D&D 5E Dealing with a trouble player and a major blow up

[Majoru Oakheart]

If you decide to talk about the situation with the player as others have suggested (I support this suggestion, if only to get it off your chest) it might help to explain that failure is one way to advance the game and that it doesn't mean that he has 'lost' at D&D.

Yeah. I tried that once already. This is the second blow up from this player. Our Sunday group used to be ran by me. I ran an adventure that had a murder mystery in it. I didn't write the adventure, it was by wotc. Either way, the adventure doesn't give you enough information to solve the mystery at the beginning of the adventure. You can guess but some of the clues that can prove it simply aren't available. The the adventure distracts the pcs by giving them a more pressing problem to deal with. The player in question refused to give up on the murder mystery. He insisted that there must be an answer and he was going to talk to every npc they had spoken to again and again until he rolled high enough insight checks to figure out which one was lying. He was going to break into everyone's houses if he needed to until he found a real clue. The rest of the party tried to convince him to put that aside for now since goblins were attacking a nearby town but he refused saying that it was obvious they must have missed something or made a bad roll because they were MEANT to solve this puzzle and he was going to do it.

I had to step out of character and say "sorry, I didn't write the adventure but as written it is nearly impossible to solve this murder without getting some of the information you find out later in the adventure. So, you didn't miss anything, you just aren't supposed to solve that murder right now. Sometimes you don't always succeed at something immediately and need to wait for more information."

This made him so pissed off that he threatened to stop playing the game on the spot because "how could an author write something so stupid? They give us a problem and they don't expect us to solve it?"

Given his propensity to complain about the difficulty of every encounter as well as complaining every time I set a DC higher than 10 and now his threatening to leave the game because he couldn't immediately win, I lost my temper and told him that if that was going to be his attitude that I wasn't running a game any more. I spent hours preparing and adventure only to hear constant complaining. I'd play but I wasn't running any more. That's when his gf took over DMing.

 

[iserith]

Given all the problematic elements at play, both the approach to the game and the personal issues, there is really only one person qualified to sort this all out:

[video=youtube;jN4m528vTp8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN4m528vTp8[/video]

Go Ricki! Go Ricki! Go Ricki!

 

[steeldragons]

Any thoughts or suggestions?

"F** them" immediately comes to mind.

Ain' nobody got time for that nonsense. I, personally, wouldn't play in the secondary game with them anymore either, myself.

He's a problem player. She, apparently, is not bright enough to notice and acknowledge (or acknowledge and do anything about) completely inappropriate and bad behavior.

Don't let him sit at your table. Don't sit at one with him. This guy's a PITA troublemaker who thinks he's always right and, rather blatantly, is holding something against you.

Enjoy your games without him. Unfortunately it means [I think] you should leave the other group if that DM (his roommate?) isn't willing to boot him from that game too.

I wouldn't want him at any table I'm ever at...as DM or co-player.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Arguably, if the guards in your example aren't aware of plumbing because it doesn't exist in the campaign world, then that might be so of the player character. So rather than attach an uninteresting consequence to the action, you can just tell the player that plumbing isn't a thing in the campaign world and suggest he or she try another ruse. The challenge is getting past the guards and the approach is deception. I would work with the player to come up with a deception that fits the expectations of the setting and then we can decide what to do from there.

I would likely say "you know there's no plumbing in this world, right? The guards aren't going to believe that. They might fall for something else though."

Still, I believe that it's the player's responsibility to come up with that "something else". Getting through a challenge like this is 50% player ingenuity and 50% character skill. The player comes up with an idea, which sets the DC for the skill check. Try to convince the guard that you are secretly Elminster and watch the DC rise to 20. Try to convince them that you are a traveling merchant and need shelter and the DC becomes 10.

But I don't assist my players in coming up with the ideas because that's half the fun...seeing what they come up with. Unfortunately, the player in question started playing in 4e and played through too many skill challenges that were run like this: "You need to build a bridge. What do you do?" "My best skill is Arcana. I roll 25." "Ok, you Arcana the wood into a bridge."

