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What do you do with difficult players?

How do you deal with problem players?

  • Deal with it.

    Votes: 25 37.3%
  • Nip it in the bud.

    Votes: 27 40.3%
  • Avoid it.

    Votes: 8 11.9%
  • Other (please explain).

    Votes: 7 10.4%

MrApothecary

First Post
All of the people I game with are in the "close friends" category, and I do a lot with them outside the game, so I never really have a problem with them. If there is a problem, like there is minor squabbling between the brother and sister pair, I'll just talk to them about it.
 

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Nightchilde-2

First Post
This.

If I wouldn't play Rock Band with 'em, I sure would pretend to be an elf with 'em.

Mmm. Rock Band. ;-D

I'll add to the "I only play with friends" pool. There have been a couple of instances, however, of friends going "bad" in our group. In those cases, I've tried to handle the issue and, when that didn't work, I unfortunately had to boot 'em from the group.
 



Mort

Legend
Supporter
I voted other as well because it completely depends on the situation. Sometimes dealing with it is doable and reasonable, sometimes nipping it in the bud is the only solution.

As for gaming with friends, this is usually a great suggestion: if you don't like hanging out with someone gaming with them isn't likely to be fun either.

I've only met one exception to this so far. Back in college I had a friend who was great on many levels: great to talk to, great to see movies with, great to have dinner with him and friends etc.

Problem was though he loved to game the second he got to the gaming table he became an arrogant, insuffrable donkey - it was an amazing transformation to watch really. Also though normally a very intelligent guy, he just couldn't see why people didn't like to game with him (trying to talk to him about his issues didn't work, it was a big blind spot). Obviously, I did my best to do everything but game with him.
 

WhatGravitas

Explorer
"If I don't like just sitting around and having a beer with you, I don;t want to game with you"
This, plus calling them out, if they do something stupid/strange/problematic - but since we're friends, we can deal with it in a civil and reasonable manner without tantrums or any bad blood.

Cheers, LT.
 


Nymrohd

First Post
The fact that you are friends with people hardly means they are going to be people who do not disturb gameplay in some way. I have had good friends who I could never really game with because we like completely different things in gaming and a campaign could not really suit both of us.
 

Dykstrav

Adventurer
Unfortunately, I've had to deal with alot of problem players lately. Too many, really. I recently spearheaded an effort to start a collaborative 4E game at my FLGS to get all the people who talk about wanting to play 4E to actually talk to each other and start playing it. My last 3.5 game was horrible, an absolutely terrible experience because of one particular player. Of course, I have plenty of horror stories if you're really interested, but as it's not precisely germane I'll just share my observations for now.

Here's how I deal with problem players:

1) Identify the problem. Chances are, most of the problems that players have are simple failures to communicate. When you get both sides of the story, you often find out that a player is just being themselves and didn't realize that they weren't cool. For most adults, pointing the problem out is often enough to get it to stop. Old habits might pop up from time to time, but people communicating with each other is often enough to get it to stop.

2) If a player is unwilling or unable to deal with an issue, start calling them out on it--publicly. The next time your snack-moocher grabs the last can of pop or your loathsome quoter goes through his Monty Python and the Holy Grail routine for the umpteen-billionth time, immediately stop what you are doing and affix him with an icy stare (if you have any respect from your group as a DM, the rest of the group will follow suit). Give them a reasonably polite but cool reminder about the behavior. "Didn't we discuss bringing your own snacks?" "We've all seen that movie. Can we move on?" Although public censure might seem extreme, it's crucial: you need to reinforce the idea that the group has a problem with the behavior, not just you. Once the offender realizes that they are being a goober, they will typically stop the behavior immediately. Chances are, they'll never forget getting called out on it a few times and you'll never have to deal with the problem again.

I'm generally a pretty tolerant guy, and using the method of communicating and reinforcing behavior is enough to keep marginally offensive players in line. However, this method assumes that you find something about that player that makes you want to keep them around.

There are some people who are just freaks, who are beyond hope of reconciliation or reason. Maybe they are just completely inept with anything social and just don't understand how human beings relate to one another, maybe they can't seperate themselves from their cellphone during the game, maybe they are one of those creepy guys who never bathes and stares at the female players a little too intensely. Unless you just so happen to be a therapist, it's not your job to counsel such people or even accomodate them. Developing the ability to spot the way-out-there horrible people and isolating them from your game is the only method of dealing with them. If you do happen to get one of these goobers in your game, the best solution is to just cut them off as fast as possible. You're free to use whatever method you please, but I personally don't lie to people about their issues. I flat-out tell people (as politely and sensitively as I can) why they are being told to leave the group. Not asked to leave, told to leave. I'm a direct kind of guy, so I don't have any problem whatsoever telling a player that he needs to go take a shower or stop leering at the girls or whatever. Right now, you might be thinking, "Wow, that's insensitive and I could hurt someone's feelings." But people don't change behavior that isn't reinforced. So if you get rid of a player without telling them the problem directly, the problem was with the group not them, and they merrily saunter off to bless another group with their presence. You're actually helping them by being honest, and if they can't take advice from a friend, that's someone you want to keep at arm's length anyway.
 

weem

First Post
I give anyone playing my campaigns/games the same speech if it's their first with me... I basically say (among other things), "I'm doing this for fun... if you create a problem and cause it to no longer be fun, then you are outta the game."

...never had any issues.
 

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