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DM of the Rings CIV:
Girl Trouble
Previous in DM of the Rings: No DMotR Today | Next in DM of the Rings: DM of the Rings CV: A Subtle Hint |
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A lot of tension in a story happens when the characters do something against the wishes of the audience. This isn’t really possible in the context of an RPG, because the characters ARE the audience.
It pretty much means you can’t create moments like the one where (in the books, mind you) Eowyn begs Aragorn to let her ride with him into battle, and he refuses because he has no right to accept. If you try, you’ll end up with nonsense like what you see above, because 90% of the players out there will simply let her join without a second thought. The other 10% will try to have sex with her first.
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Previous in DM of the Rings: No DMotR Today | Next in DM of the Rings: DM of the Rings CV: A Subtle Hint |
There are more than 137 comments. But less than 139
WOHOOOO First comment
lol that’s too good, I’ve known too many of the 10% in my games.
Brilliant. If this was the cause for the delay, I am well mollified!
And sadly he did that too (the having sex with her first part…)
Loving the story.
Yet another gem.
“If you try, you’ll end up with nonsense like what you see above, because 90% of the players out there will simply let her join without a second thought. The other 10% will try to have sex with her first.”
I do acree with that.
Maybe Eowyn should of went along the lines of “Don’t throw away your life” on the paths of the dead. Funny, though.
Man, Eowyn was all too real. A bit creepy in fact. I’m sure her inherent female rationality will somehow lead her to the conclusion that Aragorn is to blame for whatever decision she made.
This is the 14 years of my marriage in a nutshell.
Well… now nobody can say that fantasy role-playing games don’t depict women realistically.
Shamus, your frame selection is just awesome in this strip. You manage to have the picture tell things… it didn’t want to.
can’t wait till they find nothing but dry bones, albeit armed with swords, in the dungeon. The problem is, the roles called for heroes, and these guys aren’t heroes. If they were, they wouldn’t be wasting all their time playing Dungeons & Dragons; they would be out volunteering in retirement centers or working double shifts as firefighters.
Just the thought of the DM twisting himself in knots role playing Eowyn makes me giggle.
Brilliant! Worth the wait!
It is a shame that two-thirds of the women in this story spend so much time waffling about what their fate should be. Especially since they both seem to be trying to figure out how to tie themselves to Aragorn forever. Haven’t they read this comic?
There’s a simple solution to this of course: make sure you outline both sides of the moral dilemma, why each should be chosen and why each shouldn’t. Your players will inevitably break character to tell you which side is right. So argue the other side- until they agree, then switch.
Sooner or later they’ll shut up, actually think, and then come to a decision.
Shamus,
I’m trying to figure out whether you post these at noon eastern us time out of kindness so it will not cut in to many people’s work time, or out of a dark streak that causes you endless laughter as you think of all the monitors with spewed food on them.
This strip is in the top 10% of your strips. … along with most of the other strips. … errrr. Well, top notch lad, top notch.
“Oh my gosh, I did not need this”
Eyes closed in dejection, perfect!
Rashala wrote:
>WOHOOOO First comment
Technically not a comment; thanks for playing though.
Awesome strip today Shamus. Long-time reader, first-time poster. Good job.
d.
oh man this was well worth the wait! I was really looking forword to this part to im glad you did it. great work.
Your comment below the comic was the star feature this time. Only 10%? Way underestimated :)
Oh man, I think I’ve spent most of my characters in the 10% bracket :(
Although my current one would fit into neither. He would probably do something insanely crazy like kidnap her and take her down the paths of the dead as cannon fodder. Of course providing a reasonably logical explanation of why he was doing it, which would be quickly seen through by the GM, who would let it happen anyway because it’s just too good to not. Man I love my character :)
Librain
“I’m not arrogant, I really am that good.”
Masterful. The shot of Eowyn at a loss for words as the DM tried to figure out how to handle Aragorn’s invitation to join them in a dungeon crawl is just too sweet. Excellent job.
