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

[Celtavian]

You're in a awful situation, Majoru. This explains even more of what is going on. All the emotions involved in this situation bubble like a cauldron of boiling water. No wonder blows up happen now and then. Surprised worse hasn't happened to date.

 

[the Jester]

Well, sounds like you've chosen your bed. Time to stop complaining about how it feels to lie in it, I guess.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

That hasn't been my experience, I've seen dozens & dozens of players at the London
D&D Meetup since 2008 and less than a handful of bad ones. But I think if you let the
bad flourish it drives out the good - establish a dysfunctional paradigm where jerks are
rewarded for jerkishness, and eventually your table will be full of jerks. I'd rather risk
over-correcting early on and have a table of excellent players.

I'm not entirely sure about this one. I've also met quite a few players over the years in Organized Play. Most D&D players ARE fine, I agree, but there are quite a few bad apples as well. Especially in OP where just being slightly annoying isn't against any rules and therefore the DM has to tolerate it. I certainly couldn't see myself ever telling Dave Christ when DMing at GenCon that I kicked someone out of my table who paid money to be there simply because he was annoying.

I've seen the gamut of personality types over the years. Unfortunately, OP sometimes attracts powergamers who like to "win". The guy in question has a number of those traits. The problem is that he started playing D&D in Organized Play and not in a home game. Some of my existing friends like to become twice as powergamey in Organized Play as they are in any other game.

So he was taught early that completing the adventure was the number one priority in D&D. You want to get to the end. That means being the best at combat so that you can defeat all the challenges since they will all be very hard. It means maximizing the skills that get asked for the most often. It means not talking to an NPC unless you have the highest social skills in the party because the DM might ask you to roll them if you speak. And succeeding in that roll might make the difference between finding a magic item in the adventure or getting a bunch of bonus XP.

I love Organized Play but it can bring out the worst in some gamers. My roommate can sometimes get very angry at people for not following the "unspoken rules" of the game. Like: "All players have to take their share of the damage. Anyone hiding in the back and refusing to ever get hit is not contributing and deserves to die. After all, they are letting everyone else take the damage for them...so they are letting you die."

So, I don't entirely blame his gaming attitude on him. He was taught it by the people at our Living Forgotten Realms tables. Though, the rest of the people I know relax that attitude when we switch to home games because it is a different atmosphere. Also, they take it a little bit less seriously. If someone with a CHA of 8 talks to an NPC and rolls a 9 when a 10 was needed to get a magic item in the adventure, they'll be disappointed and probably even say "Why did you do that? Don't do that again!" but the guy in question will spend the next year in a backlash against anyone who even thinks about opening their mouth without an 18 CHA. If someone does, he'll sulk for the next 30 minutes of the game.

But D&D players are VERY different from one another. Contrast the behaviour I'm used to that I just described above with a group I met using D&D Meetup. The owner of the group said he doesn't really like to roll for initiative. In 4e, he doesn't really like people to use a battlemap or minis. He doesn't really feel the strict need to give people only one action a round. If you need 2 and it's fun, you can go ahead and do that. He doesn't really like the idea of people choosing an exact power to use. Everyone in his group had incorrect bonuses in nearly every box on their character sheets but no one cared because the numbers were almost never used.

Although the over-optimizing I'm used to can sometimes drive me insane, I was completely unable to stand the game with no rules and no structure. I had to quit that game quickly.

 

[Umbran]

Well, sounds like you've chosen your bed. Time to stop complaining about how it feels to lie in it, I guess.

How about you not tell him what he can post about, please? Nobody is making you read or participate.

 

[Nellisir]

Sometimes we just make the best of a bad situation.

Majoru, honestly, I like your posts in this thread. You've been straightforward and not overly defensive. I don't think there's an easy answer. Ultimately, your best chance of changing the dynamic is to be as patient as you can, realize your limitations, and find something this guy is good at and reward him for it. You can't change his responses, so change your approach.

