DM Advice For Difficult Players?

[CarrieMarie]

Currently I'm in an adventure called "Expedition To Castle Ravenloft" and I have one player who seems to just non-stop fight me about rules and such. I know there's many methods, but the other players like this person a lot. How do I get around his "Know-it-all" attitude?

A little background, I am new to DM'ing and am learning as I go. The player in question, knows every rule by heart and shoves it in my face every opportunity he gets.

Now this is the same guy that hangs out with us at a local bar we go to, making jokes about giving women vacuums and mops as birthday gifts. So I am thinking he's not comfortable with me running a campaign.

I came up with a list of rules, while I was trying to decide how to deal with him, that perhaps might slow him down from his "I know all" campaign to the other players:

1. You are not allowed to simply declare an action during a round of combat, you need to describe it. It will make encounters more fun!

2. Bonus Rule In Your Favor! No negative attack damage or attack rolls will be applied as a result of going for a fancier or riskier attack instead of the usual "I attack"

3. Discuss plans to each other to come up with a plan of action, because I the Dungeon Mistress should not have to do this for you. Remember your potions gang!

4. If there's an issue with a rule, please look it up first, hand me the book and we'll decide from there. I don't want silly arguments because of a rule interrupting the game.

5. I am only human, and I'm not against you guys. I am not here to kill you. Dm'ing is new to me and is a challenge enough without bickering. So if there is something you don't like, write it down, and tell me after the game.

6. What DM says is only law for the current session. Remember, I have charisma and hit points to lend! If you wish to bring up game rules that don't effect immediate combat, bring them to me at a BREAK or END OF SESSION. Let's just have fun! For the love of whatever diety you serve!


I am hoping he won't take them too personal, but I am tired of arguing with him, and this seemed like a better way to deal with it. Since all the players can read these rules and might tell him to shush up

Please, if you have advice, I'll put it to use right away! Thanks for taking the time to read my mini-book

[Vascant]

While personally I don't mind trying to help out good people get over some of their bad gaming habits it sounds more like you just have a rude person who isn't able to help the way he games. For this kind of stuff I refer to my 25 rule. If he is under 25 you stand a chance of success (don't get your hopes up, somethings only time will correct), speaking from personal first hand experience guys under 25 are fairly immature. Over 25 there isn't much chance of success here, most rules and such will only be a temporary solution to the problem.

I do have one idea that does seem to help in my group, I keep a timer at the table and everyone knows if you wish to argue/debate a rule.

You have one minute to state your case. This has solved a ton of my problems with certain behavior issues over the years. I also use a chess timer during combat, this speeds things along nicely nor is a player allowed to interrupt another player's time in combat.

[roguerouge]

Listen to what he has to say. Decide. If he objects, say, "No, we'll talk about it after the game. Who's turn is it next?" Rules lawyers are fine if they can take no for an answer. 3e is insanely complex and they can be an important resource if they know their limits.

Decide what kind of game you're having. If you're having a tactical showdown style game, then getting the rules right really matters. If you're having a "whatever's most fun" type of game, then ruling fast is what really matters. In either case, make sure you've communicated what style you're playing to everyone.

I recommend buying the Rules Compendium, which is very easy to go through on the fly. The rules are clear and laid out step-by-step. Nothing's better for "how does this work" questions.

I'd recommend prepping on rules that you think are going to come up before the game. Put stickies on the relevant pages or type out what the rules are. It helps make sure that you're getting things right.

[roguerouge]

Also, remember that there's a period in every relationship where you're figuring each other out. Sometimes that has to do with testing each other's limits, just like a young child does. Make sure you know your limits and stay calm. It's his issue, not yours.

[CarrieMarie]

Assuredly, I appreciate all if your suggestions. I'll do my best to implement them. We play every Thursday and I want to be prepared for the next session with every possible counter to any argument. The rules compendium sounds like a sound book to invest in. I thank you for that suggestion.

I just want him to try enjoying the game for a change instead of worrying about every rule or instruction that might give him any ability to argue. I know it's "The DM rules" but I like to make everyone's voice heard.

I also like the timer idea, I think that would elevate a lot of the game play and get rid of the: "10 minute rules lawyer intervention" because he is so incessant about being heard.

I asked the table what they thought of my DM'ing for last session to get a scope of where I was. The consensus was "It was so much fun, and I think you did a great job" he later approached me and complained about the battles being too tough. I got attitude because of their lack of thought-process in buying potions in town. I told him "These battles are set to be apart of this module, they are how they are, and you guys had every opportunity to load up on useful equipment before you left." Which he responded "It's a small village, I didn't think they'd sell them"

It's been a pain in my rear-side, and I want to make it work. I'll try to emmulate your advice given here and give you an update come Thursday

[FEADIN]

Hi,

I think he is rude and a bit "macho" when I see the kind of humor he uses.
I have a rule lawyer in my campaign on top of that it's a player who's always speaking, whatever the subject but he is very intelligent and would never have this attitute "because" you're a girl and because you're new to DMing.
And I'm a rule lawyer too....
When he goes too far the only way is to tell him:"Shut up you're mouth" and all is fine (remember he is very intelligent....).
I think that his attitude will never improve and you'll be the target from his childish behavior for a long time.
He doesn't know what he looses, I love playing with girls, it greatly improves the game to have female PC or NPC played by female players.
A fighter of mine remember a priestress of Aphrodite really cleverly played and the best Kender (Taslehoff, Lance dragon modules) I've ever seen was played by a girl.

