Players with no patience

A Gameboy with earplugs is a nice way to take care of impatient players. Not that we'd experienced situations like that often.

If you're the one that can't hurt the golem or is stuck on the other side of the wall, try some tactics! Like was already said, ready your healing potions if someone goes down or set up flanking situations. Alternately, look up the Aid Another rules and help someone with a magic weapon.

If you're trapped alone, held, or something that bascially puts you out of commission, do something game related. Help look up spells or less-used rules. Take the free time to look up some obscure feat or prestige class you've been meaning to look at. Heck, start (quietly) making a back-up character to keep yourself occupied.

There's plenty you can do, if you just put your mind to it.

Well...I don't have a story about them...but I do have a method of dealing with them.

Humor them and get back to the game quickly...

Bored PC, "I run down the hallway opening doors and looking for a fight."

GM, "Ok, you are busy, you don't find anything, we'll get back to you. Now, you guys, roll iniative."

Cedric

Hell, forget about players who are bored because they can't DO anything.

I hate players who don't have ANY patience, even if they're in combat.

If a combat is a little bit large (5 players, and maybe 5-8 monsters) then turns can take a little while.

I hate it when as soon as a player is done with a turn, he or she starts leafing through random rule books or starting up off-topic conversations with other players that aren't doing their turn. Why? Because then when it's their turn again, I have to spend a minute explaining the whole situation.

Me - "Okay, it's your turn, what are you doing?"
Player - *Looking up from book* "What do I see? What targets are left alive?"
me - *SIGH* "Okay, you have 2 hill giants over here, the dwarf just killed the Drider, and the barbarian killed the bugbear that was flanking you. You still have another bugbear next to you."

For this reason I try to curtail random rulebook reading and keep everyone's eyes on the combat. I TRY to keep combat nice and fast-paced for everyone... but sometimes it's just not possible.

For periods of time with large amounts of roleplaying while not all the characters are present, this isn't as much an issue, because the characters can share the information they've gotten with each other. So one player reading through some book isn't that bad if only one character is busy doing something. If he needs to know what's going on, that character can tell him later, and it's part of the game.

I've been on both sides of this issue.

Back in the day (after AD&D but prior to 3E), we mostly played Rolemaster. Rolemaster combats feature incredible detail but lack...speed. Unfortunately, one of the intricate details of the system is that of Stun. As the word implies, you can't do a hell of a lot while you're Stunned. The critical tables in RM allow for you to get stunned for one or more rounds on any given hit you take. So I spent more than one evening with the lion's share of the time spent flipping through rulebooks and such while my character stood stunned in the middle of the battle.

Did I mention that we don't play Rolemaster any more?

On the other hand, I've had to deal with this issue:

Murrdox said:

Me - "Okay, it's your turn, what are you doing?"
Player - *Looking up from book* "What do I see? What targets are left alive?"
me - *SIGH* "Okay, you have 2 hill giants over here, the dwarf just killed the Drider, and the barbarian killed the bugbear that was flanking you. You still have another bugbear next to you."

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more times than I'd like. Nowadays, it goes mostly like this:

Me - "Okay, it's your turn, what are you doing?"

Player - *Looking up from book* "What do I see? What targets are left alive?"

Me - *Laying that player's initiative card on the table* "You Delay. Let me know if and when you want to do something."

That has put a pretty good dent in that problem.

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.

In the first example I was one of the two players who had "purchased" a magic weapon instead of magic armor.

In the second example I was playing a PC who also was trapped on the wrong side of the wall of fire/gelatenous cube (but in a different hallway than the impatient player). I waited patiently and cautiously for the way to clear, rather than waste real time doing unnecessary actions -- I let those who were actually in combat on the other side use the time.

And neither situation was the DM's fault. In the first example, it was a random wilderness encounter in a "dead lands" environment (we knew there'd be undead about). In the second example, the wall of fire was put up by another PC (who didn't think through her placement of the wall).

