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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 5593291" data-attributes="member: 99">You're absolutely correct.  As I mentioned, I'm a communicator at heart and love to initiate conversations about all kinds of things.  Not to derail us from the topic at hand but last night I was having a discussion with my wife about an upcoming meeting with her boss.  There are some things about her work environment that are killing morale for herself and other employees that should be addressed and I was suggesting ways in which she should bring up these topics.  Her response was, "Your ideas are good but I'm just not as good at presenting this kind of stuff as you are and I'm afraid I'm going to either freeze up or botch the delivery."One thing I said to her, which I also think applies to the player tolerance issue, is essentially that the squeaky wheel gets the grease.  If you don't say anything about your problems with another player but remain irritated or angry with them about their behavior, well that seems to be the quick path toward passive aggressive actions that probably won't do anybody much good.  The trick is to squeak about it without seeming like you're all complaint and no solution.And that's why my suggestions on this topic are not, "Tell the player that they are annoying you with their powergaming and that they should change their behavior to be less annoying."  Even though that's probably what needs to happen at some point, it's a terrible sell.  Instead I'm suggesting that the conversation be broached as a group discussion that proceeds by several stages.First you probably need some kind of reference document.  I strongly suggest any of the works of Robin Laws on this matter.  Either the 3.5 DMG2, the 4e DMG or the system neutral "Laws of Good Game Mastering".  This will give you a list of broad playstyles, one or more of which will likely resonate with each player.Then everybody first acknowledges their own playstyle, including the GM.  This will include being very specific about their "emotional kick" or "I'm having the most fun when the game is focused on..."  I think it's usually best to use some specific examples of parts of the games that you've loved if you've all gamed together before.And then it's time for people to, as diplomatically as possible, go around and cite some instances where other people's playstyles have caused them some irritation.  This is the part where you've got to be willing to own your own crap as well as be honest about the other players.Finally it's worth talking about some ways in which your playstyles actually support one another.  If you're more of an "Immersion Roleplayer" playing a character who is an excellent diplomat, but there is also a "Butt Kicker" in the group, then don't just talk the Barbarian Chieftain out of attacking the nearby town.  Instead talk him INTO assisting the party in attacking the band of Ogres that also threaten the town.  This means that instead of your character stopping the thing that the Butt Kicker loves most you're enabling the thing that she loves most.Then shake hands and smile because your gaming group is probably going to be a lot more harmonious than ever before.If it sounds like I'm passionate about this concept and I've given it a lot of thought then it's because I am and I have.  You should all be thankful that you weren't there at the ENnies a few year ago when I totally fanboi geeked out all over Robin Laws when I told him how his writings about playstyle had utterly transformed our gaming group by helping us get rid of all the rough edges that were rubbing each other wrong.  All of you except Kiznit.  He was sitting right there and introduced us.I call myself a communicator but that wasn't pretty. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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