Kicking out a player: share your stories/advice

[Tewligan]

The restarting in secret method can be tricky, especially if other players in the campaign talk to the guy you're avoiding. If he finds out you've come up with a scheme to run things behind his back, he'll probably be more angry than if you just kicked him out.

One part of me says "Yeah, you should be up front and tell him the truth that he's not working out." However, the other part of me (the part that likes the frosted side) says "Hell, who cares if he finds out and gets angry? He's outta my group and not my problem!"

 

[Chimera]

Another vote for Honesty. Tell the player up front that they're no longer invited to the game.

Honesty doesn't mean, however, that you need to spell out every detail of a long list of faults or problems and allow the other person to respond to demand another chance. You simply tell them that there are "a number of issues", maybe give the top two, and leave it at that.

"Sorry, but if I've reached the point of having to disinvite you, which I don't do lightly, then we're past the point of discussing problems and solutions. Best of luck with your next gaming group."


Years ago I had to disinvite an "old friend" because of his rampant cheating, along with other problems. But by that time, I had begun to wake up to how much this person was very much NOT my friend and how much crap I'd been putting up with him for too many years in too many ways. I told him honestly that I was no longer inviting him because of the cheating. He denied it strenuously (even though everyone saw it and he'd been busted on it repeatedly) and then went around badmouthing me to the rest of the social circle. But by that point, I didn't care, because I'd already resolved to leave the entire circle behind.

If I had it to do all over again, I would have done it years earlier. Good riddance.

 

[Teflon Billy]

One part of me says "Yeah, you should be up front and tell him the truth that he's not working out." However, the other part of me (the part that likes the frosted side) says "Hell, who cares if he finds out and gets angry? He's outta my group and not my problem!"

I've used both methods in the past.

If I give a damn about the player being kicked, I usually have "The Talk " with them (not working out, different play styles etc.). Usually we part amicably.

If I literally don't ever want to see the person again, I usually just stop inviting them.

Honestly, I don't care if they find out and I'd rather have the half-hour I'd spend on "the talk" to spend with my wife, catch up on emails or dozens of other things besides letting some jerk down easy.

 

[RodneyThompson]

I really hate passive aggressive methods that "avoid" confrontation. I think that if you have to boot someone, have the cojones to do it privately, be honest with him and tell him exactly why. He doesn't have to like it, but he's going to have to accept it.

The idea of lying leaves a bad taste in my mouth. When they find out you lied to ditch them, it's even worse -- and if you don't tell them what they're doing wrong, they can't help improve it.

I completely agree. Then again, that's my solution to dealing with most of my problems. I don't want someone to BS me or go behind my back, so I'm going to show anyone else the same respect I would demand. Even if the guy is a world class ass, I'd rather confront him and have him explode or act like a jerk than try to sneak around and get away with it. He might never know what happened, but I would, and I don't like having guilt following me around, especially at the gaming table.

 

[Bishop Odo]

Well, I had this player, in my game, that was just, hyper, stupid, and talked so much that no else could get in a word in during the game, so Everyone was getting annoyed, so I just said ”you have triggered the “Idiot Transporter” and good bye.” I'm as blunt as a mace when i need to be, that was it; As a general rule, I go with honesty, after all I’m an ass, but at least I’m an honest one. I have very little tolerance for fools after all, I’m giving up my time to have fun, and teaching social skills doesn’t interest me.

Don’t even get me started on the guys that have know each other since High School, some 15 years ago, and reminisce over past games every 15 minutes during a game, and it’s a DIFFERENT Story or Game everytime. Or the DM that keeps asking what sex is your Paladin, because he keeps changing your characters sex, because "the Gods want you to know what it’s like to be a woman", that DM has some real issues. I think he’s a she now. I left those games behind; sometimes you just have to realize when to jump ship. Funny thing was they always asked me back.

 

[Wik]

Yeah, well. The "lie" method can really backfire on you. I don't like it.

The guy we got rid of is a friend of ours. The problem was, he wasn't a reliable player. He'd not show up for games. This wasn't too big of a problem, except for the fact that the guy whose place we were playing at was way off the bus route - and we were all bussers.

So, we'd all be waiting for this player to show up, wondering whether or not he was gonna show. Sometimes, this would cut an extra fifteen to twenty minutes from our game time (which is a lot, when games are less than three hours!). We did say to him "Hey, we're not waiting for you anymore."

