Walk around in the other players' shoes a while and see what comes of it.
Do you ever have your campaigns referred to as "The [Your Character] Campaign", and if so, is it affectionate or ironic?
The merc campaign was called 'The Landry Show' for a while. Most of the people found it funny, including the GM. That GM, at least, had the good grace to get frustrated alongside me when Landry had to recruit people because the actual captain's player forgot to do any recruiting, rather than being mad at me.
No, he wants to be the MC?
Throw him into a goofy side arc.
The thread was over so quickly, yet it continues.
I get this problem a lot, but I simply make every reference to a Chosen One be a Chosen Party instead. It's not one dude, it's The Five who will restore peace to the kingdom. You're part of one epic story, like the Companions or the Fellowship of the Ring - the part that didn't include the fucking hobbits.
Interestingly enough, Exalted does this very well. The Solars are all heroes, but no Solar is more of a hero than the others.
This game was such a letdown for me, though. I mean, it was amazing, except for the fact that it was never finished.
What bothered me though is that we were supposed to be playing a Snake who had gone outright mad, the entire game was about the man's fall from grace into a monster. But I mean, Venom is the most altruistic Snake has ever.
You pull child soldiers out of Africa and give them food, shelter, and an education. You /rid the world of nuclear weapons/, for fucks sake.
Am I the only one who finds that Shiroy's statement makes perfect sense?
Just because you're logically correct doesn't make you morally right.
Why do people keep posting it like it's a stupid thing to say?
Alexander was HELLA gay mate.
It's the translation that makes it a weird and clunky phrase. He's basically saying: "You may be right...But fuck you, I'll find my own way!"
You know, what Kirk tells Spock constantly.
Even with the weird translation it makes sense.
They should just go back to "People for when they are killed."
I have a player that tries this but I'm always very careful to ensure every player at the table has their own voice and opinion.
Apparently he fucked Waver offscreen. Considering how there's a Waver look-alike in IH, truly Iskander is in his magical realm.
Specifically, I forcibly switch the spotlight when I feel one guy's had plenty of time in it for now and force it on other party members by name, rather than an open forum of "does anyone else want to do something".
Player 1, this is happening, what is Character 1 doing at this time/how does he react?
instead of
Ok, so you do this Player 1. Does anyone else want to do anything?
Works wonders, there's some weird psychology shit or something behind it
>"People die when they're killed"
And that was supposed to be
>"I got stabbed in the heart and lost about three gallons of blood. Why the hell am I not dead."
It's the same with his "People die when they are killed."
The actual terminology is "A person's past and future ends when they are killed."
I'd like some cringe stories about your insufferable weeaboo pls. There's no way I'm the only one who wants this.
Oh also, is his character Asian or white? We have a house rule where you can have an eastern spin on a character, but if you do you have to be asian and basically stay in character as the noodle guy from the fifth element. Surprisingly that scares most of our would-be weebs off.
No one is ever going to be able to explain that better than just bein like "Kirk and Spock, yo"
Nice work user
Then continue to talk to him.
"It's not fun for me when you keep hogging the spotlight."
I agreed with you up until
>none of this take him aside shit
That IS dealing with it as an adult. People are more willing to be honest with you and take you seriously when no one else is around because they're not performing in front of their peers. If you bring it up in the group, he might interpret it as public humiliation. I won't spell out how that's detrimental to solving the issue.
Not to mention the other members of the group will be much less honest with you in a group setting. They're more vulnerable to mob mentality and far more likely to avoid the problem instead of trying to solve it. Who wants drama on game night?
I don't want to make any assumptions, user, but it seems that either your group is above-average at communication or you solve your problems via humiliation.
The actual context is that Shirou survived multiple would-be fatal injuries because of a magical artifact he had. He wouldn't die even when inflicted wounds that'd kill him otherwise. The scene in particular is Shirou giving said artifact back to its rightful owner, said owner asking if it's okay that he give up what saved his ass multiple times. Shirou merely says that people're supposed to die when they're killed & thus losing said artifact isn't a big deal to him. Most cite the line without the context.
This is how it was taught to me in the army(Finland). You got a problem that can be taken away from mob mentality? You take it away from mob mentality, pull the other person aside and talk to them, one on one. There's no group pressure, no humiliation, no straws that can be grasped, just naked talk between human beings.
>I don't mind that he's playing an anime character
You should. It's the reason behind your current problem.
