Stealing

[Fingol]

Your help/ suggestions appreciated.

The issue:
We have a player in our 'gaming community' that is getting/ has a rep for 'ninja' looting. He is very creative in this pursuit.

He'll site reasons for wanting to perform last rites that he needs to perform alone, he'll pilfer items under the guise of 'slitting their throats' while he asks others to guard the area, etc...he is also a master at making the most of the deficiencies of other players memory when it comes to remembering who picked up what etc...

He has some other drawbacks which sit more or less in the same kind of mercenary approach to gaming. He is no less quick fingered when it comes to taking opportunities when it involves NPCs.

As he always has more gear than others he will 'lend' stuff out. Mostly with strings attached.

Reasons for not sharing loot are usual along the lines of they don't deserve it. They did not seem interested. etc...

Basically if these were his only qualities me and a mate of mine would probably have dropped him ages ago. However he is not like this in 'real life'. Additionally he sees the game as the one area where he can push boundaries without drawbacks and in game he adds other stuff. He is also without fail the one person the most interested in your game world. He also often works on long range plans, including on setting up his own organisations. He interacts with your NPCs, he will push envelopes and if these collapse on him he will shrug and ask where the spare empty char sheets are. He is a big believer in risk and reward being related and will often take risks just to see if the reward is there.

Any suggestions? Talking to him that DMing for him is not a lot of fun as it invariably leads to the DM judicating between players took him by surprise today. I don't think he had thought that the DMs might not enjoy it either. So far we had been pointing out the impact it was having on how other players perceived him. Also that the opportunity for games for him were drying up. At some level though it keeps coming back for him that the loot he skims of the top is reward for his 'roleplay'.

After todays conversation though I am exhausted; if the DM does not enjoy it either argument doesn't make him alter his behaviour is there anything else we can do?

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

The only one that springs to mind straight away is make sure your next character does similar sort of things... and see if your DM will help make sure your character can pull off what you say. That way your looter may start losing out on the goods and realize it's a lot less fun for all. Not an ideal solution I'll grant you but if it puts him in the other man's shoes for an afternoon then it might help.

 

[Li Shenron]

From your description I got the first impression that the player is not stupid at all, he is just playing this character and actually try to be very much in-character even if that may seem unfair to the other characters. It didn't seem to me that he is exploiting his character idea to just get more equipment and therefore "win the game" against the others... no it doesn't sound like he is such a bad player from what you say.

Therefore I am quite surprise at reading that your discussion with him was exhausting. If he was playing this way only for good sake of RP, he would have encouraged the other players to have their own characters react badly at him, just like in real life people react when someone who is supposedly a friend or ally is found stealing from the others. If he plays like this because he enjoys this kind of PC, he must enjoy the consequences as well

On the other hand, if he pretends the other players to allow his character go on with this, he's a bad player and cannot tell the others to RP badly.

Also if he really always plays the same character, but is not tired of it, you can tell him that the group would like to see some new ideas. It's not fair either that you force him to play something he doesn't like, but this specific character concept has huge consequences to the whole group.
For example, it's not always fun to have to RP inner fights within the party, that's one reason why it is in general suggested to play good characters for example...

 

[Starglim]

You could try to put it across that sharing of loot is neither, in the end, an in-character issue nor a reward for anything that he did. It's a question of fairness and trust between players over a game resource. It's no different than the character stabbing his party members in the back and the player then asking for XP for it.

And, in exactly the same way, you are justified as a DM in maintaining fairness and good feeling by (a) disallowing the action, (b) if you don't disallow it, favouring the other players in your game ruling by letting their characters detect and react to it, and (c) refusing to give him an in-game reward for it. You could tell him up front that all items that he steals from the party will prove to be non-magical and worthless.

 

[Starglim]

Stealing from and cheating NPCs, on the other hand, sounds as if it's just disruptive and annoying rather than actively antisocial. The DM shouldn't give him time to do this at the expense of other players' actions.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

From your description I got the first impression that the player is not stupid at all, he is just playing this character and actually try to be very much in-character even if that may seem unfair to the other characters. It didn't seem to me that he is exploiting his character idea to just get more equipment and therefore "win the game" against the others... no it doesn't sound like he is such a bad player from what you say.

It sounds exactly like he's a bad player. Any player who thinks that his RP is more important than the other players' enjoyment of the game is an idiot and a bad player.

The solution, though, is quite simple. Suggest to the other players that they should RP an appropriate response. This is most likely along the lines of "we ditch the guy at the next village, and find ourselves another guy that understands not to steal from the party."

Then let the guy make a new character. If his next character does the same thing, then dump the player entirely.

 

[robberbaron]

What are the other players doing about him?

