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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Haltherrion" data-source="post: 5241323" data-attributes="member: 18253">It is tempting to kick a player like that. You need to evaluate your external friendship with him and his impact to your own game enjoyment as well as the other players to make a decision. As much as it annoys you, it is tolerable if it is not overly impacting the other players. But if it is annoying them, you will almost certainly in time find them being "less available" for game sessions and ultimately quitting which makes the decision easy and clear cut: he goes.    However, if it looks retrievable and you have already tried the "talk to him about it" approach, as a ref, I'd do these things:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Go to an XP system where XP is granted by session or adventure arc and characters are rated at the end of the arc for "contribution" meaning did they play their character effectively. Not necessarily expecting a healer to do the most damage but did they use their character well. You could have 3 or 4 buckets:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Exceptional play, receive 120% XP</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Well-played, receive 100% XP</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Played below expectations, receive 50% XP</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Made no real contributions, 0% XP</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Optionally allow a roleplaying bonus to this. Maybe he made no real contribution (0% XP) but did it in a very in-character way that everyone liked so he gets 0 + 20% RP bonus.</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Give each player a fixed time for their turn. It's not like people don't have lots of time to think about what to do while the ref and everyone else is doing their thing. Time runs out and the character does nothing which is perfectly reasonable for a short round (often these rounds are 6 seconds or such).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Talk to John about these changes and why they exist with respect to his specific behavior. No sense pretending he didn't create the situation. He might, of course, quit at that point, but so be it.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Talk to the group as a whole and explain the changes and reason for it. Optionally, you could involve the group in the proposed changes and instead highlight the problem as you see it, let them comment on their perceptions and have the group come up with methods as a whole to control it. That would likely consume an entire game session and depending on your group you might not get a good solution out of them but it is a possibility.</li> </ul>Regarding tiered XP awards, it is a big, heavy club that ought to do the trick. Determining the tier for a character could be done by the group, although that has its downside. One thing that works well is for the ref to rate the characters with player input. I.e., solicit advice from the players but ref makes the final decision. I have occasionally done a 2 tier XP system (100 and 120%) but don't tend to do that any more. This 4 tier system will quickly turn John's character into the lackey he acts like if he doesn't start participating at a higher level so it does have some virtue and does leave it in his hands. He wants to play a lackey, he gets to play a lackey. Oddly enough, he might end up earning XP at the old AD&D minion rate of 50% (IIRC). It is kind of messy to enforce extra rules like the ones I suggest just for one player but I understand where you are coming from. If he wasn't a friend, easy to kick him. As a friend who isn't getting the message from being talked to and from other player's reactions, change the game model to better reflect individual contributions and the time available to make the decision.</blockquote>

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