DM Advice For Difficult Players?

[aboyd]

he later approached me and complained about the battles being too tough. I got attitude because of their lack of thought-process in buying potions in town. I told him "These battles are set to be apart of this module, they are how they are, and you guys had every opportunity to load up on useful equipment before you left."

So... did you punish the players because you didn't like their potion-buying? Did you change the fights in any way from their original form?

If you did, the player has a right to feel annoyed. People can pick up on a DM being punitive, even if the DM tries to play it off as innocent. If you're running a published module, you can bet that at some point in the future, he's going to take a look at it. If he sees something different from what he experienced -- especially if you claimed that the fights were exactly as the module described -- he's going to have a legitimate beef with you.

It's not that you can't change things -- I almost always do. However, I go out of my way to not appear to be punishing anyone. For example, if a player in my game loaded up on spells to affect the undead and I had changed a module to use fewer undead, I might tiptoe around that one. I might reconsider. I don't want the player thinking, "I planned logically for a tomb raid, and now it's like the DM meta-gamed against me and removed every typical tomb monster!" You know? You don't want to do things such as taking note of a player's skills and then deliberately circumventing those abilities.

If a player is naturally super-effective in some games and super-ineffective in others, well that's the way it goes. But if it's un-natural, if its uncanny how things appeared to be built to bypass the player's skills, then ouch. Someone is going to complain. If you didn't modify things, great, you were totally fair & honest, and the player needs to suck it up in that regard.

I agree with Roguerouge, listen to the argument once then make a call you can live with for the rest of the session. Then at the end of the session you can discuss it in depth.

Yeah, I do that a lot, and it works. It was difficult at first because I didn't know the exact right words to use to end a discussion. I kinda wanted to grab a problem player, shake 'em hard, and shout, "SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!"

Those would have been the wrong words.

So I found the right words were simply to say, "I need to keep things moving. This is house-ruled for the duration of today's game. We'll review the books later, but no retconning."

That has almost always worked. Most of the time, house rules are just as fair as the book rules. So people aren't arguing that you're unfair (usually). Instead, they're arguing that your rule conflicts with known procedure and they don't know how to settle into a conflicted state. Give them permission to let things be conflicted, by telling them it's a temporary ruling.

There are just a few times when this failed. Usually, the players have a cow only when the house-rule will utterly destroy their expected course of engagement. In those cases, I generally relent, break out books, and spend a half-hour discussing a bunch of boring rules. But that's rare.

Every now & then you might decide that your house-rule is better than the book rules, and you'll want to make your temporary rule a permanent one. In those cases, you have to be prepared for fallout, and handle it gracefully. I made a ruling once that changed how effective a particular class was. The person playing that class wanted to completely abandon the character and start over. I let him. If you nerf a class or spell and then force a player to keep using the now-crappy class, those players will feel cheated.

 

[azhrei_fje]

So I found the right words were simply to say, "I need to keep things moving. This is house-ruled for the duration of today's game. We'll review the books later, but no retconning."

I agree.

I've been DM'ing D&D since AD&D in 1978. I've been around awhile. Yet I still don't have the entire 3.5E book memorized, nor would doing so necessarily help when it comes down to interpretation of a rule. (We've been having issues lately with movement of Tiny creatures because the party mage has a Tiny viper familiar and sends it out to attack. I even had my question answered by Skip @ Ask the Kobold, but it wasn't 100% complete for the question I asked. )

Anyway, I don't mind having the players "remind" me of a rule. But after listening to their reminder, I may tell them that I don't agree and rule things the way I think they should be. My guideline is: "You can ask a question once. I will acknowledge your question and let you state your point of view. After that I rule on it and whether the ruling works FOR you or AGAINST you, we won't discuss it any further during game time." And I will typically expect them to state their point of view within 45-60 seconds as well. That seems like a short time, but they should be able to state their point pretty quickly in most cases, although we may discuss it for a minute or two if it has a direct bearing on the party succeeding in their quest.

I have a player in one of my games who likes to go on and on. Fortunately, it's an online game and I find it's easier to move on when the game is online.

 

[roguerouge]

He complained about the battles being too tough... in Ravenloft!? Of course, they're too tough! That's the point of the setting!

 

[Oryan77]

Now this is the same guy that hangs out with us at a local bar we go to

You already have it better than a lot of groups with problem players. You have a social life with him outside of the game, so that's a good start. Talking about the game over some beers is a great way to break the ice & discuss issues. I would wait and talk to the problem player the next time you guys are hanging out at the bar. That way it'll feel less like you are "confronting" him, and you guys will have a few drinks in you and be loosened up

But I would definitely say something to him. Yer going to have to just be up front, no beating around the bush. Just tell him that you are trying to learn how to be a good DM and his constant arguing is not helping. Instead, he should wait until after the game to "teach" you what rules you are using wrong. Make him feel like he will be helping you out by doing this. Hopefully things will work out.

But, I will speak from my own experience now...

Do not hesitate to kick someone out of the group.

In the last 10 years I have DMed, I have DMed around 20 or more different people. About 8 of them left the game over gaming style conflicts (they didn't like how I DMed, or I didn't like them as a player and asked them to leave).

The one thing I want to say is, do not let someone ruin your fun & cause you to stop DMing. Kick his butt out of the group if he cannot change his bad habits. Early on, when I was trying to become a good DM, I had people frustrate me so bad that I would consider giving up the DM role. But I had so much fun DMing during the good parts, that I wished so much that I had that "perfect" group so I could keep DMing. I tried everything I could to make it better, even posted here on Enworld many times to ask advice about problem players.

In the end, after dealing with so many of these people, I learned that people just aren't going to change. Even when I talked to them about it, they'd be better for 1 or 2 sessions and then we'd be right back where we were. I have never heard of a group that was able to turn a problem player into a good player. If so, nobody has ever mentioned it

I told myself that I won't deal with any more BS. So I started looking for new players when they'd cause problems, and I would just stop inviting them to game. I also became very strict when meeting potential new players (posting ads online & meeting them at Starbucks). If any red flags went up during the meeting, I would tell them later that I don't think they'll work out. It was very hard to do at first because I feel bad telling them that, but I got used to it (every time I'd give them a chance anyway, they'd turn out to still be problem players).

I now have a great group of friends to game with. We all get along and I have never had any of them argue during the game. None of them make me feel like a bad DM and they are just there to have a good time. It's great.

I had to deal with a lot of crap to get to this point, but I can honestly say that I have no big problems with any of the players. I even got 2 new people in the game

I wish I could say that talking to problem players is the best advice, but I honestly don't think it is. Kicking these people out of the group and replacing them with great players is the best advice I think a person could give. That's just the way it is I guess (at least for me)