tzor wrote:shadzar wrote:As long as you understand with that last bit that everyone is the players, NOT the characters. So they do NOT have to find a reason to be a team, as they already have it...to play the game. You are mixing the player and the character up.
This brings us to the $500.000 question; How do you play the game?
Players play the game
through their characters. That is not to say that there cannot be OCC cooperation among the players, but such cooperation (let's just call it kibitzing for now) is the same for the players in the game as it is for any onlookers around the table not playing the game. While players can suggest to other players courses of action that act cooperatively, eventually they can only control the actions of their own characters.
Not exactly.
Players play the game by expressing the actions to OTHER PLAYERS. You are focusing on a part of the medium. Its like saying painters make art with brushes, therefore a painter only needs brushes in order to make art. You are forgetting the other tools required.
Players VIEW the world, through the characters, but play it through interaction with the other players.
Lets look at it in the most anti-Gygaxian way....
Players are the actors, the DM the director, the rules the screen-writer, and the characters are the characters of the movie.
If one actor does something with their character the screen-writer, director, or other actors disagree with so that it impedes the production of the story, then that actor will be replaced. They aren't working towards the same goal. The final product. Max Von Sydow having his character attempt to kill Russel Crowe's character when they first met, would not have furthered the story everyone agreed to partake in.
A character in D&D is made the party diplomat, for whatever reason. After conversing with NPCs about a job/task/quest, the diplomat is supposed to relay things to the party including but not limited to the pay. The diplomat supplies the party with false information giving them lesser amount of pay, hoping to keep some for himself. The party goes through with it, and the diplomat collects the reward and pays it out, keeping the excess amount from the rest of the party. Another character learns of this happening later and informs the entire party of it.
Decision time.
Here there is nothing wrong with this action in the realm of the characters, because the characters have no say in it. If the rest of the players agree this would be likely to happen and OK that it happened, then the game continues without problem. When the other players have a problem with this action, then a problem occurs.
There is NOTHING in the rules that will or can exist to prevent this. This is either a bit of good roleplaying as agreed by the group, or bad roleplaying as decided by the group. The group is the players and decides what they will accept and not. The same goes for characters allowed. Be they kender, drow, etc.
You have to understand the difference between the player and character to understand and play the game. You must be able to separate them.
