There's a little hidden bit in the first post of this series that hardcore AD&D players may have noticed. Head on back to that article and look at the priority table on the bottom, see if you can spot it.
It's in the "classes" priorities.
So, at the A-priority level we have the ability for the player to take any class, no matter how egregious its requirements. At the B-priority level we get classes that have some stiff requirements, but not overwhelmingly difficult, classes like the ranger and the illusionist. This means, by process of elimination, that A-priority includes the paladin, the monk -- and the assassin. But the assassin's requirements aren't all that egregious!
Well, the reality is, the assassin isn't on there because it's a perfect way to talk about table negotiation. (So's the paladin, for that matter.) The assassin and the paladin both open the door to problem characters: Characters whose very presence in the party must prime the group for a specific kind of play. In the case of the paladin, it's the fact that the paladin's stringent alignment requirements may cause friction with the rest of the party's goals. With the assassin, it's the fact that the assassin may very well be the kind of character who murders your character for his share of the treasure.
Very few roleplaying games discuss table negotiation. The ever-insightful Malcolm Sheppard once again notes with his signature aplomb that many RPGs don't even bother telling you to make friends with the people around the table. This is important because you're supposedly all pursuing the same goal: Having fun!* Quite a few RPGs have guidelines about what to do with "problem players," but their advice is inconsistent and varies from game to game. In a D&D game, if one player makes a super-powerful character using rules loopholes, you might be instructed to have the player build a new character (as advised in AD&D 2nd edition). Or the DM might be encouraged to line-item veto some of the character's powers or magic items. Similarly, a character who sells out the party and betrays the other characters is generally retired to NPC-land -- unless you're playing Vampire, in which case it's implied that this behavior is expected!
The reason that this advice is so hit-or-miss is that different players want different things from their game, and most of the game advice sections are written from the perspective that there's a particular way to enjoy the game and that other perspectives are either outside the game's purview, or just plain wrong. The reality is, of course, quite different; you can use nearly any RPG to scratch nearly any kind of gaming itch, so long as everyone agrees on the game that they're playing. That's table negotiation: Everyone comes to the table and works out what they want from the game. This is actually baked into the FATE system, interestingly, although it's implicitly a back-and-forth with everyone dropping their game elements into the pot and stirring -- contrast to D&D or many other games, in which a DM or Storyteller has more or less final authority but will (if interested in keeping players) take into consideration the players' requests for the kinds of gameplay that they enjoy.
The priority system elements for picking dramatic editing and connections, as shown in my prior post, are a very simplified way to exhibit a powerful element of RPGs: players put the things that they want on their character sheets. If they don't put it on the character sheet, it's not front-and-center enough to deserve to be written down. Many older RPGs focus on the numbers behind a character and have a character sheet filled with these numbers, with the presumption that your character's performance will be made or broken by these numbers. For some players, the very act of working through these numbers and building characters is itself rewarding -- "character creation the RPG," as my friend Rob Telmar puts it. And a game that puts only these numbers on the page is a game that tells players that anything besides these numbers isn't important. It should come as no surprise that while the early World of Darkness games had a single-page sheet replete with dots and numbers, the expanded character records included pages for connections, enemies, history, fears -- you name it, if it could influence your character's story and personal ties, it was in the mix somehow!
When you engage in table negotiation, everyone's sitting down and articulating what they hope to get out of the game. The player who really enjoys crunching numbers and pursuing rules mastery gets to build a character that's designed to eke out the most numerical performance. The player who wants to have input on the dramatic narrative gets buy-off to help shape the story. The player who really likes the emotional resonance of interacting with other characters and seeing how those relationships evolve gets to introduce characters and relationships and make them a central part of the story. The DM takes these elements in stride and gives the players the mix that they want so that everyone has a chance to get out of the game the things that they enjoy -- or, in the case of an autocratic campaign, tells the players what to expect and puts the game on offer. After all, if a DM really wants to run The Keep on the Borderlands as a straight-up hack-and-slash dungeon exploration adventure, the game on offer doesn't promise much character connection or any dramatic editing. Of course that's fine, if the players are happy with it!
