ITT: Post the internal struggles you've had as a player in any game. Not the ones you've had in your groups or in character ones, but the ones you battle in your own head out of character. Spoilers optional.
Alternatively, toss in your two cents on someone's internal struggle.
I'll go first.I'm currently playing a game that I have many issues with the themes within the setting, primarily due to my beliefs and due to my experiences in life. This is an inability to comprehend and adapt to certain extremely heavy features of the setting, not an issue with it as a whole. This shows not only in the characters I create, but also how I approach problem solving within the game. I enjoy playing the game, and it does allow me to exercise mental muscles I rarely have a chance to with most other systems and settings though. I had been having occasional thoughts regarding this internal conflict since the beginning of the new year, and recently a member of the group mentioned it though I doubt they realized just how much thought I'd already put into it. While I can readily enjoy settings with similar themes in other circumstances, I find it hard to conform to the expectations of the setting. In an Order of the Stick comparison... I am constantly making the Belkar of the party. Even my conservative attempts turn out that way somehow. This has put me in a difficult position; while I want to continue playing, I don't know whether I should. From what I can tell my presence in the group is welcomed and enjoyed in and out of character, and I enjoy both the game and the group most of the time, but that hasn't helped to relieve these doubts.
I often worry in roleplaying games, that I stay "in-character" too much. By this, I mean I enjoy playing flawed characters, who can and will make choices that anyone with out-of-game-knowledge (or even the cool and balanced perspective of an outside view) can clearly see are bad choices... but I do it anyway, because it feels "right" for the character in these situations.
Now... this would be fine if I were a writing a book or something, but in the confines of a group-based roleplaying game, I'm constantly fearing that having my characters make these bad choices is going to piss off the rest of the group, no matter how in-character it is. Just last session I got chewed out by the one of the players in the party because my character, a support-mage, got grappled by a werewolf-thing and started getting mauled. Now, I had several spells I could have used to escape this situation, but in-character it felt like the right thing to do was panic and start whaling on the thing with my staff. With my low strength, this was pretty much a complete waste of my turn, and put my character in considerable danger... but I did it because it FELT RIGHT. Like, that's a fucking scary situation (especially when you're not used to physical combat), you don't sit there and calmly cast a spell while something has you off the ground and is mauling you. You panic and start flailing with whatever you can grab.
Unfortunately one of the players disagreed and the others just sorta seemed to give silent consent that I was actively hurting the group by doing this.
>>46028294
I can definitely identify with that. There is a fine line between 'my-guy-isms' and staying in character. A way to help that is to try to reduce (not eliminate) the amount of stupid things the character does. Early in the campaign it can make for some entertaining moments and good laughs, but the farther you go in your adventuring career the less likely such things should happen. To use your werewolf mauling incident as an example, it might be a good idea to have a better reaction if something like that happens again, or perhaps your character might realize this is an issue and could ask the party to help him get used to such things once everything has calmed down. Being in character and being stupid works well, but it just becomes a damper on the whole game if there is no growth out of it. If you're not sure how your character could grow out of one of their bad decisions, perhaps talk to the rest of the group about it afterward in a pre- or post-session chat sometime. Then at the very least your table will understand you're not just falling to 'my-guy-itus' but you're just playing your character as well as you can.
Just make sure if your character ever goes full retard and you go along for the ride that you have a really good reason to do so, and preferably do it in a really big way so we can all enjoy the storytime later.
>>46027994>I'm currently playing a game that I have many issues with the themes within the setting, primarily due to my beliefs and due to my experiences in life. This is an inability to comprehend and adapt to certain extremely heavy features of the setting, not an issue with it as a whole.
Can you get into details? I don't really have the frame of reference of that Order of the Stick character.
>>46028932Well, basically the setting in general has certain expectations, the party for the most part adheres to those expectations (with one or two that do so begrudgingly) but there's one that is practically dragged along kicking and screaming the whole way.
The OOTS reference pretty much goes
>lawful good fighter leader
>lawful good cleric
>chaotic good rogue
>chaotic good bard
>neutral wizard (temporarily neutral evil due to desperation and a literal deal with a devil or three)
>typical blood and glory chaotic evil ranger (Belkar)
Basically, in a setting where EVERYONE follows the same basic ideology aside from dead things and things that are soon to be dead, I keep making characters that rebel against that ideology somehow or even if they follow it some part of them represents what that ideology hates. Now in some games this would be ok, but my party is following that ideology for the most part. Many problems the Order of the Stick face in-story are because of Belkar being Belkar. I haven't directly caused anything massively in that direction yet, but my characters haven't been as... well gleefully ignorant and openly defiant as Belkar has a tendency to be. I've kept my rebellion subtle so far, and haven't quite yet directly fucked shit up, but depending on survival rate and situational circumstances it will almost certainly happen eventually.
I'd give some actual details, but several of my group do frequent this board and I'd rather not cause red flags to pop in the group until I've given this more thought.
>>46027994
Most of my internal struggles during RPGs is trying to restrain myself enough not to kill the other players while there are witnesses.
>>46028893
This. Thank you, Anon, that was the first thing I've read on /tg/ today that wasn't completely infuriating.
>>46029198
I am glad to have had useful words to offer.
>>46029184
I've had that feeling before, and left groups over it. Though if you insist on staying and want to indulge that murderous intent you could always try roofies.
Going to sleep now, hopefully after my sleep and then my long day I will come back and this thread will have somehow survived. If so, I'll see what words I have to offer to others. May the Dice Gods smile upon you all.
>>46029698
Bumping before I pass out as well.
OP here. Woke up to piss, decided to check the page number. Bumping.
have a bump
Pre-work bump.
Workbamp
Almost home bump
It's hard to believe there are so few players with internal struggles that are willing to share... What has 4chan come to these days?
>>46046723
I don't have internal struggles really doable for this thread. My characters almost always slip into greedy money grubbing types. I embraced my greed recently with a long running Dark Heresy campaign and it's honestly one of my best characters in a while. Greedy and money grubbing but now with principles I don't feel like I'll have to compromise.
>>46046723
I think it has to do with many fa/tg/uys playing in online games with other fa/tg/uys and not wanting to cause drama or raise red flags.
As for me, I had a single OOC dilemma that boiled down to "should I leave now because it's not worth the time, or should I play out this one arc that actually got me invested".Until recently, that is, since it was quickly and efficiently resolved by the GM who pitched a fit about a player being too busy with life stuff to invest more time into the game. That kind of killed it for everyone.
I have a hard time entering the role of my character, I'm a newbie and I'm kinda shy. I fear I will end up just playing WoW in real life, as in the character is just a puppet and I'm really playing as myself, which I'd like to avoid. Maybe I'll learn as I go but I'm anxious as fuck.
>There is canon sexual and romantic tension between my character and a very prominent NPC
>Nobody realizes how attached I truly am to this NPC and how much I enjoy playing out the playful will-they-won't-they interactions
>Struggle every session not to completely lose focus of the other things going on in the game, making flirtatious comments only when I'm absolutely sure I wouldn't be ignoring something more important
>Another character in the party brought up sex tapes in casual conversation and I froze up and dropped spaghetti because I didn't know if it was canon or not
>"Wh... Uh... Uu... Hwu... Wha?"
>Noticeable silence in the room
