Not quite arguing, but not far off.

[soulcat]

I have a player in my current game, who is also one of my two best friends.

He is a rules junky which is fine, except he almost never accepts my interpretation of rules (even when the rest of the group do). This has always been fine, cos I just pick on a one by one basis whether to over rule him as DM (and accept the sulking) or back down. That doesn't cause too many problems.

The problem is. I am running a Forgotten Realms campaign, and I know FR VERY well. I have read a LARGE number of the novels and source books, and so has one of the other players. This one player has read a few, and we have lent him more, but his knowledge is not as great as ours.

He has now though begun to argue FR points with me. Such as:

But I'm an Elf, why don't I know where Evereska is.

His implication being that all elves know exactly where evereska is. Granted he was born in Silverymoon (not a million miles away) and is now on the southern tip of The Anauroch desert, having been in Cormyr for 2 years. But I don't think he knows where it is, in the same way as without a map or road signs I wouldn't be able to find Paris on horse back.

When I explained this he went off on one, about "so what about Evermeet then, do I know where that is?" I was tempted to tell him he had just discovered the way to Arvandor, but I'm nicer than that. Luckily the other player helped me distract him away onto another subject, but I can see this being a problem the more books we lend him (he's just finished the return of the Archwizards which centres on Evereska).

He's now reading Elminster in Hell and my next campaign is going to be an evil campaign. I see bad things on the horizon.


Does anyone know of tactful ways to tell my one of my best friends that he is a jumped up, up tight rules junky with an inflated opinion of his own knowledge of the campaign world, without sounding like I'm an ignorant opinionated control freak with no interest in Player enjoyment?

 

[GlassJaw]

There is no perfect way other than just talking to him. If he is your friend, he'll chill out. Talk to him away from the game. Just tell him that during the game, keep the arguments to a minimum. If he has a serious problem with something, talk to you out of game. I mean it isn't anymore complicated than that. Be firm but you don't have to be a jerk about it either.

 

[soulcat]

God I wish that lot would work, but he can be very sensitive when he thinks he is being criticised, and I have a history of being a bit of an arrogant sod who criticises without thinking about it, so if I get anyway near a critical remark it takes 2-3 other people to talk him round to the idea that what I'm saying makes sense, and even then he's sulky for the rest of the evening.

Ah well. Maybe I'll go for bribery:

"here's a new £100 watch to prove that I love ya dude, now about your roleplaying, your a bit off...."

Maybe that'd work.

 

[UniversalMonster]

I've been in similar situations as a long time "nice-guy" DM. Eventually you do have to just go for DM face #22. The "Sorry but no." face and move on.

Some players are just problem players. It's like if you were playing basketball with your friend and he punched you in the stomach and stole the ball, would you still keep playing?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Well, part of what you're describing isn't rule lawyering, it's character knowledge. If he wants to know where that location is, tell him you need a ten page minimum history. If he does it, heck, knowing where it is shouldn't be a problem.

Hit him on the head with a styrafoam bat and be done with it.

 

[soulcat]

There we hir another problem, that I'm trying to do away with. My players don't write character histories,. It started off as laziness on their part, then I started writing them for them (they get input, but only if they put it in before the final, 6-10 page draft).

This was especially important when we started an FR campaign, cos when we started only two of us where FR savie. So I wrote the histories, and I relate back to them during game play fairly frequently.

I don't want to do this again, because the players are relating back to them less than I am, they appreciated the work I put in, but 17 levels later they are living in the now, with no real rememberance of their past and no thoughts about the future.

That said, without the histories I don't think this campaign would have been the long runner that it has been. It's been going for a year and a half, every week, and I've just hit my first burn out. So we've rotated to Paranoia for a while so I can play a fun character.

Like I said he is one of my two best friends and I have played with him for about 8 years now. We're both 30ish and quite mature. Just I can be insensitive, and he can be over sensitive. It's not a good mix at the best of times, but when we disagree, in my game, when I'm DMing, it can lead to problems.

 

[BlackMoria]

How about stop lending him books?

Really....your problems started when he read the books you lent him. He reads about interesting or exciting places or people and he wants to be a part of that. If he read any of the Drizzt books, you would be sure that he would want to go to Mithral Hall or someplace related to the books....

Remind him that as a elf, he know only that which he has learned or read about and nothing more. Using a real life example, being born in the USA of asian ancestry doesn't mean that you have an intutive sense of where China is and what is there. You learn of your ancestoral homeland by being taught it by your parents or school or reading about it from a book.

