Quitting a group & starting anew..ground rules?

[Numion]

Luckily I always game with friends, and it is always personal. I like it that way. And no need for these kind of rules. I never needed to make my friends sign anything before we go to the movies, so it would seem asinine to do that before D&D.

It's just a game, after all. If "time" starts to "be of essence" ever in my D&D I'll drop the hobby. Same goes for "players policing players"

 

[Emirikol]

Serious?
At least I hope you are.

The two things you consider 'extreme' are very important for my gaming anymore. Those two things being: voting a player out and Gamer Profiling. I'll tell you why:

1. I have children. I don't let anonymous people come into my house. We screen them and meet them before we invite them over with standard questions.

2. Our questionaire is as much basic "what's your phone number so we can reach you" as it is, "are you going to be an idiot at our table?" questions. It also helps us find out what players want. For example. One guy noted in his questionaire that he absolutely wouldn't play in any game where there aren't halflings and he wanted to know if he could bring pot to the game (in my house, with my small children). Another guy noted he lives 4 hours away. Standard questions solve a lot of wasted time. I can also send these people to games closer to them (I know lots of DM's).

3. As the DM, I let the players police their own. I'm not going to be the ONLY one who has to deal with people who are s. Why should I have some player pissed off at me, and have them come back and vandalize my house or steal my on the way out the door? Think this doesn't happen when you kick someone out of the group? Think again. I've heard it LOTS of times from other gamers and have had it happen to me.

4. My experiences with the RPGA have also soured me (severely) because bar-none there's an unpleasant person at EVERY table we play at. I'm sorry, but we just don't have time for that anymore. I've been at tables where DM's kick players out in the middle of the game and it seems to me that if he'd had an anonymous vote or had the other players backing him, the whole process would be less ugly for the DM (who usually quits running games after having to do stuff like that..all because of some at the table). I sympathize with the DM and back my DM's.

Besides, who wants to game with idiots..and who has time to anymore? Maybe it's just because I'm not in college anymore, but even so..if I could get the time back I spent hanging out with losers...oh, the good ol' days...

jh

 

[Emirikol]

How can it be "not personal" if the major reason not to game with someone is that you don't like their personality? Of course it's personal. That whole "nothing personal" thing is just a cheap way of saying "I don't want to have to defend anything I say or do, and will not entertain the possibility that it's me that's the problem and not you."

Although I respect your point and I used to believe that, I realized that it's not personal..it's just a game

What you're saying leans closely towards "Everything that a DM does is 'personal." If he makes a rule that goes against a player's benefit, it's personal. These are just 'rules' like any other in the game. More, they are just polite guidelines from players who like it their way and for players who just don't know better yet.

"You mean that I have to be polite and participate while I'm here? I just thought that the DM would spend 4 hours per week prepping a game so that I could just come over and crap all over him and the other players." I've met too many people like that. I send them to OTHER peoples' games

jh

..

 

[Emirikol]

I'd like to hear from the people that indicated the last thing in the poll. Are your fingers sticking to the keyboard?

jh

 

[kenobi65]

Emirikol,

I'm going to have to second what several other posters have already said.

It certainly comes across as though you view gaming a whole lot more seriously than I do. I see it as something social that I do with my friends. If we run into something that seriously detracts from the game play (like a disruptive player), we just deal with it. Beyond that, I view an RPG session as the focal point of a social gathering with my friends, not the sole activity that can go on during that session. We've never seen the need for codified rules.

What you propose sounds, to me, very little like a group of friends getting together to enjoy a game. Then again, it also sounds like you've had a helluva time finding players who share your POV on what makes a good game. To that end, I suppose your questionnaire probably will help you find players who share your mindset. Just don't be surprised if an awful lot of good players find the questionnaire to be, well, off-putting at best, insulting at worst.

Honestly, it sounds like you've discovered that there's an awful lot of gamers out there that you just don't enjoy playing with (I mean, if you're getting at least one player you don't like out of the other 6 at every single RPGA table you sit at, it's probably not just bad luck). If you need to be this selective in screening who you're going to play with, more power to you. I wouldn't be interested in being in that game, but then, you might not want me, anyway.

 

[Chainsaw Mage]

Why should I have some player pissed off at me, and have them come back and vandalize my house or steal my on the way out the door? Think this doesn't happen when you kick someone out of the group? Think again. I've heard it LOTS of times from other gamers and have had it happen to me.

See, this is where you really start to lose me. I read the above text and I say to myself, "What on earth is he talking about? Is he suffering from paranoid delusions? Or is he gaming in inner-city L.A. with gang-banger initiates? I mean, who on earth are you playing with that is vandalizing your house? And you've heard this "LOTS" of times from other gamers?

Please. [HUGE eye roll--too big for any icon to accurately represent]

 

[Numion]

Although I respect your point and I used to believe that, I realized that it's not personal..

Some people think that the moment you have to use the words "It's not personal, but ..", it most certainly is personal

But basically your rules make it sound more like work than entertainment. Time is of the essence, and no time to order food because you're there to game.

 

[Emirikol]

Now, you guys might think I'm a nazi about this stuff, but check out these guys:

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=535381

They have some kind of "legal code" for what I'm talking about. I think I could git wit em and make a club where we could wear fez's or something

jh

 

[kenobi65]

I mean, who on earth are you playing with that is vandalizing your house? And you've heard this "LOTS" of times from other gamers?

Well, keep in mind that he is attracting new players via a posting on the bulletin board at his game shops:

I keep an ad up at the local game stores here in Colorado and get 2-3 requests to join per _month_.

I've been playing for 23 years, and have played with a fair number of "cold" players (that is, players that no one in the group knew from Adam before they arrived). While a lot of those didn't work out from a personality-fit standpoint, our biggest problem was getting people who were just too weird / nerdy, even for us. We have never had an issue with anyone who was violent / criminal...but YMMV, of course.

IME, bringing in a new player that no one in the group knows is a dicey issue, simply because you never know how they'll impact the group dynamic. If at least one of the players knows the new player, they should be able to provide some assessment on how well the newbie will fit...or at least give a little assurance that the newb isn't a weirdo.

For that reason, I really don't like bringing in new players sight-unseen like that anymore. I'm more than happy to entertain the "one of my co-workers plays D&D, and he's looking for a group" offers from my players; I don't have any interest in "I saw on the board at Games Plus that there's a guy looking to play in a Star Wars group."

 

[Emirikol]

My Want Advertisement And Questionaire

I mean, who on earth are you playing with that is vandalizing your house? And you've heard this "LOTS" of times from other gamers?
Please. [HUGE eye roll--too big for any icon to accurately represent]

Fair enough. Ask around and see how many reprisals you've heard of from people who got kicked out of a group. You'll be surprised. I've seen it AT RPGA GAMEDAYS and we all know how MTG games used to go too.

We kicked a jerk out 4 years ago who threw a lamp on his way out the door. BTW, he was pissed off because the DM (not me) killed him off when he decided that his half-orc barbarian (whom he played like an engineer), tried to tunnel under a pit of mud into a riverbottom (I mean THE bottom of the river). The idiot chucks his stuff at the wall. We asked him to calm down. He got more pissy and threatened the DM. The DM kicked told him to leave and I seconded it (it was my house). On the way out he throws a lamp on the floor..of course he was so huffy so he left his dice bag (thanks Mike!).

ATTACHED: MY WANT AD AND GAMER QUESTIONAIRE

jh