D&D 5E Help With Disruptive Players(?)

[Satyrn]

Thanks. I've always enjoyed the idea of more creative combat such as choosing to use the environment to your advantage instead of always using skills. Just using skills is fine but sometimes it's fun to get creative.

Do you have any suggestions how I could start that conversation? I'm scared they'll think I'm just complaining about them being "too good" at what they do. Last time I tried to bring up, they told me there was nothing wrong with them being "good at what they're supposed to do" so I've been worried my concerns are baseless.

I think you need to focus the conversation on the inarguable fact that you are not having fun.

Tell them why in as nonjudgemental a way as you can manage, and ask them for ideas on what changes y'all can make to help you get the fun you're looking for, with the absolute declaration that something has to change.

And you might have to decide that you can't have fun DMing with them, and so the solution might have to be to let someone else take over and roll up a character of your own.


But if that does happen, you might be able to do your DMing online with a different group. [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] does a lot of DMing online, for example, and it works well for him.

 

[Ahriri]

It sucks playing with kindergartners sometimes. Tell them they can still get the graham crackers and milk but need to keep it down while you play dungeons and dragons with the grown ups. (sheesh).

You know what is radical? My friends and I have played for over 30 years and can read reddit and make a super powerful character too. But we agree the game is more fun if we play in a way that makes it fun for the DM as well as the players. What has happened is this: I have been DM for the last three sessions and pumped for number 4. I am buying and making terrain for our minis. I might even let the guys have some of my beer while we play.

OK. Lets not get carried away. But you get the idea.

Yea, I get it. I'm actually one of the players who enjoys having bad stats because it leads to fun stuff. I remember my first character was a dragonborn bard (I liked dragons and support characters) who was dumb as a brick and whose spells I picked based on name alone. That bard was beautiful. Had basically no sources of damage but the entire party loved them because they were too stupid to hate. I remember one session we were transporting fish between cities and I decided to disguise myself as a bag of fish so I could nap instead of guarding the fish. The bandits that attacked us were so confused when a bag of fish rolled off the cart and proceeded to grapple the bandit leader and occupy him the entire fight by stealing his hat instead of fighting him.

Sorry for the random story. The crackers and milk reminded of it. I really want to go back to enjoying the game like I did with that bard and like you do with your friends.

 

[JonnyP71]

Sometimes ex Dungeon Masters can make for great, helpful players, willing to lend a hand and offer advice. But sometimes they just.. don't.

However if they are Dungeon Masters then they should know the 2 main rules of RPGing.

1) The Dungeon Master is in charge. It may be a game of shared fiction, but a number of the rules are optional, and their application is up to the DM. The setting, the encounters, the NPCs etc are in the hands of the DM.

2) Refer to rule 1

No 'good' DM would ever make live difficult for a novice DM. They would also not push the boundaries. I would question just how they've got those amazing ACs at level 3 too.... (unless you've made a mistake and been overly generous with magic items too soon?)

 

[g4m3kn1ght]

For starters, Min-Maxers are not better at D&D, they are better at spread sheets. A lot of my players try to min-max, I usually just shrug it off and find unique ways to challenge there characters and/or accentuate their 'Mins'. It sounds like the cleric after 30s wants to break the fourth wall, that can be fun for some players and some of very fun campaigns can veer that way.

For the guy wanting the legendary item I would considered letting them perform some difficult feat or heist to get a hold of it, only to find out not only is the item powerful but it carries a powerful curse of some kind.

The creative combat idea was a good one, I would keep up with that. When my players stack AC or a particular save I like to throw attacks against the other saves at them (high AC and DEX, looks like it is time for some WIS and CON saves). I also will fudge my monsters stat blocks and give them extra attack and damage deal with high AC characters.

I will usually ignore people that complain about having to take damage. I have been DMing for the same group of people a long time, some of them used to act this way, the ones that did not shape up shipped out.

 

[Ahriri]

I think you need to focus the conversation on the inarguable fact that you are not having fun.

Tell them why in as nonjudgemental a way as you can manage, and ask them for ideas on what changes y'all can make to help you get the fun you're looking for, with the absolute declaration that something has to change.

And you might have to decide that you can't have fun DMing with them, and so the solution might have to be to let someone else take over and roll up a character of your own.


But if that does happen, you might be able to do your DMing online with a different group. [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] does a lot of DMing online, for example, and it works well for him.

Oh! I'm actually DMing online with this campaign. We used to share a dorm in college but everyone moved away after graduation so we decided to keep playing online. Another played used to DM but got tired of it (he was always the DM and wanted to be a pc for once) so I took it up.