The title of the comic sounds familiar… :D recycling after just one week must be a new record in webcomic numbers, mustn’t it? :D
And i think this rather is what you get when you’re not flexible enough with your storyline. Why should the players know how to act when you give them some rather hilareous situation ? Whole thing about RPG is that the DM puts them into surprising situations and they try to get out of them the best way they know their characters could manage.
Honestly this situation would have called for Eowyn to remind Aragorn of the little “souvenir” he got from her – last time they saw one another… That should have worked the way our uncrowned Master-DM wanted it to… (so that Eowyn has to stay behind and can sneak into the army like the book calls for).
So another booo for the Union Pacific Railroading Company and a hooray for bored Aragorn :D
Nice, really nice
“Whatever, do what you like. I don’t care.”
I’ve actually heard that phrase uttered by PC in various games where the DM tried to pull a similar style in presenting a NPCs personal dilemma. It’s one of the tenets of casual role play: The PCs don’t care what the NPCs are up to, so long as they don’t get in their way when it’s time for exp and loot.
The ‘cap of Eowen is fabulous … just a standard “duh” look that tells more of the story than words could have. Screencap-fu ftw.
Speaking of the 10%, I actually had a couple of players download (I have no idea from where and never went looking) Sex and D&D as a supplement to the standard 2nd Ed rules. Everything seemed ok until the Human Female got pregnant mid campaign and wouldn’t say how …
The campaign ended very shortly thereafter.
Awesome strip!! :D
Hmm, sex.
A Minor Ommision? Again?
“A dungeon! We may see exitement yet ere this adventure is over.”
Good to see the players still lurve the campaign :)
Peter Jackson and anybody else affiliated with the LOTR movies needs to be reading this series.
That last panel was *awesome*!
And having been mugged by Women’s Studies majors, it’s extra funny…
I think you’ve got your percentages backward. 90% would try to bag her first, the other 10% would just let her tag along (and half those would let her come so they could bag her later).
“90% of the players out there will simply let her join without a second thought. The other 10% will try to have sex with her first.”
A couple of issues.
Most of the characters in the games I play would almost certainly refuse to let any NPC “tag along” in a dungeon crawl, mostly because they would be afraid that would cut down their XP and loot percentages.
In an interesting coincidence, in my current low-level campaign a very similar scenario has come up. An ex-girlfriend (NPC) of the party wizard has joined the party temporarily (because she knew the way to the bandit lair they were looking for), and pretty much the first question that was asked was “will she reduce our XP values?” My response was “if she fights that will reduce your share of XP.” That led to an interesting discussion where the party tried to reconcile their loss of XP against their likelihood of success of finding the bandit lair without a guide.
In the meantime she has repeatedly tried to pull the wizard aside for “romantic liasons” and so far the wizard has pretty much refused to take her up on it.
So I guess my party is in that 10% you are talking about….
Agreed, the shot of Aragorn going: “OMG, I SOOOO do not need this” are awesome.
Great to see the comic back.
Seamus, I noticed one thing. Both this comic (CIV) and a previous comic (CII) have the same title: “A Minor Omission”. I don’t know if you did that intentionally or not.
You know, I think in all my years of gaming, not once have any of my players attempted to sleep with any female NPCs in my games.
Maybe it’s because *I’m* the one portraying the females….. and my facial hair stretches the imagination beyond the breaking point.
Either that, or all my friends are secretly gay. Hmmmm….
And the shot of Eowyn giving Aragorn the big puppy eyes in panel 11 is brilliant.
(BTW, I was going to say: “big brown puppy eyes”, but I couldn’t tell if they were brown or blue. D’oh! *facepalm*)
And in my comment #33, its supposed to be Shamus. I know it’s Shamus. Sorry.
Blargh.
*Gives Mr. Brain a kick in the pants and a big mug of espresso.*
Hey just think! Gimli will soon get his chance to bash some skellies!
