What will you not allow?

[Phantasm]

I do most of my gaming over IRC, so it's easier for the group to "crossplay" both ways. There's no "allow" or "disallow" involved; if your character is female, it doesn't matter if you're a man or woman.

Now, I've weirded out a guy at a tabletop game when my character was female; he was openly questioning my sexuality with how easily and convincingly (thanks to my IRC crossplaying and growing up the only guy in a household of women) I was able to get into my character, right down to altering my voice enough to sound fairly feminine when I went IC. If there's someone in the group that's slightly closed-minded about such things, or even unused to and not sure about it, such IC-crossplay can create OOC tension, at least at first. (By the third session like this, he was getting used to it.)

[Litvyak]

Character-wise I can't think of anything that I would blanket ban regardless of genre or setting. Obviously specific campaigns will their own standards for what is acceptable... sometimes the Sadistic Meglomaniac Trickster with Bloodlust (6 or less) will work just fine, other times it will very much be unacceptable.

Since it's been brought up, though, I will say that crossplay is always welcome at my table. Some of the best campaigns I've played in have had a mixed gender group of players with everybody crossplaying, so I can't even imagine restricting it.

[mr beer]

Originally Posted by Maz

This is also because Im sick and tired of the `reluctant hero` where the player wants ME to be the one to constantly force them into the hero role without it fitting into the game-story already there.

Yeah, it's like 'It got annoying when Thomas Covenant did it and you're not Stephen R Donaldson'.

[Boomerang]

I like weirdness magnet when I am GM, I prefer it to be one in all in though.

I discourage blatantly evil characters or ones who are unlikely to work well with the group or setting. I don't really care whether the gender of the character matches the player.

[Ashtagon]

Originally Posted by whswhs

When I first started running campaigns that players had chosen by filling out prospectuses, I held a character creation for my first RuneQuest campaign. One of the players asked me, "You allow people to play characters of the other sex?" in tones that suggested surprise and perhaps concern. And I looked at him blankly and said, "Allow?" I really had never thought of disallowing it.

I've never restricted this, and really it's never been a problem. Except with the one player I refer to, who went on to play in a lot of my campaigns, but who has been observed (a) to roleplay attraction to female characters played by female players he finds appealing and (b) not to roleplay attraction to similar characters played by male players. This has caused reactions ranging from amusement to irony to irritation, especially among my many women players.

My take on cross-play is nuanced. I allow it, provided the player isn't going to use it as an excuse to quick out anyone else at the gaming table. However, I won't generally run situations in which sexual tension becomes an in-character issue.

[johndallman]

The thing I haven't allowed, although a player wanted it, was the Cursed disadvantage. I didn't want to have to keep working it in, thinking of new ways to apply it, and generally taking trouble over it.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The thing I haven't allowed, although a player wanted it, was the Cursed disadvantage. I didn't want to have to keep working it in, thinking of new ways to apply it, and generally taking trouble over it.

I have come to feel that way about Weirdness Magnet too.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by trooper6

Like some others...I don't have a rule like "No evil characters ever." Instead, I have rules for one particular campaign. My main rule is: make a character that fits the campaign frame.

If we are doing a grim darkevil campaign? You can't make a Lawful-Good Paladin.

If we are doing a team based campaign where everyone is a doctor in an ER in Chicago...you can't play a wandering murder-hobo.

If it is a campaign where I'm going for a psychological realism feel...you can't play an 2D flat archetype sort. Conversely , if we are going for a 2D archetype pulp feel...where people are white hats and there isn't much internal angst...then you can't play an angsty gray hat.

Basically, make a character that will work in the game and will work with the other players.

Yep this pretty much nails it for me!

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Kromm

And I had another who would just kind of sit around being mumbly unless I (figuratively or literally) had ninjas attack his character. I found their characters just about impossible to integrate into my campaigns.

For some people, the combat mini-game is the fun part of any RPG. Nothing wrong with that - it's a hobby *rooted* in war gaming after all. If your style doesn't support it, sure maybe neither of you are going to have fun in your game, but I do usually try to accommodate players who really want a fight.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Bicorn

I feel the rulebook description of Unluckiness kind of messes up by giving missing a die roll as an example of bad stuff that could happen. It's about the most boring possible way to implement "things go wrong for the character" - there are plenty of much more interesting ways to make Unluckiness come into play.

Sure, but the problem with those is they slide into Cursed - doing much more harm to the PC than the disadvantage is worth. The arbitrarily messes up one important die roll per session approach tends to set a natural limit on how horrible the disadvantage can get.