DM's: Do you have one player in your group you'd like to give the boot?

[Old Gumphrey]

I've got two.
One guy shows up on time, and regularly, and knows the rules, but he has almost no attention span, starts to fall asleep at 9 o'clock, and is only happy playing the guy that deals the most damage. Yet! He wants to play a variety of characters, then complains about how weak his characters are.

One guy shows up about 50% of the time, loves to hear his own voice, and mopes for hours when his dice start rolling low numbers. Yet, he gets along well with the others, is a good roleplayer when not yakkin' OOC, and is willing to let others have the spotlight when he does finally stop talking.

Oddly enough, I find #2 to be more frustrating to me because of his motormouth... He should play a tinker gnome..

I actually have both those guys in one guy. Beat that.

I used to stress about "disruptive behavior" or whatever, but I think mainly people just like getting crazy at the gaming table. I don't think I've had to deal with any truly disruptive behavior on a consistent basis.

I once had a player slap his brother across the face and knock his glasses off over something going on out of the game, but since it happened at the table, it was seriously weird. I docked both of them XP (the brother was peeking behind my screen when I wasn't looking and stupidly admitted some things he learned) and we moved on. I still game with both of them.

In my weekly game, a combination of 3 specific players makes running the game extremely difficult. Only when all 3 of them are together does the insanity never end. I had to end a session about a month ago because they literally did not shut up for 35 minutes. That may not sound like a lot of time, but I was trying to begin the game, and I could not begin. I couldn't get five words out before it started up again. So I took off my DM hat and put it on the table and said "ok, one of you guys do this, because I can't do it anymore". So to my surprise, one of them took up the reins and started running. He's a bit...crazy...but we have a ton of fun anyway.

For me it's mainly just mixing things up a bit that gets groups back on track.

 

[robberbaron]

Hmm. Ever booted a player? Nope.
Some have drifted away, some have moved away but we've never sacked one.

On the other hand, while most of us have gamed together for 25+ years, I can't honestly admit to liking all of them. One or two I do not freely associate with away from the table and all have habits/attitudes that really piss me off but we generally just get on with it at the table. I expect I annoy them just as much.

Rob's First Law: Everyone is an ass sometimes.

[Edit] Actually, I am finding it hard to imagine what it is like to be in a gaming group with such loose affiliation that someone can simply be booted out. Then again, I never played in an FLGS game. Perhaps, that is the difference.

 

[rgard]

I haven't personally booted a player, but a group of my friends did indirectly.

The player in question was always a disrupting force in the game. He would for no apparent reason have his character attack other PCs. The system used didn't matter, WoD, 3.5, 1E, or Warhammer FRP...the group he was in played with lots of different systems, the player continued to do stupid stuff.

Other annoying behavior included theft. He would eat all the individually wrapped mints in the DM's candy bowl on the sly. Then stuff the wrappers under the couch cushions. Was also caught pulling fruit out of one player's back pack. The player also volunteered for the food run one game night to the local Taco Bell. The DM asked for a large combo (or whatever the call it there). When problem player returned, the DM received a small combo. When asked asked about the portion sizes the problem player responded that Taco Bell stopped doing combo meals. Meanwhile, the problem player was drinking a large drink...that was the DM's.

He also had hygiene issues.

The DM didn't feel comfortable just booting him out of the games. So collectively the DM and the rest of the players told the problem player that there was now a $25 fee to play in the games each week. This was collected to ensure the DM kept up with the latest WotC and other system releases.

It worked and he stopped going to their game sessions.

Same problem player came in to my game store for the weekly sessions. I DM'd 3.5 one week and my friend DM'd 3.5 the off week. The problem player manifested most of the same behavior. I had to really watch when he went through the individual D&D minis basket as the minis would disappear. We got fed up with the problem player. The younger players (mid to late teens) got fed up with him as well and nicknamed him, 'The Tool.'

So for 'sh*ts and grins' the other DM and I decided to have a running competition on how spectacularly we could kill the Tool's characters. In one session I ran he went through 4 characters in one encounter. Most memorable was the death by goblin children. He was at this point wise to the high death rate. For a high level session I had to dig deep and found a spell in an old OD&D/1E 3rd party supplement called 'Bisection Plane'. His character was running from a swarm of death scarabs, got hit with the Bisection Plane losing his feet. It wasn't pretty.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Chimera]

The problem also arises that some peoples' definition of "bad behavior" is what some others define as "normal mode of operation"...different people react differently to different things.

True enough. One of those three, his 'normal mode of operation' was a whole pile of neuroses and odd personal behavior wrapped in a blanket of Can't Pay Attention. He would regularly argue at great length about things that never would have been an issue if he'd actually been paying attention or if he'd only stop for 3 seconds and THINK about it.

Such as the last straw, which was when he kept arguing with me about (allegedly) one kobold casting multiple spells each round. Now stop and think. The basic rule of the game is one spell per creature per round. There were scores of Kobolds present at the battle and I would point at one and say "this one casts x". But he got it into his head that I was having one kobold cast 6-8 spells per round and thus the argument.

Five times I tried to tell him that wasn't what had happened and that it was different kobolds casting different spells. I went from facing him to facing 120 degrees away, giving him the "talk to the hand" gesture. He still kept arguing it. Finally I broke down, yelled and swore at him that his criticism was not valid. His reaction was to pause, say "Oh, I see what I'm doing wrong. I was phrasing it as a criticism when I should have been making a suggestion. I should be SUGGESTING that you shouldn't have one kobold casting all those spells..."



Then of course, the topper was to regularly accuse me of anger management problems because I (shock of all shocks) would get angry at the constant arguing about stupidly obvious things like that example, and his absolute inability to listen to the person he was arguing with. (He actually said once or twice "I'm so sure that my idea is right that if the other person isn't agreeing with me, I think that I'm just not making my point right and I have to try harder." (Um, maybe try listening???))


The other two people I dumped were;

1> The friend who was rapidly becoming Not Friend. The Bruce I mentioned above. Screwed me royally on a batch of home brew we did together. Did a few other not friendly things too. Then started blatantly cheating at the game table. The last time he didn't even bother to pull his dice out of the bag. Every round was a hit and he just made up damage. When I told him that I didn't want him at the game anymore, the above conversation (my first post) took place. Denied to high heaven that he'd ever cheated, even though everyone at the game saw it for quite a few sessions and he'd been called on it more than once.

2> Mr. Negativity. Didn't see this one coming. Suddenly the guy is "No that's not important. No we don't need to do that. No that's not the way you play that game. No I don't want to do that. No, you're wrong. No, no, no, no, no, no..." Just turned into a constant stream of negativity and invalidation of everything I said and did.