Difficult Player

[Prestidigitalis]

Chzbro: I think we are in agreement but I'm not sure. I just didn't see the point of discussing reasons why a hypothetical character might have chopped through the roof when it was clear that this particular character had none of those reasons.

 

[Barastrondo]

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 think that may undercut the fun for many groups if there are no wrong decisions. If an NPC you choose to attack for any reason, no matter how whimsical, turns out to have deserved it, then that sends the message that the consequences to your decisions will always be good no matter what you decide. As a DM, you definitely don't want to rule that an unexpected idea is always a bad idea -- but at the same time, there needs to be the risk that a PC's idea is a bad one.

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.

I agree. That's why the rest of the group is the real barometer here. If they're all grinning and saying "Yeah, take out the roof! Awesome!", it's clear that's the way to go. However, if they're all shifting and looking uncomfortable, then it's likely not. The reactions of the four other people at the table are what I'd be paying the most attention to, myself.

 

[Goonalan]

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.

I get what you're saying- you've said it a few times now but the issue is there are X players in the room, and one DM (or whatever), if any one of them breaks the social compact (within the game) then there are repercussions. The DM gets to decide because s/he is the arbiter, the OP did that- now what?

As for putting the player's PC in jail- err... one roleplaying experience later and he's out, or whatever, this isn't the real world, exacerbating the situation- surely the DM got beat to that one. Surely for the half-orc a bit of time in the slammer is just a badge to wear with pride- walk the walk, talk the talk.

I remember, in my real life during my drunken youth, being arrested for climbing on to a roof and walking up and down on it (singing at approx. 2 AM)- I don't remember the quiet chat, I remember a cold cell. An exciting roleplaying encounter (that reduced me to tears again and again- although I learnt several new swear words) and then a trip home in a police car the next day, the nice man wouldn't put the light and/or the siren on however.

The quiet chat is good, if the roof smashing player has a reason for his roof chopping that it will come out in the wash, in the meantime the player goes directly to jail, a line has been drawn. All players are aware that the line exists- the game proceeds...

Your real life analogy is good but what does chopping a hole in the roof equate to in one of my classes (I'm a lecturer), the DM (OP) called it as he saw it, I believe posting here is enough in the way of soul searching and reflecting on his actions (as you state above).

Our OP is a good guy- you know it and I know it, he wouldn't have asked the question here if he wasn't.

I don't have enough info on the roof smashing half-orc guy, so far he sounds like someone having a bad day, or worse...

OP have a chat with your guy, explain the game your playing, and how you want it to play out (you could also canvass the players on the type of game they want to play of course), and make certain the repercussions for further transgressions- better still figure out with the player a personal dilemma/character trait or whatever to put his character's actions in to context- make him a more sympathetic character. Work with him, he may have a very good reason (above and beyond the quick way down) for his roof chopping.

If he turns out to be a [insert rude word here] then point him towards the door.

PS Alternatively is the half orc player 12?

 

[GameDoc]

If you'd rather seek a solution that keeps this player in the group, having an honest discussion with him, as so many have suggested, is a good idea.

If for some reason that isn't the best solution and you want something you can do "in game" that applies consequences to the character's actions, I would suggest using old school behaviroal psychology.

If he is the sort of guy who craves attention, only reinforce (i.e., give attention) with the behaviors you want.

Ignore attempts to get attention by acting out. Let him kill the guard and get away with it. Just say "okay, he's dead." and never return to the subject. No big reaction, no interesting consequences, it's as though the univers just doesn't care that it happened. It's insignificant.

By contrast, let something really cool happen when he approximates what you'd like to see. If he role-plays, even just a little, make it have meaningful effects. If he gets more attention for this, he will eventually gravitate towards those actions.

You may be thinking "the other players will think it's unfair if they see this playing out." But it really doesn't hurt to do this for everyone. The other players get their moment to shine.

If you do this, you also have to be mindful of the "extinction burst." He will keep pushing and pushing and the problem behavior may become more frequent for a time until he realizes it's not going to get him anywhere. It's important to hold fast. Ignore the undersired behavior and attend to anything else, no matter how little at first. He'll come around. Or if his escaltion crosses a line, you can go back to another strategy.

Now, if this is more work than you want, then you're only left with having the talk mentioned above, or removing him from the group. That's up to you. If have done this with problem players who I thought were really decent folks, just a little rough around the edges. On the other hand, I have foregone the effort and simply not invited a player back for future session when I felt he was just an @$$hole and not work the effort.