DISCUSSION: Have you ever had to boot somebody from a game?

[Zardnaar]

I've played with a DM who always wanted to dominate the players, by consistently introducing powerful npc's played by him, that solved all our problems. He also had a habit of making all of our actions fail, by either setting the DC impossibly high, and/or adding extra complications that pretty much ensured our failure.

Funny how this sort of gamer is often mentioned in discussions like this. It seems to be a common thing. Are there a lot of gamers like this who are just really insecure?

He was a nice guy in real life, but not very fun to play roleplaying games with. It wasn't much better when he was a player either, with overpowered characters, dominating the table, denying other players their place in the spotlight, and outright cheating. You've probably seen this sort of player: The moment any player takes an action, he interferes because his character can do that action so much better. And the cheating baffles me. Is it really that bad to roll low for a check every now and then? Is it really that bad to fail at an action once in a while? Not every check is a matter of life and death. Who even cares if you fail a perception check occasionally? Do these players not realize that they are robbing themselves and others of fun by cheating?

So me and a few other players decided to kick ourselves from the group, and form a group of our own. In the process we also eliminated another bothersome player from our group, who was always causing problems with his strange anime-girl fetish, and attacks against other players.

And I haven't had any further problems ever since.

It's a nerd thing. D&D, Magic, Warhammer, Wargaming similar thing.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

There was a guy who got into a D&D game I DMed. A walking cliché. Slightly overweight, a little challenged by personal hygiene, skipped school and proud of it, self-centered, more in love with his character than with the campaign. No problem for me - there was a time where 50% of the roleplayers I met had some of those traits. Who am I to judge people? He was a good roleplayer and he liked the campaign.

It started getting worrysome when he always came in and started smalltalk with how he "owned SJWs on the internet" again and told me the newest Gamergate nonsense. I mean, it went "Hello! How are you! I won an internet fight five minutes ago!"

Actively recruiting among the group for his little band of brothers rolling around the internet to convince people that women were ruining movies, gaming etc. A "forced diversity ruined Mass Effect" dude. Full in on Comicsgate - you know, that movement attacking the new She-Ra for being not boobieliscious enough, organizing a boycott of Muppet Babies because adding a new female character is "forced diversity". The full package. Human garbage.

And then the straw that broke the camels back: he always was half an hour early. ALWAYS. Even when we explicitly told him "look, we are just coming home before the game, we NEED that 30 minutes!" Not a chance. "I'm always early". I just couldn't believe it.

Booting him felt really great.

And now we live in a time where D&D is booming and most of my campaign consists of 20-somethings who saw Critical Role and wanted to try that game out. Casuals, the lot of them. Live's good.

EDIT: Oh, and he didn't react. Sent him a mail that I wasn't thinking that he is a good fit for the group. Didn't react, never saw him again.

 

[mrrockitt]

Only player I ever ejected from a game was my 11 year old daughter! It was the first ever game with her, my wife and 14 year old son. I said "it might help if someone writes down important stuff that happens". My daughter took that to mean write down every word Dad (the DM) says! She kept interrupting me so she could catch up with the writing and even wrote down me telling her NOT to write down literally everything!! She had to go.....

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

I've never booted a player out. But I have once dodged a game because of the impressions I was getting from the DM. I applied to a game on the Looking for Group section on Roll20. In the initial skype interview with the DM I remember thinking he sounded a bit controlling in the way he was describing how things would go. Basically he outlined a bit about the world and then detailed exactly how I was to make a character. But since it was just no feats, no multiclassing, a couple of the odd ball races banned I didn't think it was a big deal at the time. After all I can be accommodating.

A couple days later I went to put the finishing touches on my character sheet and notice a huge public thread between the DM and one of the other players. He had requested to be able to swap out some options and after a long argument the DM shot him down. I start to have my doubts but continue anyway. It's been a long time since I've gamed.

After I finish up my character I'm hanging out in a call with the DM and one of the other players. The DM describes how he will have find a last minute replacement player. I ask him why the other guy left and the DM says that he booted him because he had spent his excess gold from his background on additional equipment before the game had started. Not even anything fancy, he had just bought some standard adventuring gear from the PHB and had it on his character sheet. It was at this point that I state that I don't think things will work out and that I'll be leaving.

Maybe I should have stuck around for at least 1 session, but I was really starting to feel uncomfortable.

 

[Blue]

I've played with a DM who always wanted to dominate the players, by consistently introducing powerful npc's played by him, that solved all our problems. He also had a habit of making all of our actions fail, by either setting the DC impossibly high, and/or adding extra complications that pretty much ensured our failure.