I think I'll try and bring it up with them like that. I'm hoping we'll be able to work things out because they have been good friends to me outside of this. If not, this campaign is a story based homebrew so I can't exactly pass the mantle for this particular campaign onto someone else. Sorry for the dumb question, but this forum can be used to find games or players?

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Drop a pair of Ancient Red Dragons on them, with plenty of other minions, and end the campaign. They aren't respecting you, so give them a taste of that medicine. Then start fresh with new characters and a new ground rule: "No arguing with the DM over rulings during the game."

You can absolutely limit their gear from the get go by using the PHB character starting gear examples or starting gold. And you can limit their stats by using the PHB suggested array/point buy system. No one will have a 22 to 25 AC anytime soon if you follow those guides.

Perhaps that will earn their respect.

OR

Ask one of them to DM or suggest that you should all rotate who is the DM every 5 sessions or so. Tell them that, for now, you would enjoy it more being a player and learning a bit more from experiencing them DM a bit.

OR, if all else fails:

This could be just a case of bad gaming, which is worse than no gaming. Find a new group if these players won't respect you. It's not right that you are miserable doing something that is supposed to be fun.

 

[Ahriri]

I can't remember exactly how the amazing AC happened for both of them. One of them, during character creation one of the player's found a homebrew vampire that she wanted to run. It was my first campaign and I didn't want to ruin her fun by saying no. I made the mistake of not reading too into the homebrew she picked (I was so busy setting up everything else and didn't have the experience to realize my mistake). The homebrew had a built in feat that made the AC a combination of Charisma and Dexterity which she of course managed to start off with perfect scores in. She had a shield and mage armor and begged me to add in bracers of defense until I finally caved. I admit that part of it was me being overwhelmed in the beginning and, by the time I got the hang of things and realized my mistake, it felt like it was too late as she was saying how it would "ruin her character" if I took anything away.

 

[stoneagewar3]

Have the merchant hire mercenaries (I mean legions of mercenaries) to hunt them down. A wealthy and powerful merchant (I am assuming the merchant is wealthy and powerful since he is in possession of a legendary item) probably has connections or informers everywhere to know that the pcs are somewhat hostile towards him, and he probably wouldn’t like it at all, even if he doesn’t hire mercenaries to hunt the pcs, chances are he would no longer be willing to do business with them, and might offer incentives for other merchants to not trade with the pcs
Threatening to allow a city be destroyed might cause the cleric his spell list, depending on his domain, and when the monastery the monk player came from hears about it, they might send people out to cleanse the monk giving them a bad name. They are probably going to be denied entry to multiple cities, maybe even have bounty hunters go after them (they are not well liked)
If they complain about rules, just remember that you are the dm, you have the right to change the rules on a whim (well, this might be a bit of an exaggeration), and worst case scenario, rocks fall everyone dies, no game is better than a horrible game

 

[JonnyP71]

Ugh, untested homebrew... dndwiki by any chance?

Having read that I agree with DM Dave1 - start again. You are well within your rights to insist on PHB races/classes only - and it would be especially wise as you are a new DM. If they pull a face and argue, then I'm afraid they are simply the wrong type of players to DM a first campaign for.

 

[Ahriri]

Drop a pair of Ancient Red Dragons on them, with plenty of other minions, and end the campaign. They aren't respecting you, so give them a taste of that medicine. Then start fresh with new characters and a new ground rule: "No arguing with the DM over rulings during the game."

You can absolutely limit their gear from the get go by using the PHB character starting gear examples or starting gold. And you can limit their stats by using the PHB suggested array/point buy system. No one will have a 22 to 25 AC anytime soon if you follow those guides.

Perhaps that will earn their respect.

OR

Ask one of them to DM or suggest that you should all rotate who is the DM every 5 sessions or so. Tell them that, for now, you would enjoy it more being a player and learning a bit more from experiencing them DM a bit.

OR, if all else fails:

This could be just a case of bad gaming, which is worse than no gaming. Find a new group if these players won't respect you. It's not right that you are miserable doing something that is supposed to be fun.

Thank you for the advice. I think it might be a case of bad gaming because I've played a lot with these people and, now that I think about it, this isn't new. The cleric always bullies whoever is dming until she gets to play a homebrew race and she always ends up with a broken AC. I remember last campaign she was a whisp with an AC of 25 which she argued was "ok" because she had a strength stat of 1 (which couldn't even negatively affect her because she couldn't affect the material plane and no strength saving throw could touch her since... she was a whisp). She is also kind of obsessive with how she does things until she ends up building other player's characters for them so every character ends up broken in one way or another.