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

[Shasarak]

[SIZE=-2]*Assuming I wanted to preserve the friendship. A guy who runs off and leaves his buddy and girlfriend stranded, over "an imaginary game," is going to need some pretty stellar qualities to justify keeping him around. But we'll say for the sake of argument that the guy is one of those people for whom D&D acts like a helm of opposite alignment.[/SIZE]

Do you think that DnD is an imaginary game or is it a game that uses your imagination?

Because I suppose that it would be difficult to make a YouTube/Podcast recording of an imaginary game.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Sorry everyone, I've been busy the last couple of days so I didn't get a chance to post an update.

It's not super exciting. I showed up for the slot 0 game on Monday at the guy's house as scheduled. We played. I didn't mention the incident and we all had fun playing D&D. It was kinda awkward for me and I admit, I wasn't able to look the guy directly in the eye the entire game. Luckily, he wasn't DMing and neither was I so it wasn't really required. I made a couple of disparaging comments about his character while in character...but that's normal. If I went a session without doing that, people would worry. After all, his character keeps using the feat that "inspires" people and gives them temporary hitpoints. He roleplays it by saying that his character tells us all how great and awesome he is and we are so inspired that we gain temporary hitpoints. I keep making the joke that the only reason I get temporary hitpoints is because he STOPS talking and after 10 minutes of listening to him brag continuously I'm so happy it ended.

They showed up on Tuesday and when we were arranging who would run the 2 tables and who would sit where, his girlfriend originally suggested that I run a game and they've play in it. He was grabbing food so he wasn't around yet. I asked her if she really wanted me running a game for him. She said "Good point, I'll run the table then."

That was the only real mention of the issue. I ran a table for some low level people(with neither of them at it) including a friend of mine that I convinced to drop by. It was fun. Nothing weird happened.

So far putting up with him seems for the best. I'll try to acknowledge in the future that I should avoid more actively DMing games where he's at my table. Though I don't think I can avoid it forever. I'm still dedicated to running my Champions game once a month with him in it. I'm concerned about that but the next game isn't for a month, so maybe it'll be better by then.

 

[77IM]

Though I don't think I can avoid it forever. I'm still dedicated to running my Champions game once a month with him in it. I'm concerned about that but the next game isn't for a month, so maybe it'll be better by then.

It won't get better. Sorry, but at some point you will need to address it, or the friction and awkwardness will continue.

I think being courteous and direct is best. "I consider you a friend, but I think our gaming styles are too different. I don't want to GM for you any more because I think we'll just piss each other off, like what happened the other day, and I don't want a game getting in the way of our friendship."

He'll either say, "Yeah, OK," or he'll say "No no no, I still want to play in your games," or he'll say " you, I don't want to be friends any more!" Either way I think having it out in the open will make you feel better.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Of course, we've seen nothing to indicate the guy actually is a friend of Majoru's. All available evidence is that Majoru doesn't like him, has never liked him, would be perfectly happy to never see him again, and is only prevented from reaching that happy state by the fact that they game together. (Nor is there anything wrong with this. Everybody has people they don't like.)

I think he's kinda dumb. I wouldn't shed any tears if things happened and they broke up so that I could still be friends with his girlfriend and our other mutual friends without likely seeing him again.

The problem is that they run board game nights on a fairly regular basis which I try to attend. Another couple I know are mutual friends with him. As with most social circles, everyone is rather intertwined. Especially in our city where, despite having a population of 600,000 people, the gaming and geek communities are VERY small. There's a couple hundred of us and we all kind of know each other.

But he is my "friend" in that we can have civil conversations and we have a lot in common so we always have things to talk about. We both like board games, anime, science fiction, fantasy, and D&D. I've often spent 2 or 3 hours just talking with the two of them about whatever after our Sunday sessions end. I enjoy their company(for the most part). We spent years trying to convince the two of them(ok, mostly I was trying to convince his gf, since I know she'd really like it) to come to GenCon with us. Last year they actually did and we stayed in the same hotel room and played all the same games all weekend(which was a test of my patience near the end to have to game with him that much). They've invited us to make WoW costumes with them and line up for the premiere of the Warcraft movie since they are super excited about it. I'm not that excited but I know they are and I like to support my friends.

Hanging out with him is fun, for the most part, because he enjoys the same activities I do. And they mostly involve board gaming, card gaming, movies, and so on. I rarely have to deal directly with his personality. Whether it's him or someone else saying "I put a settlement here. That's the end of my turn." is not really consequential to me.