Now he expects that when he picks up a die and rolls high that it doesn't matter what his idea is. It works.

Then perhaps you can understand that there is a mismatch of expectations and that how you are responding to your players' ideas is creating tension and frustration for some of them. There is likely other baggage here as well, based on your other posts, that exacerbates the issue. You can't change other people. You can change yourself and your approach, if you so desire.

But the issue is that there are 4 or 5 other players who have no problem with my style and I feel that changing for one person is just giving in to someone's whining. I don't want to reward that.

Besides, the only way I can see to change my style so that he would enjoy it is to make everything he says succeed all the time or to constantly suggest "correct" answers to the problems I lay before him.

My game would have to go like this:
"You know the bandits wear gray cloaks so you could likely dress in those and infiltrate their camp. I'll assume you bought those cloaks 2 days ago when you were in town when you came up with this plan. You know that the bandits have been hiring new people lately so there will be new recruits for you to blend in with. You know the tensions are high with the kobolds so if a new recruit was to show up and claim to have been attacked by kobolds, you could disrupt the talks. You do that. Give me a Deception check to see if the plan succeeds."

 

[Dausuul]

So, here's the real issue. I continue to run Adventurer's League adventures every week at the store. I also play in a weekly D&D campaign with the player and his girlfriend every Sunday that's been going on for 2 years now. I'm really not sure I want to speak to either of them but I'm slowly getting over that. My main beef is that I know for a fact from previous experience that the player still thinks he was absolutely in the right to throw that temper tantrum at the table. He will feel he is justified in his actions because I was making the game no fun for him by ruining his perfect plan that should have worked. My roommate is also in our other D&D campaign and has spoken to them to make sure it is still happening. They responded that everything should go back to normal, but I'm NEVER allowed to mention this incident again to them. I know why. Because it is only going to start another argument because the player in question still believes he is right.

Question: Does this guy pull the same crap on other DMs? In other words, is it that he's just a jerk, or does he have some particular beef with you?

The answer doesn't matter terribly, I'm just curious. As for what to do: Don't wait on the apology, you ain't gonna get one. Don't let him play in your Adventurer's League games. If he asks why, explain that you don't run games with people who pick fights with the DM and walk out mid-session. If he starts arguing, don't get drawn in. Just say "I'm not going to argue about this. You can play at someone else's table."

As for the non-AL campaign: Are you running it? If so, you're well within your rights to kick the guy out, and it sounds long past time. If not, there isn't much you can do about it except a) put up with him or b) quit the game yourself. Give serious thought to the second option. Life is too short to game with people who make you miserable.

But either way, don't drag everyone else into your argument. If you want to hash it out with Jerkface, do it away from the gaming table, and don't expect the argument to lead anywhere productive. The only potential positive outcome is that he gets so mad, he stops coming to any game event where you're going to be. But don't count on it.

Also, at least 5 or the 10 regular players are friends of his. All of them would stop coming if he did. They are also all friends of mine outside of D&D. But they are better friends with him. If I confront him or tell him to stop coming, it would likely mean halving the number of people showing up for our events while simultaneously losing a bunch of friends.

I feel like a link to Geek Social Fallacies is in order here. Sounds like a lot of people in your social circle have a bad case of #4 going on. If these folks would dump you as a friend over crap like this, they aren't very good friends. Don't base your decision on what a bunch of third parties may or may not do.

 

[phantomK9]

I had a similar situation in our gaming group. The player in question had been a work friend of mine (he moved onto a different job) and the DM was gracious enough to let him join in our weekly game, since I thought he would mesh well. And for just over 2 years he worked out great. Lots of common interests and aside from a few hiccups not understanding some Fate character creation rules, it worked out fine.

Then we started a 5e game. It went downhill quickly with him constantly complaining about rules he didn't read completely and constantly re-configuring his character. But our DM took it all in stride. Then one night the game bogged down because he misinterpreted the opportunity attack rules, he became insulting to the rest of the table, and really made the DM mad.

Fortunately the guy was adult enough to realize that he strained the relationship and gracefully took himself out of the game for a month (over December). The DM communicated with him privately and just told him they were looking for different things from the game.

