Difficult Player

[Firebeetle]

I think we should get off the subject of the roof and back to the problem player.

I know the Admiral and everyone else hates it, but in 30 years of gaming I think that its important not to ever allow unwanted behavior to culminate in its intention. Of course, I run my classroom the same way Maybe I'm just stubborn, but I really find it eliminates such behavior if there is no payoff.

Before you get to that, you need to establish some norms of behavior at your table. This is your first level of defense against problem behavior, as it sets basic expectations and gives your players permission to help police each other.

The personal talk is vital, and it doesn't have to involve just you. If you have a player whom the problem player responds too, feel free to invite him too. In dealing with difficult people, it's always a good idea to have an extra number on your side. It makes it harder for the other party to take things personally or lose his temper.

Start by prompting the player to what he think problems at the table might be, he may articulate the issue already. If not, or he gives some attacking answer, then deflect with "we came to talk to you about this." Try to engage the person on a personal level, and ask if this is the behavior he would really want in his own campaign. If they become combative, then there's little hope in the situation and you may have to rearrange your situation.

 

[Katana_Geldar]

He sounds not just as if it's an "all about me" player, but that he's not used to not being the DM.

 

[Chzbro]

All of this is good advice, but I do want to interject a hypothetical into the discussion. It's possible for us, as DMs, to get a little rigid in the way we think about our own worlds (again, I'm not saying this is the case here, just that I think it's common). If a player wants to hack a hole in a roof rather than climb down a wall...is it really a big deal?

In action movies, crazy stuff like that happens all the time for a comedic break in tension. The hero falls through the roof, a surprised old man in the room below drops his dentures, and we move on.

I understand in a very real way the desire to impose consequences on character actions, but if you even look at the word "consequence" it's a bit negative. It's very liberating as a DM to sometimes just "go with it." At the end of a tense combat, there's nothing wrong with an occasional laugh over something we'd normally call absurd. In fact, those are often the moments we remember best and talk about most years later.

I don't know this particular player or situation, so I won't speak to that directly; if he's a problem a one-on-one discussion is best. But, we as DMs have to remember that it takes two to tango. The DM can't tell the story alone; the players have to be able to contribute too. And if a player antagonizes a DM and the DM responds by "punishing" the player...well, things are almost guaranteed to continuing to escalate in a negative direction.

I feel strongly that the DM should not try to run the game like a disciplinarian. The dynamic shouldn't be boss to subordinate because ultimately we're all equally necessary and all friends. It's frustrating as a player to play in a game with a DM who only wants to tell *his* story in the same way that it's frustrating as a DM to judge a game with a player who tries to sabotage everything.

However, it is possible for players to contribute to the narrative, even in dumb ways, without it being sabotage. What if, in this situation, the half-orc hacked through the roof, fell through having weakened it, then punched a hole through the floor below landing on the ground floor and taking 2d10 damage? He's still the center of attention, it's funny, you make your point with the damage, but he still feels like he stole the show.

Maybe none of that would help in this instance, but there are other options besides having him arrested and jailed. In fact, in this case, jailing the character ended up making his small distraction (hole in the roof) a huge derail of the story all focused on him. Take advantage of it. He wants to kill the sheriff, so make the sheriff a bad guy. Don't think of it as encouraging him to behave badly, think of it as channeling his shoddy RP in a direction you want.

...My hypothetical got kind of specific, but hopefully the larger point is clear...to someone.

 

[Momeeche]

The hero falls through the roof, a surprised old man in the room below drops his dentures, and we move on.

I don't think the character going through the roof is an issue, or at least not as much of an issue, as trying to kill the guard. I mean, if this were a game set in a modern period, how would the GM and other players respond to a player swearing to kill NPC Cop because the cop was doing his job? The players persistent temperament is an issue, not a one-off event or action.

 

[Chzbro]

I don't think the character going through the roof is an issue, or at least not as much of an issue, as trying to kill the guard. I mean, if this were a game set in a modern period, how would the GM and other players respond to a player swearing to kill NPC Cop because the cop was doing his job? The players persistent temperament is an issue, not a one-off event or action.

Sure. As I said, I can't speak to this specific player's temperament; I can only speak in gross generalizations and hypotheticals. If a player wants to be a jerk just to be a jerk, there's not a lot of advice that can fix that. But the guard came as a response to the roof. I'm not saying that's a bad or even unreasonable DM response, but there are other options (e.g. a fall through the roof that elicits a laugh) that would have never put the player in the position to swear to kill the guard in the first place.

In other words, in any number of situations like this one, a reasonable DM "consequence" can be interpreted by a player as "punishment" (and in this case it kind of is). The player's response will often be to push back ("Arrest me? I'll kill you!"), and suddenly the whole session is off-track and contentious.