[thedmstrikes]

Welcome to the nexus of the game. It is one thing to know everything that is about to happen, but it is quite another to have to find out by doing rather than reading. I have been a DM for over 20 years (mostly cause no one else wanted to do it and it was the only way to get a game started). I move around alot, so I have had a lot of different groups and group members. The first thing I would like to recommend is that you approach your group, member by member, and ask them in private how you are really doing (sans the guy that already expresses himself). Get a feal for what it is they want to see in the group also. I have found that if I direct the conversation initially on what they want out of it, I can get some insights into how I have been doing. I attribute this mostly to them not holding back as much since they are talking about their desires and not trying to suppress their opinion for fear of alienating me as a friend or the leader of the group.

Another idea I have for you is to approach the unruly player, in private, and explain to him that he is being disruptive during the game and throwing you off your mojo. The effect is that something critical that is relevant to the group may not get expressed properly because you are too wrapped up in some rule minutia to get the clue out before something bad happens. He has to allow you to unfold the scene as you see it so that the group can react properly. He will invaritably come back with it being his goal as well, and that you should probably do more research about your scenes before conducting them. The response is that you will not be able to research every possible contingency the group comes up with and that, in fact, he has surprised you repeatedly with his reactions being much different than you anticipated. This may or may not be true, but he will hopefully get the point that you can only prepare so much for what you think the reaction will be and after that, you need to make things up as you go because that is what the DM is supposed to do. Remember, no plan survives first contact with the enemy and this applies to NPC/PC interactions as well.

Oh, and if you need to spice up some of the encounters with out making the bad guys tougher by CR standards, hit me up by message and I will give you some tactical tips that make CR 5 guys seem like CR 8 without changing any of the write up in your module....

[MichaelK]

I agree with Roguerouge, listen to the argument once then make a call you can live with for the rest of the session. Then at the end of the session you can discuss it in depth.

Also I would approach your other players. Find out if what he's doing is bugging them or if perhaps they appreciate the rules insight that he's offering. Ultimately it's your game, but you should know how all the players feel before making up your mind.

Discussing it with the problem player as TheDMStrikes suggests is another good option.

Communication is king.

[krupintupple]

frankly, if your group has more than 3 other PCs, you could ask him to leave - at least while you're DMing. just explain to him that you're not "overreacting" or being "a typical woman" (sorry, but he sounds like an insecure macho pig) but you don't take kindly to someone constantly sitting at the sidelines and nagging you about how things "ought" to be.

[dingle]

At our gaming sessions we sometimes revert to a dice roll to decide on a fate of a rule if it seems 50/50 1-3 ok I let you do it this time 4-6 no you can't (the dice roll holds until the rule decision is overturned by clarification) . This can speed up combat and lengthy book checking. At a later time you can check up on the rules and come up with a rule decision.


http://www.dinglesgames.com/

[aboyd]

Originally Posted by CarrieMarie

he later approached me and complained about the battles being too tough. I got attitude because of their lack of thought-process in buying potions in town. I told him "These battles are set to be apart of this module, they are how they are, and you guys had every opportunity to load up on useful equipment before you left."

So... did you punish the players because you didn't like their potion-buying? Did you change the fights in any way from their original form?

If you did, the player has a right to feel annoyed. People can pick up on a DM being punitive, even if the DM tries to play it off as innocent. If you're running a published module, you can bet that at some point in the future, he's going to take a look at it. If he sees something different from what he experienced -- especially if you claimed that the fights were exactly as the module described -- he's going to have a legitimate beef with you.

It's not that you can't change things -- I almost always do. However, I go out of my way to not appear to be punishing anyone. For example, if a player in my game loaded up on spells to affect the undead and I had changed a module to use fewer undead, I might tiptoe around that one. I might reconsider. I don't want the player thinking, "I planned logically for a tomb raid, and now it's like the DM meta-gamed against me and removed every typical tomb monster!" You know? You don't want to do things such as taking note of a player's skills and then deliberately circumventing those abilities.

If a player is naturally super-effective in some games and super-ineffective in others, well that's the way it goes. But if it's un-natural, if its uncanny how things appeared to be built to bypass the player's skills, then ouch. Someone is going to complain. If you didn't modify things, great, you were totally fair & honest, and the player needs to suck it up in that regard.

Originally Posted by MichaelK

I agree with Roguerouge, listen to the argument once then make a call you can live with for the rest of the session. Then at the end of the session you can discuss it in depth.

Yeah, I do that a lot, and it works. It was difficult at first because I didn't know the exact right words to use to end a discussion. I kinda wanted to grab a problem player, shake 'em hard, and shout, "SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!"