Funny how this sort of gamer is often mentioned in discussions like this. It seems to be a common thing. Are there a lot of gamers like this who are just really insecure?

I played for a long time with a DM who would insist on a "GMPC" (Game Master Player Character - not an NPC) in every group. Said it wasn't fun for him otherwise. His character would continuously be have a low level of favoritism plus the simple fact that he knew his character's background and such better so more plots and rewards would be around them. And then every once in a while he'd do something horrible to his PC (kidnap, embarrass, etc.) just to "prove" he was the hardest on himself and there was no favoritism.

 

[Tallifer]

Fortunately I run my game on-line using roll20 and Google Hangouts. If I have a truly problematic player I simply neglect to invite them and inform them of the next Google+ Event. However, it turns out that thee feeling is usually mutual, so no actual booting involved.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Same. Or rather, we downgraded them to player-only status. This was back in the mid-90s. A bunch of us wanted to get back into gaming, having not gamed in ages. So our one friend volunteers to run a game. I make some sort of elven fighter/ranger/rogue bountyhunter kit nonsense, inspired by Poison Elves. We all show up to play. And proceed to be railroaded to the nth degree, railroaded into a TPK. We died at the hands of some undead creature (wraith or specter, if I recall correctly); since we were all first level, that didn’t take much. After the session finished, the DM told us that we were supposed to dig in the dirt floor to find the MacGuffin to defeat this thing. Leaving the session, one of the more bluntly-spoken players says to me “Okay, he’s not allowed to run anything again. You’re up.”

I went on to have a blast running that campaign, so I suppose I should be thankful he tanked as a DM.

We once booted a GM.

 

[5ekyu]

Have you ever had to boot somebody from a game or a group? What caused it? How did you go about disinviting the person? How did they react?

Comic for illustrative purposes.

Had a player who over quite a long time would work to disrupt and thwart other pcs plans and intentionally ruin fun for others. His goal for playing was "messing with the other players" and "getting them riled up". Always picked the most thin skinned or emotional to target.

he was kept in the group much longer than should have been because out of character he had been very nice and supportive to one of our group when family disaster struck. But eventually even that player realized it was too much. So, at one point one of the PCs just said "enough" and killed his character and at that point i did not invite him back.

game vastly improved.

When asked about it after the player lauhged and said he wondered why it kept going. he had figured he would be booted long before and laughed at how long he had been allowed to %#^ on folks.

Another case was very different. Starting a new game talked about themes and likely stories and talked specifically to one player asking is this something they would enjoy. They agreed no. they sat out that campaign but were back for the next and many after. (Stargate, pseudo-military and plenty of captured pcs scenarios - both hot buttons for him.)

One of my now long standing rules at session zero is that as gm i will throw them together and give the pcs a chance to work together, but staying together and getting along and so on is on them so if someone plays a character that makes the others not want them around they can be bounced from the party into NPC etc. That tends to weed out the disruptive types right off the bat - mostly. Had another who worked more subtly to cover their own side-bar at the expense of the PCs who is now no longer invited into any game i run.

 

[pogre]

Couldn't you have talked to him? We always here about horror stories in this threads but most offense is not intentially given and if you can talk to someone without attacking them it is possible to get folks to change their behavior. If they don't want to they will be probably leave of their own accord. I like to give folks a chance to adapt to the group if they want to continue playing.

This is going to seem rude or unfair, but I don't try to reform people's behavior before kicking them. If they do not work with our group in their current state - I don't try to reform them - I kick them out. I have told players specifically why it did not work out when they ask or when they beg to come back to the group.

Many of my players have commented over the years how relieved they are I will pull the plug on a player who is not working out.

Sorry, I'm getting older, I don't have time for reforming folks - I just want to game and have fun.

 

[MNblockhead]

I played for a long time with a DM who would insist on a "GMPC" (Game Master Player Character - not an NPC) in every group. Said it wasn't fun for him otherwise. His character would continuously be have a low level of favoritism plus the simple fact that he knew his character's background and such better so more plots and rewards would be around them. And then every once in a while he'd do something horrible to his PC (kidnap, embarrass, etc.) just to "prove" he was the hardest on himself and there was no favoritism.

I don't get this. I almost exclusively DM currently and I have enough trouble keeping on top of everything I have to do as DM that adding in a DM-PC would just make my life more difficult. I mean, I've even thought of having someone joining me as co-DM to play important NPCs (kinda like they do on Dragon Friends, https://www.thedragonfriends.com/) for important encounters.

I guess this is one time where my mental deficiencies and laziness actually make me a better DM.