Escaping Violent Players

A "friend' may have taken some firecrackers to some bad d20s that were not towing the line, back in the day.
Similarly, and on a much lighter note than the overall thread, I do have a good friend and regular player, who “punishes” unlucky dice by imprisoning them in a dark dice box and making them play no further role (roll?) in the session.
 

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As long as you're not throwing them AT someone or messing up someone else's stuff, I kind of feel like dice-throwing happens to everyone at some point. Buddy of mine accidentally took out a framed poster (one of his own) with his dice after an endless series of "illegal procedure" calls in Blood Bowl.
 

I do have a good friend and regular player, who “punishes” unlucky dice by imprisoning them in a dark dice box and making them play no further role (roll?) in the session.

Now, your friend should note that punishment is a poor method for getting behavior change. Positive feedback is better - I'd suggest to him that he get a little dice throne, upon which good rollers may sit as a recognition of their efforts.
 

Now, your friend should note that punishment is a poor method for getting behavior change. Positive feedback is better - I'd suggest to him that he get a little dice throne, upon which good rollers may sit as a recognition of their efforts.
Absolutely.
As a former sportsman, I always ensure my dice are properly warmed up prior to a session as a player; I wouldn’t want them pulling a muscle just when a key roll is needed in the actual game.
Perhaps counter-intuitively, I never bother doing this when DM-ing.
 

I have never experienced physical violence among players. I have been one LARP and two table-top situations where heated words have been exchanged. On one occassion, it appeared things at the table-top might come to blows over a misunderstanding.

At the LARP, the head storyteller and his 1st assistant (whom was one of his close friends) had a heated exchange of words over whether my killing of the "Big Bad", which occured early in the evening, should stand. The Head Storyteller wanted to retcon it as he had about 100 participants (maybe more). His assistant wanted to allow it to stand as I had employed various skills I had invested in over many sessions and won every test. The Head Storyteller pulled rank and, after a heated his exchange, his assistant quit (but not before telling me why he quit),

The one time at the table when our group thought two players (one who was sitting in on his first session) were about to come to blows, it involved a new player to our group. He took an in-character argument to be a personal attack.

The new player had his character begin hacking a tooth out of a dragon for a trophy despite being warned that dragon blood is acidic. Acid sprayed on his character and some nearby PCs. This resulted in one player, in character, berating the character for his foolishness. The rest of us sat back enjoying what we thought was a good RP exchange... until the new player, eventurally, stood up and directly addressed the player..

Once we realized that the new player was taking things personal and our sitting by was escalating the situation, the rest of us stood up to try and calm him down. The other player involved, however, was already like, "Whoa, dude. None of this is personal. It is all in character. Personally, I found what your character did to be a cool moment. However, my character would not feel the same". This caught the new player off-guard and he began to settle down.

After apologies all around, the new player admitted that that the exchange would have been a great RP moment had he had not taken it to be personal.

And that folks is an example of why our group adopted a no alcohol rule from our LARPing days with the LARP group mentioned at the start. "Scenes" can get intense enough without adding intoxication to the mix.
 

I've only encountered one violent RPG player. I've twice encountered table-flipper boardgamers.
He was a toxic player - I'd tossed him from one game for PVP... which everyone else but the target let me know he was trying to arrange... and they all colluded to prevent, in character, his plan. He threw a fit, I told him to leave. He did.
Later, I was running a GURPS game, and he asked for a second shot... i let him in. Campaign conceit required certain disads. He submitted a character which had them. I took a photocopy of approved. then, the following week, he acted against the required disad, I asked for the roll, he refused, claimed no such was on his sheet (indeed, it wasn't, since he deleted the required disads from it. Confronted with the photocopy, he got pissy. So I had the patron he'd removed (a 500 pt NPC vampire/wizard) soul jar him and destroy his body.
Player left. In a huff. Slamming the door after opening it violently into another player.
A couple years later, he stops by to see my roommate, notes I'm in the middle of a boardgame, flips the table. Roommate tells him to leave.
He was, for a while, a corrections officer. He didn't last as one - don't know if he quit, was fired, or was delicensed, but he later was working for parks and rec. I've not seen him since.

One of his friends, however, flipped his own table after losing badly at Advanced Civ... his own table, his own set. He and a smarmy other player had decided to collude to win... and everyone else figured it out. So they wound up taking the worst of all the calamities. They both wound up bouncing twice in a row due to no cities. Mr. Smarmy openly laughed when he realized they'd been caught and whomped... but the host? He was so pissed he flipped a heavy 5x8 foot dining table... three of us were 1 space from end of AST... and Mr Smarmy laughed even more... the host told us to leave, so we all, except mr smarmy, grabbed our sheets, left the property, and compared point totals...
then left. Never RPd with either of them. Mr. Smarmy later flipped my roommate's table... another "wasn't invited" wander in.
 

No experiences like any of these. Thank the Gods! :oops:

As a side note, what is everyone's thought on drinking at the gaming table? Good idea? Bad idea? I personally don't do it- I don't even eat at the gaming table, nor have I gamed with anyone who does (drink) as of yet. Guess I don't like to mix my pleasures that way, but I do see a problem if people show up and drink, play, get unruly, etc. Obnoxious / violent drunks are the worst sort of people to have to deal with, especially when you're just trying to chillax and have some fun.
 

No experiences like any of these. Thank the Gods! :oops:

As a side note, what is everyone's thought on drinking at the gaming table? Good idea? Bad idea? I personally don't do it- I don't even eat at the gaming table, nor have I gamed with anyone who does (drink) as of yet. Guess I don't like to mix my pleasures that way, but I do see a problem if people show up and drink, play, get unruly, etc. Obnoxious / violent drunks are the worst sort of people to have to deal with, especially when you're just trying to chillax and have some fun.
As I noted above, we don't allow alcohol at the table when we play.
 

No experiences like any of these. Thank the Gods! :oops:

As a side note, what is everyone's thought on drinking at the gaming table? Good idea? Bad idea? I personally don't do it- I don't even eat at the gaming table, nor have I gamed with anyone who does (drink) as of yet. Guess I don't like to mix my pleasures that way, but I do see a problem if people show up and drink, play, get unruly, etc. Obnoxious / violent drunks are the worst sort of people to have to deal with, especially when you're just trying to chillax and have some fun.

I don't like drinking at the table. Not that I've ever had it lead to violent or even obnoxious behaviour. (Obviously it can and does, I just haven't had it happen to me.) It just makes for a sub-par game.
 


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