Booting a player from your group

[Wanderer At Dusk]

Confront them frankly about it. I tried running games without the said player and he was not pleased.
He basically acted like a child and started swearing at me. This player was one of my oldest friends. I wouldn't listen to me, i'd given him warnings and told him out of game that he was being disruptive to the group. He insisted on having another chance, i'd given him more chances then i should have and he did not change every other time for more then a session.

It does not help matters that personal problems came between us outside the game as well. He thought i did it out of spite or malice. Many words were said about me. If he'd have been mature i may have cosidered giving him another chance.

Hopefully it turns out well for you

 

[fusangite]

While I adhere to the only gaming with friends principle, one two occasions, the mental illness of one of the participants has necessitated their removal from the group. So, just because everyone's your friend doesn't mean Seasonal Affective Disorder or some other condition can't wreck your game.

 

[gunter uxbridge]

I was a bootee in a whole mess that occurred over the summer. Actually, it was one of the saddest things I have ever been through.

My group had been playing together on and off for about three years. We swapped DMing responsibilities back and forth, but for the last year or so I had been pretty much running 90% of the games. We were all work acquaintances and got along really well and had a good time playing together. We stopped and started a lot of campaigns, but the last two had taken the characters to 8th level. Quite an accomplishment for us. In May of 2001 three of us got laid off from our jobs, but we continued to play regularly.

One of the players was kind enough to host all of our sessions in his house. I used to play host, but after I had to move to a much smaller apartment I had to defer to him. Frankly it was a MUCH better venue and we all appreciated his generosity. We continued along these lines for quite some time.

Then the bottom fell out.

After a three week hiatus we picked up our game at his place. After the pre-Game chatting my friend and his wife asked if they could talk to us about something first. It turns out that the last time we played there his wife's wallet went missing. What is more, one of the credit cards had been used at a gas station. They had pretty much narrowed it down to one of us, and talked to us one at a time to give whoever took it a chance to fess up. Nobody did, they informed us they would be talking to the police and after that night we would no longer be able to play at their place.

I was absolutely devastated by this. First off, I had at least some sort of proof that I didn't do it, (The credit card was used to buy something like $25.00 in gas. I bought gas the same day on my own card. My car WILL NOT hold $35 in gas.) This meant that either one of my two other best friends was a thief or my friend and his wife made a HUGE mistake and accused three innocent people of being thieves. I hope with all my soul that it is the latter. Memory is such a fallible thing and none of us were in such bad financial constraints to make us steal. Who knows though...sometimes you just don't know about some people.

It has been four months since we played last and we have all moved on. One of us moved out of town and I and the other accused are looking for a new group to join. I hope the truth will come out some day, but I'm not betting that way. Until then, I have lost a good friend.

 

[Buttercup]

In short, he's just not somebody that I want to invite into my home on a regular basis.

This statement is key. You aren't obligated to have anyone in your home that you don't want to. It doesn't matter what your reasons are, it's your house. Therefore, I wouldn't worry about trying to salvage the situation. Just find a way to tell him that it isn't working out. Do it in private, and don't be rude or cruel. But do it soon. If you have bad vibes about someone, you need to act rather than ignoring them.

 

[Sanackranib]

game chemestry

Game chemestry is SO improtent. it can't be overstated. I was sorry to read the post where the wallet was stolen. If it had been me I would have asked everyone about it as well and if I had narrowed it down to the RPG (shudder) then if no one confessed I would give them the boot too! It comes down to this: If you can't trust your friends then obviously you need new friends. Its sad for those who were innicent and unfortunatly innocent until proven guilty doesn't always work for friendships/relationships. I hope that it works out for you. If not then move on to another group. no matter the reason it always SUCKS when you lose friends.

 

[EarthsShadow]

It took me a while but I do remember one time I did boot a player out of one of my games. He was a brother of one of our regulars, and from the get go he never got into his character, so I already knew that either he would make a decision to leave or I would. He helped me make up my decision faster when I took one of the players aside because his character was the only one that didn't get drunk and pass out, and therefore he was the only one in the scene, so I took him aside. A couple minutes later the new guy came into the room and directly told me that I needed to hurry up so he didn't get bored. He got booted immediately and I had no guilt after making that decision. I explained why I made the decision and told him that the overall flow of the game and the story comes first, and if one can't handle it, or won't accept it, then they are out, period.

So, when you finally make your decision, take this advice: once you have made up your mind, stick with it and accept it, because you can't take it back. Accept it and move on, there is no real point in dwelling on something that you can't take back, and if that person can't deal with it after you explain your reasons, so be it, it is that person's problem, not yours.

 

[Sanackranib]

Da Boot

That's good advice. don't go back on it or second guess yourself. The direct approach has always workd best for me.

 

[Silver Moon]

We hit this issue twice.

The first was early on, when a young male player made an inappropriate advance on a female player after the game, and made her uncomfortable. We had a group discussion about it, and the concensus was to boot him. As I knew him best I got the unfortunate task of delivering the bad news. We stayed freinds for a few years afterwards, but things were never quite the same.

The second time was a few years back, when a new player who had been a great role-player in a long non-combat module suddenly became a self-centered power-player during a combat-intense module (even initiating combat during the parts that didn't call for it). The group tried for several months to tone him down, to no avail. Eventually his playing character was totally rejected by the other characters and he pulled the character out of the module and didn't start a new one.

 

[Deadguy]

The only time I have had to 'boot' players was in one campaign (it happened to be Ars Magica rather than D&D, but the idea is the same). It didn't happen just once either.

First off we had one player who came along to the character-creation session (where I explained the setting and house rules). He created a character... and then never turned up to a session again! When asked he always said he wanted to play, but he had a reason every time not to turn up. In the end I told him not to bother, and he was annoyed. But since I stopped reminding him of when the game sessions were, and he never got in contact again either, that one worked okay. Still annoying for me who had already created lots of story for his character.

At the same time I had two players who just couldn't get into the campaign. Ars Magica carries with it certain baggage that distinguishes it from a typical fantasy romp. But they went on behaving exactly as though they were playing D&D/Rolemaster (actually one of them also wove in elements of Cyberpunk into his actions too!). The net effect was that the group began to falter. I eluded to the problem at first, asking them both if they were happy with the game. The idea was that they would say 'no', and I would be able to tactfully suggest that perhaps they wanted to play in a different campaign. However, both were entirely happy. On the other hand, the other players weren't. And as the game ran at the house of one of them, the situation grew tense.

In the end I spoke individually to the problem players. But by then I'd left things too late. Before I actually got rid of them others started to drop out, In the end the campaign just fizzled away... much to my chagrin.

Basically what I am trying to suggest is that it's always wise to keep on top of ypur player's feelings toward the campaign. And if you do spot a troublesome player - ACT QUICKLY! Failure to do so may kill the entire campaign instead.

 

[Spooky Donkey]

Slight variation

The problem we're facing right now is we have someone in our group who isn't really a bad player - she (as a person) just scares us (she's a furry - eek!). We kind of made a mistake in bringing her into the group without really investigating her, and at this point our options seem to be appointing the guy in our group who would mind hurting her feelings least to tell her this or (this looks like a better, but tricky, alternative) just making the game unattractive to her. For example, she always plays an animal character of some kind (as a furry), but our next campaign is prehistoric - no mammals! But yeah, it's tricky. Not a great thing.