That player in the back of the room

[Tyranthraxus]

Kinda reminds me of a guy in my Expeditions games. He started our as a pacifistic Monk serving Eldath, the God associated with Peace.

Cue to 5 games later he is now kicking ass for Silvanus. There has been a lot of people in game questioning his world view and outlook.

 

[Byakugan]

Kind of a prickly pear situation. There is no perfect answer. Clearly playstyles do not match, so you either side with the single player, or side with the 'rest' of the table.

Me personally, I would try to cut the baby in half, because I am a mediator by nature. I am loathe to alienate any player at my table, even the ones that really annoy me. Almost all gamers tend to be eccentric, and I know what being outcast feels like.

The context matters in this case because it sounds like the rogue is -present- when combats start, but that he spends all of his time hiding/evading as soon as its his turn. If this is the case, the DM has some easy tools to 'force' the player to act in self preservation. There are lots of things he can't hide against, and there are enough of them that some of them are -going- to find him. Escape is not always an option. If he is gets knocked across the noggin a few times, it should get him going. If not, then there is probably some underlying issue causing him to be averse to the idea of killing stuff(even if it is pretend). That is the crux of the matter. If YOU think he is being deliberately obnoxious, or that he simply is not invested in playing the group game that AL is, then you should swallow the bitter pill and make sure his character dies. Then you ask the other players 'What do you do with the body?'. Faction charity only works if the body is recoverable...if they are really annoyed with him, they can give him a nice funeral pyre, say a sweet prayer and spread his ashes in a field...new character please. Odds are good he will take the STRONG hint that the other players won't put up with his crap. The players may verbally express their frustration that he isn't contributing enough but still give him 'one more chance'. You can even suggest such a course of action as an option. If he doesn't take the hint, he'll probably get bored of re-rolling lv 1 characters soon.

This is exactly the reason some tables have group charters that each player must agree to. I don't like them much, but I have played with groups that had to resort to such tactics to curb other players stealing from them, or taking unfair shares of the loot, or killing characters in their sleep. I have enough scars from such behavior that my spellcasters often use divination magic to find out if party members are stealing from them, or working against them.

 

[Maxperson]

First off, every player is entitled to play the way that they want to as long as they are being respectful to the rest of the table. What the player is doing is not disrespectful, it is simply disconnected. It's up to the DM how the enemies target the party and adjust it so that there is either compensation for the fact that there is party minus one or that it's impossible to hide every single combat without being targeted. The hiding PC has to be somewhere around near enough to get caught up in the action spilling in his direction; enemies can also appear where least expected.

Second, cowards get dragged into adventures all the time, especially when there are circumstances that force them to deal with danger.

Third, no it's organized play so the DM must follow the rules, and NPCs wouldn't get nearly as much "screen time".
The player's character is in a position where the party can regularly ask him (or demand) for help outside of combat so that is already more than a NPC.

Fourth, the players should RP their characters normally. Telling other people how to play their own characters is big no no. If the PCs already know that their companion is a coward, they wouldn't expect much from him anyway except for the non-combat situations where his skills are useful.

I'm not that familiar with the AL rules. Could the active PCs kick his PC out of the group and just refuse to take him along? If he's making a new PC each session because the old one got kicked out, it won't be long before he either leaves on his own or complies and participates.

 

[Storyteller Hero]

SUPER EDIT: After obtaining sugar, I take back everything I wrote on post #24 and defer to post #48 on this thread.

 

[RCanine]

It kinda makes me sad that no one has suggested to simply make the combats easier.

The scaling instructions on every adventure already give you a way to handle this. Just pick a different scale (e.g. "Weak" or "Very Weak"). It's not going to hurt anybody to earn a little less XP.

@Pauper's advice is good too, about finding ways to engage the player, but in it end it doesn't matter whether the player is refusing the join combat, or a poor min-maxer or tactically feeble; in the end it's your job as DM to adjust the adventure's difficulty to your party.

I'm not saying talking to the player outside of the game is bad advice, you should do that too. However, this:

Party does not equal Table. The PLAYER can still be at the table while the PC is NOT part of the party.

Is terrible advice.