As for "a DM that lets a PC be useless", what do you suggest? Ban hold person and sleep spells? Ban tactics by clever enemies to seperate or neutralize some PCs? Even if the DM designs every encounter to allow every PC some impact, a PC could do something to make a fellow PC "useless" (as in the second example). Or perhaps the DM should just make up more enemies so the temporarily useless PC has something to do?

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."

Instead of blaming a DM, why can't players be patient for 5 minutes? Or perhaps find a way to be useful, like set up flanking, or draw attacks, etc.

So don't get all up on a high horse. The fall will hurt when someone pushes you off it.

Quasqueton

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There is a difference between setting up flanking attacks, and cooling their heels while a battle rages elsewhere.

As far as hold person etc. are concerned, I don't use those often due to this very reason - if a player is not having fun something is wrong.

I also would add something to fight for a player that enjoys fighting - if a player is not having fun I am not doing my job as a DM.

Having fun is my priority. If realism abd clever tactics get into the way of fun, they get shown the door.

Rel said:

Nowadays, it goes mostly like this:

Me - "Okay, it's your turn, what are you doing?"

Player - *Looking up from book* "What do I see? What targets are left alive?"

Me - *Laying that player's initiative card on the table* "You Delay. Let me know if and when you want to do something."

That has put a pretty good dent in that problem.

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*applauds*

That really is my pet hate. If you pay attention, the combat moves quicker. I'm sure some of my group really hate me during combats, because I'm always pushing on, but I also make sure I know what I'm doing on my turn and get it over with quickly.

Keep combat moving! Otherwise it can become a very boring session of dice rolling!

This happened in a campaign I play in.

The party rogue/wiz really wanted to summon his familiar. Reellllly reeellly wanted to. But he couldn't do it while we were on the road, so he had to wait until we reached town. As soon as he got into town, he said "I go to my room and summon my familiar". The DM asked three times if he was sure that's what he wanted to do (summoning a familiar takes 24 hours, with no stressful activity. and he knew this), because the other characters wanted to do other things, like roleplay and get into political intrigue.

As it happened, the party ran into a mob led by a cult leader. They mobbed us. It took an hour to resolve that. The we were arrested for being part of the mob, although we were quickly released. That's another half hour. (the rogue's player began to get testy here) Some deep role play with the head cleric of Heironious and an hour later, all of the characters get back to the tavern, and go to bed. So our little future Arcane Trickster could get his owl.

He was happy... until the DM asked us if we wanted to do anything the next day. --Silence-- We had unintentionally done all of the RPing while rogue was summoning his familiar. Oops.

Then we attack the dopplegangers that have taken over part of the city. One of the evil cult clerics there casts hold person. Because the DM rolls targeting randomly (he even rolls out in the open), he picks me for 1-2, the ranger on 3-4, and the rogue on 5-6. Guess who gets Held? The halfling thief. Boy, he was pissed about that. He promptly left the session, and the campaign soon after.

This guy got really miffed at being unable to do anything. Even self-inflicted uselessness.

I have a player similar to that. Often though, I ask him to look up rules for me (involving combat). For example, I knew the Minitour was going to charge the centaur paladin and attempt a Bull Rush to knock him down the stairs onto the rest of the party. I told him to look up the rules while everyone was busy lining up on the stairs and he was getting anxious.

Bull Rush works, centaur slams into a few PCs before the stairway curves and the player (not the gets to dictate what both sides need to do (after all, he just read the rules).

Later, when the stairway battle continued, that same player was among a group stuck at the bottom of the stairs with nothing to do.

They started playing poker (imaginary) and the summoned wolf was winning. I think they had almost as much fun doing that as anything else. Everytime their turn came, I just asked how their PC was doing at the game. They responded, and we all laughed.

Regarding the Fenes 2 vs Quasqueton debate,

I have to agree with Fenes 2 in this regard. Good DM's don't let these situations happen on a regular basis - if at all if they're really good. However, it must be said that not everyone is a good player either. Obviously some are less patient than others and it is these players that the DM has to focus on keeping involved in the game otherwise they wreck the play for everyone else. Play under a really good DM and you'll see how well they cope with poor players.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise