Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
How would your group handle this somewhat delicate situation with a player?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 4598479" data-attributes="member: 22424"><p>If you provoke a confrontation of any sort, you will only lose a player.</p><p></p><p>I would take one of two approaches, depending on the rest of the group.</p><p></p><p>Approach one is to switch to a more flexible arrangement of game days. That is, you don't play every Saturday, but instead aim to play one evening every two weeks or so. The key to making this work is three things:</p><p></p><p>1) Everyone must come to the session with a reasonably accurate note of when they're free to play again. Before anyone leaves, you need to fix a date for the next game. (If a player can't make it to a session, they need to let the group know when they'll be available next, or else they'll almost certainly miss the next session... and very soon be an ex-player.)</p><p></p><p>(Also, people need to provide a diary that they can reasonably stick to. So, if your 'problem player' is having his schedule dictated by another, he needs to have the discussion with her <em>before coming to the session</em> so he can set up the next game with confidence. Otherwise, this just won't work.)</p><p></p><p>2) Everyone needs to be commited to actually gaming. When scheduling gatherings (of various people for various reasons), I've seen a lot of people answering the question, "when are you free?" with one or two 'ideal' dates. Obviously, if everyone does that, then you may well find there are <em>no</em> dates when everyone will play. Instead, the answer needs to include those dates that the player <em>could</em> be there, even if it's not quite ideal.</p><p></p><p>3) Once a date for the game is set, it needs to be treated with the same seriousness as any other commitment. If people merely 'pencil in' the date, but overwrite it as soon as anything else comes up, you'll get lots of cancellations, and your group will disband. (Obviously, this doesn't apply to the occasional emergency - sometimes things really do come up.)</p><p></p><p>If, for whatever reason, the group can't work like this (perhaps your player's wife can't fix her schedule in advance, which means he can't, either), I would instead propose that the group have a fixed game day that suits as many people as possible, but is very flexible about attendance. Basically, everyone should aim to "be there when you can", but not stress out about it.</p><p></p><p>For this to work, I recommend that the DM keep all the character sheets, and all the PCs gain XP and treasure at the same rate, whether the player is there or not (so that people don't fall behind, and find they can't contribute to the game when they are there).</p><p></p><p>Of the two, the first approach probably works best for a small group, where there are likely to be fewer scheduling conflicts but less resiliance to absenteeism, while the latter would work best for a large group (as getting people's schedules to mesh will be difficult, but the group can survive missing a few people). The latter approach also works best if people can't be sure when they're available, or if you find you're getting a lot of people calling off.</p><p></p><p>Whatever approach you go with, it's probably a good idea to monitor how it's working out fairly constantly. It may well need tweaking as things change. If it doesn't work, change the system - don't try to force people to change to work within the system you've agreed. If all else fails, consider moving to a virtual tabletop.</p><p></p><p>Good luck!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="delericho, post: 4598479, member: 22424"] If you provoke a confrontation of any sort, you will only lose a player. I would take one of two approaches, depending on the rest of the group. Approach one is to switch to a more flexible arrangement of game days. That is, you don't play every Saturday, but instead aim to play one evening every two weeks or so. The key to making this work is three things: 1) Everyone must come to the session with a reasonably accurate note of when they're free to play again. Before anyone leaves, you need to fix a date for the next game. (If a player can't make it to a session, they need to let the group know when they'll be available next, or else they'll almost certainly miss the next session... and very soon be an ex-player.) (Also, people need to provide a diary that they can reasonably stick to. So, if your 'problem player' is having his schedule dictated by another, he needs to have the discussion with her [i]before coming to the session[/i] so he can set up the next game with confidence. Otherwise, this just won't work.) 2) Everyone needs to be commited to actually gaming. When scheduling gatherings (of various people for various reasons), I've seen a lot of people answering the question, "when are you free?" with one or two 'ideal' dates. Obviously, if everyone does that, then you may well find there are [i]no[/i] dates when everyone will play. Instead, the answer needs to include those dates that the player [i]could[/i] be there, even if it's not quite ideal. 3) Once a date for the game is set, it needs to be treated with the same seriousness as any other commitment. If people merely 'pencil in' the date, but overwrite it as soon as anything else comes up, you'll get lots of cancellations, and your group will disband. (Obviously, this doesn't apply to the occasional emergency - sometimes things really do come up.) If, for whatever reason, the group can't work like this (perhaps your player's wife can't fix her schedule in advance, which means he can't, either), I would instead propose that the group have a fixed game day that suits as many people as possible, but is very flexible about attendance. Basically, everyone should aim to "be there when you can", but not stress out about it. For this to work, I recommend that the DM keep all the character sheets, and all the PCs gain XP and treasure at the same rate, whether the player is there or not (so that people don't fall behind, and find they can't contribute to the game when they are there). Of the two, the first approach probably works best for a small group, where there are likely to be fewer scheduling conflicts but less resiliance to absenteeism, while the latter would work best for a large group (as getting people's schedules to mesh will be difficult, but the group can survive missing a few people). The latter approach also works best if people can't be sure when they're available, or if you find you're getting a lot of people calling off. Whatever approach you go with, it's probably a good idea to monitor how it's working out fairly constantly. It may well need tweaking as things change. If it doesn't work, change the system - don't try to force people to change to work within the system you've agreed. If all else fails, consider moving to a virtual tabletop. Good luck! [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
How would your group handle this somewhat delicate situation with a player?
Top