Loyalty & Duty to your crew?

[Pagan]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

If it's done up front at the time the campaign is presented to the players, it is no more railroading to require the PCs to have certain personality traits than it is railroading to make them be the crew of a Viking ship. The players are being prevented from playing Western gunfighters!

In my campaigns I usually require the PCs to be the kind of people the other PCs won't refuse to associate with. This includes certain restrictions on the way they behave. Homicidal maniacs and broody loners need not apply.


Hans

Placing restrictions on the way they behave is one thing (you cannot take Blood thirsty). Forcing them to behave in a manner you want (You all must take a pacifism) is another. I understand there are campaigns where taking a particular trait may be central to the theme of the campaign (Okay guys, we are playing a non-violent, peace-loving hippie commune campaign, everyone her has the pacifism disad). But generally, telling the pcs how they FEEL about other pcs (and npcs) seems railroadish to me if you enforce it with game mechanics.

If you tell the pcs, hey, you've gone viking with this crew for the last 3 summers and you love these guys and they love you. You are a tight-knit, family like group. Then let the pcs CHOOSE to take sense of duty or duty to their fellow pcs or npcs. If a player or players says, "Yeah, I'm forced to go viking because it's what my father expects but I don't feel any real loyalty to these guys. I just don't want to disappoint my father." You get the same result of an obligation to stay with the pcs and crew but have allowed for some other rational other than basically the GM saying "because I said that's how you feel and you can't change it or you'll be penalized by me."