A few weeks ago I got a very interesting letter.
I joined my past 2 live tabletop campaigns as a new player joining a pre-established group of players for a new campaign. In both, I’ve encountered a particularly nasty type of player that has caused no end of strife and grief, as follows:
1. Their PC immediately latches onto something about my PC, usually their race or “they act funny”, to justify constantly taunting them, insulting them, bossing them around, and shouting them down during in-character debates with words like “You don’t get to talk, freak! Shut up!” I don’t know how I got the horrible luck of being the victim twice, but I think it’s because I was the newest member of the gang and therefore the easiest target.
2. Their PC acts constantly angry and touchy, insulting NPCs we’re trying to work with and attacking them if they retort. The rest of the party often ends up running Damage Control for them.
3. Their PC either acts defeatist (“Screw it, we’re boned, let’s just go up there and attack them all!”) or reckless (“We need to save my girlfriend now! Plan? Eh, we’ll toss one together. Even if we fail, I will be reincarnated gloriously!”) and then try to shout down the rest of the party into going along. One of them nearly caused our GM to abort the campaign because he refused to let the party do anything other than kamikaze to get out of a bind. The other one insisted on going with a half-assed plan that we were warned would lead to us being shunted into a deadly plane; when it failed and we got shunted, he basically shrugged and said we were bound to end up there sooner or later.
Both PCs have made me ponder quitting the campaign outright, or having my PC slit their throats in their sleep. Both GMs complained about the players’ actions in private conversations, but either didn’t bring it up to them (“He always acts like this, just have to live with it.”) or try to change them IC ineffectively (“He’ll sober up IC once he realizes his lover needs his help.” He didn’t.). At best, the rest of the party just tolerated/ignored them; at worst, one or two of the other PCs supported their half-baked plans.
OOC, they act nice enough, if snappy at times. It isn’t until they turn IC they go mean. One of them not only made a backstory justifying why he’s an arrogant, kleptomaniac, violent barbarian, but has joked about the other PCs they have lined up and how they will annoy the party and “make you wish my first one was there instead!”
I wonder if this is a common problem in RP groups. If you take in a new player, is there usually an asshole that decides to make him a target? How often does the Instigator actively try to wreck plans they don’t agree with? Is there any way to rein them in that works?
Wow… After reading that I was speechless, then I became annoyed. You see, I have never played with such players, or if I did, they never were that aggressive and acting like jerks around me.
I started asking around on Twitter and on Gtalk and my heart sank when I realized many people have dealt with such players in their gaming groups. And many wanted insights on how to deal with them…
Now those who read me know that I’m a moderate type of blogger. I don’t rant often and I don’t stir the pot. But this… I’ve no tolerance for whatsoever.
These players (if I can use the term) are the absolute paragons of asshatery. You know those stupid griefers that keep camping your body in World of Warcraft so they could kill you as soon as you resurrect? Well they probably play D&D as described above.
That, dear readers, is the epitome of Chaotic Stupid. Socially backward players who create characters that can’t function in any type of society even fantasy ones.
I freaking hate those players with a passion! They’re the reason why so many potential RPG geeks flee the hobby and never return to it.
Do note that I’m not talking about someone getting excited or frustrated and losing his/her temper on rare occasions. Humans have a tendency to burst when overloaded with emotions and such people usually end up apologizing shortly after that.
Now, just so you don’t think I take the easy way out of profanity, I actually have a pretty good idea of the why of such behavior. I’m ready to bet that such players are motivated by getting the players to react to his antics. They get their kicks by testing how hard they can push the group before it breaks. They seek to subvert or control the group’s dynamic.
I also think that most of these players are irremediably selfish, in my mind, the worst sin of a RPG player.
Such players are probably delighted to see none of the other players confront them. If they are confronted, they always have a plan. First they’ll start to shout and bully opponents into silence. If that doesn’t work they’ll start hurling insults or try to deflect the conflict. “It’s the DM’s fault, he let me play a Drow!”
If all else fails, he’ll try to be made the victim “That’s it, I was just having a little fun, trying to make this boring game more lively and now you’re all against me!”
If you are familiar with the techniques used by Trash Radio DJs, such players use similar techniques. And they’re very effective techniques, I’ll grant that, just not conducive to a successful group endeavor that is a RPG Campaign.
Now as I said I don’t have much experience with such players but I will share my thoughts on spotting and dealing with such players before turning the mike to you.
Spotting an aggressive player before he joins a group is kinda hard. Unless the player proudly reveals that he’s been with 15 different groups in the last 18 months or talks about how he made super messed up PCs that pissed everyone off, chances are you can’t spot them. However, if a player starts to challenge other player’s choices, raises his voice to quell other people’s and acts aggressively toward others either in game or out of it, there’s a serious problem in the group.
I won’t lie to you, I doubt that such players can be reasoned with. Often, they will say that they see what the problem is or they’ll once again try to be made into the victim. While I advocate trying to work it out with the player, I doubt that such a player will change the motivations he seeks in RPGs.
In fact the absolute worse thing you can do as a DM is to tolerate such a player. There is absolutely no reason to allow a player to bully others out of their fun. I don’t care if you tell me that the player is the boyfriend of that girl who really wants to play in your campaign or that he’s the older brother of the guy whose house you play at.
The longer you tolerate that player in your group, the longer you’ll validate his behavior and the likelier your campaign will crash and some players will quit the hobby in disgust.
Having people quit the hobby because of that? Nothing is worth that…
And just so I’m crystal clear: You should kick such kind of players out of your games, maybe they’ll finally get the hint.
What about you? You have stories to share and/or insights on how to deal with such players?
Image Credit: Wizards of the Coast (Bully-wugs! get it?)
This reminded me a bit of one of the things Monte Cook mentioned in one of his talks at Origins. If your character isn’t going to get along with the rest of the party and be a team player, you need to make another character!
In my first D&D campaign, I played a semi-antisocial drow named Mar’Kessa. She was a team player because she had nowhere to go and figured having a group would at least keep her fed and safe. But she pitched in. She helped. She (generally) didn’t try to kill anyone in her group… except that other drow. She really wanted to kill him. Mango to the head – blammo! (She didn’t kill him.) 🙂
.-= Geek’s Dream Girl´s last blog ..E’s Con Travels: Origins 2009 – Part One =-.
You have seemed to get the shaft, we have a player in our group that is habitually against our campaign focus. (In a dark sun like campaign, he plays a ship captain looking for his boat, or a wizard like player in a space campaign.) We usually just have to shrug him off.
We often times find ourselves playing the Battlestar Galactica board game, his constant asshole tactics have caused him to be labeled a “Rylon”. His name is Ryan and he is always against everyone else.
Sadly even after in depth conversations about how he is not contributing to the experience of the group, no change has occurred. If you find a way to deal with this player in some manner that is successful, let us know. Until then, just know that you are not alone, we all have our Rylons.
@Geeksdreamgirl: I happen to be way up there with Monte on almost everything (except game of choice).
@Yasuki: I have been lucky, none of my players have been like that, but our mysterious writer has been very unlucky to hit this phenomenon twice!
Wow. What a topic!
I’ve had players who had PCs like this… and even played one or two myself. I don’t think there’s something inherently wrong with the concept of having a PC that is harder to mesh with the rest of the group…
However, every time there was such a PC, efforts were made to work the character towards an equilibrium.
After all, having a character that is irrevocably at odd with the rest of the party is no fun… and if the player insists on going this route, well… I believe you’re heading into trouble.
My advice would be to talk about it with the player – perhaps even with the whole group. You can brain storm and come up with solutions to implement within the story to coax the player towards a more amicable behavior.
If it turns the the player actually is, uhm… rectally inclined, well… its probably just not made to be.
One case I remember, I was playing a warrior amazon priestess (yes, I did) and one of my friends was playing a cleric-weaponsmith dwarf. The way we built our characters (we were both role players) they just could not get along at all.
We played with them for a few sessions. We talked about it with the rest of the group and decided that the other PCs slipped them each a love potion. Now they were both in love with one another but would never dare do anything about it. After all, we’d never role play that 😛
Another example… Lately, one of my players made a PC that was at odds with the party. I was looking at ways to coax the PC into mellowing out and didn’t manage. I’ve talked a bit about it with the player and he decided to retire the PC instead of changing him. He built another one that had a more pleasant personality 🙂
.-= Eric Maziade´s last blog ..Jinx Shot : bad metafluff? =-.
@Eric: Gee Eric, I wonder what PC you’re referring to. Would that be that magnificent Bastard Shadar-kai Swordmage that killed my poor defenseless Bloodbowl 4e ball?
🙂
@ChattyDM : He busted your balls, really? 😛
.-= Eric Maziade´s last blog ..Jinx Shot : bad metafluff? =-.
