Are you a "problem player"?

[DeusExMachina]

I too often will give up my character's principles to advance the plot and sometimes get annoyed when other players don't do the same. I try to work on this, but sometimes the narrative is just mor eimportant to me than the acxtions of a single character...

I have problems with people who don't pay attention and make stupid decisions because of it. I'm fine if you're just not very tactically minded like one of our players, who just works better with a bit of help, don't think he minds, but not paying attention is just plain annoying...

I recognize the rules question thing. I seem to be th eone who has paid most attention to 4e and now am sort of considered the expert on it even though I only DM half of the time. Fortunately 4e doesn't require us to do a lot of rules searching...

 

[NerfedWizard]

Whereas OGB's problem is that he has been thoroughly brainwashed by the 3rd edition of a well-known commercially available RPG and is totally incapable of seeing any fault with it whatsover, however obvious the flaw may be, even to the extent that he twists any ideas about game-balance and flavour to the point where they are all defined purely in relation to whatever the status quo is in that edition of that game.



And a fault we both suffer from is constantly arguing. Partly because, also being a lawyer myself, I like to play Devil's Advocate.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I'm so good I make everyone else look bad in comparison

You are also far too humble

lol

 

[Merkuri]

I tend to talk more than other players, which I guess makes me a bit of a spotlight hog. I love the roleplaying part of D&D and enjoy getting into character and moving the plot along, and when we get into heavy roleplaying moments sometimes I feel like I'm the only one talking to the NPCs. It's not as bad now as it used to be, and I try to make an effort to bring the other players in, but if they won't speak up I'm not going to make them.

I also found myself a while ago in the leader role Jeff was talking about. The worst part was when we were going through the World's Largest Dungeon a few years ago. For most of the campaign I played a charismatic favored soul with a strong personality who knew what she wanted and naturally took charge, but when she died I made up a meek little kobold bard as a change and found that the party still looked towards me for advice on what to do next. If the kobold came up with no suggestions the party could stand around for ten minutes without deciding which way to walk down a corridor. I can't remember whether I caved eventually or whether we got a new player who was more willing to make decisions.

And in our last campaign I guess I was a bit of a backseat DM. This was his first time DMing and in my opinion he made a lot of mistakes. I was trying to give constructive criticism but he took it a little hard and after a while I decided to just shut my mouth and let things go on rather than get him upset. I think what made it even more difficult was that he was my boyfriend. Sorry Awayfarer! Love you.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I appreciate the suggestions, and actually have tried some of them (for instance, I try to prompt other players for input, even if it's only, "What do you think of this plan?" ("I'm happy to be a part of it!")), but I was kinda hoping for people to share their own foibles, rather than counseling me on mine.

Noted.

I tend to play a lot of characters who are either silly, less than completely sane, or both. This sometimes results in somewhat disasterous consequences for these characters (and those around the characters)and I am guilty of injecting a good bit of out of character humor into a game. This bothers some people more than others. If I were involved in a group where the campaign was strictly " sewious business" I would expect to be booted before long.

 

[NerfedWizard]

What you have to remember if you're the type who never shuts their mouth (I am) is that the group would still have fun without you (as long as there's enough of them). The group I play in with OGB existed long before I joined and it's not as if they didn't FUNCTION without my big mouth.

DMs/GMs etc. have faults too. For instance, even though we've played and enjoyed several games reffed by other referees which have been plot-heavy, OGB seems to be convinced that the group can't get along with any games which don't consist 99% of hack and slash. The fact that he's often reffing the hack-n-slash-oriented 3rd edition of a certain well known commercially available RPG doesn't help!

My main fault as a referee used to be rail-roading the party to get them to where I wanted them to be, probably out of anxiety at not being able to think of anything interesting to happen on the spot if they went wildly off course. I guess one solution to that is to have "slot-in" encounter ideas ready, things which can occur anywhere, but generally over the last few years I've grown less anxious about that since learning from other referees whose games I've played in. Learning to emphasise roleplay, description and narrative over hack and slash seems to have helped with this.

 

[Lhorgrim]

I sometimes sulk at the game table.

This generally rears it's head when I'm making horrible rolls, but it's not the dice that get me sulky. I have had a DM that just could not let the dice be the deciding factor in a game. If my character failed on "save or die" I could deal with it, but my DM couldn't and he would fudge the consequences. The only way my character could fail/die was if it was in script.

The best example was a 3.0 game we were playing. The DM rolls in front of the screen(even though he is really a story teller DM), and he rolls three natural 20s on attacks against my 1st level paladin. he then proceeds to confirm all three criticals with some excellent rolls. I have already started thinking about my next character, when the DM says "they decided to grapple you instead of attack". I think I said something witty like "you're kidding, right?" and he got mad because I wasn't thankful that HE in his infinite benevolence had saved my character from certain death.

I spent the rest of the session quietly rolling dice and announcing their results when it was my turn. The DM got cheesed and yelled at me to quit being childish and that he would just shut down the game if I wasn't going to play right(we are all in our early 30's at this time). I told him there was no need for me to be there if my decisions weren't going to affect the game's outcome anyway. That was the last day we played 3.0. The DM decided it was the system that had caused the rancor in our session and used that to ignore the personality issues between our styles.

Since that time I have been very sensitive to DM fiat in my favor, and I tend to get sulky if it is obvious that the DM is using the kid gloves.

 

[Ydars]

I guess most DMs end up being problem players because we find we suddenly have much less to do, know all the rules inside out (and the game worlds sometimes) and can often think of entertaining things to do in game.

Having said this, how much of a problem you are depends on your group; if you are with a group of committed RPGers who are really into the game and you are still a hog, then you have a serious problem.

On the other hand, if you are with a bunch of people who are basically lurkers or who don't know the rules well, or have confidence issues or who are newbies, then it is is more understandable.

I still think that, in the end, a hog/DM emeritus is removing the incentive for the other players to blossum out into good RPGers. At least I keep trying to restrain myself by telling myself this, but it doesn't always work. At some point, all players have to take responsibility for their characters but not for anyone else's

 

[ExploderWizard]

Since that time I have been very sensitive to DM fiat in my favor, and I tend to get sulky if it is obvious that the DM is using the kid gloves.

I can understand being dissappointed in a DM thats overly protective of the players but I would never sulk about it. I would bring the problem into sharp focus by having my character " see the light", drop whatever profession I was following, and become a cleric of the Helping Hand. Prayers and rituals would include the most risky and suicidal behavior with absolute faith that the hand would protect- until the character was killed off in an angry arbitrary fashion by the DM when he finally got pissed off, and (more importantly) the point.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I usually DM, so when I play I do notice the "problem" of having much less to do. I don't become a spotlight hog though, instead I drift away from the game. Amongst the oldest of my gaming buddies I have been labeled a "terrible player," although I wonder how much of that owes to the fact that none of them ever wanted to DM long-term.