Hi there all. I'm hoping to get some advise from some of you about problem players that we have in our group and ways to solve these issues.
The DnD group that I have been playing with have been friends for around 5 years now. Some of us go back further than that (one of the guys is who introduced me to DnD around 20 years ago). Though the group of people is a great group of friends and we have a lot of fun together my fiancee and I are having a lot of problems with the group at the current time.
We have six members total at the moment (though some other friends of ours occasionally come and go). I figure it would be good to run over the members that we have, and the problems that we have with some of them.
I am generally the guy in charge of what the group is doing, and am one of the 2 DMs in general. I organize our game days and am generally one of the two people in the DM seat. Most everything is run through me on our game days. Part of this comes from the fact that my fiancee has a lot of health problems that we have to be wary of, and so I am the guy that knows how to deal with them. The rest of that comes from the fact that I am the person who is willing to spend the extra energy to get the planning done. I have characters that jump from almost every race and class and am willing to play good, neutral, or if it comes to it evil characters.
My fiancee was introduced to the hobby 6 years ago and has been an avid player since then. She is the other DM for the group. While I am a mix between the old school war gamers and the newer heavy roleplayers she is firmly from the role playing camp. She plays most things from a stupid half orc that has an elven bard's soul trapped inside of him giving him advise, a well disciplined monk out seeking justice for the little man, a bloodthirsty dwarven priest, to mild mannered sages. The one defining characteristic about her characters is that they are almost always good. It is very hard for her to get out of that mindset (not a complaint, but a statement).
My friend of 20 years stopped playing DnD for many of the years that I have known him and I got him back into it about 5 years ago. Most of his experience up until that time was us playing in the schoolyard, and so in the past 5 years he has been trying harder and harder to get into more and more roleplaying rather than hack n' slash in his attitude. He plays a number of characters but his true loves seem to be wizards and people who can power attack. Though he isn't the best role player (and would tell you that himself) he tries to be good at it (all that we can ask really) and ensures that everyone is having a good time. He generally plays from a neutral position with some selfish tendencies.
The fourth member that we have is a Dave from KoDT. Though he gets into a lot more roleplaying his characters are almost always the highest strength ones. Certainly, I have a fair amount to do with this. When he was making one of his characters to be a cleric of healing I mentioned how awesome it would be to have a cleric truly designed to be a fighter. Go all out with the 20 Strength...K, I'm a little evil...I knew this would be like dangling a carrot in front of his nose. He jumped at the chance for it. But I have to say that the character that he made with it is a truly memorable one and we have a great time playing with him (though almost no other characters like his obnoxious personality, but all the players do). His general characters are ones that are extremely focused on one stat to make them really good at it. He has a halfing rogue that started with the 20 Dex and dual wields daggers, he has the Cleric of Kelanen with the 20 Str, he has a Dwarven Barbarian with a 20 Con, and a Mage with a 20 Intellect. Though he has more characters, these are the ones that stand out in my mind about him, and I'm certain he would agree with it.
Now, I come to the two players that we are having problems with. Both of these players are the oldest members of our group, outdistancing the rest of us by at least 10 years. The first guy is here for the fun of it. I have no problem with that. However, he makes characters that amuse him with no regards to campaign integrity. I know in his head he works on a lot of things and roleplays things in his mind, but sadly they do not come out at the game table. Between game sessions he is one of the two people who writes things for the game (character journals and such) and he is able to talk about the fact that his character has strong feelings towards another character when not at the table. When at the table though he is VERY hard to roleplay off of, generally having no opinion about the current topic or continually changing his mind (the latter being much more rare). His characters are generally built as the game goes on (something that I kind of miss from the old 2nd Ed days out of most players) and never put together with any power gaming in mind, in fact sometimes things don't make much sense at all.
Our last player is an awesome roleplayer, and he is convinced of that. Though his talent at offering differing opinions in the same scene (when dealing with 2 characters) and to keep them in his mind well is a testament to his abilities, sadly when he plays he generally has 2 archetypes that he plays with. He generally goes with being an invulnerable hero that gets the party and himself into a huge amount of trouble or he plays a spellcaster that disdains combat and looks down on most other individuals. In one long running game his character was told to not leave the house that the PCs were being sheltered in. He explored the entire house, and found a set of stairs leading down. As he climbed down this massive set of stairs he began to hear growling. He came to the bottom of the carved stairs and saw that beyond him was a natural cavern and the growling was growing louder. The one other PC that came with him told him that they were warned to not leave the house, and stepping off of the carved stairs into the natural cavern where there was growling coming from seemed like it would be stepping out of the house. The problem player didn't agree and so tried it. The creatures that had been growling jumped him and were far too powerful for these two to fight (the one who wanted to stay on the stairs was unwilling to just wait and watch his companion be torn apart by bears). The next week, his new character lead the party into a death trap that they had just escaped from (I have no idea why they followed him back into it, but they did). He blamed (at the time) both decisions on the fact that he hadn't gotten sleep the night before. Later, he said that part of his decision the second time was just that he was angry that his character had died the week before.
So this is what I am coming to the boards with. I'm hoping that some people might have some advise on ways that we can help out our group as my fiancee and I are having problems with them at this time. We don't want to stop playing with them because they are our friends (and the only real way we get to spend time with them a lot of the time) but we definately do not want to suffer burn out because of a game that we are less than happy with. Thanks for all the input.