Of course not. He was a challenge to DM around! In fact those energy barriers in my last version of Dungeonbowl are called Steve’s Force Grid.
I agree, Chatty: Ultimately, such a player won’t change and, when confronted, will find all sorts (“tiers,” is you will) of excuses and rationale. Boot ’em.
When I game, I like to have a good time. So do the people I play with. I won’t sacrifice the fun of the whole for the sadistic fun of the one.
.-= Rafe´s last blog ..In a Wicked Age =-.
I don’t think I have ever played with such an extreme case of a bully player, but I have dealt with minor cases. The one that immediately springs to mind was a player who wanted to create a mercenary in a heroic star wars game. The first adventure was a surprise attack on the rebel base the characters were in, and the bully started to complain to PCs and NPCs that he wanted to be paid for his help. So far, fair enough – the major NPC offered to discuss payment with him once the emergency was over, and that drove the bully into overdrive, threatening everyone and trying to push the party into defecting to the attacking forces, while insulting the leadership for not paying right now.
End result? the bully was put on the brig by the NPCs, and we had a peaceful 4 hour session of the players dealing with the invading forces.
DM fiat is the best weapon to remove such negative influences from the game – don’t be afraid to use it!
.-= Claus Aranha´s last blog ..Status Update – Research =-.
I’ve seen this type justify their behavior by saying “Well that’s what my character would do”. “That’s how my character would act” is a shield to hide behind, an excuse to be an asshole that in otherwise polite company the person can’t get away with it. If “being your character” makes me not want to game with the person, then they’re just using it as an excuse to be an asshole.
I personally find this behavior most frequent with people that either:
1) Play CN or Evil characters,
2) Play VERY strict Lawful Good (read: Lawful Stupid) characters, or
3) Kender-types.
Not every person who plays a CN/E/LG character is an asshat, but every asshat that I’ve met plays this type.
They may not be overtly belligerent (like the above examples), but their actions are still the same: game disruption. Kenders will intentionally taunt and steal and run away from the rest of the group to dismantle the game. Evil characters will go on wanton slaughter of anything because they “can”. LG types that attack anything remotely evil (or PCs for that matter) at the detriment of the game.
Conflicts between PCs are fine, as are characters with conduct codes. But, when it is the detriment of someone else’s fun, then it crosses a line.
Tell ya what; I’ve been fortunate to never have any willful antagonists, but I’ve had a few characters that were so out-of-place in the party that they threatened to derail the whole thing.
One campaign in particular had a group of about 6 people, if I recall, with characters that represented most of the alignments on the 3.5 spectrum. It was the kind of situation where, for example, they might capture a prisoner, and one character would start cruelly torturing the guy for information as another character picked his pocket as another character stood there shouting at them to stop as another character looked on indifferently as another character slit his throat just for the fun of it.
Frankly, it’s a wonder they managed to save the world at all.
What I *should* have done there was examine characters more closely before allowing them in, or else establishing restrictions on things I knew might cause trouble in the campaign I had planned. Once things got rolling, it was difficult to allow my players the freedom to play their characters honestly while still having the quest turn out even remotely close to what I had planned.
Anytiefling, where I’m going with this is that, while it may stifle the players a little bit, it might be worthwhile to place a few potentially game-saving restrictions on characters when dealing with an established jerk or when recruiting a new and unknown player. If nothing else, it’ll give you more of a leg to stand on when you have to call someone out for being a jerk when the rules clearly disallowed being a jerk.
.-= Flashman85´s last blog ..The Final Issue of GameCola! =-.
Alas I’ve encontered similar behaviour in several games I played. And it’s bad enough when the GM is annoyed by it, but can’t handle such an situation problery, but it’s worse if the GM even encourages those guys. In one game I played, someone who enjoyed bullying other players and making fun of them (in and out of character) all the time was even made Co-GM at one time.
When I talked with the GM about not being comfortable with that, he basically told me that he didn’t really care and that I should talk with the Co-GM and work it out.
That was when I decided to stay away from that group.
.-= Stargazer´s last blog ..OGT available at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de =-.
I’ve had a fair few troublesome players in my time. Superhero gaming tends to attract them, I reckon. Something to do with having characters who can smash holes in concrete walls without breaking a sweat, perhaps. I dunno.
I’ve perfected a simple technique to deal with them now. I just smile sweetly and ask “Do you want to play the villain?”
In most cases (6 out of 8, if memory serves), the answer has been “Hell YES!”. I just throw them the villain’s sheet, give them the cue to make a suitably dramatic entrance and let nature take it’s course. The evil player is happy because he’s…. well, being evil. The other players are happy because they’re smashing seven shades of sh….. out of said evil player, and I’m just being my usual Lazy GM self. Job done.
Remember that Evil Players Are People too. Maybe they’re assholes because they’re nervous. Many people aren’t comfortable in an unfamiliar social setting, so kudos to them for being brave enough to step up and try to conquer that fear. Their nervousness is no excuse for inappropriate behaviour of course, but cut through their nerves, make ’em feel welcome and (most importantly) give them something to do. Sidelining tends to just make them more of an asshole as they think they’re failing, and become more nervous. Don’t do it.
That said, there’s always people who are asses plain and simple. Every hobby has ’em. In that case, it’s up to the GM to say “One warning. Play as part of the team, or leave.” After that the players are free to grab him bodily and toss him out the room 😀
@Rafe: I agree, no behavior that willfully robs people of their fun should be tolerated. I know that dealing with such people is not easy, but it’s always for the best.
While thinking about it, I did have such a player once. He was the DM of a 2 players I had formed a new gaming group with. After one year of playing Gurps, the DM asked if he could join our game. Having never played a point buy game, he wanted to create a Spawn-like PC but he didn’t want to spend the Char. Points for his extra long, extra powerful chain-claws.
As I kept trying to contain his extravagant request, he became belligerent and hostile. I recall using the ‘broken record’ technique and saying ‘I’m sorry you feel that way but I want you to leave my house now’ until he picked up his stuff and stormed out of the house.
@Claus: Nicely done! I’m curious to know how the player acted in the next game sessions?
@Rechan: I agree completely that ‘what my PC would do’ is the default excuse for assholes.
Now just so we’re clear, I’m not lumping all psychodramatist in the same pot. I’m perfectly fine with oddball PCs that are at odds with the party… but I expect players of such PCs to develop their stories to explain a reason why they fit with the group.
My best example was my friend Franky who played a Chaotic Evil PC for more than a year. While he spread a demonic plague in the world and obtained a forteress of Evil, he always considered the party to be his ‘pack’ and never did anything to hurt his fellow PCs. It just happened that the threats the party was dealing with were also threats to Franky’s PC.
@Flashman: Imposing campaign restriction during char gen is NOT player stifling. It should be the default mode for all game groups. It allows the DM to set the tone and the limits of his campaing.
For instance, I would not allow Drow PCs in my 4e because they weren’t balanced to be PC races and have abilities that are just too strong. Plus, the whole Heroic but misunderstood Drow is just too cliche for my taste.
@Stargazer: That is unfortunate and I think you made the right choice. Our freetime is worth too much at a certain point in our lives to have it squelched by an asshole.
@Greywulf: Nice counter point to my arguments. I do agree that offering the player to play an adversarial role can solve the problem. Provided that the player does not ‘bully players more’ ‘throw dice and make a fit when his NPCs gets beaten’ or downright cheat.
But yes, this could be a ‘let’s try this before we kick you out” type of solution.
Great discussion so far. Keep them coming!
I had an experience with a disruptive player in my group, he was arguing with everyone over things no one was even talking about and had even started making funof another player’s character. When I spoke to him, after the game session, he simply removed himself from the game! Problem solved.
.-= The Recursion King´s last blog ..Initiative fumbles!! =-.
There’s a fine line between the Hawkeye character who’s a bit of a loose cannon and the disruptive bully. This sounds like a case of the latter, but I do think the former is a viable option and often adds a lot of depth to the campaign. How the other characters react to an abrasive PC can make an otherwise bland party really shine.
.-= noisms´s last blog ..The Beasts from the Holes of Làhàg =-.
@TRK: Great, the problem solved itself!
@noisms: I agree that the off kilter, borderline anti-heroic character can spice up an otherwise bland party. I’ve seen this and I even have a player who delights in creating characters that lead to awkward situations.
But as you say, this type of PC/player does not do this to deprive others of their fun. I can live with such players. It’s the grievers that set my teeth on edge.
Damn, that’s a harsh tale. I myself have been quite lucky to not have met a player like this, but a few friends of mine have played with such a person. And that person has also been a GM for them. Yeah, they have a lot of stories to tell.