My parents divorced about 17 years ago (!!!!!). My father's girlfriend was petty, possessive, insecure, and held grudges. She badmouthed everyone that wasn't cheering on my dad's divorce, a divorce he instigated, with no warning to anyone. When my father's family came to visit, they stayed with my mother rather than with her. And then she and my father got married, and they've been married for 14 years. Talking to her is still an exercise in patience and restraint, but we've learned how to do it. She's fabulous with kids and plants.

So, we make the best of it.

 

[77IM]

Majoru, I wish you happy gaming....you won't have any, but I'll wish it for you at some point, some future time, when you grow/wise up, nonetheless.

Actually, reading his posts, Majoru seems a lot wiser and more mature than a lot of the commenters on this thread.

Everybody wants to make this simple. "That player is a jerk, ditch him." But human relationships are a lot more complex than that.

It's easy to brand Majoru a coward taking the easy way out for putting up with this guy at all. (And definitely, making excuses is easier than taking action, and some of what Majoru is saying reeks of excuses.) But I see a guy who knows he has a problem, and is trying to figure out the best way to handle it, instead of instantly going for the throat. I think there's been some really good discussion on this thread about human nature and how to cope with idiots.

It's easy to be a oversimplify and say Majoru will always be miserable because he's not taking the oversimplified advice on this thread. But then I read a story like this and I think, probably everything will be OK:

He once yelled at one of our friends(the one that was at the table with them when he stormed off), lecturing them because their character has the highest charisma in the party and they weren't the one talking to the NPCs. The woman in question is VERY shy and her characters tend to not want to interact with anyone. But she was playing a Warlock so she had a high Charisma and part way through the game he said "You know, it's your JOB to talk to the NPCs, right? You have a high Charisma and therefore have the best bonus in the party so YOU need to be the one talking to every NPCs we come across. I'm doing all the talking and I'm failing rolls because my character isn't as good as yours is. That's not right. We're likely missing out on things in this adventure because we aren't rolling high enough! So, you need to start taking charge and playing the game properly."

He did the same thing a couple of times until I kind of gave him crap one game about letting people play their characters the way they want to play them and that the difference between a +2 and a +0 wasn't really enough to worry about so he should take it easy.

Since then I see him twitch a little bit every time anyone in the party whose charisma isn't the absolute highest in the group talks to an NPC. But he hasn't lectured anyone on it recently.

So, Majoru, you totally have my sympathy. I feel your pain. I hope you can figure out how to deal with this guy directly, and not make excuses to allow his bad behavior to continue.

 

[S'mon]

I'm not entirely sure about this one. I've also met quite a few players over the years in Organized Play. Most D&D players ARE fine, I agree, but there are quite a few bad apples as well. Especially in OP where just being slightly annoying isn't against any rules and therefore the DM has to tolerate it. I certainly couldn't see myself ever telling Dave Christ when DMing at GenCon that I kicked someone out of my table who paid money to be there simply because he was annoying.

I've seen the gamut of personality types over the years. Unfortunately, OP sometimes attracts powergamers who like to "win". The guy in question has a number of those traits. The problem is that he started playing D&D in Organized Play and not in a home game. Some of my existing friends like to become twice as powergamey in Organized Play as they are in any other game.

So he was taught early that completing the adventure was the number one priority in D&D. You want to get to the end. That means being the best at combat so that you can defeat all the challenges since they will all be very hard. It means maximizing the skills that get asked for the most often. It means not talking to an NPC unless you have the highest social skills in the party because the DM might ask you to roll them if you speak. And succeeding in that roll might make the difference between finding a magic item in the adventure or getting a bunch of bonus XP.

I love Organized Play but it can bring out the worst in some gamers. My roommate can sometimes get very angry at people for not following the "unspoken rules" of the game. Like: "All players have to take their share of the damage. Anyone hiding in the back and refusing to ever get hit is not contributing and deserves to die. After all, they are letting everyone else take the damage for them...so they are letting you die."