Some RPG pundits like to talk about "dramatic agendas" and how players have a tug-of-war over the kind of game that they're going to play, but the reality is pretty simple: If one player runs roughshod over the other players' expectations, the game isn't going to last very long. This could be a player who decides that his evil character is going to slaughter the party in their sleep ("Meesteal Yostuff slits the throats of his fellows, makes off with the treasure, and gains a level due to the experience point value from all of the gold!"), or the player who refuses to fit into the assumptions of the setting ("Since we're playing Star Trek, I am going to make sure to violate the Prime Directive, initiate hostilities with aliens, engage in all kinds of subterfuge and character conflict, and refuse to participate according to the expectations of Starfleet!"), or the player who insists that entertainment from RPGs is a zero-sum game ("I'm going to kill anyone whose character doesn't do as I say, because PVP is the ultimate expression of gaming and anyone who can't beat me is obviously dumb and less worthy of having fun!"), or the player who insists on being the star of the show all the time, every time ("If the story isn't focused on my character, I'm not interested in playing, and if my character isn't going to win all the time, I have no desire to play a loser!"). The problem is that almost nobody ever elucidates these kinds of desires at the start, before things get serious. Also, even if a player says what (s)he wants, there is no guarantee that this is actually what the player really wants!
Now, in general you can't make rules about these kinds of negotiations. Of course, a DM or Storyteller can always refuse to run a game if the players don't agree to his demands, and players can refuse to play if their demands aren't met -- hence why this is a negotiation. Better, though, to negotiate what you want up front, rather than waiting for the middle of a game for everyone to wind up cross because they are suddenly finding their gameplay experienced sabotaged!
With that in mind, game groups might find it useful to engage in some table negotiation before they get started, especially if you're playing with strangers. After all, if you play with strangers, negative reciprocity rears its ugly head -- that is, when you don't know other people, you start to assume that maybe they're out to hog the spotlight or ruin the game for you.
First off, make introductions all around! Make friends! Acknowledge that you're all there to have a good time and talk a little about what you enjoy from games.
If you're not doing some kind of game with heavily shared narrative, the DM -- whoever is leading point on the game and making decisions -- opens up by answering:
1. What kind of game am I running? Is this game more about dice rolls and random outcomes of events, or dramatically-negotiated stories, or character ties and politics and relationship webs, or some combination of these, or some other elements?
2. What should the players expect from their characters' experiences? Are they going to be "everyman" characters whose stories are personal, or larger-than-life figures running roughshod over the world? Are the characters superheroic, or competent and confident, or novices in their fields? (Many games start characters out as novices, and follow the Bildungsroman structure, but quite a few gamers tire of this and relish the idea of a character who can be expected to do difficult things with some level of reliability.)
3. How much input can the players expect to have on the narrative? Is the game world "fluid" and subject to having undefined elements created ad hoc, or is the assumption that it is a hard, set reality and that everything proceeds according to a particular set of rules and expectations? How much can players specify elements of the story and background? (Think about how you would write a history for a D&D character -- does your DM let you make up your home town, or do you have to pick one from a list? Did you get to make up your character's mentor, or do you have to choose an existing NPC?)
Then, go around the table and have the players talk about:
1. What kind of gameplay do I enjoy? Do I like making a highly effective character and looking for interesting rules, or building a compelling narrative and character history, or working on a shared story in which I help contribute to creating a dramatic structure that gives us an epic tale? Do I favor one thing more than another? Do I feel like it's important for a character to be heavily "optimized," or do I like characters who have weak spots and foibles that I can use to hang hooks for dramatic developments and character growth?
2. What kinds of things do I want my character to do? Do I want to get into lots of action scenes? Do I want to solve mysteries? Do I want to have important relationships? Do I want to be a political leader, a landowner, a criminal, a power behind the throne? Many of these questions will be answered by the kinds of points that you spend on your character -- or by the conspicuous absences on your character sheet!
3. How do I like to contribute to the game for everyone else? Do I make a character who helps to carry the party through tough conflicts? Do I make the character who has lots of social acumen? Am I the guy who provides helpful advice and useful insights for other party members? Is my character the one that can be counted on to do the shady thing that gets scorn from the rest of the team, even though it needs doing? Do I make my character ties interesting in ways that let other people participate with them? Do I offer to let other players share in dramatic editing and narrative designs?