Ohh im honored you named the force field like that 🙂
Honestly tho, i think people have to understand that while RPG’s are about playing a role in the game universe, they are also a group game. Even bad guys have allies or even friends to work with. Playing a complete jerk with no moral whatsoever is both counter-productive and destroy the whole point of getting together to have fun playing.
BUT
Ive been in groups where everyone played bad guys. The intrigue, the politics, the backstage manipulations, intergang backstabbing…. ahh it was marvelous. Well played it can be really fun for everyone. Unless someone is acting Chaotic Stupid, ill grant ya that.
My very first gaming group was amazing, from when I was young. My gaming group for the four years after that was full of every horror story you can imagine before I plucked all the good players and made my own new group, which I still game with via virtual tabletop to this day.
But it really was a valuable gaming experience, especially in game design. For instance, basketball shouldn’t need rules for fouls (hitting players), it should be a gimme. But it isn’t so they put in rules to hamper that. This logic is something I apply (against much advice) to RPGs, while you shouldn’t need rules in either game to cover bad behaviour, sometimes you do.
I try and work in positive benefits to being a team player, one of the simplest and most effective is the “MVP” award at the end of the game getting benefit (read my post on awesomeness if curious), you can’t vote for yourself or ask others to vote for you nor abstain. I find in practice this really encourages players to drop the “Its my RP to be a dick” mentality unles that is really something they want to hinder themselves to play. One flaw in RPG’s is that the magic PC sign over your head means you don’t suffer the real consequences of being a jerk, being alone. After all, why would people trust you in life and death situations if you are a jerk? Because you are a PC and they HAVE to spend time with you. That isn’t really easy to fix, so I try and smooth the corners.
I think gaming with bad players, and sticking with it for at least a few months is something most players should do once. The reason isn’t to “toughen you up” its for another reason, sympathy.
One thing I notice is that players used to playing in terrible groups pick up some bad habits themselves as self defense mechanism, if you aren’t familiar with bad groups this may appear at first as the player being a jerk deep down, if you are aware its a fairly easy task to transition them through to a functional game group. Which is way better than booting them back to their old bad game group for fear of ruining your existing game.
Im rambling, but this is an issue im really familiar with.
.-= Zzarchov´s last blog ..I make Bear Lore an impressive skill. =-.
I agree that the best way is to boot such players. I have no patience, as a DM, for asshat players. I don’t give anyone more than two chances. First time I see behavior like that, I immediately call it out. Second time, you’re out of the game. I run my table strictly, you either get along or there’s no game. I’m not there to waste my time dealing with juvenile delinquency.
.-= Wyatt´s last blog ..A Punishment Ill Fit (II) =-.
@Martin: Oh yeah, playing a party full of evil jerks (PCs, not players) , with the DM a willing participant in the whole experiment can be a very fulfilling, and liberating experience.
@Zzarchov: So what you’re saying is that a gaming group should check the reasons why a new player is being a boorish jerk as it might be because the player has been ‘trained’ to play like that. All right, I could buy that, but a few months is WAY too long for me as a social experiment. 🙂
@Wyatt: Hey man, you run a tight ship that’s cool. However, since you run mostly online games, how does the aggressive/jerk behavior manifest itself at the virtual table?
I’ve had experiences with bullying or just plain uncooperative players in the past, though I’ll admit I’ve had no “nightmare” scenarios like some of what I’ve read here. I think that the worst part of this kind of gamer, as ChattyDM pointed out, is that they can drive away people who are new to the hobby – people who thought they would give it a chance and, after a bad experience, never go back.
While dealing with a total bully may not be possible (my group has shunned a person or two over the years for bad behaviour), what I’ve found helps best in my experience for players who want to play but just “don’t get it” is to make sure the players all get together before the campaign starts and make their characters together.
This, of course, is good even for groups that get along well. Spend an entire gaming session just on character creation (with maybe a short intro encounter at the end if there is time). As DM, you must lay out the parameters and limits that the players have to work within (i.e. no drow, only arcane characters, whatever).
And then the players then need to talk to each other, and develop their characters as a team from the get-go (with the DM offering advice from time to time, such as providing a campaign setting detail that can help with an emerging idea from the players).
I think the worst thing to do is have players all making PCs on their own. By working together in the character generation process they can find ways for the PC backgrounds and personalities to complement one another.
The goal isn’t to have zero character conflict, but to make sure that what conflict there is contributes to the story rather than constantly breaking suspension of disbelief as players have their feelings hurt or get upset.
Heck, B.A. Baracus and Murdock didn’t get along all that well, but they always pulled together to help one another and keep the A-Team winning against the bad guys. 🙂
It plays out mostly the same as in real life. You see players who sign up as “tough loner characters” (first sign of danger) and are “unaligned” (second sign of danger) in D&D 4e or “Neutral” in D&D 3.5. Nobody usually plays them as actual evil, because in online games most people are reluctant to take evil characters, so they never sign up as that.
Then when they play, they act like asses and derail everything, or threaten everyone with death, or pick a player to try to turn into a lackey and bully that player around. Basically the same modus operandi. They also write it off as being “in-character.” A lot of online DMs tend to fall for this and accept their behavior because of it…I don’t. I don’t care if it really is in-character for the guy. It’s not a character I want in my games in the first place!
.-= Wyatt´s last blog ..Magic And Superstition In Eden =-.
Let the jerk player die, and then tell him that the gods were angry and nerfed his character — and then nerf his character.
A third warning sign: picking a troublesome race (drow, gnome, etc.) and insisting on “playing the stereotype”. That never leads to anything good. At least half of the asshole PCs I’ve met over the years used their race as an excuse for their behavior.
I’ve been running a game for about 8 months now and the disruptive player has been getting out of hand. My group is all friends, except for this guy who came in by way of another friend.
We have a group of mercenary type players, not completely amoral, but not out for the good of others. And then there’s the Lawful Good Paladin. As the game has been going on he’s been slowly exerting more and more influence where it has now got to a point where the rest of the PCS have become even more evil just so they don’t have to go along with the ideas of the Paladin. He’ll charge into any situation without consulting the group and it’s getting old.
His constant plan is: since he’s the Knight he should be the leader although there’s never been any indication that anyone else feels this way. And he seems completely oblivious to the other members in the party.
I’ve tried punishing him with getting hit hard if he recklessly charges in, but it doesn’t seem to stick. I don’t want to kill him because that seems like the easy/asshole way to get out of it.
The player himself is a perfectly nice guy so it’s hard to get mad at him. And I wouldn’t want to kick him out of the game since I’d feel bad since he loves to play. I guess I could just try talking to him but if he hasn’t got it by now I’m not sure what I could say…
The worst part for me, is that I’ve had trouble working on the story because he’s so polar opposite to the rest of the PCS. I’ve been trying to do encounters where he can do his thing and the rest of the party can do their’s but it doesn’t feel as coherent as I’d like it. My plan right now is put them into morally gray situations and force him to act against his nature and starting a bit of character growth for him…
Any suggestions? Anything people have done to help a situation like this? I just got back into rpgs wtih 4E and I haven’t ran a game in 15+ years, and back then it was with high school friends so it wasn’t quite the same thing.
We had a lot of players like this in my group when I was younger. It’s interesting to read a DM going off– ahem, commenting– about them because I had always accepted that they were just a feature of the hobby. I agree with you, though, that socially aberrant behavior should be discouraged. I also like the phrase “paragon of asshatery.” I shall use that in the future 😀
@ the Paladin in the Amoral type
Have you tried sitting down and flatly explaining things to everyone involved? Laying it all out can be awkward, but it can be the simplest way out.
bring up the question, why is a paladin travelling with a group of ne’er do wells and why is a group of ne’er do wells hanging around with a Paladin?
Consider offering to shunt the Paladin (or the party) to the next campaign (he leaves to other adventures) or the same option with the amoral types.
Potentially run the “alternate campaign” once every 4 or 5 sessions as a change of pace (to try different play types)
But generally I’d reccomend a Group Template, require each new character to explain how he is connected to the group, why he wants to travell with him and why they want him travelling with them.
That averts alot of problems.
Simply telling people the type of game to expect helps avoid “off” characters (like the Pirate in the Ninja campaign).
.-= Zzarchov´s last blog ..I make Bear Lore an impressive skill. =-.
Good suggestions Zzarchov.
I think since the characters were created separately for Keep on the Shadowfell there was never any impetus to conform as a group initially.
But now that they’ve been all over together they should have more cohesion rather than less.
The overarching storyline is that they’re getting revenge on someone who betrayed them and I thought that the desire for revenge would bring them together but it hasn’t. Probably more my fault than theirs. Nonetheless they’re not as team-y as I would like.
