How to stop player whining? Drama!

[roguerouge]

What you should say: "Dude. Chill. Have a beer and roll with it." Hand him a beer.

You might make this a tradition: whenever something bad happens to your PC and your PC alone, you get a beer.

Note: Do not do this if he's an angry drunk. In such a case, pass him quaaludes.

 

[roguerouge]

As I understand it this person is new to roleplaying, so really it is quite understandable that he might get frustrated with its open ended nature. A DM should be able to guide the player through npc or world interaction.

NPC: "Vampires? I wouldn't know anything about no vampires round these parts...... maybe go an see Pastor Tom in Cooks Crossing, or there is the old town graveyard down by Finnegans Point."

Exactly. Either that or it should be humorous:

NPC: "Vampires? Vampires?! All right, Bob, come on out now. The joke's getting old."

NPC: "Vampires? Well, if anyone in town's a vampire, it's that bar maid down at the tavern. She gave me a hickey that lasted for a week."

NPC: "Vampires? No. But there's a stirge den in the valley two days outside of town. That close enough?"

NPC: "Vampires? Look, buddy, there's no such thing as a vampire. That run on garlic down at the market's just bein' bought by fools. They'll never get a wife stinking like that. Whoo-ee!"

 

[Morrus]

Wow. Well, you don't give any indication of the age groups involved here, but this sounds like he's pretty young (as in 12 or so)?

He seems to have an issue with things not going his way. I'm not sure if you're his age, too, or older, but it sounds like more of a parenting thing than a DM thing.

If he's not 12, then it may be more of a therapy thing.

 

[anest1s]

Why don't you try to take his place? Talk to the DM to arrange it so that bad things happen to your character and *only* good things to his. And then whine and cry for every ...injustice that happened to your character. Act angry about it, and spoil everyones fun. Do it for 3-4 games and he will stop acting like that, as he will realize how annoying it is. When you will get over your injustice-whining problem, he probably will have his problem solved too.

Well, that if he doesn't team with you against the DM...(maybe if you arrange it so that good things to him cant happen without bad things coming to you or something)

Risky idea

 

[amerigoV]

Once again, nothing that the good olde Tomb of Horrors could not fix. He will either grow up or have a stack of dead PCs (and in honor of EGG, the DM should rip the PC up right in front of him).

This game would be a heckeva lot easier if it were not for all the people.

 

[Holy Bovine]

What you should say: "Dude. Chill. Have a beer and roll with it." Hand him a beer.

You might make this a tradition: whenever something bad happens to your PC and your PC alone, you get a beer.

Note: Do not do this if he's an angry drunk. In such a case, pass him quaaludes.

4000 quaaludes the player is unteachable!



wait..what?

 

[Doctor DM]

Thanks for all the advice so far guys. Good stuff, really helpful. I really like what Mesh Kong said about the Dm giving him more direction, because our DM IS extra open ended, so that should help with NPC interaction.

To answer a few questions: I am NOT the DM, but I am the most experienced player. My character is not the leader, but I guess you could say I myself am kind of the "party manager". That's why I'm trying to get this worked out.

Sadly the player in question is NOT 9 or 12. We're all in our 20s.

He plays a Priest Gunslinger who hunts undead and supernatural monsters. (Paladin/Fighter, and our DM even gave him favored enemy Undead for free.) He doesn't QUITE seem to have his background and personality ironed out.

Anyway, like I said before everyone (including the complaining player) are having a blast with this game, it is seriously awesome. His whining was annoying, but not unbearable, until last session when he lost 2 potions in a fire and was so pissy we thought he was going to quit, really ruined it for everyone.

The crazy thing is, he really is a cool guy, and a good, fun player too for the most part.

I've given him a day to cool off and I plan on calling him this weekend and working everything out. I'd already mentioned his complaining and it seemed to cause a bigger disaster, so hopefully we can work this out.

Thanks for the advice, and I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[ggroy]

In the past I've played in games with such individuals.

If I'm a player and another player is just too intolerable, I just told the DM I'm not interested in playing anymore and walked away.

If I'm the DM and another player has been intolerable for a period of time with no means of reconciliation (after several attempts), then I usually ended up resigning as DM and offered the intolerable player to DM the game. The times when this happened, frequently the intolerable player ended up DMing a game that was very "Monty Haul" or too "easy".

 

[ggroy]

In practice, trying to change a particular player's bad behavior is like an exercise in futility. At best change is temporary. After awhile, they frequently go back to their old bad behavior.

For some very belligerent individuals, they dig in their heels even deeper when others attempt to address their bad behavior (even by just talking about it).

Over the years I've come to the conclusion that the only ways things can change with such individuals, is to either change my own expectations or just simply walk away from the situation. Many times I just walked away and never went back. The times I changed my own expectations, it typically involved my resigning the DM job and having the belligerent player becoming DM for the rest of the game.

 

[the Jester]

If I'm a player and another player is just too intolerable, I just told the DM I'm not interested in playing anymore and walked away.

If the other player is intolerable to the rest of the group too, it might be worth discussing it with them first. If the dm is considering ending the campaign and four of five players are thinking of quitting, all because of the fifth player, it seems to me that there's an obvious solution.

If I'm the DM and another player has been intolerable for a period of time with no means of reconciliation (after several attempts), then I usually ended up resigning as DM and offered the intolerable player to DM the game.

I just kick the intolerable player out. I certainly wouldn't hand the reins to someone that I thought would be a crappy gm.