Bansidhe
The DnD group that I have been playing with have been friends for around 5 years now. Some of us go back further than that (one of the guys is who introduced me to DnD around 20 years ago). Though the group of people is a great group of friends and we have a lot of fun together my fiancee and I are having a lot of problems with the group at the current time.
We have six members total at the moment (though some other friends of ours occasionally come and go). I figure it would be good to run over the members that we have, and the problems that we have with some of them.
I am generally the guy in charge of what the group is doing, and am one of the 2 DMs in general. I organize our game days and am generally one of the two people in the DM seat. Most everything is run through me on our game days. Part of this comes from the fact that my fiancee has a lot of health problems that we have to be wary of, and so I am the guy that knows how to deal with them. The rest of that comes from the fact that I am the person who is willing to spend the extra energy to get the planning done. I have characters that jump from almost every race and class and am willing to play good, neutral, or if it comes to it evil characters.
My fiancee was introduced to the hobby 6 years ago and has been an avid player since then. She is the other DM for the group. While I am a mix between the old school war gamers and the newer heavy roleplayers she is firmly from the role playing camp. She plays most things from a stupid half orc that has an elven bard's soul trapped inside of him giving him advise, a well disciplined monk out seeking justice for the little man, a bloodthirsty dwarven priest, to mild mannered sages. The one defining characteristic about her characters is that they are almost always good. It is very hard for her to get out of that mindset (not a complaint, but a statement).
My friend of 20 years stopped playing DnD for many of the years that I have known him and I got him back into it about 5 years ago. Most of his experience up until that time was us playing in the schoolyard, and so in the past 5 years he has been trying harder and harder to get into more and more roleplaying rather than hack n' slash in his attitude. He plays a number of characters but his true loves seem to be wizards and people who can power attack. Though he isn't the best role player (and would tell you that himself) he tries to be good at it (all that we can ask really) and ensures that everyone is having a good time. He generally plays from a neutral position with some selfish tendencies.
The fourth member that we have is a Dave from KoDT. Though he gets into a lot more roleplaying his characters are almost always the highest strength ones. Certainly, I have a fair amount to do with this. When he was making one of his characters to be a cleric of healing I mentioned how awesome it would be to have a cleric truly designed to be a fighter. Go all out with the 20 Strength...K, I'm a little evil...I knew this would be like dangling a carrot in front of his nose. He jumped at the chance for it. But I have to say that the character that he made with it is a truly memorable one and we have a great time playing with him (though almost no other characters like his obnoxious personality, but all the players do). His general characters are ones that are extremely focused on one stat to make them really good at it. He has a halfing rogue that started with the 20 Dex and dual wields daggers, he has the Cleric of Kelanen with the 20 Str, he has a Dwarven Barbarian with a 20 Con, and a Mage with a 20 Intellect. Though he has more characters, these are the ones that stand out in my mind about him, and I'm certain he would agree with it.
Now, I come to the two players that we are having problems with. Both of these players are the oldest members of our group, outdistancing the rest of us by at least 10 years. The first guy is here for the fun of it. I have no problem with that. However, he makes characters that amuse him with no regards to campaign integrity. I know in his head he works on a lot of things and roleplays things in his mind, but sadly they do not come out at the game table. Between game sessions he is one of the two people who writes things for the game (character journals and such) and he is able to talk about the fact that his character has strong feelings towards another character when not at the table. When at the table though he is VERY hard to roleplay off of, generally having no opinion about the current topic or continually changing his mind (the latter being much more rare). His characters are generally built as the game goes on (something that I kind of miss from the old 2nd Ed days out of most players) and never put together with any power gaming in mind, in fact sometimes things don't make much sense at all.
Our last player is an awesome roleplayer, and he is convinced of that. Though his talent at offering differing opinions in the same scene (when dealing with 2 characters) and to keep them in his mind well is a testament to his abilities, sadly when he plays he generally has 2 archetypes that he plays with. He generally goes with being an invulnerable hero that gets the party and himself into a huge amount of trouble or he plays a spellcaster that disdains combat and looks down on most other individuals. In one long running game his character was told to not leave the house that the PCs were being sheltered in. He explored the entire house, and found a set of stairs leading down. As he climbed down this massive set of stairs he began to hear growling. He came to the bottom of the carved stairs and saw that beyond him was a natural cavern and the growling was growing louder. The one other PC that came with him told him that they were warned to not leave the house, and stepping off of the carved stairs into the natural cavern where there was growling coming from seemed like it would be stepping out of the house. The problem player didn't agree and so tried it. The creatures that had been growling jumped him and were far too powerful for these two to fight (the one who wanted to stay on the stairs was unwilling to just wait and watch his companion be torn apart by bears). The next week, his new character lead the party into a death trap that they had just escaped from (I have no idea why they followed him back into it, but they did). He blamed (at the time) both decisions on the fact that he hadn't gotten sleep the night before. Later, he said that part of his decision the second time was just that he was angry that his character had died the week before.
So this is what I am coming to the boards with. I'm hoping that some people might have some advise on ways that we can help out our group as my fiancee and I are having problems with them at this time. We don't want to stop playing with them because they are our friends (and the only real way we get to spend time with them a lot of the time) but we definately do not want to suffer burn out because of a game that we are less than happy with. Thanks for all the input.
Bansidhe
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