I’m wrapping up a segment with a large scale invasion of a city and once it shifts into “war” mode I think I’ll try and take your suggestion and lay it on the line to the players about what the parties reason for staying together is. Because I have this feeling that the amoral bunch won’t want to fight this war and they’ll want to get out as quickly as possible. Whereas the Paladin will want to lead troops and go storming into the fray.
Hopefully it will work…
@Jhudsi: What you propose DM do is textbook perfect! And I’d add that if a player wants an oddball character, he/she should work with the other players to find ways to make the party work with the oddball.
@Wyatt: That’s interesting to know. I would even surmise that with the added benefit of internet anonymity griefers are probably more common.
@Jim: That’s very old testament/old School. I recall Gary Gygax talking in the 1e DMG about blasting PCs with lightning when players needed to be disciplined 🙂
@Galactus Brown: If the guy is a nice guy who just happens to completely missplay paladins (it often happens, especially with potential control freaks) I suggest that you ask him to make a new PC more in line with teh rest of the party.
@Rebecca: Hey there! I got your book and my wife, who’s right off Twilight, is going to read it over the weekend. I’ll let you know how it goes. Also re: Paragon of Asshatery, you should have seen my 1st draft, it was a lot worse than that! 🙂
@ZZarchov: Great suggestions for galactus!
One thing you can do to help minimise the impact of this sort of behaviour is have the players dice (using a d20) for party leader at the start of every game session. Then, after each battle, cycle the party leader.
I also have enemies in battle prioritise getting rid of whoever the party leader is – and the players know this and so must work to protect the character… assuming they like him of course!
.-= The Recursion King´s last blog ..Initiative fumbles!! =-.
Personally, I have played a few evil characters. In order to get along in a game with others that are not evil, my evil character had to make nice with everyone. Basically, he was there for his own reasons (“I will not allow the orc horde to conquer what is rightfully MINE”) and I played him savvy and understanding. A likeable enough guy who just happened to want to dominate all peoples in the region.
I’ve also played some good guys who were flat-out turds. My favorite is coarse and condecending, but genuinely cares when people are invaded/overtaxed/oppressed. He hides his concerns behind a veneer of arrogance (overcompensation, maybe?). This character goes out of his way to help the group and the common man, but really wants folks to not be in trouble so he can get on with his magical research (wizard, obviously). He doesn’t bully anyone or push anyone around or demand anything other than fair treatment. And first dibs on magical texts.
I believe these are decent examples of how to play an abrasive character without actually abrading the other players. There is a big difference between the two, although there are a few who cannot see it.
I would add, for the fun of everyone concerned, if a good player is given an evil or disruptive character, ideally they will play that character in such a way that it is still fun for everyone else to be in the group with – so it will be evil and disruptive in a way that challenges the other players but doesn’t interfere with their fun.
I think lots of nerdy geek-types get caught up in the pedantry of “I’m chaotic neutral so I had to do that”. My advice is: we’re playing together. Find a way to make that CN character fun and challenging, not just challenging. If a good player does that, you can probably fit a nasty or anti-social PC into a group (as geek dream girl did). There may be rules for being evil and stuff, but we are still people trying to enjoy a game. If someone doesn’t want to find a way to do that, and thinks being pedantic about their PC motivations is more important than having fun with their mates, then they’re a fool.
Best solution: have a word. If that fails? Kick them out.
.-= flashheart´s last blog ..Game diversity, object-oriented programming and consistent mechanics: Are they related? =-.
@Chatty
First off, I set player/DM expectations before the table starts when I begin the table and whenever a new player is brought in.
If the player cannot abide by said expectations I have 3 strikes rule as DM.
1) Verbal Warning away from group followed up with a discussion of what the player wants from the campaign.
2) Warning at the table in front of peers.
3) Booted from game.
Disruptive behavior sometimes is the result of just having a real-world bad day, and I can deal with that. However, if its a pattern, I just don’t have time to socialize folks that don’t know how to play well with others.
I have never seen a habitual disruptive player change his/her spots without intervention by me and/or my group. Usually they are asked to leave.
As a player my options are talk with the player out of game first. If there is no joy, talk to the DM. If the behavior doesn’t stop I walk away. I don’t have time for BS.
Coming from the other side of this, briefly: I once tried to play a ‘rebel without a cause’ teenager for Mutants & Masterminds, I found that I was at odds with some of the players on occaison, but I always deferred to the leader in terms of strategy. This was played in good faith to roleplaying and to the credit of the other gamers, their characters went along with it, but I found that I was not enjoying myself as much as I could have been. I changed my style next time around and when in combat, I used a condecending tone that involved nicknames as the focus of of my character’s abrasiveness towards them (these nicknames aped their superpowers, i.e. a teenage girl with spiderman’s powers might be told ‘Shelob! Stop looking for a suitable Mr Daddy Long-Legs and web that thug already!’, for example.).
It worked a lot better.
I was trying, but unable to find a quote from someone, somewhere about this. It involved Players using their characters to act out repressed feelings and emotions they have in real life, using a standard mantra of ‘But it is what my character would do’ to defend what is ultimately poor behavior.
There are many ways to handle it. I find the best way is to be assertive. If someone is wearing their ass for a hat, you need to say so. If someone is upsetting you, you need to say so. You need to definitely state how their behavior is making you feel and that you are not prepared to game with them any longer if this continues. Identify the problem and then work together on a solution. People behave like dicks and a lot don’t even realise what they are doing wrong sometimes.
To start, you want to establish a heirarchy in the room in terms of the game. DM has final say, so he is at the top. the next most important person is the most senior player, the good ‘Old School Caller’ of the group. He is the one who decides on the group actions for the players. To mix it up, have the caller change from week to week, and when Mr Asshat complains why he hasn’t been the caller yet, directly explain to him that you don’t trust that he is capable of leading the group in a CONSTRUCTIVE way. He will either rise to the challenge or not. Either way, you can still have a contructive game. When you are confident that you can trust him, you can remove the caller at your leisure.
.-= Andrew Gale´s last blog ..REIGN OF THE NECROMANCER KINGS! =-.
I’ve seen some players that were slightly like that, back in my 1e/2e days. They were abrasive with the other players, used somewhat rude nicknames, thrived on inter-party conflict (which can be great in a game, honestly), etc. But usually, those players were the real team players of our groups and they would drop the rude antics when it came right down to it. However, we were way more of a hack-n-slash group. There was hardly ever any kind of storyline arc going on.
Our biggest gripe from our games usually centered around one certain player for other reasons. Usually, he was condescending of our style of play… always wanting to DM an adventure himself, in which we would all play the game ‘the right way’, according to him. Out of game, some of us would complain about how this guy would demand the spotlight be turned on him. Our DM would often run individual encounters with some players, to get them more involved overall and maybe help catch them up in XP. In one such occasion, our DM was running one of these solo encounters with a weaker player in a secluded part of a small town. The rest of characters, including the troublemaker’s, were in a completely different part of town. But that didn’t stop the troublemaker from stating to the DM that he was having his character walk to the secluded part of town ‘to see what he could get himself into.’ Blatantly obvious and extremely annoying! I mean, when the DM is giving a guy some spotlight time… LET HIM HAVE IT! But this kind of stuff happened OFTEN with this spotlight-obsessed know-it-all at the table.
Anyhow, more to the point, one time the troublemaker decided he had an idea for an adventure for the group. I was against it, but I silently went along with the group, knowing that it wasn’t going to go well at all. We all knew immediately, once he started laying out the early plot details, where he was going with his ‘idea’.
It was the same idea he always had for adventures: he would recycle the LOTR. Group recovers mystery item. Mystery item ends up being an artifact of great evil power. Group must take mystery item to some god awful place and destroy it. To reach said god awful place, the group had to overcome overwhelming odds. The group had to do it, no one else could, because the group was tainted, somehow, by the mystery item.
No big deal, really. But he hardcore railroaded us into it. In the LOTR, as you all well know, Frodo was given a choice to go on the quest to destroy the ring. Sure, he was slightly railroaded into it, but he was given the illusion of choice anyhow. In this case, in this pseudo-LOTR adventure, our spotlight-obessed know-it-all DM used his powerful lawful evil (yet allied) NPC to deliver the ultimatum of ‘do it or die by my hand’. All while the uber-powerful lawful good paladin NPC nodded in agreement and saying ‘yes, you must do it… and I won’t stop him.’