So, unless his parents were from Evereska or he spent time researching it from knowledgable sources, he isn't likely to know about it.

Before cars, trains, and planes and mass media and the internet, the average rural person knew his village and the next village over and nothing more of anything beyond 50 miles of their place of birth - except as stories or rumors.

Put in FR, that means the average citizen of the Silverymoon may have heard of Waterdeep and out of those of have heard of Waterdeep, maybe 1 out of 10 could point in out on a map or know something more than it a distant city.

The elves are generally secretive of Evereska, so it location is not going to be even uncommon knowledge (like Waterdeep), even to those native to the region. And to those not native to the region, information or the location of Evereska may border on on myth and rumor without any underlying truth, assuming they even heard of it at all.

So, explain to the player that the medieval knowledge base for an averge person in the FR means that the average person from Silverymoon may never have heard of Cormyr or the Dalelands....much less Evereska from tight lipped elves.

If he fails to see the logic of this, ask him what part of 'NO' doesn't he understand.

 

[Mercule]

I've got some history maybe being on the other side of the equation. I've got a very good head for rules -- it wouldn't be outrageous to say that I could probably do better at some sort of rules-citing competition than the rest of my group combined.

I have found myself giving my best friend "a hard time" when he DMs. It really happens when I'm trying to set up for some combo or cool use of a special ability. I don't think I'm using "exploits" of any sort, because I'm using rules that are just floating through my head. I didn't look them up to do the maneuver, and I didn't go through the books looking for oddball rules to use (I actually usually read rules from a GM point of view). Still, I found myself often surprising him with a rule or option he had no clue existed. The result was me instructing the DM on the rules and/or feeling like I couldn't plan ahead or act intelligently because my set-up was often invalidated.

It's the last thing that frustrated me and got me defensive (offensive?) about the rules. I was controlling my character based on one set of assumptions while the DM was running with another. It was like the "laws of physics" sometimes suddenly changed when I went to move. Very much a "pulling the rug out" experience.

I should note, that I've got no problem with house rules -- I've got plenty in my game. I've got a problem with making them up on the spot, doing so in such a way as to void assumptions players have been building from, and with not being consistant with those house rules.

Unfortunately, there were a few other issues at work in this game that resulted in, basically, a player coup. A lot of it can be broken down to some house-rules that made an already dangerous module (RtToEE) more difficult. I did learn a bit, though.

Now, I'm going to assume your player isn't just a power hound or anything of the sort. When you talk to your player, remember to go at it with an attitude of looking for a solution together -- and that the player isn't the problem, the communication is. Acknowledge the player's strengths. He sounds like a wiz at the rules. Lead in with that. Ask him what the issue is from his point of view. If he's like me, he'll be willing to conform to your ideas -- but he has to know about those ideas, first.

Regardless of what the issue is, though, unless it is a purely informational thing, there should be a bit of compromise. And a compromise means that he should be giving, as should you. If he's completely unwilling to budge, it obviously shows some issues. But, if you find yourself unwilling to even consider adjusting your position, it'd be a warning sign that you need to get your attitude in check.

Oh, and all that advice is much easier said than done.

 

[Mercule]

Oh, a note on character knowledge. When I started my most recent campaign, I decided to be a hard-nose about character knowledge. Part of that was to put the players with over a decade of gaming experience on the same plane as the couple with less than a year.

There is pretty much no assumptions about character knowledge. If you want to know something, you need to have the appropriate Knowledge skill. Period. We don't always roll, but the ranks are always kept in mind.

To offset the greater reliance on these skills, all characters classes have their skill points per level upped by two (so a fighter gets 4, a druid gets 6, a ranger gets 8, and a rogue gets 10). The players aren't usually required to spend those points on Knowledges, although I do reserve the right, as DM, to tell someone they need to boost a specific Knowledge based on campaign events. The caveat to that freedom, though, is that if they don't, they will come off as rather ignorant and not be as capable in many ways.

 

[GlassJaw]

all that advice is much easier said than done

Well no one said it would be easy. The solution is a simple one: you have to talk to the player. Now whether or not some kind of compromise will be reached is another story.

However, what are the alternatives? If someone is posting in here about a player, then it's obvious that it's gotten to the point where it's a problem, otherwise they wouldn't have posted and asked for help.

So you have two choices: 1. Do nothing. Live with the player and game as-is. 2. Talk to him. Deal with the consequences. Again, if he is your friend, then it shouldn't be an issue. If it does become a huge issue, remind him it's just a game and when he wants to devote his time to being DM, then he make decision on how the game is run.