 

[kalani]

Agreed. The AL rules clearly indicate that the party applies to everyone at the table.... Otherwise, parties that split and go different directions would not pool treasure, and rogues who decide to pickpocket would be able to keep what they got.

All major rewards (XP, Treasure, etc) are split EVENLY between the party (with the exception of magic items, which are specifically divided according to the methods in the ALPG and ALDMG). It doesn't matter how a character contributes to an encounter, or even if the character was present for a given encounter - all rewards are totalled, and divided.

As the OP said themselves - the character participates extensively in the social (and from what I can tell, the exploration) pillars. Are you saying they are not entitled to XP simply because they have a preference for one pillar over the others (and in fact, have a preference for a pillar that rarely if ever awards XP by itself, unless a potential combat encounter is involved and overcome in non-violent ways).

Speaking of which, perhaps the party should engage in overcoming some combat encounters using non-violent (peaceful) methods. You still earn XP (providing you do something meaningful to overcome the encounter - a single dice roll doesn't cut it).

It sounds to me that there is a disconnect between playstyles... This player appears to prefer social/exploration while the rest of the party are combat-heavy and prefer a murder-hobo style. It is the DMs responsibility to acknowledge all playstyles, and find a way to balance them at the table. This means that they should not only encourage the player to engage meaningfully in combat (even if that means the character takes up a defensive position in a tactically strategic point and takes the dodge action....acting as a living wall and shielding the party from damage; or distract an enemy by taking the help action to grant a major DPR character advantage on their attack roll), but they should also encourage the other players to come up with nonviolent solutions on occasion as well.

There are plenty of ways a peaceful character can perform meaningful nonviolent actions in combat (I have already mentioned Help and Dodge, but there are also spells such as counterspell, hypnotic pattern, grease, wall of stone/force; the protection style, cutting words, the lucky feat, splitting the enemy by drawing attention and then hiding and playing peek-a-bco to keep them distracted; etc).

Its not about conformity - it is about blending.

I have a wizard who rarely makes attack rolls outside of cantrips. He isn't non-violent, he is just a controller and proactively reduces enemy effectiveness in combat. I think of him as a reverse cleric - proactively preventing damage (rather than reactively healing it). Sure, he will swing with his cantrips if he has nothing better to do, but he rarely casts damaging spells (preferring instead to cast things like polymorph, wall of force, and his two favorite spells - counterspell and hypnotic pattern). Polymorph works in two ways, adding a HP buffer to a key combatant (either myself or another character, whoever needs it most), and also improving DPR (giant ape anyone). The character compliments his style by being a front-line combatant, wearing half-plate (and carrying a +2 shield; for an AC of 21); and having the Lucky feat, mirror image and shield
as backups.

This character seeks to direct as many attacks at himself as possible (in order to spread damage around the entire party, otherwise HD are being wasted on short rests) and also for the purposes of negating those attacks via high AC, Lucky, mirror image and/or shield.

I haven't cast fireball, scorching ray, or a variety of other attack spells in months (doesn't help that we have been fighting a lot of fire giants though). In fact, to my memory - the only damaging spells I have cast in the last 2 months have been otiluke's freezing sphere (once), prismatic spray (once), animate objects (several times), bigby's hand (several times) and polymorph (frequently, when I am not otherwise using Hypnotic pattern orwall of force​).

 

[Pauper]

It kinda makes me sad that no one has suggested to simply make the combats easier.

Ahem...

The one thing I might recommend to the DM is that, if this player is consistently avoiding combat, and not even doing things like attempting Medicine checks to stabilize fallen party members, then the DM should experiment with not counting that player against the size of the party when adjusting encounter difficulty. The downside to that option is that the party will receive less combat XP as part of their adventures because of it, but since AL has no guarantee that a party will ever receive more XP in an adventure than the minimum allowed, that's just the breaks.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...r-in-the-back-of-the-room/page2#ixzz44OwJ9Bdi

The scaling instructions on every adventure already give you a way to handle this. Just pick a different scale (e.g. "Weak" or "Very Weak"). It's not going to hurt anybody to earn a little less XP.

I agree!