I must admit my failings on this game session. I ended up being the one donning the Helm of Asshattery. Yes, I was the one playing a chaotic neutral (or maybe CG) character, who definitely would be offended by such a scenario. I am the one that used the line ‘but I’m only playing my character’, when I refused to continue. But that’s exactly what I did: I refused to play any more and I let it be known why (displeasure with being hardcore railroaded and my opinion that his powerful LG paladin NPC would never go along with such an ultimatum). Plus, I had another reason: I wasn’t about to take the time to write-up another 2e character for this adventure.
When it all came down to it, all the other guys in our group expressed to me that they didn’t like how that guy handled the situation. They said they understood my viewpoint entirely. However, the bottomline was that they wanted to play, even if it was a ‘bad’ game. So they continued to allow that guy to run adventures. Even when he made the comment that he would never participate in another group (as DM or a player) again as long as I was involved, they still remained silent to his overall BS just because they wanted to play, even in a bad game, just to be playing period.
I did feel bad for my part in how it unfolded. But his antics, as both a spotlight-hogging player and a hardcore-railroading DM, had been building up and working my nerves for a couple of years. His refusal to join a game I was involved in was a welcome blessing to me, no doubt. But it ultimately meant that everyone else was letting him run games and I was left out.
I think its hard to tell who the real asshats in a group are. You can’t just label the loud, obnoxious, rude, inter-party conflict guys as the troublemakers. In a lot of cases, those are the best players you can have. I think the spotlight hogs are the absolute worst troublemakers in a game. Especially when they want to run the games with an attitude that the group can’t jump the train off the railroad tracks when they are not very interested in the storyline.
In all the games I had, I played often with players who was hard to live with in real life who played perfectly likable PCs. Leon (I changed the name because I’m almost sure he reads this blog!), was a sarcastic bastard, member like me of the RPG club I was part of, and every friday night we would setup tables of different games and any players could join any games they wanted. Everyone hated him, but he was such a good roleplayer and witty that everyone enjoyed playing with him.
And I also played with players really nice in real life who played really painful PCs. But since we knew the idea of this type of character was not created out of spite towards any of us, we took it for what it was, just another type of character. Of course this type of character needs a good reason to be like this and still be a part of the group and the story it evolves in. And of course, he has to relate to the group. A player who is hardcore towards another player just for the sake of giving personality to his PCs is just plain stupid. You know me, I have an easy solution for this type of PC… KILL HIM!
I think both situation can be quite fun.
But an hardass player playing hardass PCs…
I guess anyone can imagine any reason to be friend with anyone…
@TRK: Excellent suggestion. Although I’ve long since abandoned the concept of party leader, it seems to me to only be an excuse for petty tyrants to go to town with his friends. I will often ask the party to speak in one voice through the party speaker, the one that describes to me what the group does when a group response is expected.
@The_Gun_Nut: I agree that your examples are good abrasive types that can fit in a party. They are back with a story and some good reasons to adventure in a group.
@flashheart: Agreed 100%. It seems to me that many many people don’t get the ‘it should be fun for the others too’ part of RPGs. If I wanted a group activity that was painful and annoying, I’d call more meetings at work.
@Bryan: Good table rules you got there. I too am willing to make amends for a bad day or even the occasional emotional outburst, heaven knows I’ve had them. But repeating asshatery…. OUT!
@Andrew: And you just killed my follow up post by saying what all RPG groups should do to move on to the ‘perpetual fun’ stage (just kidding, great response). Assertivness is the one set of social skills that can probably resolve 90% of table issues.
Stop tolerating, stop giving excuses and stop being passive aggressive at the table. Being assertive (i.e. saying the truth about what is important) is the ay to go. Heck, if you can pull it off in a RPG you can then use the same skills to solve conflicts in your life!
It’s a shame you live Down Under Andrew I would have loved to game with you at a Con.
@Tiorn: It becomes obvious to me as the excellent comments of this post evolve that the issue of aggressive/jerk players is a bit more complex than I portrayed it. Everything involving people usually is. What remains true to me is that spoiling the fun of others and out of control selfishness are 2 things to procribe from RPG groups.
Interesting though to see someone explain why he decided to act like a troublemaker because the DM’s railroads were becoming intolerable. Doubly interesting that the rest of the group wanted to play so bad that they were willing to tolerate a bad DM… in fact THIS is material for a future post… How far can a DM go before his group rebels.
@D_Link: I would thoerize that a group made up of mostly storytellers would be more likely to tolerate and even thrive with a jerk PC, trying to work him into the story and make the character evolve from Asshat to Hero. That should be explored more…
Chatty… you’re right. Pinning down who the troublemakers are is tough. Its funny though that, in our group, the typical loud-mouthed, obnoxious, inter-party conflict bully-type player that I stated was actually are best team player when it came right down to it, was always the one that killed the characters of the spotlight-grabbing know-it-all troublemaker that I told about. 9 times out of 10, Mr. Know-it-all would decide he was going to teach Mr. Obnoxious a lesson… but ended up writing up a new character instead. We all giggled inside when that happened. 🙂
Sometimes, he didn’t even get his characters with the group in-game. He would start out with his new character wanting spotlight time from the DM immediately, so he could do some thievery, murdering, etc. Only to be caught in the act by town guards and attempting to fight them off in a suicide run. If he actually DID manage to mingle his ‘new’ characters in with the group, he immediately wanted to loot the equipment taken off his previous characters’ corpses… because he KNEW what they possessed. lol
The main reason why they put up with him as DM was because the ‘usual’ DM didn’t want to do it anymore. In fact, he had said at one point that he would not GM anything but Vampire games. That was a bad move on his (the usual DM) part because we had players who were not interested in playing anything other than 1e/2e. The last I heard about their gaming group was that the ‘usual’ guy was running a Star Wars game, while 1e/2e was over with. They had refused to even look at 3.x, so I’m certain they never bothered with 4e either.
About that spotlight-hog’s railroading… it didn’t really bother me that he did it. I accept that its necessary when storytelling in a game. But as I said before, we were a hack-n-slash group, for the most part. Railroads needed to be sugarcoated a little bit with us. What he did was blatant and bitter. The railroad was fine, but the way he did it wasn’t. In my opinion anyhow.
@Tiorn: I must say, I kinda see myself a bit in the DM you’re describing. I like to railroad a bit (sometimes alot), especially when I have a long story arc. Condescending is also how my friends would qualify my way to describe my stance on how to play an RPG.
The reason I’m telling you this I guess is… Well, I feel terrible that someone who seems so much like me would push a player out of his gaming world for telling him how you felt about his DMing style. If there’s something we do alot (the know it all in the RPG world) is say how we think the game should be played. If someone can’t stand criticism then he should shut up himself.
I did alot of introspection lattely, and I guess what I’m trying to say is there’s no true way to play this game, and all styles can become better if they could get influenced by the other.
Anyway!… ok I’ll shut up now!
@Tiorn and D_Luck: Guys the discussions your having is worth the whole post. D_Luck don’t shut up, I’m highly impressed that you are realizing new things about your relationship toward RPGs and your introspection, while maybe painful, will likely make you a better GM.
While there are no ‘true’ wayt to play a RPG there are ‘favorite ways’ that you must understand and accept. Once you know about it, you can either seek players who like the same things you do, or work out a compromise so that everyone can have a bit of fun.
Awesome comments eveyone!
D_Luck… I understand and respect that you see a little bit of yourself in the guy I was describing. He wasn’t all bad at all. His style of DMing and playing has a place in the game, without a doubt. I wouldn’t want to run him off from the game just because of his style, especially if I was running it. However, I would want to reign him in and minimize the downside that his playing/DMing style imposed on the rest of the group.
Our regular DM ran mostly character-driven sandbox games. He did come up with long-running storylines at times and he did railroad us a bit with those as well. His attitude about games that he ran was pretty much: if it doesn’t work, dump it. Every once in awhile, AD&D didn’t work for him, so he would want to run other games instead (FASA rules Star Trek, Shadowrun, Gurps, Vampire… we even tried the Vietnam-based scenarios for the Recon RPG. The constant with each break from ‘D’ was that we went from a group of 7 to 9 people on a regular basis to barely having 4 at the table. The side gaming wasn’t bad at all. It was fun. But it was obvious that half the group would only play if it was ‘D’ and would put up with a ‘bad’ ‘D’ game over anything else any time. Hardly anyone else would DM and this was over about an 8 year period.
Three different times, the ‘troublemaker’ decided he had a ‘good idea’ for an adventure and stepped up to DM. All three times, his ‘good idea’ was in reality a LOTR clone. All three times, he wanted the players to roll up new 1st-level characters because ‘we are going to run it the right way’. The first two times he did this, his game ended abruptly (for whatever reason) with some of the characters barely making it to 2nd-level. The third time, knowing that he would probably quit on us, I stated that I would NOT roll up yet another new character for another one of his 1 or 2 session ‘epic adventures’, but I would use a character from one of his previous efforts. He agreed.
