Fighting The Power Level

[JerseyArsenal]

Ok I really didn't have time to search through all the forums so if this is a repeated question then please direct me to the answer. Anyway I have not just a small or even moderate problem. This guy is a huge problem.

So I'm the DM of the group, Promoted to it from him because I care more about the game then he does. He even compliments me on actually using enemies strategically while keeping the game play fair and challenging. On the other hand I'm sure who's ever read the DM guide book knows this character all to well and takes no time to actually develop the story. I gave a chance for a character (NPC) to encounter the group alone. Get some story and maybe even a way out of some building or a secret to uncover, if they could pass the checks which would have been easy.

What does he do? He kills the NPC, his statement? "he's a enemy saying what are you guys doing here? There for he should be killed? Now what's my XP and I loot." I hate to compare him to this but it's like he's trying to play D&D like World of Warcraft. He charges in every room and get's over every obstacle cuz he's maxed his character and and stuff his level is even to him but too much for the rest of the group.

I just don't know what to do. He bursts into rooms sets off traps and doesn't care. He kills everything and I do mean everything, loots anything, Literally anything. He even stuffed a ancient table into the bag of holding saying he took it apart and put it in the bag.

What's worse is no one cares but me, The group is a bunch of people that get together to have an excuse to get wasted with each other. They care about the game untill there 15th beer in (which only takes an hour) and I spend a week planning all these small details and bits of information that they don't even bother doing.

They walk into a room. (I search the room, and loot. Unless someone's here. then I kill them) wash rinse and repeat. checks? nope. Investigate? nope. Communicate? nope.

I'm really at a loss and I don't know what to do. Someone help, how do you show this person it's better to interact rather then what he's doing.

 

[renau1g]

Hmmmm, well it seems like his playstyle doesn't mesh with your DM'ing. The other players don't really care, as it seems they're fairly casual and are playing mostly for the benefit of hanging with their friends (a great time I'm sure). A couple options that I see.

1) You don't have to DM, it's a lot of work and if its not fun for you, then don't. I'd try talking to the player outside of the game first though and try to get him to see it from your perspective.

2) Throw some encounters that they can't kill to overcome, a meeting with a duke that they need information from, if they kill him, they become wanted men and suddenly their steps are hounded by bounty hunters, who don't let them rest, or attack after a particularly grueling day.

3) Change how you run the game, you want to run it in a more serious, role-playing type game, but if all your players are happy with just strings of encounters (and you can enjoy that too) then spend your time in the monster builder and change up existing monsters to make cool encounters.

4) When it comes to lewt, make sure you don't give the player all the super twinked out items, more flavourful ones.

5) Ask the player to leave - if it really is a huge problem, talk to the group or the player individually, and say that you don't want to run like this and either he needs to change or you won't spend your time running any more. (1 & 5 are pretty much the same I know)

Hope that helps

 

[Gilladian]

Step 1: no more alcohol at the game table.

Step 2: start a new campaign with fresh characters - tell them this was your first practice campaign, you made some mistakes, and you're ready to try again and get it closer to right.

Step 3: when he kills someone important, or refuses to investigate, kick his butt. You know you can kill him any time you want; don't be afraid to do it, IN STORY, with FAIR response to his recklessness.

I had a party with one member who killed the local baron "just because". The PCs hid the body (it happened well away from home, and the other two people on scene were killed, too), and spent a LONG time making it look like something besides murder. They knew if they were caught, they'd have no chance of survival. Because the King would have to send his troops after them...

If they get BORED investigating and asking questions, there's no harm giving them a combat-heavy, plot-simple game. But it can also have responses to their choices worked into the story.

 

[Doug McCrae]

What's worse is no one cares but me, The group is a bunch of people that get together to have an excuse to get wasted with each other. They care about the game untill there 15th beer in (which only takes an hour) and I spend a week planning all these small details and bits of information that they don't even bother doing.

EITHER

Stop spending a week prepping for this game. An hour or less. You could probably get away with 15 minutes.

OR

Get new players.

 

[FireLance]

I am reminded of an old Chinese story that goes something like this (Disclaimer: to save myself time, I just copied the following off the Internet. It's close enough to how I remember it.):

Once a woman came to the hermitage of an old wise man. She complained that her husband had gone away to war, and ever since he returned, he had been nasty, cruel, and mean. She asked the old wise man what she should do. He replied, "Go and get a whisker from a tiger and bring it to me." She proceeded to do just that.

One night, she crept out of her house with a bowl of meat. She approached a tiger who lived in a cave some distance from the village. She set the bowl of meat down on the ground several hundred yards from the mouth of the cave. She went back to her house and went to bed.

The next morning, she retrieved the empty bowl. That night, she again set out with the bowl filled with meat for the tiger. This time she set the bowl down closer to the tiger's cave. She stood there for a moment looking toward the mouth of the cave. Then she left and spent the night in her house.

The next morning, she went to retrieve the bowl. Again, it was empty. The tiger was eating the meat, so she was encouraged. That night, she left the bowl of meat even closer to the tiger's cave. Again and again she repeated her ritual, moving closer and closer every night to the mouth of the cave. At last, she placed the bowl right in front of the cave. The tiger came out and looked at her. He had grown accustomed to seeing her there and had come to feel indebted to her. He asked her, "Oh lady, what do you want?"

She replied, "Oh tiger, I want a whisker from your face."

The tiger said, "All right, you may take a whisker." She reached out, pulled a whisker from his face, turned quickly and ran, leaving the bowl of meat, never to return.