Those would have been the wrong words.

So I found the right words were simply to say, "I need to keep things moving. This is house-ruled for the duration of today's game. We'll review the books later, but no retconning."

That has almost always worked. Most of the time, house rules are just as fair as the book rules. So people aren't arguing that you're unfair (usually). Instead, they're arguing that your rule conflicts with known procedure and they don't know how to settle into a conflicted state. Give them permission to let things be conflicted, by telling them it's a temporary ruling.

There are just a few times when this failed. Usually, the players have a cow only when the house-rule will utterly destroy their expected course of engagement. In those cases, I generally relent, break out books, and spend a half-hour discussing a bunch of boring rules. But that's rare.

Every now & then you might decide that your house-rule is better than the book rules, and you'll want to make your temporary rule a permanent one. In those cases, you have to be prepared for fallout, and handle it gracefully. I made a ruling once that changed how effective a particular class was. The person playing that class wanted to completely abandon the character and start over. I let him. If you nerf a class or spell and then force a player to keep using the now-crappy class, those players will feel cheated.

[azhrei_fje]

Originally Posted by aboyd

So I found the right words were simply to say, "I need to keep things moving. This is house-ruled for the duration of today's game. We'll review the books later, but no retconning."

I agree.

I've been DM'ing D&D since AD&D in 1978. I've been around awhile. Yet I still don't have the entire 3.5E book memorized, nor would doing so necessarily help when it comes down to interpretation of a rule. (We've been having issues lately with movement of Tiny creatures because the party mage has a Tiny viper familiar and sends it out to attack. I even had my question answered by Skip @ Ask the Kobold, but it wasn't 100% complete for the question I asked. )

Anyway, I don't mind having the players "remind" me of a rule. But after listening to their reminder, I may tell them that I don't agree and rule things the way I think they should be. My guideline is: "You can ask a question once. I will acknowledge your question and let you state your point of view. After that I rule on it and whether the ruling works FOR you or AGAINST you, we won't discuss it any further during game time." And I will typically expect them to state their point of view within 45-60 seconds as well. That seems like a short time, but they should be able to state their point pretty quickly in most cases, although we may discuss it for a minute or two if it has a direct bearing on the party succeeding in their quest.

I have a player in one of my games who likes to go on and on. Fortunately, it's an online game and I find it's easier to move on when the game is online.

[roguerouge]

He complained about the battles being too tough... in Ravenloft!? Of course, they're too tough! That's the point of the setting!

[Oryan77]

Originally Posted by CarrieMarie

Now this is the same guy that hangs out with us at a local bar we go to

You already have it better than a lot of groups with problem players. You have a social life with him outside of the game, so that's a good start. Talking about the game over some beers is a great way to break the ice & discuss issues. I would wait and talk to the problem player the next time you guys are hanging out at the bar. That way it'll feel less like you are "confronting" him, and you guys will have a few drinks in you and be loosened up

But I would definitely say something to him. Yer going to have to just be up front, no beating around the bush. Just tell him that you are trying to learn how to be a good DM and his constant arguing is not helping. Instead, he should wait until after the game to "teach" you what rules you are using wrong. Make him feel like he will be helping you out by doing this. Hopefully things will work out.

But, I will speak from my own experience now...

Do not hesitate to kick someone out of the group.

In the last 10 years I have DMed, I have DMed around 20 or more different people. About 8 of them left the game over gaming style conflicts (they didn't like how I DMed, or I didn't like them as a player and asked them to leave).

The one thing I want to say is, do not let someone ruin your fun & cause you to stop DMing. Kick his butt out of the group if he cannot change his bad habits. Early on, when I was trying to become a good DM, I had people frustrate me so bad that I would consider giving up the DM role. But I had so much fun DMing during the good parts, that I wished so much that I had that "perfect" group so I could keep DMing. I tried everything I could to make it better, even posted here on Enworld many times to ask advice about problem players.

In the end, after dealing with so many of these people, I learned that people just aren't going to change. Even when I talked to them about it, they'd be better for 1 or 2 sessions and then we'd be right back where we were. I have never heard of a group that was able to turn a problem player into a good player. If so, nobody has ever mentioned it

I told myself that I won't deal with any more BS. So I started looking for new players when they'd cause problems, and I would just stop inviting them to game. I also became very strict when meeting potential new players (posting ads online & meeting them at Starbucks). If any red flags went up during the meeting, I would tell them later that I don't think they'll work out. It was very hard to do at first because I feel bad telling them that, but I got used to it (every time I'd give them a chance anyway, they'd turn out to still be problem players).

I now have a great group of friends to game with. We all get along and I have never had any of them argue during the game. None of them make me feel like a bad DM and they are just there to have a good time. It's great.

I had to deal with a lot of crap to get to this point, but I can honestly say that I have no big problems with any of the players. I even got 2 new people in the game

I wish I could say that talking to problem players is the best advice, but I honestly don't think it is. Kicking these people out of the group and replacing them with great players is the best advice I think a person could give. That's just the way it is I guess (at least for me)