OMG Nightmare player Help advice pls

[Dausuul]

All right, before I step in on Beginning of the End's side: I'm not out to accuse anybody of misogyny, just explaining why certain statements are sexist. I've said sexist stuff myself on occasion--not by intent, just not thinking about it--and didn't realize it until it was pointed out to me by others. Pretty much everybody does; we all pick up the attitudes of the society we live in. It's not a personal attack unless you choose to make it one.

Since this treads very close to real-world politics, and in the interest of not starting a flame war, I'm not going to argue any of the below points. This will be the end of my commentary in this thread. If you find this helpful, great. If not, just ignore it. If you want to discuss it further, send me a PM, but I probably won't reply if all you have to say is "You're being oversensitive."

"There is NO worse player than the DM's girlfriend or wife." - because they are in relationship, which causes the DM to be overly protective of her, and ignore some of mishavs. Nobody wants to screw up a relationship over a game.

So, why did the poster not say, "There is NO worse player than the DM's significant other?" By this logic, a boyfriend or husband should be just as bad.

That's the casual sexism in this statement. Either you're assuming that a DM's significant other is always female, or you're assuming that female significant others are worse than males.

"heh. Never works. I gamed with a couple where the wife deliberately sabotaged everything we did, then would giggle and smile at us about it."

This is mostly okay. The poster is describing specific events here; if giggling and smiling is what the wife did, then it's what she did. The choice of words is a bit unfortunate, but I wouldn't really characterize this one as sexist.

"You see, too many women are not satisfied with anything other than she must be her man's only world, and will do whatever she can to disrupt anything else the man does."

This is the worst of the lot by a fair margin. Massive generalization about how women behave in relationships, fueling some nasty stereotypes.

"I always got the impression that most women hate other women guts, and their cheerfulness to each-other rises exponentially with amount of ill will."

Again, massive generalization and playing to stereotype.

 

[Beginning of the End]

"heh. Never works. I gamed with a couple where the wife deliberately sabotaged everything we did, then would giggle and smile at us about it."

This is mostly okay. The poster is describing specific events here; if giggling and smiling is what the wife did, then it's what she did. The choice of words is a bit unfortunate, but I wouldn't really characterize this one as sexist.

It's the "never works" that pushes it over the edge.

If somebody said, "Being friends with black guys never works. I knew a black guy once and he was a jerk." I don't think we'd have any problem spotting the racism.

With that being said, my comment was meant to raise awareness of what I felt was unconscious sexism being propagated. I'm not really interested in pointing fingers and crying "heretic!". But hopefully we can eliminate that aspect of the thread not that attention has been called to it, while still continuing to have an interesting discussion about significant others and gaming.

Regarding significant others at the gaming table: I've never had a problem with it. But I've generally only played with mature people in healthy relationships. My groups also tend to look at the GM as just being a member of the group, rather than an authority figure or an antagonist.

Change any one of these things I can see how you'd immediately run into problems: If you're in one of those groups where the dynamic is "players vs. GM", for example, and you suddenly introduce a player who the GM has a strong motivation not to antagonize... Well, you've suddenly unbalanced the play dynamic.

On the other hand, even that isn't necessarily problematic. I've played Descent (a dungeoncrawl boardgame with an explicitly antagonistic relationship between GM and players) with married couples on either side of the "screen" and not run into any problems because the couple didn't have any problem being in competition with each other.

 

[wolff96]

So, why did the poster not say, "There is NO worse player than the DM's significant other?" By this logic, a boyfriend or husband should be just as bad.

That's the casual sexism in this statement. Either you're assuming that a DM's significant other is always female, or you're assuming that female significant others are worse than males.

I think males are worse, personally... And I am one, in case you wondered.

There's a certain mentality amongst some male gamers that makes them jealously possessive of their SO's. I ran headlong into this one once in a game when I (innocently) struck up an in-character-only romance with another player's character.

Turned out that I was romancing the DM's girlfriend and the DM apparently couldn't seperate player and character motivation. It got very awkward and he worked to drive me out of the game even after I backed off when it obviously bothered him. Needless to say, I don't game with them anymore.