I wonder how they’ll complain next…
@37 Gimli would probably complain next that there are no skellies (at least, that are animated), and that his axe doesn’t work on the green guys (maybe they are aliens?). The only one who has a chance of gaining XP will be Aragorn with the “hi” sword, which should be greatly discouraged.
Do they even know why they are going on the paths of the dead? I guess that makes sense to all PC’s who go into the dungeons, it’s what they are supposed to do…
The real problem is that players, conditioned to seize at any plot-threads dangled before them like a cat lapping up a saucer full of milk, will assume that any time anyone ever asks them to do something they’re “supposed” to say yes.
It takes me some effort to convince new players to my campaign that, no, really, you don’t have to follow-up on every single thing in the campaign. Until I figured out what was going on I was utterly baffled by conversations where players would complain about the campaign going in a particular direction when they had been the ones who had chosen to take it in that direction.
This actually ties into the railroading discussion from the past couple of days: These players were so conditioned to accept the railroad that they were seeing imaginary tracks. Thus, I saw them making choices, but in their own minds they had no choice.
Bah. Title fixed.
No one would want to have sex with Eowyn since there are no clerics in the party. However, the position of monster decoy is still open…
Also, & I know I’m gonna’ regret this,…but this reminds me of the line from “As Good as it Gets” :
Q:How do you write women so well?
A: I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.
Yep, I regret it already…
“The real problem is that players, conditioned to seize at any plot-threads dangled before them like a cat lapping up a saucer full of milk”
And here I thought you’d be dangling string in front of the cat too…
[Justin Alexander] After reading your posts in the railroading threads I can’t say I’m surprised you were baffled, or that your players were unhappy. Players often need the subtle structure you have been so vocally rejecting for days.
Its also interesting that you see this as a player problem, rather than a group one.
However, I wasn’t there and I don’t know you or your players, so I will refrain from virulently assigning blame and imposing my personal playbook on you. I will say (again) that when I allowed players in a Traveller campaign I ran to follow rumours (a game term for plot/red herring seeds) without any sort of guidance they thrashed around and ended up complaining much the same way you report yours did. When I stopped doing that and emphasised the good leads (with subtlety) they and I had a much better time and my games had waiting lists. This experience has informed my choices of DM style ever since.
Steve
Aragon’s face in panel 12 is BRILLIANT!
Pure, genius!
I can’t wait to see how they do in the path of the dead.
:D
Brian Says:
This is the 14 years of my marriage in a nutshell.
Really? Mine resembles the bit at Helms Deep where Everyone thinks they’ve got it all under control only to have some interferring sod set off the mother of all M80s under their feet.
Steve.
“Hey just think! Gimli will soon get his chance to bash some skellies!
I wonder how they’ll complain next…”
Oh, I imagine it will have to do with the dead being incorporeal so they cannot get any xp because they cannot re-kill them.
“This isn’t really possible in the context of an RPG…”
Absolutely not true. In the context of D&D, maybe, or in the context of players who are only after XP and lewtzorz – in which case, why aren’t they just playing World of Warcraft or something?
There are totally decent (where “decent” = “badass”) role-playing games that have dilemmas like this at the very core of the gameplay – Dogs in the Vineyard, for example. Well, okay, dilemmas like these, and shooting demons in the face. But you get the idea…
funny comic, but I think shamus missed a little on this one…I am supposed to beleive that aragon would invite a NPC along to steal xp and tresure….sorry can’t suspend my disbilife that far :)
Actually, given my experience, 50% would assume the GM is trying to plant a spy/double agent in the party, and either refuse violently, or allow the NPC to come, but write the GM a dozen notes about how they were guarding their valuables and never sleeping.
Another 20% would *force* the NPC to come in case a sacrifice were needed. (Although if it needs to be a virgin, this girl ain’t gonna cut it…)
The rest would try to metagame what the GM really wanted, and do that.