His storyline could be best summed up in three acts:
Act 1: We recovered the mystery item in a combat encounter and was immediately warned of the dangerous situation tied to it. We were then told that we needed to take the item before a council of powerful NPCs who represented the broad alignment spectrum. Our journey would take place on a riverboat, with little or no chance for encounters along the way. The only encounter that I recall from this journey was strictly for setting the mood of the adventure. (think of Frodo and the other hobbits hiding under the tree roots from the mounted ring-wraith while they were still in the Shire… this is basically all it was.)
Act 2: We meet with the council of all alignments. Even the evil aligned NPCs were involved because they wanted to stop the potential world-ending absolute evil of ‘The Darkest One’. (In each of the three different times that this DM ran adventures, the main antagonist was referred to as ‘The Darkest One’ and I ran the same character in two of them. haha) The council explains the risk of existence of the mystery item and state that it must be destroyed (they even explain where we had to go and what we had to do, but I’ll outline that in Act 3). After all the details were given, we were notified that our party was tainted from being within close proximity to the item, so we HAD to make the journey and destroy the item, no matter what. Refusal to do so would result in being killed by the Evil council members, with full approval and support from the Good council members.
Act 3: The item had to be taken to and destroyed in an ancient Dwarven forge deep in a far-off mountain range. The location was overran by an undead army that we would have to fight through to get to the forge. (Gee thanks for NOT giving our new 1st-level characters any encounters in order to have much of a chance against an undead ARMY!)
As a player, this guy’s playing style was that there was no greater honor than going on a suicide run for a noble cause (unless he played an evil character, then he would go on a suicide run hoping for the slim chance that it might save his bacon, after he got himself into a ton of trouble). His ‘right way of playing the game’, when it came to players anyhow, was that everyone should feel the same way as he does. His ‘right way of playing the game’, from the DM’s viewpoint, was that the adventures had to be epic, with heroes becoming martyrs.
If you really see yourself in that, I really don’t know what to say. Sure, it works for some, but not all. For the majority in that group, it didn’t work at all.
Ugh. This rings ALL kinds of bells with me. Way back in my younger gaming days, we had one guy that would always play the thief-assassin. And he would steal from the party members while in-game. (He had a random code word that he would discuss before a game and – when he uttered the word and pointed to one of us secretly – the DM would roll randomly for what goodie he pocketed from his own teammates.) This got to be really old and – if one of the PCs confronted him, he’d enter combat and kill off that character with his mad assassin skills. No amount of talking would help since he “was just staying true to the character!”
So all of the other gamers got together and decided we were gonna end this. So, while in game, we came upon a river.
“It looks to be infested with pihrana,” the DM said.
“We’ll test it,” our party leader said. “We’ll throw in Roger’s character.”
“What?!?” said Roger, our thief-assassin.
We rolled initiative, got it, and happily tossed in the thief. He got bitten pretty badly by the pihrana. He tried to climb out of the river. Whoever had the next initiative would push him back in. More damage. This went on for 10 minutes until the pihrana effectly ate Roger’s character.
Roger was pretty pissed about it, but his next character – a barbarian fighter – wasn’t nearly as much of a dick.
.-= Tim´s last blog ..Savage Menagerie: Firewhale =-.
@Tiorn: I certainly would not do what he did. I think it’s stupid and I sympathise for you what you went through after you stood up against his decisions.
It was the way you described him. I kinda saw myself in him and I did not liked that…
The LOTR cloning you’re describing remind me of a good old friend I had back in the late 80’s. The minute he would see a great movie, you could be sure that an exact replica of the iconic element of the story would become a part of one of the games he would run. Lucky for us, it was fun to play. At least it was different from one game to the other… depending of what film he would see.
Terminators in a Star War game. The alien drug dealer from the movie Dark Angel (1990) in a Cyberpunk game. The list goes on and on…
@Chatty: Thank you.
Just joining the conversation but oddly, it sounds kinda like how I play with my characters, but mine do have reason to do so. I tend to play a bard (If you knew me you would say I am bardcore) because that appeals to me. So when I tend to lead flow of gameplay (Similar to the kamikaze person in the letter. The thought its good but poorly though but I tend to have a high charisma, and bluff to go with my actions. There is a way that that kind of character(not player) isn’t a jerk but its rare.
@ChattyDM. lol! Be careful what you wish for; you may end up with me staying at yours indefinitely. Seriously, if you are ever in Sydney, pop me an email prior.
@ Tiorn. I tried a similar thing for the MIDNIGHT Campaign setting: Izrador’s Black Mirror got chipped by an a celestial Defender/Mirrorbreaker NPC (he punched it) and (in true Al Dimeneira, ala The Crystal Shard fashion) threw the shard of obsidian from the top of the tower, into the skies. This effectively landed in the PCs collective laps. I had one guy leave as soon as he realised what was going on. The game de-railed soon after that. I’ve learnt my lesson.
.-= Andrew Gale´s last blog ..ADVENTURE, & DUNGEONS DANGER SURVEY =-.
@Tim: We never ganged up on a problem character like that, but we always had someone in the group that would lay the smack down on them when needed. Our ‘troublemaker’ went through 3 or 4 characters in one game session because of that. One guy, whenever he played a wizard, would always ‘Wizard Mark’ the troublemaker’s character’s forehead during games. It meant nothing to most of us, most of the time, but when an NPC wizard would bust out laughing at the troublemaker’s character (who was totally clueless), well, it was just a great inside joke for all us.
@D_Luck: Our usual DM was the one who was usually borrowing from whatever he was ‘into’ at the time. One campaign, we were surrounded by notable NPCs that were patterned after ‘Days of our Lives’ characters. The main city had its own version of ‘Batman and Robin’. He even went as far as to introduce other members of the ‘Justice League’ in his own way. At first, it was neat. After awhile, it was just getting too silly.
@Andrew Gale: I really didn’t mind the railroad or the storyline. I was prepared to continue on with the story, even though it was working my last nerve. My biggest gripe was that he played all of his NPCs from the same basic mold – ‘do it or die’. I see that even the GOOD NPCs would want the party to do the job. Of course. But the Good NPCs would not and should not allow death threats to go unanswered. It was a matter of consistency for me. If you’re going to lecture everyone about ‘playing the right way’, then play your NPCs and their alignments the right way to start with. He played the Evil NPC the right way. Great. He failed from there though. He had the right NPC in place to smooth the situation over. He didn’t want to play it the right way though. He didn’t want to smooth the situation out. He wanted it done his way or be damned. I’ll balk at that attitude often, as I did.
This topic is en fuego!
Been an interesting read, especially how so many of ya’ll have different thoughts on handling this sticky player situation.
What stands out for me with RPGs over other games is how the social aspect is so integral to playing them. Unlike other games, players have such a personal vested interest in their characters, and the interaction with other players to the story they take part in is incredibly socially engaging. RPGs are very unique.
Because of that strong social element, I think the consequences with troublesome players adds more weight. It’s odd but there are people I’ve met that I never would want to hang out with, but I’m perfectly willing to sit down and play a wargame or some other odd board game just fine. However take that same person and I’d never play an RPG with them…ever. It just seems the social interaction with those people is distanced in other abstract games, to the point I can push those differences aside. For RPGs, that social interaction is paramount, and I can’t ignore them.
That spills over into handling troublesome players. I’m assuming that person has interpersonal relationships with some of the people at the table. They likely have to be someone’s buddy, or a friend to most of the group. As such, I find it terribly odd that if such a player were people’s friends, why would they take such delight in spoiling others fun, being an attention hog, or otherwise being a jerk to their ‘friends’. How you handle talking to that friend, or a friendly acquaintance, is tricky personal business and something I likely cannot dispense worthy advice over.
If such a problem player is not a a friend, or not socially involved with your group, well that is another matter. I think that can be simply rectified by explaining the situation to such a player, and be given the ultimatum that sure they can play a character any way they want to, just not in this group. Either they get join in with the crowd, or head off to some other group where they’d likely be more happier.
As long as such a talk is blunt and not worded in personal attacks, a mature person will either seriously consider those comments, or just move on. In that situation, either way is not a problem to me. It’s when that problem player is a buddy, or a best friend to another in the group, that it becomes a real problem handling.
.-= Geek Ken´s last blog ..Review: Dungeon Delve =-.
