How to punish a metagamer?

[IronWolf]

Ugh! The "I'm just playing my alignment" excuse....

Talks of punishment is just going to lead things on a downward spiral in my opinion. The best option is to talk it over as a group as players, not characters. People are gathered together to have some fun - sure some inner party turmoil can be fun, but if it is impacting the fun the group is having too much then it needs toned down or corrected.

I don't think there is an easy way out of this and the group just needs to sit down and discuss this issues up front and clear the air. If the group can't come to an understanding then possibly the player styles aren't going to match and someone will need to step away from the game.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

How does your group handle loot distribution, btw? I VASTLY prefer a fair system whereby, as DM, I take all the loot items, list them out with their sell-back price (usually 50% market price, though commodities and art remains 100% per the rules, etc...) and show total gold piece value for what they found with the actual gems and coin added to the value of the gear. And then split that up evenly between each person to give them their share of the loot. From there, people can try to claim items by paying for them. Pretty simple. A Gloves of Dex +2 item sells for 2000 gp, half what it'd cost to outright buy the item normally. So someone who could use such an item would probably want to snatch it up at the "bargain price" while as someone who has no use for it (dwarf fighter in full plate that already has +1 dex, perhaps?) wouldn't likely want to waste a bunch of money on an item that's not very useful for him.

Of course disputes still come up, at which point the party can try to mediate. Either whoever needs the item more or could better use it gets it; coin toss to see who gets it if both agree to that form of resolution; the one who gets it pays 25% of its value to the other PC so s/he can go off and buy the item from a store and both end up paying 75% the market price for the item effectively (Gloves of Dex example, Rogue grabs it for 2000 and gives the Ranger 1000, who then goes to buy one from a store for 4000, both end up paying 3000 effectively); in some cases with scaling bonus items like a ring of protection, the person who grabs the new item might donate his old to the other wanting PC (say PC 1 has RoP +1 and PC 2 has no RoP; treasure includes a RoP +2; so they agree that PC 1 gets it and gives his old ring to PC 2).

Lots of fair and calm ways to resolve things.

The key is distributing the gear/wealth fairly, though. If you use a system where people just call dibs on stuff they want and then loot shares are only calculated from what remains after that, there's no downside to claiming tons of crap. It needs to have a cost attached to discourage that sort of behavior and keep things fair.

 

[Systole]

You might not be able to kick him for diplomatic reasons, but there's no reason the rest of you have to keep playing a game that you don't like.

 

[Burn_Boy]

After reading through everything I have to say that kicking this guy out might be the best solution if he won't change his ways. If that's really not an option you could try making him DM for a little. Of course there's always the problem that he could wind up like the bad player we tried that with, he just always tried to kill us once we hit level 5.

The only other thing I could consider is making it painfully obvious that certain magic items are meant for certain people or create some Items of Legacy that, if used by the wrong person, or stolen by the wrong person, it acts cursed, but yeah, I think booting him from the group might be the only thing you can do.

 

[Alishea]

I've never had loot distribution issues before in all of the 13 years that I've played this game. We had always done what is best for the party. So the Dex gloves would go to the rouge or ranger (depending on what we had and how they wanted it to go) etc. We had previously been doing the same thing before this loot issue came about.

There was also a trap issue. There was a well in the middle of the room and the rouge decided he would look into it (which is fairly normal for a person to do) and when he did he saw something he wanted *had to make a will save which failed and was in essence "pulled" into the well where he started to take damage*. What our char saw was the rouge fall into the well trying to grab something. The fighter was the guy right next to him, so it seems obvious that he would rush over and try to help him out of the well. Or at least look. Well he decided that he was never going to look into the well and was going to try to help him with his eyes closed.

When we told him that doesn't make sense at all, he argued and refused to change it. Well the rest of the group went on as we normally would. We rushed over to help him out. I had detected magic on the well before the rouge looked in it and strait up asked the DM if it were reasonable for me to assume it was a trap or trick well based on the illusion and evocation he said the well had on it. I told him that if I didn't have reason to assume it caused the rouge to fall, that my next course of action would be to run over to the well and look into it. (I had to ask because this was the first spell caster I had played and I wasn't sure what detect magic would tell me). The wizard did the same.

After this is when we had the loot issue. We had told him outright that he was using player knowledge and he wouldn't budge. It would be better to not play with him but we need him to leave because he is affiliated with one of the largest groups in San Antonio and would essentially have us black balled.

