"....so we tossed the jerk out...."

[Elminster's Son]

I've had two problem gamers I've had to deal with. Though most of my concerns were with their out of gaming tendencies. See I'm happily married to a beautiful woman of Italian descent and have three kids. Did I also mention she's a diehard gamer?

This first one should go down in the Horror stories hall of fame. Well the first one just couldn't stop hitting on my wife. Making passes at her and flirting with her. At first it was when he thought I wasn't looking and was on a rare occassion. Which in some ways I guess I let go on because it made me feel lucky to be married to such a babe. *Sigh* BIG MISTAKE! Before the two of us knew it it progressed way out of hand. He began flirting with her openly in front of me. And even began to touch her in ways that made her feel quite uncomfortable.

Well I'm all for a guy having chances. But this guy didn't learn his lesson. And must have had some serious issues. So I approached him calmly after my wife told me she was getting annoyed with him, and told him he had to shape up or ship out. He said he'd correct the err of his ways and clean his act up.

And he certainly had me fooled, but thankfully he didn't have my cousin (who was living with me and my wife at the time, who I shall forthwith call Al) fooled for a minute. Since I'm active Army and Al was fresh out of the Army Rangers (Discharged within three months of this incident) we didn't feel anyone in the gaming group would try anything stupid. Boy were we wrong.

Al found this guy cornering my wife in the kitchen and she was mumbling in Italian which she does when she's frightened or upset. Well Al confronted the guy and he pulls a knife! Well, Al makes short work of the guys arm. Picks up the phone and calls 911. Well, the rest of us were still in the living room waiting on the others when the police and ambulance showed up sirens blaring and lights flashing. Al calmly lets them in and explains the situation and my wife is hiding behind him glaring daggers at this guy. Before I knew what had happened they hauled him off to the hospital where he was gonna be treated and then arrested.

Needless to say he wasn't allowed back. And my wife was quickly taught how to defend herself.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Story two, not as bad but equally insane. I created my own campaign setting and we all enjoyed it. Well apparently one of the guys wanted to find out what we had planned and tried looking on my laptop to find out. My wife walks in and catches him. She tells me and I ask him politely to leave. And he has the audacity to call my wife a liar! Well she smacked him and called him a dozen things that shall not be repeated, and he was shown the door physically.

Other than that, I've rarily had issues that couldn't be fixed with a polite and private conversation with the individual in question.

 

[Aramis Simara]

Cheaters never prosper but roll a lot of 20s

Wow, some great/scary stories. I guess I've been lucky with players. The worst players I've had were the dice cheating kind. I have a 2 strike policy. 1st time I catch you I talk to you about it on the side. 2nd time you're not coming back. I could never figure why someone thinks they can get away with cheating surrounded by a group of people. Wow luckily me that's the 10th hit in a row my dice must be hot tonight.

I want a hot Italian wife who games! What game store can you find one of them at?

 

[BlueBlackRed]

I just love reading these stories.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not glad they're happening to anyone.
But I am glad that these haven't happened to me.

The worst player I've had in a long time just had a bad case of ADHD. But talking way too much and a lack of focus is nothing when compared to an assault on my wife.

One of my players did tell me that someone in his last gaming group said to him "You look a lot like the guy who has the restraining order on me."
Well that creeped him out, and now he's in my group
Ah crazy people, you have helped my group so much.
One day I'll tell you all how I got my job, and promotion, through failed drug tests
Hint: I didn't fail them.

It can be an awful risk when inviting someone new into your home. I usually have to talk to the person through e-mail or IM and then on the phone.
If I'm sure they're human, there will be an opening in the group.
If not "I'll let you know."

 

[sniffles]

This thread makes me nervous. Yesterday a player had to drop out of our ongoing Greyhawk campaign, and the GM started talking about finding another player - for some reason the GM is convinced that the ideal number of players is five. I and another forum member who have both been reading this thread immediately had to tell a couple of these stories to warn everyone of the dangers of accepting new players.

Fortunately the worst thing that has happened in one of our games lately is that the GM above was wearing a 20-year-old t-shirt that he'd outgrown just a bit, and at one point he stood up and gave us all a bit more view of his hairy, poochy belly than we really wanted to see.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Al found this guy cornering my wife in the kitchen and she was mumbling in Italian which she does when she's frightened or upset. Well Al confronted the guy and he pulls a knife! Well, Al makes short work of the guys arm. Picks up the phone and calls 911. Well, the rest of us were still in the living room waiting on the others when the police and ambulance showed up sirens blaring and lights flashing. Al calmly lets them in and explains the situation and my wife is hiding behind him glaring daggers at this guy. Before I knew what had happened they hauled him off to the hospital where he was gonna be treated and then arrested.

Needless to say he wasn't allowed back. And my wife was quickly taught how to defend herself.

That's the most outrageous behavior yet! He'd be getting the wrong end of a gun in his face at my house. My sympathies.

The worst player I've had in a long time just had a bad case of ADHD. But talking way too much and a lack of focus is nothing when compared to an assault on my wife.

My group has a guy like this. I admit, we haven't been starting exactly on time, I've been getting brand new players each session (this is like the 4th session of my campaign)...how did you deal with him?
He makes all kinds of side comments, interrupts me when I'm describing something, jumps to explain rules to newbies (well, this is helpful)...how did you deal with him?

 

[Bloodstone Press]

I've mentioned him before, but I'll briefly tell the story again.

We'll call him Mr. Codependent-cheater-weirdo-freakdaddy.