It sucks to loose a friend, even more to possibly loose multiple, but sometimes you have to cut the cord. Is keeping this friendship worth the stress it is causing in your life? My philosophy has been that life itself gives us enough stress that we don't need to invite more during our gaming sessions.

If you still want to stay friendly with the group, but D&D isn't as stress free as you would like, I suggest breaking out some card or other tabletop games. There are so many of them out there that you can even scratch the fantasy itch without the headaches of one player thinking your are out the get them, since the game applies the same set of rules to everyone.

Definitely do not ignore the situation. I hate to say it, but your roommate is wrong. That level of passiveness will only tell the player that his bad behavior has not consequences, which is most likely how he got to this position in the first place. You absolutely do not have to accept that behavior and pretend that nothing happened. If you do this he will only behave that way again, and this time it might escalate to physical violence against you or your stuff.

Be the adult, come to him calmly and as someone said above not with a bunch of "You's". But there must be a conversion, even if in private.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I've posted about one of my players before. There is a fairly long thread about it. However, I felt this would get lost in that thread and I wanted advice on a specific event that happened this week.

***SNIP***

I keep going over it in my mind and I can't figure out what to do. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Honestly? If you want to play with them (any of them?), you need to pull some reverse-gamer-psychology. Next time you see him, outside of the game, but still with others around, tell him something like... :

"You know, I was thinking about that last game at the LGS. I see your point. I should have given more chance to your plan. It was a bit odd and off the wall and I guess I kinda fumbled in handling it. You and your GF were right...I was being an a** that night. I'm sorry. Bad burrito or something. Anyway, if you want to give me another shot I'd love to have you and you GF play in the next home game. If you think I'm not considering something fully, give me your side. I'll let you know of any outside-influences your characters might not know, just so you know where I'm coming from. But on the flip side, please try not to yell. It makes everyone kinda uncomfortable. Deal?"

Basically, *you* play the bad guy. I've seen this personality type before. Basically, it's a matter of trust. I have no idea what happened to him in his childhood/teenage years, but something definitely gave him some kind of distrust towards authority figures (of which you are, the DM). It's most likely this fact that has him questioning your decisions that go against him; you are "out to screw him over", from his perspective...no matter the situation. By "admitting your failings" you are giving yourself the "high-road" if/when(?) this happens again. Maybe it will never happen...but if it does, at least you can fall back to "Dude, we talked about this after the last big yell-and-walk-out incident. You agreed to no yell and to talk, and I agreed to give you info if you really wanted it. Just because you don't like the info is no excuse. There's the door, use it". (roughly speaking). If other "friends" of his start to take his side, you can always fall back on this. Most reasonable people would see you 'backing down', then acquiescing to his "...I want to know why?!?...", and then to the agreed terms by both you and him...well, they'd see you as likely being the "reasonable and right" one on this little conflict. In other words, they are more likely to stick with you and just shrug their shoulders and say "Yeah, he's a bit hot-headed. Nice guy...but you two just don't get along in RPG outlook. Anyhoo....lets play! ".

Short version: Suck it up, take the high-ground, hope for the best....and let everyone else know about it. If you are REALLY lucky, he'll develop trust in you and these incidents will dwindle down to virtually nil. If you aren't lucky...well, not much more than you can do. *shrug*

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Celtavian]

Sounds insane. When people are that crazy, I stay away from them. Trying to extract an apology from crazy people is nearly impossible.

 

[steeldragons]

But the issue is that there are 4 or 5 other players who have no problem with my style

Probably because there isn't one.

and I feel that changing for one person is just giving in to someone's whining.

Which it is.

I don't want to reward that.

And you shouldn't.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I am reminded of this portion of a certain piece of writing:

Avoid f**k-ups.
We all know the type.
Anything they have anything to do with,
No matter how good it sounds,
Turns into a disaster.
Do not offer sympathy to the mentally ill.
Tell them firmly:
I am not paid to listen to this drivel.
You are a terminal boob.

~ William S. Burroughs, "Words of Advice for Young People"