Help! I Have An Indecisive Player!

[Anthony Terry]

I'm glad Umbram seems to be the one you have listened to here, and I'm pretty disappointed to see peoples attitudes towards labelling people "problem gamers" its becoming all too common on EN World.

She is simply doing what comes natural to her, in one breath its claimed your issue is that shes indecisive but then your largest issue seems to be her attempts to do what my group refer to as "rules lawyer" and poorly from the sounds of it, which suggests to me her indecisiveness is driven from a need to be right aka win and wanting to do the best action out of everyone every round/encounter.

Perhaps the quite obvious reason for her indecision is simply she doesn't feel comfortable with the system and im not refering to the game system, more the system you use at the table or the dynamic? I think a very polite conversation explaining to her that she's not playing a game she has to win and that it does not matter if people get things wrong, including her would solve the issue?

I would also on a personal level suggest avoiding action cards, remember just because the character is in combat does not suddenly mean their actions are limited, at the end of the day she could decide to use a torch hanging from the tower to burn the wooden bridge behind them stopping the horde of goblins from advancing, something you would not find on a action card. Do not limit imagination, ENCOURAGE IT! I would 100% confirm this with your most recent post, your interrupting her need to be the best as her being stupid and or indecisive as you've politely put it (imo just making a judgement from your post, could be tottaly of the mark i hope none of this comes across offensive)

I would also say from the sounds of it shes just not intrested in her charecter full stop but perhaps really likes the group or the story as a whole? Is your game perhaps a bit fluff light in regards to character development? It sounds far from it with your example back grounds but just food for thought. I have found some people just really wont buy into this and just want to roll dice and enjoy the story and i think it comes down to how roleplay heavy your game is to as whether its an issue or not. Tbh i find it hard to give advice here as its the largest issue in my own group, 2-3 of us are huge roleplayers.

 

[Janx]

I'm glad Umbram seems to be the one you have listened to here, and I'm pretty disappointed to see peoples attitudes towards labelling people "problem gamers" its becoming all too common on EN World.

Umbran's always right on these things, because the best answer on what to do is almost always communication.

What I find helpful is realizing you have a problem (aka problem player), and what some possibilities of what the actual problem are. If a person can't describe or bound their problem, they aren't likely to fix it either.

I realize you're sensitive to labelling people or just ditching "problem players. That's OK. we all have varying thresholds on what we'll attempt to fix, put up with or throw out.

Personally, I wouldn't just dump a player at the first sign of a problem. But I do have 3 basic steps I go through to resolving any problem player/employee (because it's the same thing in the workplace):
Correct: talk about the problem, see what causes it, seek a correction from the person
Deflect : try to avoid putting them in situations that instigate the issue
Eject : get rid of them, they are beyond your ability to rehabilitate


From an employee standpoint, Deflecting might mean taking somebody off the front line of communicating with customers and putting them in the coding closet where it won't trigger their hostile customer handling skills. That's better than firing them, because presumably, they've learned the business and can be useful, versus training a new guy.

For a gaming group, it might be as Anthony says and trying to Correct her "need to win" and rules lawyering.

I would save Ejection for cases where other attempts failed and you can't live with the behavior, or the behavior is so extreme and offensive (a player who drops trow and pees on the table would be immediately ejected with a restraining order following suit).

 

[pukunui]

In the end, she decided to make a new PC. Our next session isn't till the end of January, so she's got heaps of time to figure it out. She wasn't able to come up with a new PC at the last minute for our last session, though, so she played the NPC ally who's been traveling with the group. That worked out pretty well.

 

[gamerprinter]

I have a player that has this similar problem with indecision, although I think her problem is primarily a lack of system mastery and trepidation on not knowing her best options to take in any given situation. While my player doesn't have a problem with picking a class, regarding your player, if you know the kind of classes and options she likes to play - offer a couple pre-generated completed versions, or have her roll her stats and HP to an almost complete pre-gen version of her normal character choice. I know most people want to make their own character, but since yours can't seem to create a complete character before the game begins - at least for the first few versions, do some of that prep-work yourself. I know when I run one-shot modules, I often have a stable of pregens that the players must use, and I don't get much complaints for that.

Since your player does seem to not have tactics that she regularly works with, I'd do a one-on-one session with her, a playtest if you will, of several specific encounter scenarios. Ask what she'd normally do, offer suggested tactics, and create a worksheet of half a dozen or so tactical situations that she can refer to as a cheat sheet to how she can apply her class skills to accomplish various tasks or combat situations. Some players need more hand-holding to move things along. If she is someone you are willing to work with, these might some options to try.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Make her play a fighter that just hits stuff.

 

[pukunui]

I'm not out to "make" her do anything. I'm not sure that I would accomplish anything worthwhile. Besides, she's more of a story-oriented roleplayer. I think she'd find that kind of character boring.

 

[gamerprinter]

I'm not suggesting you make her do anything, only give her some obvious options as a template to how to move forward when she gets indecisive.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Fascinating discussion. Glad to hear things are moving forward.

Someone else mentioned anxiety, and I agree: your player has anxiety issues. I think your instinct to avoid an overt timer is correct. It's humiliating to have someone loudly count down from 10 to 1, and only exacerbates the problem.

Spellcasters are hard. Casting a spell means you're not able to use that slot later. An anxiety-prone person could be overwhelmed by that decision. I'd encourage her to go with a rogue, fighter, or ranger (with Invocations instead of spells).

 

[pukunui]

I'm not suggesting you make her do anything, only give her some obvious options as a template to how to move forward when she gets indecisive.

I was responding to [MENTION=51168]MichaelSomething[/MENTION].

Fascinating discussion. Glad to hear things are moving forward.

Someone else mentioned anxiety, and I agree: your player has anxiety issues. I think your instinct to avoid an overt timer is correct. It's humiliating to have someone loudly count down from 10 to 1, and only exacerbates the problem.

Spellcasters are hard. Casting a spell means you're not able to use that slot later. An anxiety-prone person could be overwhelmed by that decision. I'd encourage her to go with a rogue, fighter, or ranger (with Invocations instead of spells).

She seems to like spellcasters, though. That being said, it looks like she's going to be making her new PC a rogue.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I'm not out to "make" her do anything. I'm not sure that I would accomplish anything worthwhile. Besides, she's more of a story-oriented roleplayer. I think she'd find that kind of character boring.

The thing about D&D is that different classes have different levels of mechanical difficulty. A spellcaster is suppose to have different options that require you to think about what to do. If a person can't handle that type of decision making, they should be playing a class that is easier to use. You don't have to make her, but you at least "strongly encourage" it. A Rouge should be easier to do, based on build.