@ Tiron
Thanks, I think I understand a lot better now. It sounds as if he was doing some arbitrary handwaving in terms of his plot/baby, so much so, that he was having his characters act, well, out of character to the point where the game feels like it is not working. Some people may be prepared to buy it and others don’t. When I throw myself into your shoes, I keep coming back to it being time I said goodbye to him and his playing style or at the very least taken a sabbatical for a few weeks. I brought up my experience because I dearly wanted my Midnight plot to work (to be the same, but different) and I think that I did some handwaving of my own in order to get to the action. Not long after joining that group (after one session, in fact) I was asked to DM that campaign setting as a favor to the DM (who wanted a break). I knew I was going to have problems when the exDM (who should have known better) stood up and shouted ‘Choo-Choo!’ in the middle of my game.
(Despite the obvious insult, I have since learnt how to manipulate things better so the players are doing roughly what I want them to do.) Unfortunately that was not the only incident, so I did what I described above; I look a break after gaming with them for a year. After a few weeks, I still felt the same so I informed the group I would not longer be gaming with them. Any Australian will tell you that to give up a gaming group (even in Sydney) is tantamount to giving up the game altogehter until you can find another.
But I am glad I did. I play regularly, but not as often as I’d like, but my partner is showing more of an interest these days. It won’t be long before I can give my Midnight campaign another go!
.-= Andrew Gale´s last blog ..ADVENTURE, & DUNGEONS DANGER SURVEY =-.
This thread is a Blogger’s delight as it has taken a life of it’s own!
@Andrew, @Tiorn and @D_Luck you’ve each provided loads of insight in some of the key DMing lessons that one must invariably go through when gaining experience. I too have had awesome story ideas that worked great on paper only to have them crash and burn at the table and YET I still pushed to raise the plot from the dead.
One time, I had all my players ignore a core plot altogether and continue on doing whatever they had planned to do originally. Good things I got the message and dropped my Aliens vs Fantasy world story 🙂
Yuck, had a guy like this in a 2e game; he was completely ruining the dynamic of the party. The player was a good guy, and basically felt he was playing the character correctly, so after a quick DM chat, he was Geased to force an alignment change that put him in better standing with the group.
Definitely a bludgeoning damage solution, but piercing and/or slashing damage is sometimes inadequate.
@Kirk: Sometimes all it takes is a good whack of the ‘get a Clue’ bat. He he he!
I’d blame the DM as much as the bad player. Just kick the guy. I may be viewed as a tyrant when I post on boards but to my group I’m a benevolent tyrant. I try to make a campaign that is fun and enjoyable for all. I think in most cases I succeed with mistakes along the way of course which I try to learn from.
Hrm. I’m afraid I don’t have the time at the moment to read all the comments and still kick out some input. Sorry if I’m repeating something other people have said.
I’ve experienced two versions of this one. The first was a fathead who made big, buff characters and then physically bullied anyone who happened to catch his interest. He wasn’t very good at planning or jiggering the systems to make his character more powerful than he should be but then he was focused about what he wanted so he could still generally brute force a character that wasn’t designed for the front lines. The second time my character was the entire focus of his attentions I begged the GM to either take away the magic sword he was using to push me around or give me something useful I could do myself when he came around with it. This person’s characters would also bully NPC’s quite often. The only solution we ever found in trying to deal with him off and on for several years was to just shut him down completely. He stopped playing whenever his power was threatened successfully.
If you use that method to deal with one of these people, don’t do half measures. On multiple occasions this one tried to make revenge characters, once even suiciding his current character to make one after a run-in with another PC didn’t go his way. I’m all for explaining problems to people and giving second chances but don’t deal with anything like this.
The second example was more clever. He would play different types of characters and professed to be into roleplay more than systems. And he was, in a way. In the D&D games he would try the most torturously convoluted uses of spells because he never read past the spell name and “it sounded like it ought to be able to do that”. There were numerous headaches from DMs trying to be nice about that (which happened to waste a lot of table time). But the real problem he had was in political maneuverings to make the whole campaign crash down like a house of cards. He was especially brutal in the Vampire games where he would get to a position of minor political/social power, then either go completely cutthroat on one of the other PCs for no reason or sell everyone out to some powerful enemy like the werewolves. Even when taking such actions would leave him with no reasonable way to even bargain for his own survival. He’d just suicide and take the whole game with him.
There were a lot of warnings, second chances and just outright “no, your character doesn’t do that, I don’t care what you think their justifications are, I’m not going to self-destruct my campaign on your whim”. In the end we just stopped inviting him to games.
As far as I know, both of these people have stopped gaming. I think that’s a good thing for them and everyone else. I understand people having issues that they need a release for, I really do. For me, that’s diving into an imaginary world and becoming someone else now and then. I get my satisfaction from seeing bits of life from a different perspective, even if it is in a game. Their satisfaction always seemed to be based more on how much annoyance they could spread around. And it was a destructive release because it kept me and everyone else from getting what they wanted out of the game.
Ultimately that’s your guideline if you’re not sure if someone’s being this sort of asshat or not. Are they really keeping anyone else from having fun? Are they doing this regularly?
When I read all this stuff, I must say I’m really happy that my players are cool guys and I’m also abhorred at how much worse my hobby could have been! Sure, we have our occasional things, but this is a different ball park entirely! (If that’s the proper way to use the expression.)
I had one nasty player (cheater, but not necessarily the type of jerk described here). I handled it passive aggressively and used petty excuses to no longer invite him, but I was very young at the time. In my current state of evolution, I think being honest is the best way to kick people out (also the most difficult way).
Anyway, great post, I had been anxious to read it and the comments; good stuff!
Cheers!
This is definitely a hard situation to deal with. A lot of times, it is difficult to find people to play with. In those cases, I think people will be a lot more tolerant toward prima donna players. But in cases where there are people queuing up to get into your game, do you really need someone eating up all the fun or spotlight? I think not.
I played 2E D&D off and on for about 6 or 7 years with the same group of people and had some really great times. One of our youngest players started playing with us when he was 8 (most everybody was 14-16 at that point). Some of the people in the group has little patience for him and would bully him out of treasure he wanted, give him trouble when he couldn’t find the right die to roll, etc…But as he grew up and learned to min max as well as everyone else, he became less of a peeon and more a solid part of the group.
That said, I think his first character (a halfling thief) was the only one that was ever treated unfairly (my fault as a 16 year old DM). His characters after that were all bad-ass 2E nightmares.
So, we had quite a few good years gaming. Then he started drinking heavy when he turned about 15 or so. We would play a campaign and it would start getting good, then he would get smashed during a game and completely ruin it (in one, he was a NCO in a war and was gathering with all the troops before a battle when a Priestess of Eris pissed him off by not backing down to his bullying. His thief tried to pick pocket something from her and ended up getting zapped by one of her items that prevented just such a thing from happening unless the thief was of a certain level. He got pissed, cast dimensional folding to get to a forest where he knew there were a lot of spiders, and tried to get some poison from them but instead, ended up getting killed. I told him that it wasn’t a good idea, but he was pretty much hellbent on killing her or killing his own character).
So, a few years go by and he is cool to play with sometimes and not so cool other times, but he is my friend and has been for a long time, so I just let him slide. So, five years ago I moved to Japan to take a job. I have been coming home once a year to see family and of course, play with my old group. I worked really hard on writing the story, crafting all the NPC’s, drawing out the maps, etc. What happens? The first year I come home, he completely ignores my group template and makes a goblin character for a group that is working as a watch patrol volunteers right after a big war with goblins and other humanoids. We were playing at his house, so I just worked with it.
The next game, he makes a character that is again against the grain of the group. The party rescues him from becoming hellhound food after a botched burglary attempt in which all his fellow thieves were killed. He then has the option to follow the group and adventure with them and get revenge on the killers of his partners. What does he do? He doesn’t want to go through the portal with the rest of the group.
I had to look at him and say, “If you don’t follow them, you don’t play.” After that he went through. The portal led to an island. The group went one way, he went another. Yet again, after a little spotlight time, he was coaxed back to the party. Then when the game really started getting intense, he decided to go meet his girlfriend up at a bar. He snuck off without even saying goodbye or anything.
He is my friend, I love him, but that is just disrespectful on so many different levels. Now, after five years, I am getting ready to move back to the states and resume gaming with my old group. I am not going to even mention D&D around him. He has proven that he can’t be part of the group, can’t control his alcohol problem (I asked that he limit his intake at the last game and so he JUST brings a 24 pack for himself drinking about 20 while gaming), and has proven to me that he doesn’t respect me or the other players so I’m done.
I would say for all of you out there with a trouble player that you are not old friends with, give them a talking to, give them a warning, then kick them out. Don’t ruin your game, don’t wast your time, and don’t waste your energy.
The advice and anecdotes in this thread are pure gold.