So, I don't entirely blame his gaming attitude on him. He was taught it by the people at our Living Forgotten Realms tables. Though, the rest of the people I know relax that attitude when we switch to home games because it is a different atmosphere. Also, they take it a little bit less seriously. If someone with a CHA of 8 talks to an NPC and rolls a 9 when a 10 was needed to get a magic item in the adventure, they'll be disappointed and probably even say "Why did you do that? Don't do that again!" but the guy in question will spend the next year in a backlash against anyone who even thinks about opening their mouth without an 18 CHA. If someone does, he'll sulk for the next 30 minutes of the game.

But D&D players are VERY different from one another. Contrast the behaviour I'm used to that I just described above with a group I met using D&D Meetup. The owner of the group said he doesn't really like to roll for initiative. In 4e, he doesn't really like people to use a battlemap or minis. He doesn't really feel the strict need to give people only one action a round. If you need 2 and it's fun, you can go ahead and do that. He doesn't really like the idea of people choosing an exact power to use. Everyone in his group had incorrect bonuses in nearly every box on their character sheets but no one cared because the numbers were almost never used.

Although the over-optimizing I'm used to can sometimes drive me insane, I was completely unable to stand the game with no rules and no structure. I had to quit that game quickly.

I didn't meet any bad players in my two years running D&D games at Gencon UK, and very few in 7 years so far at the London D&D Meetup, but I appreciate that 'Organized Play' may have particular issues. There seems to be some weird stuff going on - these adventures really have NPCs give out magic items based on the result of a Charisma check?

 

[JamesonCourage]

I did mean it in a broad and general sense. More in line with the simple fact that their romantic relationship is going to trump other relationships in terms of privacy. She may not tell him literally everything, but you should not *expect* her to keep any particular secret for you, especially concerning her SO.

I think these generalities shouldn't be generalities, as they cause more problems than they solve (from my observation and experience). I'm often the guy people go to about relationship advice or to vent to, and I hear a lot of problems that I think stem from these expectations on the relationship.

I mean, think about it - if the subject of the game come up, and they were, say, discussing some level of dissatisfaction, the GM's attitude toward him becomes quite relevant. You figure she's going to bite her tongue about it?

I've kept secrets from my extremely close friends. It's no issue for me. I can see where other people come from on the issue, but again, my observation of those people has led me to think differently.

I'm in agreement.

I love when that happens!

I expected that we'd been friends for so many years that she would say "Alright, we're dating now, you have to stop insulting him. I like him and it's annoying." but I didn't expect her to go "Oh, and I told him everything you said because we were talking about it one day."

This is much closer to my expectations with my friends. But we have very positive communications just generally, so I'd expect my friend to say, "I don't like this," and me to say, "oh, okay." And then we'd likely discuss why, and come to an agreement on what to do after voicing our feelings. There would be no need for anything else. Especially if it would cause problems going forward.

But I worry about her sometimes.

Such is life, buddy. Such is life.

 

[Umbran]

I've kept secrets from my extremely close friends. It's no issue for me.

Yes, that's fine. But what you, personally, do is kind of aside the point, isn't it? I mean, unless *you* are the girlfriend, and have been keeping that secret from us...

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I didn't meet any bad players in my two years running D&D games at Gencon UK, and very few in 7 years so far at the London D&D Meetup, but I appreciate that 'Organized Play' may have particular issues. There seems to be some weird stuff going on - these adventures really have NPCs give out magic items based on the result of a Charisma check?

Indirectly, yes. Most of the adventures tend to give magic items for story rewards. Which means things like "Deal peacefully with the elves". If you succeed in befriending the elves that show up in the adventure, they give you a magic item at the end of the adventure when you defeat the Big Bad Guy. If you aren't friends with the elves, you still get paid the gold you were promised at the beginning of the adventure, but no magic item. This kind of thing is fairly typical. And the adventures will say "The elves are very wary of people coming into their forest. They will immediately tell the PCs to leave and threaten them with death if they stay. Obviously, the PCs will want to stay because the rest of their mission is in the forest. The elves can be convinced with some good roleplaying and a DC 15 Persuasion check to allow them to pass. If the PCs fail, the elves will attack."

So, yes, a bad persuasion attempt really can make the difference between getting a magic item and not. I just think people take it a little too seriously.