Quieting a chatterbox

[Mystery Man]

Shouting STFU! works for me.

 

[Ostler]

have you tried to find a character that she can relate to that might help. other than that see if her husband notices this and see if he will take care of it.

I purchased Beyond Monks so I could see if she liked the Martial Artist class. (she's big into judo). I explained how it worked and we discussed ways she could customize her character. She made the changes but continued to have trouble with basic rules like combat.

Her husband knows it's a problem and as tried to talk to her about it several times. Unfortunately he's easily distracted and tends to start/join off topic discussions when she is talking, which just makes things worse.

We use the Piggy Bank system to control table talk and encourage people to stay in character. Once the game begins, it's a $.05 fine for a bad pun, $.10 for each bit of OOC talk, and $.25 for old war stories about former campaigns/PCs. Really works well at keeping people focused, and the money goes to buy people soda.

I like this idea. I talked with my gaming group about using a system like this previously and was met by strong opposition. Partly because people didn't want to have to pay anything. Mostly the opposition was from the problem player and her husband so maybe I'll just implement the system anyway and if they don't like it they don't have to play.

My hope is to not lose two players because of problems with one, but that may be unavoidable. Fortunately, there is something of a waiting list to play in my games so I won't have any trouble finding more players.

 

[shilsen]

The impersonal nature of email combined with the fact that most of us are not the letter writers or readers of our preceeding generations can make email result in being much more confrontational than a personal touch.

Exactly. Every semester I'm used to at least one student (who is completely nice and reasonable when speaking in person or on the phone) losing it and sending me an email which raves and rants, usually followed by one which apologizes profusely for the previous one. Not to mention that email very rarely conveys tone and intent as effectively as speech, unless you're a very accomplished writer. Always, always, always speak to the person face to face, IMO.

 

[Bloodsparrow]

I agree.

Talk directly to her, don't do it over email or the phone.

Suggest to her also, that playing a magic user is very very rules heavy, and, in the past she has not shown that learning the rules is something that she is interested in. Suggest, instead, that she play a strait up fighter, which will let her absorb the basics pretty well. (Or perhaps a fighter/cleric, with more levels in fighter then cleric. This will give her the simplicity of purpose of a fighter, with some spell casting experience on the side. At least, that's what I usually suggest to somebody that has never played before or isn't big on rules. When I first started I was not big on knowing the rules at all. I really liked the Rogue, because I didn't have to worry about spell casting, but I still got cookies like use magic device, backstab, and lockpicking that made me feel special. I absorbed the rules over time. Eventually, I evolved into somebody who plays Bards.)

In other groups I've been in, when two people (who may or may not be involved romanticly) would start to bicker, one of two things would happen...

1. The person running the game would interupt them, and make a ruling about whatever it was that they were arguing about. They would end their ruling with something like "and that's the last I want to hear about it" or "and that's all that needs to be said about that from here on out", and then we would continue.

or

2. Somebody would suggest a break, we'd strech our legs, go to the rest room, get soda, order food, what ever, while the people finished their bicker. This would last no longer then 1 minute, and it cut down on the awkwardness a bit. After a while (not a short while mind you, but eventually) just saying the words, "Let's take a break", was enough to defuse the situation, because the bickerers would realise that they were pissing everybody else off at that point.

In the end, you have to do something. Because your players are not having fun, she's not having fun, and you are not having fun. It's hard, and unpleasent, and you don't want to deal with it, I know. It really sucks that this falls to you, but it does because you're the guy running the game.

You want to be gentle, you want to be nice, that's good, there is nothing wrong with that. But at some point, you're going to have to be firm, that doesn't make you a bad person, and people who are your friends will understand.

Hope that helps.

 

[Angcuru]

Have you ever heard of Gorilla Glue?

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

Well, e-mail is sometimes the only thing you have. I recently had to handle a different player situation over e-mail because the guy lives thirty miles away, and I'm not guarenteed to be around near a phone when he's around near a phone. So e-mail was what I had to do unless I wanted him to end up stewing for a week. Not the ideal solution, but a solution nevertheless.

I've been posting enough on messageboards that I'm confident I can write a fairly non-judgemental e-mail on my part. He may interpret it wrong, I don't control his thoughts, but I did what I could to make it neutral.