The only player I ever had to deal with who was disruptive at all didn’t last more than a couple of sessions. There were three players and the adventure called for 6-8, so everyone had two characters. He had a Kender (naturally—I didn’t yet know better) and a female mage; at the first inn the party reached he had them seduce each other and was indignant that I skipped over the, ah, results with handwaving and cutting to the next morning. That, among other disruptions and the standard problems when someone plays the Kender stereotype, just made DMing him an uncomfortable experience.
I don’t even remember how it came to be that he didn’t play in my game anymore since it was so long ago. I’m glad it didn’t drag on since that game turned into my longest-running campaign ever.
.-= d7´s last blog ..The treasure of Strolen’s Citadel =-.
@d7… Honestly, I have to say that was kind of hilarious! You should have told the guy that it amounted to masturbation and it was a personal matter that he really needed to keep it to himself. Dear God! lol Throw him a box of tissues and tell him to catch up when he’s cleaned up… you were going to deal with the rest of the party. lol geesh!
@Tiorn: In his defence that was in early high school, and huge gaps in social awareness and horndog tendencies are sadly common in boys that age. It was such an unexpected WTF? moment and I was enough of an inexperienced GM then that I don’t think I could have come up with anything so self-assured and assertive as that!
In retrospect, though? Yeah, utterly hilarious.
.-= d7´s last blog ..The treasure of Strolen’s Citadel =-.
Addendum: Recalling games in the past though, I have to say that I played a real jerky asshat-character once. It was in a two player campaign and the other player was being intolerable as well. This was because we were so obviously railroaded and were practically playing as extras in an all-NPC action flick. So GM’s, if all – or a very substantial majority – of your players are acting like bastards, it could also be because they don’t like what you’re doing or where they’re going…
A female wizard and a Kender, wow.
I think the only game where it’s can be a good idea to incorporate sex is Vampire or any game in that style. Vampire has a mature flair to it. Many expansions from Blackdog are very hardcore (Gore & sexual). But a D&D game… weird.
I’ve long since lost control of this thread so I won’t attempt to comment anymore. Suffice it to say that it’s been quite a constructive discussion (as is so often the case here) and that the phenomenon is very widespread.
Thanks one and all.
This topic just reared its ugly head in the Living Forgotten Realms mail list this week. I don’t DM in that RPGA campaign (I did DM extensively in Living Greyhawk), so my experience is one of a player. Players usually have less options to deal with bad behavior.
However, sometimes the players can deal with selfish/disruptive player. In the RPGA things are handicapped by a no PvP rule. So, let me introduce you to “The Stupid Tax.”
Here is my example from the LFR mail list that I used illustrate the stupid tax in action:
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After allowing selfish players do whatever they want and nearly getting my PC (plus those of my party) killed trying to bail him/her out I have found ways to punish those players that will not play nice with the rest of us.
Since I am not allowed to kill/maim their PCs directly I let the judge and the mod do it for me.
Example: In LG I asked the player not to continue to grapple the Sea Lion (it was anineffective attack) so the ranged party members could blast it down. He refused because it was his PCs only shtick. So, after 3 rounds of this monster mauling his PC (and the rest of the party for that matter) he was hurting for hp.
So, he asked my Druid for healing and I hit him with my “cleric-on-a-stick” for 1d8+3. It was enough to get him out of harms way (he could survive a non-crit opportunity attack) but not enough to keep fighting. I told him to pull back and let the rest of the party take the monster down.
He of course went right back in and tried grappled the Sea Lion, again. After a claw, claw, rend, and critical bite he was just a red mist in the water. Problem solved. He got to sit out the rest of the mod while we finished it without him (we had no way to raise him in the mod).
Now I could have wasted a much more powerful magic effect to heal him effectively for combat but that would have been completely unfun for the rest of the party and a complete waste of my own asset that I would probably need for party members that where actually cooperating with me.
He chose to pay the stupid tax. I gave him every opportunity to stop being a jerk and he refused.
If there is no consequence to being selfish there is no incentive to change the behavior.
My only other option is to not play with that player again during muster.
Being the vengeful type I usually do both.
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I run a group for 10-year-olds and had some problems with one of them who was running a 3.5 rogue but, wanting to be able to duke it out nose-to-nose with the bad guys, got very frustrated. I called table rules on him one time because he tried to barricade the rest of the party into a room where they were fighting.
I gave him an off-table talking to, also pointing out how he could play to the strengths of the rogue class. He also perked up a lot when he got spotlight time defusing some deadly trapped doors while the rest of the party watched with baited breath…. After that he started working with the group again.
With kids you have to deal with the fact that they are, at the lower levels, not as uber as they expected: that got a lot easier in 4e. You have to help them find the strengths in their character (challenge I have right now with the party Warlord).
Some bad behaviour is frustration, some is acting-out that they bring to the table from elsewhere. Clear communication is always best and I use the model from “Talking so Kids will Listen and Listening so Kids will Talk” by by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish:
1. Express your feelings strongly, without attacking character “I hate it when the actions of your character derail the session and endanger the others”
2. State your expectations. “I will never accept bullying behaviour in this group”
S. Show the player how to make amends. “I expect you to help the party get through the next town without any trouble”
6. Give the player a choice “Either work constructively with the others or leave the game”
7. Let the player experience the consequences of her actions.: “you cannot be in the next two sessions”
.-= Tim´s last blog ..Burning up your will-power =-.
You’re right, Tim. Sometimes giving problem people jobs can rein them in a little. “You can play that game, but by my rules.”
What about GM sanctioned PvP? It can work to some extent where a Player plays an NPC villain while you put their character on a bus.
.-= Katana Geldar´s last blog ..Did I Just Gain Some Xp? =-.
In my many years of Gaming I have encounter a few of these types “while DM’s hand slowly slips under table searching for the ejection button”. This type of person does not even belong at the gaming table. You really want to be nice to the person may be their a friend of yours or a member of someone else in the group. However, if their just being disruptive to the group too be disruptive they need to be asked to leave and never return until they can grow up. It may be a little harsh “In one of my groups we had a three strikes policy I you were disruptive to the group three times in consecutive weeks of gaming you were asked not to return.
Each situation is different and should be handled in a manner that is appropriate to the given situation. If a player was disruptive more than three times they were politely asked to leave and not return.
I have been a player in campaigns with such players, and have DM’ed with such players in the game…once. I do not allow bullying of other players. Characters, that is a slightly different matter as long as it is done within reasonable limits. There are a few things I do to prevent this when I DM. First, I give everyone a printed list of house rules. Having written house rules that are followed by everyone, including the DM, is something that I have found to be crucial. In the house rules I explain the difference between “in character”, and “out of character”. If there is a newbie I try to shield him/her a bit, the experienced good players with whom I game know “the look” and when I shoot it at them they back off. I always try to have at least one good experienced player if every game I DM to help herd the cats. Second, I do not allow evil nor Drow characters, period. If you want to play them find another campaign. And, third, I play at my house. If you don’t like my rules, there’s the door. I know this may sound a bit draconic, but it makes no sense to cater to one jerk while alienating 3,4,5, or however many good players, who decide to vote with their feet. As a player this is what I have done. Left and never came back. When the DM asked me why I was not coming back I told him that I didn’t care for the one guy’s attitude. When he said “that’s just the way he is” I replied “then he can be that way without me”. In one campaign within 3 sessions it dwindled down to just the DM and his jerk buddy. The way I look at it, I get enough stress at work, I don’t need it when I game. The point of the game is for everyone to have fun and relieve stress. If there is one person who can only do this by making everyone else’s life miserable that person should be excluded.
Agreed. We play games to have fun, and if you have to put up with stupid people you are NOT having fun.
.-= Katana Geldar´s last blog ..It’s nice to play together =-.
Perhaps it has been said before, I didnt read ALL replies 🙂
But I play with a more or less fixed group of friends that do more then just RP together and as we grew up from late teens to early thirties (now) everybody had periods when he was a fun guy but agressive in an RPG. Somehow playing an RPG while having stuff in your reallife that is frustrating/bad/etc brings it out and it is hard or even impossible to control.
We’re talking stuff like serious break-ups, realising you’ll drop out of college, getting stuck in the wrong job, unemployement, dead-end relations, loosing friends to girlfriends, death of loved ones, debts, whatever life throws at us.
As we are friends first and RPG players second we ended up ‘putting D&D on ice’ more then once during the years, simply because as a group we lost the capacity (and interest) to play.
But we have also ran games while accepting (and limiting) the crap just to keep in touch and give a guy a place to vent off a bit without causing real world secondairy damage. In game trick, tempt them to go off solo somewhere. Once isolated grant them the game time they deserve fairly (or even a tad more, no one will mind) and have the realfun with the other players.
Guess its about beeing a friend first or and RPG-player first.
@ Katana Geldar: I completely agree with you. As you say, we play to have fun…and such guys corrupt it!!!