this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2025
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The secret to having a good time in a game is to make a character that wants to be there and will be okay interfacing with other people on some level. It's not hard, yet many people don't find this out for years.
Or a character whose not wanting to be there will be fun for the whole table.
You can outwardly not want to be there, but you have to have a meta reason to stay anyway and be over the top miserable.
What you can't do is actually have on reason to stay, cuz then why are you staying?
You can do this, it just takes more work.
Literally stay in spite of your character not needing or wanting to? Sure you can do it, but what is the logic to it? Why would that happen?
I just find it a lot more helpful advice to go the other route, because it will for sure leads to less friction. The more you can find reasons to be into what the game is about at any given time, the more engaged you will be with the game itself, because your character is.
The reason for your character to stay doesnt have to be something they agree with. It can be someone else's reason.
And 'the quest to fuck off and do something else' can be fun too. You seem to be working with a very authoritarian concept of game. Those can work sometimes, but are very limiting.
Not always desirable.
Staying because someone else wants to is a reason to stay though. Assumedly your character cares about them and all that jazz.
I am done arguing this. If you like to play in groups that infight constantly then good for you. Just clear up in session zero what is and isn't acceptable.
However, I have not met many people who like that playstyle, hence my advice.
Necessary and important, especially if you dont know for sure they're down for it, yes.
And has an unrifled pistol for the occasion.
I'm not talking about introductory tables; have been playing these things fir 30 fuvking years. My SOP running a group of first timers is 'here's character creation rules we're using, here's the lore, here's the scenario, why is that your characters thing' like 'why do you want to kill a dragon? If its because your scaly bf cheated on you, talk to petra; she's already using that.' or 'why are you trying to summon a demon?'.
Yeah i dont like these broad sweeping absolutes limiting what ttrpg's can be, and I dont like attitudes/norms saying you can't go for weird edge cases. I'm arguing for (sub)cultural norms that dont cut anyone off from a potential rare fun thing, but instead focus on depth of understanding how/why things can go wrong and growing from there.
I'm arguing for possibility, not the usual.