Kalani makes a good argument as to why 'table =/= party' is a bad idea. I'm still just flabbergasted that some folks in this thread seem to be attached to the idea of punishing the player through his character for behavior that they simply don't like. Would they suggest the same solution if the player simply had a background they didn't care for ("Sage is stupid, because the secret is worthless in AL."), or a race/class combo they thought was sub-optimal ("Half-orc wizard? You idiot.")?

If the player's behavior is deliberate, and rises to the level of disruptive play, the ALDMG already contains advice on how to deal with that problem. Punishing a player to enforce 'groupthink' in a D&D adventure is exactly what we shouldn't be doing.

--
Pauper

 

[kalani]

Rather than my wall of text (above), here is a summary of my advice.

Encourage the pacifist character/player to participate in combat in non-violent ways: Take up a defensive position in a tactically important location and Dodge; Help the DPR characters by granting them advantage on an important attack; Split the enemies focus, and play keep-away with those enemies that are focused on you (esp. if you have high mobility, which a rogue and/or monk does); negate attacks with spells/abilities (Portent, Lucky, Protection style, hypnotic pattern, shield, etc); etc.

Encourage the other PCs to ALSO seek nonviolent solutions to encounters: You award XP for overcoming an encounter - it doesn't always have to be combat. A 5min roleplaying session in which you engage in meaningful dialogue mixed with a variety of diplomacy/insight/deception checks and possibly other checks can overcome an encounter just as easily as combat. The DM should then award partial (or full) XP based on the amount of effort and risk that occurred in overcoming the encounter.

Then, if the same encounter later turns violent (in a different session), you can award the remaining XP for the encounter (if any; they can't double-dip).

For Example: The party decides to sneak through a dungeon. If there are multiple paths, the party should not be awarded XP for encounters they bypass for choosing a different path. If OTOH, the party must sneak past a particular guard post using a combination of stealth, distractions, timing, etc - full Xp can be awarded. If the guards are distracted, partial XP might be more appropriate. If even a single failed stealth check would result in all the enemies becoming alerted (such as an alarm being raised), I would award full XP each time. If the alarm happens to be raised, any encounters they bypassed (and gained full Xp for in a previous session) would not earn XP in the current session, but they would still need to fight them.

At one point, they come upon an alert guard who doesn't immediately raise the alarm. He questions the PCs, and allows a dialogue to occur. The party could attack him (in which case he would trigger the alarm), or they might instead try to Bluff / Bribe / negotiate with the enemy in order to keep them silent. This is dramatic, and heightens tension as they have been caught, but the alarm has yet to be raised.

 

[Storyteller Hero]

It kinda makes me sad that no one has suggested to simply make the combats easier.

The scaling instructions on every adventure already give you a way to handle this. Just pick a different scale (e.g. "Weak" or "Very Weak"). It's not going to hurt anybody to earn a little less XP.

@Pauper's advice is good too, about finding ways to engage the player, but in it end it doesn't matter whether the player is refusing the join combat, or a poor min-maxer or tactically feeble; in the end it's your job as DM to adjust the adventure's difficulty to your party.

I'm not saying talking to the player outside of the game is bad advice, you should do that too. However, this:

Is terrible advice.

What you are suggesting is to punish THE REST OF THE PARTY for one player's behavior. Giving everyone less XP is even worse than giving one player more XP than they should be getting.

Why? The OP has already mentioned that the other players are getting frustrated with the one player's disconnection from the group. Do you really expect them to be happy that they are receiving less XP while the one player is STILL mooching off of them? They are still receiving less XP than they deserve after making the adjustment to the encounter difficulty, because the moocher is still getting a cut of the XP.

 

[nswanson27]

I've seen a good mix of fighting/sneaking/bluffing on a lot of the games I've played. Each is fun.
But I think the point of the OP isn't the scenario of choosing beforehand whether to actively engage or use subterfuge to handle a situation, and being open to using the latter. It's the scenario where the player is not participating in the fight after it's begun. That's a big difference.
And I don't see having the player suffer what would be natural and social consequences to his non-participation in a fight being "punishment" anymore than letting a party of gun-ho fighters suffer the consequences of biting off more than they can chew an a fight is "punishment". Just because a player decides to be "different" doesn't mean they are entitled to any special privilege. Yes, they have a vote and an influence on how the party and game dynamic should work, but nothing more than if they were more "typical".