 

[Barastrondo]

I think males are worse, personally... And I am one, in case you wondered.

I gotta admit my wife is not the worst gamer I've ever played with.

 

[jackskellington]

I am player in this game, and another player recently say about 2 months ago started pretty much complaining they didn’t want to play the game and would go to bed or even fall asleep during the game on couch [dm wife]

So I have good news & bad news. Like many in this thread, I think the situation is pretty much hopeless. I'd bail. But unlike many in this thread, I appear to be the only gamer who has ever been through this and had the DM pick us over his wife.

Here's the story. It was a guys-only game for a long time. We treated it like a poker night or something -- we'd have beers, we'd do guy talk (including gripes about our home lives), and play the game like a hardcore tactical miniatures game. Heavy on mechanics, light on roleplay.

But having the game at their house over & over again, she got curious, and eventually joined. It was at this point that trouble started. I think she was offended by some of the guy talk (which we toned waaaayy down, but not entirely). And then she started getting needy & clingy.

Over a couple of years, she had him stop outside activities. He likes go-karts, she put the kibosh on that. He likes over-planning for D&D sessions, but she likes loooong family dinners where they spend at least a couple hours slowly eating, telling stories, and talking & talking & talking. Eventually it became a "you must spend your evenings in 3 hour dinners with me or you do not love me" kind of thing. So he ran out of hours in the day to prepare, and started coming to games with only maybe a couple hours of prep done for the whole session.

At that point, even though it was her doing, she became dissatisfied with the quality of the game. She began sleeping through it, or leaving halfway, or even just stepping aside for a combat. She'd wander into the kitchen and it'd be her turn and she'd say, "Pass." And we'd be getting our butts kicked and she'd "pass" every turn in a battle. We ended up burning through far more scrolls & wands & healing spells because our blasty mage wasn't blasting.

I started to realize that she viewed what she was doing as a favor to us. She felt she was being supportive of her husband to show an interest and attend. However, she never got into the game, so she left us utterly hanging, over and over again. Finally it was clear to me that she was not doing us any favors. Without her, we could have found another player who would have actually contributed. With her there, we just had this hole in the party, and kept dying or failing or fleeing.

The last straw was when she was having a bad night and asked her husband to cancel the game (we were already sitting at the table, about to play). When he expressed that he felt awkward about canceling after everyone had already driven to the house, she got mad and told him it was us or her. We pre-empted that -- felt terrible to think we were in some dispute, so before he could decide we decided for him and left.

The next week, it was hosted at another player's house. The DM showed up without his wife. At first, I think she was just too embarrassed about the last game to show her face. But after a session or two went wonderfully, we grew to have an unspoken understanding that she just wasn't invited anymore. When she started to gripe that she wasn't in the game anymore, nobody, not even the DM, coddled her. We all just sorta said, "Yeah, too bad it didn't work out for you."

So it can work out. Having said that, the only reason it worked out is because the DM had given up every other hobby that he had, at her demand. And he had stopped hanging out with friends and started spending all his time with her, at her demand. So it only ended the way it did because she had pushed him to a breaking point and he was like, "This is my last connection to friends. It's not negotiable." If it hadn't been his last tie to a healthy social life, he would have caved.

So all that is to say, uh, good luck?

 

[TarionzCousin]

I don't know if the OP has returned, but he might have been scared away by all of the misogyny, misandry, misanthropy, miss-ingenue*, etc. accusations.

He certainly hasn't posted again.

 

[Odhanan]

Kill her character and take her stuff.

 

[Terry DM]

I don't know if the OP has returned, but he might have been scared away by all of the misogyny, misandry, misanthropy, miss-ingenue*, etc. accusations.

He certainly hasn't posted again.

Maybe "she" got wind of this thread and took him "out of the game", so-to-speak ...

 

[Jhaelen]

Today I read something in a novel that reminded me of this thread:

How men feared women! [...]
Not as individuals, but women when they talked together, spoke up for one another - then men saw plots, cabals, constraints, traps being laid.
Of course they were right.

Cheers!

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

The casual sexism and outright misogyny in this thread is kinda disturbing, guys.

Shocking in a game dominated by adolescent males.