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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greg K" data-source="post: 6183203" data-attributes="member: 5038">You have bad luck or a poor pool of gamers or I have been very fortunate.Luck of the player pool, perhaps. However, I interview players before joining. As a player and DM, I hate dungeoncrawling on a regular basis, hack and slash, build mentality (pre-planning out and expecting to stick with the build), and min-maxing. Power gaming (playing with a focus/desire for new bonuses, cool powers, etc.) is excepted to a very thin line with the line being wanting to see the character grow and reflected in the mechanics. Playing with a heavy focus on power accumulation over everything else is not acceptable when I run. The same for Butt-kickingSo far, I have only had one "problem"  player since the mid-eighties (excluding the . That player was brought into the group by the person that took over the DM duties when I didn't have time to run due to school and work and took a leave from the group which I had started six years earlier.Myself and every player in a group that I have started  since the mid-eighties excluding the one player.  The sweet spot has been a length of 15-20 min (less for insignificant battles).  30-45 minutes for a climatic battle (by 30 minutes, I am already itching to move on to something else)Only the one problem player.  He was a powergamer, a butt-kicker, and a very heavy optimizer for combat.  The one GM that brought him in did so, because they were good friends. He then ran very heavily combat focused games, because he knew that his friend would whine and complain if there was anything, but combat for two minutes.When I returned to the group, I played one session and got bored. The next week when the group played, I turned down the invitation to play. I did this for two week when the GM asked me why I was not interested and I told him that I found a focus on hack and slash boring.You know what he did? He breathed a heavy sigh of relief and confided that he too found his games boring. That is when he explained that he focused the game on combat to keep the one player from derailing the game. He, then, called each player except the problem player, to find out that they were bored, but were too polite to say anything, because they wanted to play anything until I started running.The next session, combat started taking a much smaller role in the sessions he ran. As expected, the one player kept playing  for a while, he would sulk and complain and demand we skip past the "talky boring stuff".When I refused to take over the GM chores unless I didn't invite him, my roommate who had become best friends with the other GM and good friends with the problem player offered to run, because the player was cool away from the gaming table.  Eventually, my roommate grew weary and two or three times talked to him about his behavior. The guy straightened out for a week or two and then returned to his old ways. The straw that broke the camel's back?We were trying to gain the trust of a catlike creature that became trapped in our dimension and was stealing life stock. He had killed the owner of some sheep who had tried to stop him. The group thought there was misunderstanding.  The barbarian (played by the previous GM) and my rogue approached him with no weapons, to show we meant know harm, we kneeled down on the ground hands at our side (palming daggers incase we misjudged the situation).  Eventually, the cat-creature used comprehend languages and cautiously approached us weapon drawn.The Barbarian and I determined that he was a warrior and would test our honor by launching a fake attack similar to how some tribes shoot arrows or throw spears to determine someone's reactions.  We were prepared just in case, but we motioned for and told the others, regardless of what happens, to not due anything unless we said to fight.Sure enough, the creature tested us.Suddenly, the problem player had his wizard start hurling spells at the cat-man creature just as the player of the fighter entered the room to say that he was still prepared to ambush the creature if necessary. The problem player told the fighter's player that we were in combat and to attack. Not knowing what was going on, the fighter attacked.  My rogue and the barbarian got in between and tried to stop the other two members from attacking, but the wizard killed the cat-man creature.The problem player tried to argue that he, honestly, thought we were under attack.  Nobody bought it. The barbarian's player and I, now, refused to trust the other two characters. There was no way we would ever adventure with them.  The problem player tried to argue out of character that it was unreasonable, because we adventured with his character for so long. The GM was livid. He told the wizard's player that he would not longer run for him, and, now, backed the majority that wanted him out. However, he was willing to hang with him away from the gaming table. He was also pissed off at the player of the fighter until the barbarian's player and I told him that he was told to attack as soon as he entered the room and had no idea what he walked into. After a round or two, he stopped attacking and had is character not take sides. The GM agreed the player was not at fault for attacking, but he could no longer run for the character, because the two "heroic" characters would not adventure with him (many sessions later, the fighter ran into the two characters and started making amends including warning them that the wizard, now an NPC, was sending assassins after them and was creating something to take over the country).Try not playing with  Player 2. It might improve your game. Getting rid of that type of player worked wonders for ours.</blockquote>

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