I once had a session that became infamous amongst my group at the time. There was a magic forest that only the elves knew the way through, but no elves had come through for a while. One of the players was an elf, and I had given him a note explaining that there was a path featuring a sequence of specific species of trees, oak then spruce then elder, that sort of thing. He was supposed to go in the direction moss grew on said trees until seeing the new species, then look for the moss again, and so on and so forth. I expressly noted on the note that if he didn’t see the exact sequence of trees I gave in the note, “something had gone seriously wrong”.
Of course, the idea was that something had gone wrong and the path through the magical maze forest was screwed up, hence no elves arriving recently. My reason for setting it up this way was so that the elf would lead the party into the woods, he’d try to find the path, realize the path was broken, tell the party, and then they’d get down to the business of figuring out what was wrong and fixing it. You know… start the adventure.
Instead, what ensued was an entire multi hour long session of nothing happening. The elf would lead them. I’d tell him the trees they were seeing, out of order. He’d just keep following the moss, the “path” as he always did. I started emphasizing the wrongness of the trees he was seeing. He kept leading the party. I nudged him harder and harder. He just fucking kept going. The party was confused of course, as the whole path thing was supposed to be an elven secret that they didn’t share. And the elf player just kept ramming the entire party’s heads against the stupid wall for real world hours and I couldn’t stop it until I eventually dropped the 4th wall and flat out said this isn’t working, I’ve told you it isn’t working, please do something else! And then we had to end the session and start again next time.
It was incredibly frustrating in the moment, but it actually worked out well for the game as a whole. Became a running gag, a source of a lot of laughs, and it somehow ended up hammering in the point that something was wrong with the world and forest far more effectively than it might have if it had ended quicker. So good times in the end after all…
But MAN was it frustrating in the moment.
My advice is to know that, unlike dogs, a cat’s personality is not built into their breed, with maybe very minor behavior exceptions. Quite frankly, dogs were bred specifically for their behaviors, artificial selection created breed personalities— cat breeding was never for personality, but usually appearance instead, leaving personality to go whatever which way.
And secondly, you must know that a cat will not fully develop their personality until they’ve grown up a bit— you can’t learn a cat’s personality when they’re still a kitten. If you are adopting, adopting a kitting will mean rolling the dice on what you get. But adopting an adult cat will mean you can pick out a personality while at the shelter.
Seriously. You can learn a cat’s personality from 10-30 minutes hanging out with them in a room at the shelter… but only if they aren’t a kitten. And some personalities will fit with you and your family, and some will not.
Do you want a cuddler? An active playful cat? Or one that avoids you mostly and does their own thing? Or are you just looking for something pretty that matches your furniture? (I don’t really recommend you get a cat in this case, but historically, you’d be in good company)