Gaming through denial

steeldragons said:

For this player, sounds to me...there is "denial" and then there is "delusion." This player sounds like they are more steeped in the latter than the former. Or simply a compulsive liar in some misguided attempt/perception to "win" and/or play the game they want/imagine regardless of what is actually happening...in which case, they are welcome to go play by themselves.

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We have only a short text description of behavior over the internet. A professional should/would refuse to do a psychiatric evaluation on the basis of this description, and we are certainly less qualified. So, let's not go there, hm?

In addition, we should not ascribe to deep emotional or mental problems what can be fully explained by basic human nature. The player has some desires for their character that are not supported by the rules. Either they lack system mastery and are unaware of this, or they are aware, but want to have their cake and eat it too. You don't need to be delusional or a compulsive liar to attempt to try to wheedle what you want - just a little greedy and self-centered.

For the armor bit - I admit that I tend to cut players some slack. Their characters live in the world 24/7, but the players don't. The players may not think of things the characters certainly would, so that holding them to thinking ahead is often a "gotcha". For things that are honestly perfectly reasonable (like, "Gee, I'm getting on a boat, if I fall in wearing heavy armor, I will probably die!"), I'm willing to retroactively allow them to have bought basic equipment, if they are willing to pay on the spot. If it isn't painfully obvious, or I'm feeling a little mean, I use Wisdom or Intelligence checks - would the character have thought of this, yes or no?

As for the disguise bit - do not blame the player for defending their right to do a thing that has been established that they can do. They were allowed to pass for some time without question - why should that change now? If you are going to enforce the rules on this, it must be with apology: "I'm sorry, I didn't think of this before, but I've allowed you to do things that, by the rules, your character couldn't do. I need to be consistent about the rules, and correct things when we catch errors, so we need to do something about this." Consider allowing the character to swap around points, or allow them this one practiced disguise as a pass while they buy up disguise skill going forward.

Remind the player that they don't get to assert what others think, by the way. That's not appropriate.

Greenfield said:

In fact, the "Disguise one gender as another" has a DC 30 as an example in one of the books.

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Where was that? In the listing for Disguise in the 3.5 rules, it mentions only that it adds a -2 penalty; otherwise it's an opposed check - your Disguise skill versus the Spot skill of others.

Pass-the-DM-hat game or not, I'd kick this guy if he can't play by the rules like everyone else.

If that's not an acceptable solution, I'd start a new group with everyone but him, and explain why he's not invited.

This doesn't solve your issue, but I was thinking that said player should actually try DMing if he hasn't, or maybe your group can swap to, say, a more story-based/freeform system like Dungeon World where Players Roll All The Dice.

If he does DM, maybe he's having issues separating what he can do/knows as a DM and what he can do/knows as a player AND what he can do/knows as a character...

But really, if you (the OP) are the only person having an issue with this guy's behavior... I don't know what to tell you. :I

Something I learned why GMing a vampire LARP: Don't kill the instigators. Some players will constantly cause friction by taking the initiative in many crazy plots. They are hell on the gamemaster, but they also add liveliness to the game. Banning them tends to make the game more dull and force the gamemaster to come up with that many extra ideas.

If the problem player is causing you headaches, but the rest of the group enjoys his antics, maybe he in an instigator in this way.

Before this gets any crazier, I'd like to bring a few things into focus.

First, he's not here to defend himself, and I'm sure there's another side to this that we haven't heard. (I personally doubt that it will be well grounded in truth or reality, but the point is, there's no need to pile on.)

And no, the other players aren't enjoying his antics. It's gotten a bit unpleasant at the table, for everyone.

First the "Woman disguised as man" schtick - as long as she lives that way - should be relatively easy; it's a schtick rather than an ability. If she tries to disguise herself as anything other than the one specific man then let her - and just don't make a thing of it.

The rest? Whatever game the player is playing it clearly isn't 3.X. The Shrodinger's Armour is annoying. And he's clearly going to be better off in a game of 4E, 13A, Fate, or any of a range of Indy games than in 3.X or GURPS. Talk to them - but they really aren't on the same page as the rest of the group.

What if the character is simply a Bishonen?

In Japanese culture, some youthful boys/men are so beautiful that they transcend gender and are universally loved by both sexes. Not necessarily androgynous, per se, but for sake of Western-themed fantasy societies the character could appear as such.

Rather than the player outright saying "I'm a man disguised as a girl and none of you know", you as DM could simply go with that reasoning unless there is reason to challenge the disguise. Anyone not of the character's race, for example, might have a hard time telling his sex at a casual glance. In many real-life cases, some men just get fooled into thinking a male cross-dresser is a female and go with that assumption until given sufficient evidence to the person's true gender... at which point, in game speak, the man succeeds on his Wisdom/Perception check to penetrate the disguise.

And the dice are simple story tools to determine if the character's disguise is penetrated. Do remind the player of that.

...and the way to describe such a PC within the mechanics of D&D would be to have a certain amount of skill in Disguise and/or some bonuses to such a roll from a high Charisma. Neither of which, as I recall, describes the PC.

Instead, those finite resources (skill points, high stats) have been allocated elsewhere on the character sheet, and the player is merely asserting that his description of game reality trumps what the mechanics actually say would be the probable result.

Dannyalcatraz said:

To be 100% clear, there are RPG systems which have a more seat-of-the-pants style in which some of what you describe would not only be permissible but possibly even expected. But D&D isn't one of them, and what I'm reading of the one's behavior isn't fair to the other players.

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This was my first thought as well. OP, are you sure that he understands how D&D works? I'd say step one is to sit down with the player and clarify this, then give him a chance to correct his behavior. Step two would be another sit down, if necessary, to let him know what kinds of problems he's causing. If none of this works then step three is ejection from the game. There's not really a good reason to tolerate a player that diminishes all of the other players' fun.