Fellow DM's how would you deal with this player?
- Thread starter Virel
- Start date
William Ronald
Explorer
Mark said:I hadn't thought of that. What if we gave it limited charges?
Good to see you, Mark! Now for some free DMing advice.
Good to see you, Anabstercorian and James Heard.
Mark, you can just give the kobold enough levels of fighter to gain weapon mastery in a soup spoon. Thus, a mundane soup spoon in the hands of an expert can be a deadly weapon. ;D
Virel, I think that this incident was one of styles clashing. As there was a sincere apology, I think it is best to move past this event and get back in the saddle. Sometimes, a DM and a player will have very different styles. (Taking advantage of a player's strengths is a good idea. If the player is very skilled at keeping track of numbers, as some have suggested, he might be helpful in running large combats.) So, trying to settle the disagreement was important. Similarly, not DMing while angry is important.
A little self-evaluation is good for both DMs and players. You should be fine, Virel. Let us know how it works out.
reanjr
First Post
"This beholder obviously has more hit points than the average beholder then, doesn't it?"
"I suppose his buddy must have cast aid on him before combat started"
"Ah, but what you don't realize is that I swapped one of his feats for Improved Toughness."
"Shut the hell up and stop disagreeing with me."
"I suppose his buddy must have cast aid on him before combat started"
"Ah, but what you don't realize is that I swapped one of his feats for Improved Toughness."
"Shut the hell up and stop disagreeing with me."
FreeTheSlaves
Adventurer
I think this would be an ideal opportunity to begin next session something like this:
"So-&-so gave me an apology and wants to apologise to you all for last session, I think you should let him do so and accept it like I have."
"I would like to begin by discussing the issues of trust and cooperative play. Trust is important to me because without it you can't immerse yourself into your character and interact with my world that I want to present to you.
Cooperative play is the opposite of adversarial play (like in football), this is important because in D&D noone should feel like they are the "loser", heck I feel like a winner even when you guys waste my BBEG because you'll beg for me not to stop the session, even as it approaches midnight with a 9am start tomorrow.
Without trust and cooperative play you will not be able to kiss the princess or accept the crown because you will only see my hairy visage and suspect a knife in the back. That sucks."
Or something along those lines (which merely reinforce what the good posters have already mentioned numerous times), assuming you don't want to lose a player. Also something to bear in mind is that mature relationships have crisis's like this at some point. I urge you to think twice and once more again before ejecting anyone, but if you must, you must.
"So-&-so gave me an apology and wants to apologise to you all for last session, I think you should let him do so and accept it like I have."
"I would like to begin by discussing the issues of trust and cooperative play. Trust is important to me because without it you can't immerse yourself into your character and interact with my world that I want to present to you.
Cooperative play is the opposite of adversarial play (like in football), this is important because in D&D noone should feel like they are the "loser", heck I feel like a winner even when you guys waste my BBEG because you'll beg for me not to stop the session, even as it approaches midnight with a 9am start tomorrow.
Without trust and cooperative play you will not be able to kiss the princess or accept the crown because you will only see my hairy visage and suspect a knife in the back. That sucks."
Or something along those lines (which merely reinforce what the good posters have already mentioned numerous times), assuming you don't want to lose a player. Also something to bear in mind is that mature relationships have crisis's like this at some point. I urge you to think twice and once more again before ejecting anyone, but if you must, you must.
Oryan77 said:
I couldn't GM for such a group - not for long. It would drain all the fun out of the game for me.
Thinking about it, I really think the best solution, given that it's a brand new player, is to bite the bullet and tell him that after consideration you don't feel he's a good fit with your game - you don't want him back. Questioning your decision on a ruling is one (bad) thing - Hell, I've been that kind of bad player, though I hate myself for it - but refusing to accept your authority as GM and pushing the point to the extent of ruining the session is quite another.
I post, this late in the game, only because my perceptions are so different from most in this thread... Frankly, I don't see where anything this guy did was "wrong" (with one exception).
His Wiz ran, and he asked if he could play that out. The GM said "In a minute", and went on with the Beholder-battle. So the player sat there, and recorded damage, without the GM noticing... Great! He was interested in the game, and found something to do! I wish all players were that involved!
Then he saw the GM making what he thought was a mistake, and called him on it. No problem! He said why he thought Virel was wrong, Virel gave his side. No worries!
Then, instead of dropping it, figuring there was a heads/tails chance of who was wrong, he "pushed it", and continued even after the other players told him that it didn't matter what was on his sheet, it was the GM's sheet that mattered... That's the only thing that I have ANY problem with.
So the players exerted some peer pressure, and he apologized, to all involved, multiple times! Sheesh! Problem solved, it seems to me.
People aren't perfect, players and GMs included. Either one could have made the 4 HP/8 HP mistake. Either way, it's an accounting error, and not a personal attack! BOTH sides need to get over it, and move on...
Trust, and even respect, have to be earned. If the guy had never played with you before, then you shouldn't be expecting anymore than what's due to an average person. Let him play, and let him see just exactly how fair you are...