First he cheated a lot on his die rolls.
Then he lied to me about what the rules said, deliberating misquoting them.
Then he started getting all these weird ideas about how the events of the game were somehow symbolic of our real life relationships.
Then he started having a weird "I'm better friends with so-and-so" thing that I really can't explain...
Then he started wearing a dress (yes, really)
Then he met Jesus at 3 AM in a Waffle House
Then he decided to stop gaming, and he started trying to stop us from gaming, it was evil, you see..
Many weird arguments were had until finally one day we told him "Look, if you say that again, you're leaving. Got it?"
He said "Ok. Sure.... I just want to say that gaming is bad and it will ruin your life..."
"So we told him to get out. He left and never came back.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Nitro Ferguson?

I was thinking the same thing

 

[javapadawan]

So just how do you kick someone out of a game? I've seen a lot of stories about bad players being shown the door, but few descriptions of the method used. Do you take JoeGKushner's advice and tell the person flat out that they're not welcome anymore - and why, or do you take the less painful option of making up an excuse to exclude the person? Or something in between?

Form letter.

A friend of mine runs his game out of our FLGS, and while he has a good core group of four or five players, occasionally they will pick up an extra. The biggest problem the extras seem to have is an inability to show up on a regular basis. After the second missed session, the rogue will take the extra's PC on a hunting trip. Subsequently, the player will receive an email.

Dear <Player>,

In our last session which you were unable to attend, <PC Name> and the rogue were out hunting when <PC Name> was attacked and tragically killed by a dire bear. Luckily, the rogue was able to escape with his life (and your gear) and made it back to the party to inform them sadly of your untimely demise. Therefore, don't worry about coming next session.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

My group has a guy like this. I admit, we haven't been starting exactly on time, I've been getting brand new players each session (this is like the 4th session of my campaign)...how did you deal with him?
He makes all kinds of side comments, interrupts me when I'm describing something, jumps to explain rules to newbies (well, this is helpful)...how did you deal with him?

We tried to work around him and help him. Worked a little for a while. But things got worse...

Then tried to get him to see what we were doing for him and that we needed him to try to curb his disruptive behavior. That worked for a little while. But things got worse...

Then explained to him that we can only do so much and he had to get his act together. He gave a half-hearted attempt to improve...but things still got worse.

Then I sent him an e-mail that was equal to 3 pages long in a MS Word document.
Basically it told him that we had tried and tried to work with and around him and we were done trying because his behaviour never improved.
He was instructed that he was on his last chance.

I even offered to take him out to dinner to try to smooth everything over. He declined and couldn't make the next 4 sessions.

Eventually he told everyone that he just didn't have time for gaming anymore.

Never at any one point did he take any responsibility for himself.

And trust me, we were amazingly patient with this fellow for over a year.
Eventually his presence took more away from the game than he brought.

 

[Kristivas]

I am freezing out a player this week. This is the second time I've done this in 30 years.

The first guy was a problem in that my father put pressure on my to allow him in the game. We were both in the same Boy Scout troop and my dad was determined that I should allow anyone into the game who wanted to join. So I got The Dork Fish. I was stuck with him for a year. Finally all of us got together, told him to get lost, and then, as a group, went to my dad and said, "Dork Fish is gone. Don't even think about forcing us to take him back."

This time it's a little different.

On the surface the guy is okay, if a little flakey. He has some odd opinions, but who amongst us doesn't? But he is Mister Passive-Aggressive. "Well, if you guys don't want to play (fill in the blank style) of game, that's fine, but that's going to force me to reschedule my entire world to fit in with it, both in terms of lifestyle and work schedule, but if it's what you want..." (many pouty noises). He also critiques everyone else's characters, showing how they are not "in the spirit of the game", which is quite amazing since his characters always feel the most out of step. He also is involved in an on-line cooperative story writing group with the wife of one of our players and caused a huge ruckus there because everyone was "changing the setting we agreed on" (read: he entered a cooperative group, and then determined that "cooperative" meant "everyone plays in my world by my rules").

The breaking point has come, oddly enough, over how he is raising his child. The kid is a bit over a year old. He refuses to have her vaccinated against anything (apparently this has something to do with his very much mix-and-match religion) and has had to change doctors three times because the doctors have gotten angry with him. At a year the child has not even attempted to walk and doesn't even engage in basic verbalizations. He draws all the blinds at the house, never takes the child outside unless the poor kid is covered head to toe and then placed inside a totally screened-in buggy. He was amazed one time when I went over to his house and the kid actually giggled when I gave her tummy blurps -- apparently he never really interacts with her and was amazed at her reactions...

So we are not only freezing him out of the game but actually calling Child Protective Services on him.

This is scary...

That is ^*&$ing scary.

I'm an avid gamer with children. If anything, I can often be the 'problem' guy because of this. Everyone plays at my house, so time and again the kids interrupt. It can be hard to play with little ones around. Most often I make sure they're fed before everyone comes over and I stick in a few DvDs for them to watch for the evening. They pretty much 'camp out' in the living room til they fall asleep. It can be frustrating trying to game with kids around, but when you have no choice.. that's the way it is.

That guy you're talking about, though.. it has nothing to do with his 'mix-and-match' religion, it has to do with being a lazy dickweed. There's NO reason in the 21st century to not try to protect your children from disease, especially if you live in America. There's also NO reason not to sit and play with and communicate with your kids. I talk to my children like I would talk to an adult.. (meaning I speak normally, not baby-talk.. "Hey, Jaden, how's Daddy's little guy doin'?" rather than.. "How dat wittle man rite dere huh booby-kins?!?!" lol). My son already talks in full and complex sentences. (my guild mates on WoW that hear him on Ventrilo or Team-speak can vouch for that hehe). It's pure laziness, and someone needs to kick that guy in the balls a few hundred times to make sure he doesn't have to make anymore poor children go through BS like that. I fully agree you should call CPS on his ass. Call during a time you know he'll be at his sloppiest lol.