It's his gaming quirks that bug me the most. His characters are bland and cardboard. We're starting another campaign in our Sunday game and I think he plans on playing his 4th or 5th(I lost count now) Warlock. ALL of them have taken the feat to give people temporary hitpoints because as he says "Why would anyone with a good charisma mod NOT take that feat? It would just be stupid not to." None of them have a personality at all, none of them have any real background other than picking the one that gives him the most in game benefit.

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.

 

[collin]

I agree with 77IM. Whatever you do, do not ignore it, and do not let him ignore it, ala George in the Seinfeld episode "The Revenge" and pretend like it never happened. Because if you do, it will only makes worse the next time something like this happens.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I'm merely saying I understand this situation. You have two people that don't like each other. One has called the other stupid and he knows. Majoru presents himself as a guy that has a "stupid meter" and I translate that as Majoru as being somewhat judgmental. People that have "stupid meters" and judge people by them seem to have the attitude that their worldview and way of acting is superior to others. Very similar to those people you see that generally talk to people as if "They're in the know" concerning what is right and wrong with the world. I find that worldview creates many conflicts be it at game tables or the workplace.

I admit that patience is NOT my strong point. It's my major flaw. I have no patience for almost anything. I'm in IT and right now I work on a Service Desk. I spend all day long listening to people tell me "My computer doesn't work! I click on the button and nothing happens!" only to find out they mean that they are opening a program they need to use and are getting the error message "wrong username or password". I'm used to people having absolutely NO idea what they are doing and having to help them through it.

I've learned there are two types of people in the world: Those who attempt to find the answers to questions they don't know by logically consulting resources such as books and the internet and attempting to learn more about the subject and only when they hit a brick wall that cannot be passed do they ask for help. When these people ask for help, it is easy because they have at least a basic knowledge of the problem, use correct terminology and accurately describe the problem in a clear and detailed manner.

Then there are the people who don't care at all. They call us at the first sign of an issue without bothering to spend even a second thinking through the problem themselves. They don't want to learn anything...ever. These are the people who call us and say "It is asking me for my username and password, what do I do?" and when I suggest they put IN their username and password they say "Ok. That worked. Thanks for your help."

I have to deal with that second class of person so often that I don't want to choose to deal with them in real life. Which is why I tend to stop even attempting to deal with people if I think they are in that second category. It saves me so much time and stress. Which is why when I get stuck playing a game with them that it causes so many issues.

 

[the Jester]

Jesus, dude, you are totally enabling this guy to walk all over you- to keep walking all over you.

I'm sorry that there's no way to avoid sounding harsh here, but- find new gamers. Drop the crappy ones. Build a group that won't have you walking on eggshells. This is so not worth it. Stop being a wuss.

 

[BlackSeed_Vash]

If you say "So, there's a castle guarded by 50 men. You know the princess is inside. What do you do?" and he says "I walk up to the gates and I pretend to be the janitor and tell them I'm here to unclog their plumbing" you better answer with "They totally believe you and let you inside." If you don't, he'll complain that his plan never had any chance of success and that you are being biased against him and made his plan fail simply because you didn't like him or you don't like the idea of "out of the box" thinking. If you say "Look, they don't HAVE plumbing. Plumbing doesn't exist. The plan had a 0 percent chance to succeed because they have no idea what you are talking about. If you had come up with a legitimately GOOD plan, it would have had a chance of success. But that plan was horrible."

I'm sorry, but with the exception of his anachronism, the plumbing/janitor, he had an acceptable plan for a face (or at least high Cha) based character. Instead of telling him nope, not going to work (or worse let him try it and watch it fall apart) it would have been better to inform him that plumbing doesn't exist here; however, his character would know (after a knowledge local, int check, or whatever works for your particular game) that (for example) rats are a common enough problem that a someone within the castle would call upon the services of a rat-catcher.

 

[jgsugden]

Tolerating a situation is not a solution. You're just watching the fuse burn.... Seriously. If someone is abusive, get away. Period.

 

[JackOfAllTirades]

Jesus, dude, you are totally enabling this guy to walk all over you- to keep walking all over you.

I'm sorry that there's no way to avoid sounding harsh here, but- find new gamers. Drop the crappy ones. Build a group that won't have you walking on eggshells. This is so not worth it. Stop being a wuss.

This is mostly good advice, but seriously, "wuss"?

Where I come from, calling someone a wuss would get you invited away from the table for a brief discussion on acceptable behavior.