It's taken over a year and a half to find enough people for a group, I don't want to be black balled and not be able to play at all. We need for him to leave on his own.

And for the record, I think if my oracle decided to take the str +22 gloves and keep them for herself then I wouldn't blame the fighter if he put the sword to her throat and took them. That's obviously not meant for her.

And this magic item was the flute of the sewers, it made rats come and you had to make a check for (is it use magic device?) and a perform (CHA based obviously and my oracle has a 20 CHA).

 

[SnowleopardVK]

After this is when we had the loot issue. We had told him outright that he was using player knowledge and he wouldn't budge. It would be better to not play with him but we need him to leave because he is affiliated with one of the largest groups in San Antonio and would essentially have us black balled.

Hrm, I can see why you'd be worried about that, but consider this. Kick him anyways, and if anybody tries to exclude you guys for it, explain the situation, that he was metagaming and refused to change even when the DM told him to stop.

The group, assuming they're reasonable enough, will understand why you did what you did. Large groups have generally had plenty of experience with bad players. If they don't then they may be enough like him that you might prefer not to play with them anyways. Maybe you can find a replacement among friends, someone completely new who you could introduce the game to.

If you're still concerned my suggestion is find a new player first and then stop playing with this guy. Again, use this opportunity to introduce a friend who's never played to the game. You don't even have to kick the other guy out officially if that's what worries you, just give him the old "sorry we don't have room for you any more, the group would be too big" as an excuse after introducing a new person.

I'm not normally a fan of workaround solutions like that and I'd prefer to discuss it with him directly, and then give him the boot directly if he didn't comply, but if you're afraid of a direct confrontation caused by kicking someone out then the above might work decently.

 

[Systole]

It would be better to not play with him but we need him to leave because he is affiliated with one of the largest groups in San Antonio and would essentially have us black balled.

It's taken over a year and a half to find enough people for a group, I don't want to be black balled and not be able to play at all. We need for him to leave on his own.

F@*^ him, then. Seriously. I thought he was a roommate or a cousin or something that you couldn't escape. He's not worth playing with, and if he can actually blackball you from that group, they're not worth playing with either. Chances are, there's a lot of people in that group that think he's a complete tool, and they'll be MORE willing to play with you if you kick him out.

All that aside, if it took you a year and a half to find a group, you're not looking in the right places. nearbygamers.com and meetup.com are good places to look, as well as checking Paizo's PFS for upcoming games where you can test drive new players and invite a couple of decent ones.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Except when it's not, right?

Capital punishment is the killing of defenseless sentients, and it is by definition lawful, and is arguably a moral good.

There are many who consider capital punishment evil and chaotic. Heck I could probably find people who feel genocide is a 'moral good' too! Really it would just go around and around and around. We're talking about game mechanics - not real life. Mixing them is a way to madness!

 

[Holy Bovine]

It would be better to not play with him but we need him to leave because he is affiliated with one of the largest groups in San Antonio and would essentially have us black balled.

It's taken over a year and a half to find enough people for a group, I don't want to be black balled and not be able to play at all. We need for him to leave on his own.

If you have a group why would you care about being "black-balled"? Is that a legitimate concern? Is this "largest group in San Antonio" part of the mafia or something? I am having a really hard time imagining how this could affect your game at the table. Would you lose your playing space maybe?

 

[Dannager]

There are many who consider capital punishment evil and chaotic.

And I acknowledged that capital punishment is arguably a moral good. As for it being non-lawful, I don't think there's any way you can make that argument. It is an act carried out by a duly appointed government in line with its democratically established legal structure and only occurs after multiple lengthy reviews.

Heck I could probably find people who feel genocide is a 'moral good' too!

And those people would be wrong.

Really it would just go around and around and around. We're talking about game mechanics - not real life. Mixing them is a way to madness!

If you don't believe that the alignment game mechanic is based on real-world moral strictures and understandings, you're woefully in the dark. If you do believe this, then you should probably acknowledge that an act of retribution for an evil act is probably defensible as something other than chaotic evil.

And, importantly, there seems to be very little going on in this thread to condemn the actually evil act of taking something from someone via mind control. The fighter's player arguably started the conflict by refusing to give up a magic item (though we have no context on what the item actually was, or what the party's agreed-upon loot division rules were, so this is impossible for us to judge), but the spellcaster's player inarguably escalated that conflict to a level it should never have reached.

To put it simply: if you're defending the guy who took advantage of someone via mind control, you don't have a lot of moral ground to stand upon when condemning the guy who tried to get back at him.