Players with no patience

Storminator · May 2, 2003

Herremann the Wise said:
Quasqueton,

<SNIP>

However, just as you can have poor DM's, you can have poor players. The trick is to either train them into better players (normally the best option), give in and give them encounter after encounter or more simply, don't invite them at all.

<SNIP>

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

I think this is the point. The players are doing a poor job here, and you've blamed the DM for it. Incorrectly.

Sometimes your PC is not useful. That's just the way it is, unless your PC is optimized for EVERY situation. In those cases, you have to sit and wait. Failing to do that is poor playing, regardless of your DM.

I recently had a game where my PC and my wife (both in game and out) had to hold the rope while everyone else went down it to a major encounter. There is no way the DM could have made my PC useful in this situation. We, the players, chose the solution to the problem posed, and I got stuck holding the rope. No big. I wait.

I play another game where I'm the sneaky fighting monk. And when it's time to charm the mayor, I sit like a lump and let the bard go. Sure, the DM could come up with something for me to do, or I can just wait until my skills are needed. I wait.

All Quas wants to know is, why doesn't everyone just chill when it's appropriate. As a best case, I'm sure he'd like to know some tricks for training impatient players. I don't think anyone's really addressed that. Personally, I talk to 'em out of game. Nothing I hate more than solving out of game problems (the PLAYER is impatient) with in game solutions.

PS

Lela · May 3, 2003

On the subject of Players not paying attention when their turn comes up, I have a group of 8 people (and anywhere from 11-13 PCs at any given time). They get BORED between their turns. And rightfully so.

So, when they start an OOC conversation or open a rulebook (or even pull out a Gameboy), I let them. To get them back into it though, I just read ahead on the initiative sheet two or three names.

ME: "Druid, your up after the goblins."
Paladin: "HEAL ME!!"
Druid (looking up from the spells she was checking: "I was planning on it *roll eyes*"

If they are really clueless as to what's going on, they just ask the person next to them (who often went last).

I developed this when spellcasters would, upon reaching their turn, suddenly start leafing through the book to make sure that the spell they were about use was the right one (and make sure they had the rules down). This, IMO, was something that should have been done during that 5 min between their turns, so I decided to help them out a bit.

Edit: One thing I should add though, I do NOT allow people to roll before their turn. Not that I think they cheat or anything. I trust them completely. It's just that there's a tendency to get more "I rolled two 20's! Insta kill, c'mon!!" When that happened four times in one session (by different players sitting on different sides of the table mind you), I just plopped out with the rule.

The key to those is to hold fast to them. With everybody.

Kahuna Burger · May 3, 2003

gfunk said:
"Screw you guys, I'm going home!"

Close - last time my character got completely excluded from a fight by DM fiat, we were having a gaming retreat in maine. The DM had the nerve for a few rounds to keep calling me on intiative, as if there was ANYTHING my character could do at this point, and eventually, I just left and went for a walk. Another time the same DM had created this pointless encounter with a immune to everything/ungodly SR/ungodly saves creature and I just went in the other room for a while. Everytime he called my initiative, I just said "check off another flame strike [the only thing I had with a chance of working] and call me if he fails spell resistance." I'm not gonna sit around and go through the motions if the DM wants to make my character useless. (Note that if this was a very rare occurance, or there was even a hint that anything would be coming up I wouldn't do this, but it was actually pretty regular.)

ced1106 · May 3, 2003

Re: Fenes

Quasqueton said:
I was not the DM for either of the my above examples, and the DM was not at fault for the PC being hectic with impatience.

Yep. I'm a GM, not a babysitter.

Quasqueton said:
DM: "OK, 10 orcs come running up from behind."

Player: "I thought we cleared out those rooms behind us."

DM: "Yeah, but Tom is bored because he can't hurt the golem, so I'm adding in some more enemies that he can fight."

I one time warned the players that there might not be combat for awhile, so offered the fighter a Ring of Orc Summoning:

Player: "What do you do with it?"
Me: "You press it on its side."
Player: "Then what?"
Me: "Orcs appear."
Player: "The what?"
Me: "You kill them."
Player: (Gets that 'Of course you kill them. They're orcs!' look) "Oh! Okay."

Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

ced1106 · May 3, 2003

Fenes 2 said:
If a situation developped in my game that rendered one PC useless I'd probably add something in - threat, enemy, chat partner - to occupy the player. I thought that was clear from my previous responses, but if someone wanted to hear it, fine.

Again, if people are having fun dealing with an almost-invulnerable crature, fine. If they don't, time to alter the scenario, offer them solutions etc.

Better yet, let 'em play an NPC. Or that almost-invulnerable creature.

Player: "Hey! Don't blame me! The GM **told** me to play the creature!"
GM: "Hey, don't blame me. I wasn't playing the creature at the time."

Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

Mark · May 3, 2003

Added this thread to the DMing Advice thread here -

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47525

Bookmark the DMing Advice thread for your convenience and for reading material when otherwise bored...