 

[Ainulindalion]

There is a significant difference between

DM: "Bob, it's your turn."
Bob: "Joe does nothing because I don't like combat. Next turn."

and

DM: "Bob, it's your turn."
Bob: "Joe hides in the corner and puts up minor illusion to disguise his hiding place because he's afraid."

Now, hopefully Joe has a character arc and eventually overcomes his fear. If at level 10 or so, Joe is still doing the same thing, I think the other players are totally within rights to complain - unless Joe adds to the experience outside of combat. 'There should have been 4 combats today, but Bob's character Joe got us past 1 without having to fight, and we still got full XP.' In that case, Joe's participating. But if they can't say that, at least semi regularly, say, 1 time out of a number of fights equal to the number of characters (i.e., 1 in 5 with five PCs), then Joe isn't really pulling his weight, and Bob is edging towards being a disruptive presence at the table, by virtue of the fact that this is a cooperative game.

 

[Storyteller Hero]

To be honest, I think it would have been better to just scrap the awards side of the XP system while maintaining the encounter building side for the AL rules.

Make the players level up based on how many adventures they've played with a character.

Make item drop options the same for each player (not necessarily the same single option for each person but rather the same menu of options so that there is a choice individually) instead of choosing who gets what.

Less hassle to debate fairness of awards, less pressure to conform to play styles, more focus on the adventure.

 

[Pauper]

What you are suggesting is to punish THE REST OF THE PARTY for one player's behavior. Giving everyone less XP is even worse than giving one player more XP than they should be getting.

That's your assumption. There is nothing in the AL rules that mandates that players always receive the maximum XP for a given adventure. If you're going into a mod assuming you're going to come out with max XP, it's your assumption that's flawed, not anybody else's playstyle.

This is a textbook example of a behavior I discussed in a thread some time ago, in which I pointed out that optimization drives out other playstyles -- the problem is that the other players at the table are upset because they have a player who doesn't share their 'combat first, max XP always' ethic of play, and the recommendations in this thread coming from folks who agree with your position are always about 'punishing' that player for that choice.

*If* the player is truly being disruptive, and there's no indication based on the OP's report that the player is actually doing this, then there are already guidelines for how to deal with the situation. Also note that AL staff has repeatedly stated that 'it's what my character would do' is not a justification for disruptive play, so again, the existing system, if it applies, should be enough.

What you and others are suggesting is using peer-pressure and active penalties to coerce a player into adopting a playstyle you find more acceptable. There's a term for this: bullying.

--
Pauper

 

[nswanson27]

What you and others are suggesting is using peer-pressure and active penalties to coerce a player into adopting a playstyle you find more acceptable. There's a term for this: bullying.

--
Pauper

You're going have to be more specific on what exactly you're saying is "bullying". Is this in-character or out-of-character? Are you calling people expressing their frustrations with game play "bullying"? I could see things potentially crossing into that territory, but there needs to be more context for that charge to stand and be cross-examined. Leaving it general like that could just as easily be a case of "tyranny of the minority" and sounds more like name-calling.

 

[Pauper]

You're going have to be more specific on what exactly you're saying is "bullying".

OK, let's play this game. I'll go in order of posting rather than in order of egregiousness:

Second, cowards (which it sounds like this character is) don't become adventurers, so suggest that his story doesn't make sense.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?481861-That-player-in-the-back-of-the-room#ixzz44PPzU8Jd

Telling another player that he's playing his character wrong.

The DM needs to stop ignoring this person and make his character participate and earn his share of the rewards. Have monsters appear right by the character, if possible. Have ranged attackers try to target him.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?481861-That-player-in-the-back-of-the-room#ixzz44PQWj0gH

Have monsters go out of their way to target the character, despite the character not being a threat to them, so that the player gets the message.

If he doesn't like being forced to participate (and doesn't get the hint), he can play somewhere else, or not at all. If he's so into roleplaying his character to the hilt, has the question "Why are you even here?" ever come up?