If they always turn their backs so he can loot bodies why should YOU have a problem with it? They don't seem to.
The other players are effectively supporting his nefarious deeds. If they don't like him nicking all the loot why don't they do something about it? I know I would.

I don't see that you have one bad player, but I suspect you may have 1 "role-player" and a few "roll-players". Tell the others to buck their ideas up.

 

[Li Shenron]

It sounds exactly like he's a bad player. Any player who thinks that his RP is more important than the other players' enjoyment of the game is an idiot and a bad player.

Yes, that's why I was disappointed when he said the discussion had been exhausting... but my first impression was that he did it for a game purpose, and as such I was expecting that he actually encouraged the others to RP against his PC.

 

[Fingol]

From your description I got the first impression that the player is not stupid at all, he is just playing this character and actually try to be very much in-character even if that may seem unfair to the other characters. It didn't seem to me that he is exploiting his character idea to just get more equipment and therefore "win the game" against the others... no it doesn't sound like he is such a bad player from what you say.

Therefore I am quite surprise at reading that your discussion with him was exhausting. If he was playing this way only for good sake of RP, he would have encouraged the other players to have their own characters react badly at him, just like in real life people react when someone who is supposedly a friend or ally is found stealing from the others. If he plays like this because he enjoys this kind of PC, he must enjoy the consequences as well

On the other hand, if he pretends the other players to allow his character go on with this, he's a bad player and cannot tell the others to RP badly.

Also if he really always plays the same character, but is not tired of it, you can tell him that the group would like to see some new ideas. It's not fair either that you force him to play something he doesn't like, but this specific character concept has huge consequences to the whole group.
For example, it's not always fun to have to RP inner fights within the party, that's one reason why it is in general suggested to play good characters for example...

He isn't stupid; in fact I think he's a lot smarter than me. He has found a unique mix of roleplay and 'winning' though that doesn't sit well with me and others who game with him. The discussion was exhausting emotionally, confronting people on their behaviour is not something I enjoy overly much. He is also smart and thinks a lot quicker on his feet than me. He is by now very adept at avoiding 'taking ownership' for want of a better term.

I think part of it is that he does enjoy the consequences; others around him don't necessarily. He likes risk in the game but also rightly or wrongly feels that characters in the group are often easier 'pickings' than NPCs/ monsters/ scenarios. At least he is willing to test this on a regular basis.

Often he out survives others in the group because he has more options because he is better prepared because he has worked hard at making sure his character is better equiped than the "average" for the group. He seems to have few morals about the fact that this came about because it was resource that he held back.

I have both DMed for as well played with him in groups of five or more. The behaviour doesn't really change over the years. I have made my share of mistakes DMing for him. The classic was when he pushed an envelope, I captured him, instead of fulfilling my promise of killing him I inadvertedly rewarded him (don't ask me how; I still crinch at the thought, suffice it to say I had an in game inspiration on how to advance the plot, I should have thought about it more...). It was a decade ago and I knew him barely in those days. In the same game he then proceeded to skim, I never quite got such a brilliant opportunity to punish him again and while I did not create his character concept as it had already been refined in other games prior to that one, I did help to hone it a bit further.

The arguement about trying a different character is not really working. He has latched onto the fact that the other people we play with over long periods don't really change their characters much either. We all have buttons that seem to be within easy reach of our friends, we all have fall back positions that get pulled out when the going gets tough.

Thanks for the input; if there is anymore please keep it coming! Thanks.

 

[Whisper72]

Hmm.... I may be wrong here, but to me it sounds almost as if you want to penalize someone who is a very good player (in the sense that he pays attention, invests time in thinking about his character and adventuring beforehand and tries to make the most out of 'in game' situations / opportunities) because he outplays more 'casual' gamers....

To me, it sounds like you should:
A: tell the other players to smarten up, spend more time thinking about equipment choices, pay more attention during the game itself
B: tell the other players to smarten up In Character as well. Knowing the 'thief' for what he is, no longer accept such things as guarding the entrance while the thief checks the bodies. That the other players comply with this is just dumb on their part. Think Tasslehoff in DragonLance, the other players have to confront the thief (In Character) every now and then to check for stolen items, and confront him when he turns up with a lot more loot then the others...
C: to avoid him thieving from NPC's etc, as the DM you can simply put a stop to this by having the NPC's simply notice the thieving more often / always. Simply make the risk/return equation a lot less interesting, and the player will stop

Most of this behaviour can be dealt with within the game, and is as much a result of poor judgement on the part of the other players and (sorry to say) you as a DM. Remember the first rule of DM'ming. Nothing happens in the game without your fiat. If you do not want the thief to be able to steal from an NPC, then it wont happen. Make up reasons why: turns out to be a thief themselves, happens not to have anything on them at the moment, protected by a spell (in the older editions, certain symbols and sigils) etc. Problem solved.