Now, once you've chatted about these things, you should have a handle on what to expect -- hopefully. As noted before, sometimes players will say that they want something, but they actually play out something else. (Folks whose primary goal is to ruin your game and rub your nose in it have a habit of claiming that they are actually just "playing to a stark and dangerous setting" or "pursuing what their characters would actually do.") It's up to everyone to pay attention to what the other participants are doing and to help the gameplay to flow, and to open a dialogue again if something isn't matching up with expectations. Remember, RPGs are a social activity and a shared activity -- so it's on everyone's shoulders to make the game fun. (This is why it's also fallacious to say that when a player ruins the game by running roughshod over it with a super-powered character, "It's the GM's fault for not saying 'no' or not enforcing the rules." It's the fault of the player, too, for taking advantage of the game and ruining it for everyone else!)
EDIT: Malcolm pointed out that you also may have cases where players genuinely don't realize that they want something, or their tastes are contingent. For instance, you might love dramatic interplay with one specific player in particular. Or maybe you've never played a game with dramatic editing, and you don't realize that you'll enjoy it. Or maybe you like dramatic editing, but only in your Houses of the Blooded game and not in your D&D! While it's impossible to foresee all of these conditions, it can be useful to at least establish a baseline if you think that there's a case where your tastes may change.
An interesting side effect of engaging in table narration is that you can arrive at a shared goal for how you want to enjoy the game that might tell you which game rules you plan to throw out, or what you're changing in the setting. You might decide, for instance, that you're going to play a game in which one player plays a powerful character who's the center of the story and everyone else is playing supporting roles, and as long as everyone is able to agree to this and have fun, it's fine! The obsession with "balance" disappears when you are no longer playing against other players. (From my own experience, I played in a short D&D game in which my buddy Tony played a powerful fighter, and I played a low-level sidekick; we had a great time because we had expectations about our roles, those expectations were met, and there was never a sense that Tony's powerful character overshadowed my contributions to the story.)
(I sure am using a lot of parentheticals. My authorial mentor-figures would be dismayed.)
The most important realization of table negotiation is that last bit above: in most RPGs, you're playing with other players, not against them. Even if your characters have conflicting agendas, your goal is to make an interesting game or story out of those conflicts. In Vampire, your goal shouldn't be to ruin the game for everyone else at the table by betraying and murdering them by surprise; it should be to work with those players to create the story where their characters are betrayed and murdered and everyone's expectations of this are met. A player who comes to the table with the expectation of playing a vampire game about declining humanity and political foils, only to learn that she's just there to have her character murdered so that some other player can crow about how he's smarter and better at the game, is not going to go away happy -- and will take that negative experience to other gamers and share the tale of the bad game, if the player doesn't leave the hobby completely. For an example of how this kind of gameplay can work, check out John Wick's Houses of the Blooded, in which the players of two characters at odds negotiate out how their conflicts will end -- and both characters get something out of it, even if one or both of them are killed! Conversely, if everyone comes to the table and says that what they want is to play a cutthroat, no-holds-barred, most-ridiculous-abuse-of-rules-wins game, then that's fine as long as everyone's expectations are in synch. It's when one of your players is trying to play the game that nobody else is playing that your game turns into angry finger-pointing and un-fun recriminations.
The hardest part about table negotiation is that it takes trust. You have to trust that the GM is going to provide a good game, rather than making a "GM vs. the players" experience. You have to trust that other players are going to share in the fun. You have to trust other people to listen to what you offer, and respond to it -- like an improv troupe that accepts whatever a member throws out with "Yes, and . . ." and takes the contribution in stride.
And if you can't trust the other people at your game table, why the hell are you playing games with them?
* EDIT, part the second: It is, of course, possible to run an RPG with a goal other than having fun. An RPG can be educational, it can be a way to explore topics outside of your comfort zone, it can be a means to sublimate sexual tensions. I will wager, however, that the overwhelming majority of people who put down $40-$50 for a book with wizards and vampires are looking for some entertainment value, and if you don't at least spice your education/therapy/whatever with some entertainment value, better be up front with your participants.