It's the kind of recursive problem that makes my head hurt. Kojima does his best to lead us on to thinking that we're going to be this evil Big Boss, but then he gives us Venom Snake. There's a meaning there, but the story feels so half-baked, with characters doing things outside of their character, all for the sake of advancing a story that Venom no longer has any stake in. But is that supposed to mean something? A slap in the face to people who wanted their own character instead of Snake, a message on how people can act differently than we expect? I don't think thinking about this is ever going to make me happy, but I still can't stop trying to rectify or at least justify it, when in my heart of hearts I don't want what it gave me in any sense. The series should've ended with GZ.
If he wants his character to be the center of attention, then by all means, cooperate. Of course, this is certainly linked to shorter life expectancy if you're getting into lots of fights...
I think the point of Venom is to say that the player is just as much Big Boss as Jack is. In fact, that speech at the end could just as well be addressed to the audience as it was to Venom. Compared to Miller who's so enormously butthurt that he doesn't get robot limbs like Venom, Liquid who hates daddy so much he fucks things up & otherwise, Venom actually continues with life & takes advantage of his robot limbs & Diamond Dogs by doing shit you couldn't do in Peace Walker.
I have a useful goofball syndrome.
I try to be lax and just be the guy that hangs around and makes stupid jokes, but the rest of the party is always so incompetent and makes such horrible decisions that I end up having to step up.
This includes situations where the character's morals and goals would conflict with helping but I still have to in order to avoid a party wipe.
I kind of like that Venom A) either made a conscious decision to be a better person or B) had his original altruistic medic personality shine through somewhat.
I thought it was cool.
I never saw any of the prerelease materials and had no preconceived notions of what the story I was supposed to be playing through was.
Same here. I thought part of the point was that he seems so heroic to us, he seems like a really great guy, which draws attention away from the fact that he's still waging war for profit, conflict is his life, and that's why the system, Cipher, governments, what have you, don't think too much of him (or the other soldiers of the series), because they'd rather not think about the work of military men (and one woman).
I think you're supposed to ask "Venom is so great, how did Outer Heaven happen?" And I think it's because Venom always did what he thought was best.
>Miller who's so enormously butthurt that he doesn't get robot limbs like Venom
Bruh do you even tapes?
Miller chooses to not get robot limbs you dummy. To help keep his rage sharp, and to honor his fallen comrades.
I don't blame you if you didn't listen to all the damn things.
I don't like what they did with Liquid, honestly. I feel like it would've been better to make him a character that might have once been like Solid Snake, but was twisted up over getting spurned by an admittedly evil father.
Now, I'm not even sure if anything we learned about him in MGS1 is even canon. Did he really learn how to fly a helicopter at a young age? Did he really build his own version of Foxhound out in Iraq? Or was he just a pissy kid that happened to be genetically connected to some legacy?
Miller annoys me too, but for different reasons. Peace Walker set up BB and Miller as being close friends who actually could respect and understand each other. But BB just ditches him - there isn't even some big confrontation. All we see is the Miller who had been mean throughout the entire game doing an about-face near the end.
Miller's better at being a racist with his human arms than he could ever manage with robot arms anyway.
I laughed so hard at this. You're a genius. Also, fuck Kojima
Honestly, it depends on how it flows with the party and the campaign. In one of my old campaigns, I played a half-orc warlord whose goal was to form a mercenary company and lead him. Considering that the rest of the party were adventurers/hired swords due to different motivations but with no major further motivations that weren't accomplish-able through adventuring, I think it was only natural for my half-orc to end up as party leader/protagonist
Every single time people talk about Metal Gear and the new plot points and threads it makes me glad I only ever played MGS1 and none of the sequels.
It's probably for the best that way. After 3 it really starts to get weird.
He needs more backstory. He needs at least the same as the next smallest backstory. He keeps going after others spotlights because he doesn't have a story of his own.
You can start make up possible backstories and trying them all on him to see what may work.
Not a good mage or swordsman. Was grabbed by air pirates or snuck on board; tried to fight like the great swordsman he thought he was named; fell off the ship with the katana. Pirates kept going.
(Like Cloud Strife. "Can I have my katana back?" But the true unrivaled swordsman turns out to be evil, and on the airship. The PC blocked that horrible revelation out.)
3 was a lot of fun
Eh, personally I don't like the idea "solo character quests", but I'll take a crack at it. What do the rest of the party do during this time, did this guy get his own character arc thingy?
Gib em. It'll not only put them in line, but also remind the other players that no PC is sacred.