Do you "pay the pig?"

[ForceUser@Home]

for frequent outbursts out of character someone recently paid the price.

they were booted from the game.

Wow, tell us more. Was this person a friend? Was there a lot of anger or resentment floating around? Did they leave amicably or was there undue friction? Was it worth it?

 

[Joust]

IMO, OOC discussions are far less irritating than those "minutia level" rules discussions that break out right in the middle of a dramatic/critical moment in the game. They can really put a damper on the game's momentum. Fortunately this doesn't happen very often in my group since we all agree that rules are secondary to the gaming experience.

Most of my gaming group are good friends, so OOC comments occur frequently, but as a DM, I don't mind it at all. We've all discovered that playing D&D is a very social, friendly experience--a great excuse for us to get together and laugh till we wet our pants.

 

[eXodus]

Wow, tell us more. Was this person a friend? Was there a lot of anger or resentment floating around? Did they leave amicably or was there undue friction? Was it worth it?

to put the story simply,

i moved to portland from california. i really wanted to get a game together. so i tried to get a game together via these boards and the wotc boards. this board did me well. everyone was grand. the one player who came from the wotc boards was a problem from day one. he whined a lot about low ability scores, wanted to play a jedi knight in a d&d game. he felt i was hampering him. he had no roleplaying skills, talked about too many off topic things, just annoyed and distracted everyone.

i tried my best to help him along, i would create storylines that played on his character's background. still he could not roleplay his way out of a wet paper bag. finally after four months of this, it was time for him to go.

luckily his character died last session. i used that as the closure that was needed.

one email did the trick. he was very surprised but i think all will be well. as far as interaction outside of the game there will be none. not my idea of someone i would hang out with.

 

[Delemental]

Our regular GM imposes an XP penalty for excessive OOC chatter. It has to get pretty bad for this to happen, though - as others have said, off-topic banter is just a part of the experience for many groups (heck, how many OT posts do we get on these boards?).

As Joust commented, the larger problem is the rules discussions during game. It doesn't help that several of the players are also GMs, and more than one has the "I'm never wrong" attitude. We've started to call them on it, and they've improved, but you still get those moments.

So far, I haven't had problems with it in my Dragonstar game, but it will happen. I'm thinking of applying a penalty. They get one warning, and if they continue arguing rules during session, they get a -2 metagame penalty to all checks for the remainder of the session. Further violations increase the penalty.

I think the worst problem is when players start arguing rules for a game system other than the one you're currently playing. Sure, that may be a sign that the current adventure isn't very engaging, but please, a little decorum is appreciated.

 

[Crothian]

For many of us it's the one day a week we get to relax, so if we have OOC talk, it's okay. I'll admit, we waster more time then I'm use to in a game, but no one else really seems to mind.

 

[Piratecat]

You gotta be kidding me...

Nope. And it works like a charm.

It's not like it's a lot of money - $.05 for a pun, $.10 for an ooc comment, and $.25 for an unrelated war story ("I used to have this cool character..."). The money goes to pay for soda, and no one is draconian about it.

We instituted it after table talk was significantly lessening our speed of play and messing up the mood. I haven't regretted it for a minute!

 

[JESawyer]

You know what I do to reduce chatter? Reduce the group size down below six players. Four is ideal. Any more than that, and you can be assured that someone (or two) isn't part of the current action. It doesn't address being "out of character", but general chatter is typically out of character.

 

[Piratecat]

Hmmm. We normally run with 6-8, and it's seldom a problem. That does help, though.

 

[ForceUser@Home]

We instituted it after table talk was significantly lessening our speed of play and messing up the mood. I haven't regretted it for a minute!

There's the rub right there. Tabletalk occurs but doesn't significantly detract from play; it just annoys me during the times I'm trying to talk and a player is jabbering about something out of character. My players aren't blabbermouths who constantly need to be directed back on topic, and I'm a bit draconian when it comes to directing the pace and mood of the game. Running my game is serious business (<------- self-deprecating sarcasm.) My players make occasional OOC comments when their characters are not directly involved in something. I'll live with it.

 

[Piratecat]

Then no need for a piggy! Although I do like all the change when I have to take the local subway.