She ran all the way to the wise man's hermitage. The old sage always kept a small sacrificial fire burning nearby as he meditated. She bowed down and waited, watching him meditate as the light of the fire danced on his wrinkled, old face. His meditation broke and he opened his eyes. "Oh, you have returned!"

"Yes, sir. I have brought you a whisker from a tiger." She held out the whisker. The old man took it from her hand, and without a moment's hesitation, immediately threw it into the fire.

She was surprised. "Why did you throw the whisker into the fire?" she gasped. She had worked so hard and exercised so much patience to get that whisker!

The sage replied, "If you can tame a tiger, then you can tame a man. Go now, and with the same patience and cleverness you used to tame the tiger, tame your husband."​

It seems obvious to me that your friends are playing the game in this manner either because it is the only way they know how, or because it is the only way they enjoy it. As the DM, you may be able to teach them to enjoy another play style, but as the lady in the story, you may have to do it in baby steps, and you may have to exercise a lot of patience.

Start simple. Put them in a situation where they need to interact briefly with a powerful, allied NPC (perhaps the local ruler has heard of their exploits and invites them to meet him, hinting that he may have a mission for them if they impress him). If the PCs perform well during the meeting, perhaps they get extra XP and a reward in addition to the mission. It may be blatant and crude, but if the players are motivated by XP and treasure, perhaps the fastest way to get them to role-play is to give XP and treasure for role-playing.

From then on, slowly increase the complexity and difficulty of the interactions. Frankly speaking, negotiating with a known enemy really is not the kind of role-playing encounter that players with a predominantly hack and slash mindset are normally inclined to engage in without extensive preparations on the part of the DM.

Good luck!

 

[Dausuul]

The group is a bunch of people that get together to have an excuse to get wasted with each other. They care about the game untill there 15th beer in (which only takes an hour) and I spend a week planning all these small details and bits of information that they don't even bother doing.

You need to do one of two things:

a) Get equally wasted and don't bother prepping more than a series of fights

or

b) Walk away and don't look back.

I don't really see much else you can do. Different groups vary in their tolerance for booze at the gaming table, but you're not going to get a serious game (which you apparently want) if all the players are trashed. The mismatch in expectations here is so great that I can't see it being bridged by any amount of negotiation.

 

[Badapple]

Next time put an npc designed to interact with the party and give them some information. When doofus kills the npc then great he just killed a level 1 minion and the group gets 25xp and 15 gold pieces to split among them. Shake your head and grin ruefully and continue on with the adventure while everyone drinks up. But they miss out on the information.

(The information was that the minion was sick of the dungeon boss he was working for and was hoping to warn the party about some traps and ambushes, in hopes that the party spares him and kills his boss)

So put a really nasty killer trap in the next room that does something humiliating, like I don't know, a 200' long pit trap that deposits him into a boiling distillery vat and he gets scalded alive and or drowns, and or various ingredients get poured on him and pistons and mixing blades and god knows what else grind him up. Yeah he drowns in a boozy bloody mary concoction from hell. When problem player doofus complains, tell him in the most sincerely apologetic voice you can muster that you're sorry you didn't even seriously think anyone would have fallen into this trap because the npc was going to warn the party about it or that someone that went carefully in the room would have never fallen in it.

Anyhow drown out the complaints with reminders of how his character got killed by drowning in a vat of booze, even mention that in his dying moments he heard voices on the other side of the steel vat but they ignored his pleas for help, or couldn't hear him because of all the grog filling up his lungs or whatever. Offer him a beer and a blank character sheet to make his new character. Drink a beer yourself and the other players will all no doubt find it all incredibly amusing and be on your side if you handle it right. Pander to the drunken masses my friend, be a showman.

So resume the game, put in some hack and slash encounters and eventually the party winds up in an underground tavern populated by dwarves and drow and gnomes and other underground creatures. Don't worry about why there is an underground tavern in the middle of your dungeon, every video game has one, and by then all the players will be blasted anyway. And one of two things will happen:

1.) The party kills everyone in the tavern, loots the bodies, then pours themselves drinks
2.) The party goes to the bar and orders drinks

Probably number 1, but the bottom line is they'll help themselves to the spigot behind the bar. Be sure to describe the polished bar and the huge metal vat with strange gears and steam coming out of various holes and a hose that leads to a spigot that the gnome bartender was using to pour drinks (before someone in the party kills him, eh whatever). When they pour themselves a drink be sure to describe how there's a finger inside someone's mug or a tooth or something. Or have the vat fall over in the middle of the ensuing bar fight and the mangled body of doofus's old character comes tumbling out. Should get a bunch more laugher from everyone.

Next game have some necromancer animated the mangled, bloody, boozy dofus and sick him after the party for even more cheap laughs and good spirited hacking and slashing.

I guess in short, play to the audience, but put a little stick about it so they don't completely run over you.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

To me it sounds like the entire group is not interested in playing a game that suits your own style.

If it were me in that situation, I would be walking away. I have no interest in gaming with people who use gaming as not much more than an excuse to get drunk. I can find plenty of better things to do than play in, or especially DM, a crappy game.

 

[amerigoV]

Hmmm, time to crack out the olde Tomb of Horrors. That way, at least you get to have some fun slaughtering them all whilst gleefully cackling "it's in the module!"

 

[Corinth]

They want a boardgame. Give it to them. Give it to them good, hard and frequently with no mercy for the stupid or the ill-fated. Crush them, see their egos driven before you and listen to the cries of their lost loot.