His Wiz ran, and he asked if he could play that out. The GM said "In a minute", and went on with the Beholder-battle. So the player sat there, and recorded damage, without the GM noticing... Great! He was interested in the game, and found something to do! I wish all players were that involved!
Then he saw the GM making what he thought was a mistake, and called him on it. No problem! He said why he thought Virel was wrong, Virel gave his side. No worries!
Then, instead of dropping it, figuring there was a heads/tails chance of who was wrong, he "pushed it", and continued even after the other players told him that it didn't matter what was on his sheet, it was the GM's sheet that mattered... That's the only thing that I have ANY problem with.
So the players exerted some peer pressure, and he apologized, to all involved, multiple times! Sheesh! Problem solved, it seems to me.
People aren't perfect, players and GMs included. Either one could have made the 4 HP/8 HP mistake. Either way, it's an accounting error, and not a personal attack! BOTH sides need to get over it, and move on...
Trust, and even respect, have to be earned. If the guy had never played with you before, then you shouldn't be expecting anymore than what's due to an average person. Let him play, and let him see just exactly how fair you are...
Virel said:
If you're STILL feeling this way, then no... you need a break. Put the campaign on hiatus, and do something else, for a while. Maybe this player is just more interested in the campaign than you are, at this point. Perhaps you're burning out, and he is wanting more from you than you feel like you can give... Time to take a LONG break, and recharge!
If you do continue, talk to him, and make sure that he has plenty of interesting things to do in order to keep him occupied. Ask him for a "Top 10 List", every week, of things he thinks should be in the game, or whatever, then throw one in, every once in a while... That will keep him busy, and also out of your hair... USE that energy, and mine his ideas! When you have spare time, sit down with him and explain why you chose NOT to use some of the other stuff in YOUR Campaign.
By doing all of that, you'll be using his energy to energize your campaign, and maybe re-energize yourself. Who knows? In the end, maybe he'll even be a good GM, and you can play, for a while?
Virel
First Post
He has a great deal of energy. That's for sure. He is set on creating his own world from scratch. The top ten list is an excellent idea, I'll try that. Letting him keep up with some book keeping is reasonable for the "typical" encounter sometimes.
As for the group dynamics. In short, I did a start up group about six weeks ago because I wanted to game more than my other could. I expected may be three players, if I was lucky. Turns out there weren't any active D&D games in the area. So this thing took off like a bottle rocket, much to my surprise. In the last week, I've turned ~5 would be new players away by telling they'll have to wait until we have more DM resources.
There are a total of 12-15 active players in the new group. I have had to break them into smaller groups. This also allows players to have their own mini-groups etc. The mini-group the player above was invited into, expelled him from the mini-group. That was a decision their mini-group made - not mine, nor did suggest that action. The player in question is still in big group but the folks he upset aren't willing to have him in the serious group at this time. I learned this late last night and was surprised, they were so decisive about it. Today, the player mentioned above and I will game together, might as well get back in the saddle and get things moving again.
Last week I DM's 5 out of 7 days. Week before was very similar. The last two Saturday's, I've had groups with nine players in them. I'm taking this Saturday off. I've been working hard to finding another DM to help out and I have two that can help some.
There is a lot for him to do that's for sure. It might be true the players are more excited about playing than I at this point. I never expected my old campaign to ignite and grow beyond it's heyday in the mid-80's but it has.
My long term "wish" is we can get a large solid group of players and DM's firmly established and all of us can play and avoid burn out etc. If everyone can get along and work together. I'll need to do my part to get things back on track - which I don't think will be too hard.'
I'll let you know how tonights session goes, if memory serves, this group doesn't have any of the same players the other group did.
As for the group dynamics. In short, I did a start up group about six weeks ago because I wanted to game more than my other could. I expected may be three players, if I was lucky. Turns out there weren't any active D&D games in the area. So this thing took off like a bottle rocket, much to my surprise. In the last week, I've turned ~5 would be new players away by telling they'll have to wait until we have more DM resources.
There are a total of 12-15 active players in the new group. I have had to break them into smaller groups. This also allows players to have their own mini-groups etc. The mini-group the player above was invited into, expelled him from the mini-group. That was a decision their mini-group made - not mine, nor did suggest that action. The player in question is still in big group but the folks he upset aren't willing to have him in the serious group at this time. I learned this late last night and was surprised, they were so decisive about it. Today, the player mentioned above and I will game together, might as well get back in the saddle and get things moving again.
Last week I DM's 5 out of 7 days. Week before was very similar. The last two Saturday's, I've had groups with nine players in them. I'm taking this Saturday off. I've been working hard to finding another DM to help out and I have two that can help some.
There is a lot for him to do that's for sure. It might be true the players are more excited about playing than I at this point. I never expected my old campaign to ignite and grow beyond it's heyday in the mid-80's but it has.
My long term "wish" is we can get a large solid group of players and DM's firmly established and all of us can play and avoid burn out etc. If everyone can get along and work together. I'll need to do my part to get things back on track - which I don't think will be too hard.'
I'll let you know how tonights session goes, if memory serves, this group doesn't have any of the same players the other group did.
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