Help reign in a player who refuses to play his role

Your characters cannot rely on him, so play as if he was not there. He'll do some additional minimal damage, treat his character like a faeces throwing monkey and if he goes down, don't save him, say it is his "Time to go to his Mistress".

How many other players in the group?

It is possible that he simply has his own way of playing his own PC, but simply chose the wrong build for it. For example, he might have wanted a striker sort of PC instead. See if you can have him rebuild as a rogue instead. While I do like the idea of a ranged paladin who marks the opponent while staying out of reach, I do not think there are enough options as of yet to make it a viable character archetype.

After all, wanting to roleplay properly does not mean that your character has to suck.

A lot of people use roleplaying to justify playing an annoying or disruptive character. They ignore the fact that it's actually horrible roleplaying to play a character who would normally be kicked out by the group because you know your a PC and that can't happen to you without out of game reprecussions.

Personally I'd like to see one of those characters actually get booted out of the group, and the player forced to reroll.

Maybe, in an extreme case like this, you could convince your DM that divine intervention really is the answer. He is, after all, a Paladin, and is therefore a representative of his deity.

Of course I know thats fluff, and 4ed doesn't even have rules for losing one's class entirely. But since the player insists on being craven and unhelpful, maybe the DM simply needs to find creative ways to punish him for making his deity look bad.

Mustrum_Ridcully said:

Tell him he is not playing his character. His character gains abilities that he has trained in. If he doesn't use the abilities, why did the character get them in the first place? You could go a little heavy-handed and have the Raven Queen appear to him in his sleep and outright tell him that she didn't give him his Lay of Hands features to never use them - there are actually people whose time to die is yet to come, and she has plans for them. (Something like: "You see this Fighter friend of yours... He nearly died in the battle against the Kobolds. But he survived, and now is stronger then ever, and even more capable of bringing death. I want him to stay alive until he has served his purpose...")

And if he's actually saying he wants to "prove that the system is broken" tell him this is not an experimental play-test simulation scenario, this is a role-playing game and people want to play an enjoyable game, not have it intentionally disrupted by him.

Since he seems to generally like disrupting the game, I would highly recommend talking a serious word with him and tell him how you feel about it. If he doesn't care whether he hurts your or your fellow players enjoyment of the game, you should seriously consider throwing him out. That might be a hard choice, but I am convinced you will be better off.

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All excellent advice for the DM, but I think EpochRpg's problem is that he isn't the DM, he is a player in the group

yu gnomi said:

Maybe, in an extreme case like this, you could convince your DM that divine intervention really is the answer. He is, after all, a Paladin, and is therefore a representative of his deity.

Of course I know thats fluff, and 4ed doesn't even have rules for losing one's class entirely. But since the player insists on being craven and unhelpful, maybe the DM simply needs to find creative ways to punish him for making his deity look bad.

Click to expand...

Actually, divine intervention isn't what happens.

Paladins can do as they wish with their invested gifts, the gods do not punish.

However, I will add, other paladins are a different story....

Don't solve this by killing him for not playing the way everyone else does.

In the 3.5 DMG 2 there is a brief discussion of player types, I believe your problem player is a classic outlier. Described on page 17, these players like to subvert normal game dynamics, play by their own rules, and try strange character concepts with strange mixtures of abilities.

These players define success by their own terms, by setting themselves up to "fail" at character creation what most people would consider setbacks the outlier considers a victory.

So how do you deal with this kind of a player? That depends. If you want to keep him around, and keep your entire party happy (which seems to be the case) you're going to need to allow his character to "fail" without it affecting the party. However it's not as simple as sticking him in a pit trap or knocking him out at the begining of combat. In order for your player to be happy he's going to have to fail on his terms.

Your best bet is going to be to present him with something to interact with early in a session that he can use as a method to achieve personal failure if your lucky this may be as simple as roleplaying him interacting with some locals and completely offending them, or commiting some small crime in their presence which then gives him the option of leaving town. paying a fine, or serving some other sentence. Hopefully this will give him enough satisfaction (or disability) so that he won't interfere with the other players too much.

I suspect it will not be that easy. Your player may still want to "fail" more at this point. If this is the case there are still a few things you can do.

Reduce the difficulty of the parties encounters to reflect the sub optimal party memeber.

Give the player options for "fails" during combat (traps, bbg's, extra monsters, convenient reasons not to go into combat),


Some other things to consider

Your player may just not want to play,

maybe they want to go back to 3.5 for personal reasons like not wanting to learn a new system

Maybe they were pressured to play in the group by a friend

Id ask the player what their characters goal is, and what their goal is in the game. I've found doing that make a group much more cohesive.


Good luck.

Serious: Ask the DM to count the party as one character smaller when he/she is determining monster strength. Since this player has deliberately created a gimped character, he's not contributing.

Not so serious: If the problem player says that this is the character he wants to roleplay, why don't the rest of you start a roleplaying a group of violent psychopaths murderous hobos "adventurers" that are sick of a useless hanger-on who is asking for an equal split?

I think you should talk to your DM about this player, and see if he finds him disruptive and unpleasant to game with.

If so, I suggest you ask him to leave the game. He is making the game less fun for you (and from what you've said, less fun for other players), he knows that he's doing it and he's continuing to do it - I'd have run out of sympathy a while ago.

Just say you're not willing to game with someone who is intent on playing against the rules.

Well, technically he isn't breaking any rules, just that he is clearly playing his PC much weaker than what it would normally be capable of, and becoming a liability to the party as a result. Nothing in the rules do state that a paladin has to be a defender who tanks at the forefront, or cannot use daggers, though it is implied that you should at least be decent at whatever role you want your PC to fill out (eg, if you want a cleric archer, at make him an excellent archer).