Rather than assigning blame in a game I was not at, I think it's constructive to talk about ways to "defuse" the situation before it becomes a situation. I've been in the "arrested" situation before as a DM. It's not a good place to be. Your hands are tied too. If you let the players fight the jailers, you know they'll probably win (unless you cheat). And then they're outlaws. If you don't let them fight, you're taking away any choice they have in the game--no fun.

It's good to avoid painting yourself into a corner. Bringing the law because a half-orc chopped through a roof is bound to end up in confrontation. He didn't murder anyone, so why put him on the path of confrontation (and in fairness to the player, anyone who thinks a hole in a roof is better than climbing down is likely to react to someone arresting him with a punch to the nose)?

As DMs, we create the situation. How would I react to a player swearing to kill an NPC cop for doing his job? Well, since I put that cop there, I'd have to think long and hard about making him a dirty cop who's got bad intentions toward the party and was just waiting for an excuse to lock one of them up. It's not the right answer; it's just a possibility.

I'm just saying that as the DM it's ALSO your job to make sure everyone has fun even if one person's idea of fun isn't the same as yours. I'm not saying you let one person's fun ruin everyone else's, but sometimes smiling and letting someone do something dumb for 5 minutes is better than spending the next 2 hours sorting out the realistic consequences.

 

[TarionzCousin]

If you can't work out your differences outside of the game and he refuses to roll up a new, more cooperative character, try this.

Run the game for the rest of the players. Every twenty minutes or so go back to the Problem Player (PP) and say "You're naked in a jail cell. What do you do?" Listen to him, keep his character locked up, and leave him there.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Eventually he should leave the game. He just doesn't fit.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

What is the point of these hypotheticals about chopping through the roof? It's pretty clear from the OP that there was no good reason to do it. The player did it because he could, not because it made sense. It's like the guy who drops his litter on the ground when there is a trash can 3 feet away.

So sure, another character in another situation who chops through a roof, no problem. But this one did it for the lulz -- either for the dropped jaws of fellow players around the table, or to initiate a bout of in-game chaos. According to the OP, neither of these is acceptable at that table.

The real questions are 1) did the player clearly understand what kind of game you and the other players wanted to have, and 2) did the player tell you he wanted his character to be a bit wild and chaotic and think you had signed off on it?

 

[Holy Bovine]

He sounds not just as if it's an "all about me" player, but that he's not used to not being the DM.

I think this is 100% on target. I have been guilty of this myself. It can be extremely hard to get out of the DM frame of mind.

 

[moxcamel]

If you can't work out your differences outside of the game and he refuses to roll up a new, more cooperative character, try this.

Run the game for the rest of the players. Every twenty minutes or so go back to the Problem Player (PP) and say "You're naked in a jail cell. What do you do?" Listen to him, keep his character locked up, and leave him there.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Eventually he should leave the game. He just doesn't fit.

Eh, this is the kind of crap we used to do in junior high. I dealt with a problem player by sending "blue bolts from heaven," and it was just plain wrong. Punishing them in-game for out-of-game behavior is just about the worst thing you can do to a player, even if it's a player you don't want at your table. It humiliates the player, it denegrats your reputation as a DM, and it ruins the integrity of your game. It also ruins friendships--I've known plenty of people that I didn't want at my table, but they were good friends.

As has been said, it needs to be worked out offline.

 

[Chzbro]

What is the point of these hypotheticals about chopping through the roof? It's pretty clear from the OP that there was no good reason to do it. The player did it because he could, not because it made sense. It's like the guy who drops his litter on the ground when there is a trash can 3 feet away.

That is the point. And if you, as a DM, had a character arrested for dropping litter on the ground, you might want to consider later what you could have done differently.

I'm not assigning blame to the DM here; I'm saying that all of us (players and DMs) need to be able to look back at sessions that went wrong and ask ourselves, "What could I have done differently?"

Even though I don't think this DM did anything wrong and it's clear the player is being difficult, it's important to remember that the sheriff didn't just "appear." The DM put him there. Instead of minimizing a difficult situation with a difficult player, this ended up exacerbating it.

To put it in "real life" terms, if you're the manager of a store and one of your employees acts out in a small way, it's your job to deal with it. However, part of your job is to make sure that your confrontation with the employee doesn't escalate out where the customers can see it. You take him into the office later and talk it out one-on-one; ultimately you might even have to fire him.

Having blue bolts rain down from the skies or (to a much lesser degree) arresting the character for a relatively minor infraction is akin to starting a shouting match with your employee in the middle of the store. You might be in the right, but it's no good for the store, the other employees, or the customers...in my opinion...I've worked for people who clearly disagreed.