by Andrew Nagy
As far as I’m concerned, the cardinal rule of roleplaying, as well as most of life, is “Don’t be a jerk.”
Tabletop RPG is a hobby, and as such the highest goal is always to just have fun. People who are jerks (whether it’s the GM or a player) tend to ruin that for everyone, including themselves.
As a player this can express itself in greedily stealing everything, selfishly meta-gaming, or cheating rolls. As a GM it can be evident in extreme railroading, or punishments for deviation.
Regardless of your role in the game, putting yourself ahead of the group almost always results in a less fun, or no fun gaming experience.
Why Did I Say Be a Jerk?
So right about now, you might be asking yourself why the title of this piece is what it is. Well, the answer is pretty simple. I don’t think you should be a jerk in real life, but I do think sometimes you should play a jerk on TV, or in this case, RPG.
The title just gave me an excuse to do a classic expectation reversal, so you can grant me my self-awarded cleverness. But I digress. Yes, I think you should play jerks sometimes in a group setting.
While RPG is a hobby, it also relies heavily on at least emulating a realistic world enough so as to promote immersion. People want to kill and loot, yes, but if that’s all you want then video games scratch that itch much more efficiently.
Tabletop RPG does something much, much, more, namely allowing you to be part of creating the world in which you are killing and looting. The more real the world feels, the more gratification a player receives with achievement.
Success without challenge is empty, and so a good GM has to walk the line of creating difficulty without impossibility (well, maybe sometimes impossibility), so the players feel accomplished.
Jerks Add Flavor
Well, jerks are a key challenge in the world in which we live. And, well, every world we could feasibly imagine. Playing in a world without jerks means not having any bad guys, and who really wants to RPG in a utopia?
There’s a Far Side comic I find very relevant to this topic. God adds a dash of jerks to the world to make things interesting.
It’s funny, for sure, but like most funny things it has a grain of truth. Sure, jerks suck, but they also provide conflict for us to overcome.
If you are a jerk yourself, you become your own challenge. Sooner or later you realize you aren’t happy, and that being a jerk is just your way of expressing it.
That’s how life generally works.
There Are Many Jerks
When you have a group of players running through a campaign, there are always jerks. Most often these exist as the foils to the story, either in enemies or rivals.
They exist to be overcome, but I think there’s a strong case to be made for having one be a member of the group. Think through some of your favorite ensemble TV shows or movies, and you’ll often be able to quickly identify the jerk (sometimes there are several).
In the Marvel ensemble movies, it’s Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man. In Star Wars it’s Han. In Firefly it’s Jayne.
The list goes on, but some of the best characters in narrative are the ones who are on the same side as the protagonist, and sometimes they are the main protagonist (Constantine, anyone?).
The reason this is so compelling is that it creates conflict within the same team. It’s not just the good guys against the bad guys.
Sometimes it’s the good guys against the good guys against the bad guys. The reason this can be really fun in a tabletop RPG is that the players end up with more influence over the overall narrative of the game.
Jerks in RPGs
Usually the GM has to create all the conflict, and not only can it be daunting, but it makes the players completely reactive. Playing a jerk means you get to actually help shape the group much more effectively.
Playing a jerk can also be very personally rewarding. I don’t mean that in the sense that you can just be selfish and not feel bad (although that is a little fun at first).
I mean that when you play a jerk, you’ll see how it affects the other characters. They might join together to mitigate your influence, or simply leave you out of moments.
That’s what happens to jerks, right? They get quarantined and end up alone, and playing one usually leads to the same.
Making Jerks Fun in RPGs
When does that get fun? When your character starts reacting to it. Maybe he chooses to retaliate, and eventually becomes an evil character. Maybe she realizes the error of her ways, and starts trying to turn things around.
This can lead to amusing situations when the other characters don’t understand and don’t trust the new leaf.
The last reason I recommend playing a jerk is that it can be downright hilarious. Coming up with ways to reveal your own self-absorption can open up some really creative outlets, trust me.
It can also be easier to get into character, because you’re less concerned with loot (unless you’re greedy) or accomplishing the mission, and more concerned with your own agenda.
Playing an uptight rich doctor, for example, might make you reluctant to retrieve that amulet from the pile of bat feces. You might throw in a line about how “The only time I’ll touch guano is when it has been properly processed so that it possesses all of the rejuvenating qualities healthy skin like mine requires.”
In a group setting, playing a jerk can actually bring humor to a session.
A Cautionary Tale
That doesn’t mean it’s easy, or always recommended, however. Too often a player will use the excuse of “I am playing a jerk” to be a jerk in real life, also. I mean, if you’re like me, you tend to be a bit of a method actor when it comes to RPG.
You REALLY want to get in character, you know?
So you’re playing a jerk, and then you say something kinda snarky player to player, or player to GM (definitely not recommended if you like to avoid very sudden character dismemberment). Maybe you’re more tempted to cheat the roll, because it would work so well for your character.
Maybe you take two brownies before anyone else has had a chance to have one. Regardless of how it plays out, if you play a jerk as a character, it’s easier to be one in real life, too. So be careful.
But even if you’re only a jerk in character, and outside of the character you’re a nice person, it can still rub people the wrong way. Once I played a trident-wielding narcissistic Prince of Atlantis, too in love with himself to talk about anything else.
While most of the group was familiar with my antics, it was only the second RPG session ever for one person there. It turned out to be their last, and at least part of that was due to my character.
Before you play a jerk, make sure everyone is cool with it, or it can turn out pretty badly.
As long as everyone is comfortable with you playing a jerk, however, and it makes sense in the context of the campaign, having a jerk in the group can be one of the most counter-intuitively enjoyable things in tabletop RPG.
Creating Jerks
Next time you create a character, and you are thinking about making a jerk, here are some types you might consider:
- The pop star who is totally in love with himself
- The prince who can’t abide the thought of getting dirty
- The paladin that has too rigid of a moral code
- The pirate who would sacrifice a friend in a heartbeat if it meant an extra buck
There are hundreds of ways to create a jerk, and I always love to hear about them.
Should a Player Play a Jerk?
What do you think? Do you think jerks can make a campaign better? Or are they always a bad idea? What stories do you have of playing jerks? Or having to deal with jerks?
This is a guest post written by Andrew Nagy.