Then, there was the problem that it was hard NPCing his character when he didn't show (he had two different characters die in the game, because he wasn't there). Also, there was the fact that this PC who was more an NPC than a PC (he missed that many games) was still taking a nice share of the XP and loot, really upping the combat difficutly (I'm running STAP).

Eventually, our game moved to my place (it's closer), and someone messaged him online (it's how he communicates): "don't bother showing up. You can join after this campaign ends, but we're finding it hard to deal with your absences".

Sadly, we haven't heard from him since.

 

[Raptor]

Don't lie, be honest with the problem player. In fact sit him down and talk about the issues and why they are not being invited back. it may be too late to save them for your game but if the problem player has any sort of common sense he/she will take the lessons learned and hopefully they will not follow them into the new group.

 

[phindar]

I agree with the Honesty approach, but on the other hand, its not like you were dating the guy. I would think an email or a phone call would be more than sufficient.

This assumes your relationship is primarily game-related. If the guy is a friend of yours who you plan to continue to see socially, then you might want to let him down in a more considerate manner.

Be considerate, be brief. Yeessh, it is a little like breaking up with someone, isn't it?

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

Here's another vote for honesty.

If the player in question is being a complete and total asshat, it's rather theraputic to tell them point-blank that they're no longer welcome at your table. And even more fun to think of a wild and inventive demise for their character. Thermonuclear suppository anyone? *laughs maliciously*

If they just aren't clicking with the rest of the group for various reasons, they should at least be able to appreciate you're being honest with them.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I had to kick one single player from our group.

One problem was that at the time, it was getting really crowded at the table, and a couple of players were telling me that they thought the table was too small for so many people. I probably wouldn't have kicked him just because of that, but there was more:

His characters didn't fit in. I was running two games at the time - a short Vampire game, and my D&D FR campaign. The Vampire campaign (which was Requiem, not the old Masquerade) was supposed to run like it says in the books: the kindred running a low profile, crimes potentially resulting in loss of humanity (and ultimately turning the character's control over to the ST. The other players had no problem with this, and their characters fit in. Not so his character. He was some criminal kingpin type or something, and he got upset (more about his brand of upset below) when he couldn't run through the streets laying low people with machine guns and awesome vampire powers.

The FR campaign had its focus on good characters. Didn't have to be stereotypical, but they did all have an advanced version of the aasimar template (basically the Selûne-worshipping light counterpart to the shades, though not as strong as those. They were affiliated with the Conclave of Opus and at war with the shades). His character was a half-orc who apparently didn't bother too much with moral issues.
The "fun" part was that he complained (before he even started in the game - another player introduced him and spoke highly of him) that the game was so combat focussed, and then he proceeded to build a fighter/barbarian that was well within the realm of powergaming.


About his brand of upset: When he didn't like something, he demanded to know why it was so. No, he didn't ask. He demanded. In a tone you would expect from someone demanding what you are doing with his wife, naked, in the bedroom.

This was made worse by his... "lack of knowledge" about the rules, or certain parts of the rules. It usually went like this: He'd find some nice loophole, put it into his character, I found out and told him that that wouldn't work, and he'd shout "WHY NOT?". Sometimes, it was stuff that was weakened in 3.5e and he still used the 3e incarnation (often stuff that was weakened for good reason), or he "missed" parts of the rules that made his little tricks impossible.

Two examples were using two gloves of storing (because they were way better than quick draw), for 2000 gil each, and when I told him that they cost 10.000 each (changed in 3.5), he started to argue that he's absolutely sure about it (showing him the passage in the DMG shut him up of course); and trying to use rune magic to ensprell arrow heads with explosive magic to shoot half a dozen fireballs per round (the rune magic rules explicitly disallow that, as it would be way too powerful).


He managed to wear down my patience in two game sessions, and while I was thinking about disinviting him, the others were commenting about the space problem, we got to talk about the guy, and spontaneously decided that he'd not be welcome any more.

Shortly after that, his friend left the group, too, but that wasn't too much of a loss, either. Though this was his first D&D game, he'd often come up with ideas like permanent true strike on a weapon for a pittance, and tried to argue about it when I forbade it. In retrospect, I guess I know where he got his ideas from.



About how I kicked him out: I didn't have his number, so I called his buddy, and asked him to tell his friend that we couldn't invite him into the game again.