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?481861-That-player-in-the-back-of-the-room#ixzz44PQybOHF

'Force' the character to participate, and threaten the player with ostracism if he refuses. Suggest the player is valueless for not participating.

I'd suggest the other players simply aproach him outside the game & make it clear that he's really not welcome .

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?481861-That-player-in-the-back-of-the-room#ixzz44PRIfW2S

Actually have the other players tell the offending player that "he's really not welcome". Not that "your character's actions are frustrating and limiting our enjoyment of the game," but "go away."

You could have 1 or 2 enemies peel off and spend their time only searching/attacking just that hiding character....

Otherwise, after the first fight, I would allow the group to hogtie him and leave him to be picked up later (and if he passes a very high check to escape, he's lost and alone).

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...r-in-the-back-of-the-room/page2#ixzz44PRjG1rd

Again, have monsters harass the character despite the character not being a threat. If that doesn't work, kidnap the character and abandon him, helpless, in a dangerous area. (Maybe you don't need to hogtie him if there's a convenient set of coat-hooks that you can just suspend him by his belt-loops from?)

If YOU think he is being deliberately obnoxious, or that he simply is not invested in playing the group game that AL is, then you should swallow the bitter pill and make sure his character dies. Then you ask the other players 'What do you do with the body?'. Faction charity only works if the body is recoverable...if they are really annoyed with him, they can give him a nice funeral pyre, say a sweet prayer and spread his ashes in a field...new character please. Odds are good he will take the STRONG hint that the other players won't put up with his crap.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...r-in-the-back-of-the-room/page3#ixzz44PSb5Qjb

This is one that really threw me for a loop -- in the midst of an otherwise sensible discussion of the issue, there's this recommendation that the DM murder the PC and suggest that the other PCs hide the body so it can't be recovered. Hey, if it works, how about we do the same to that effeminate guy in gym class's pet cat so that he'll 'get the message' to act more manly when in the shower?

The OP just seems to be asking for the best advice on how to deal with the situation. I hope to heaven he doesn't recommend any of the advice quoted above.

--
Pauper

 

[Ainulindalion]

Personally, I wouldn't consider someone questioning my story/character concept as 'bullying'. It's peer review.

"Why did you make this choice?"
"What was the logic flow here?"
"Why do you feel this works with the rest of the story?"
"How do you see this character fitting into the group?"

Sure, it could easily devolve into bullying. But constructive criticism isn't bullying behavior in and of itself.

And no, in a group game, where everyone sits down to have fun, if your method of having fun ruins the fun for every one else, they are not the problem. Even if AL is inclusive, you have to take that into account - any behavior that is a conscious choice that ruins the fun for the majority is by definition disruptive.

"I play my characters this way because this is the most fun for me" is most definitely a conscious choice. It's not, in and of itself, again, a wrong choice. But context always matters.

 

[flametitan]

Likewise, I doubt you'd lose that much XP for reducing difficulty.

For DDEX3-2, simply defeating one of each type of enemy and then completing every non combat challenge would be more than enough to hit the max XP threshold for a party of 5.

For DDEX3-3, that would bring you within 500XP of the Maximum.

In neither of these adventures do I assume you only fight "one of each," and that you actually fight a lot more. It's pretty difficult to hit the XP floor of the adventures.

 

[Ainulindalion]

Suggest the player is valueless for not participating.
--
Pauper

Actually, I feel like that's exactly true. If you're playing a cooperative group game (taking up a seat at the table) and you aren't actually participating, you have no value in that setting, and you should probably leave.

Obviously, that's the most extreme this situation gets to, and I don't think it's there yet, from the OP, but it's also true. If I'm a DM, and you're just sitting at my table mouth breathing when there were other people who wanted to play and will actually participate, I'm going to tell you to leave. I'm not going to ask, I'm simply going to tell you, because by that point, I will have tried a number of times to provoke your participation, by the methods described in my earlier posts.

 

[kalani]

I would strongly suggest giving the players constructive ideas on how they can participate in the battle without making attack rolls. I fully suspect the player has little idea what creative options he could come up with to be pacifistic and an asset to the party.

In addition, it sounds like he is genuinely fearful for his characters safety. Perhaps talking with the player out of character and letting them know that hiding and not participating is actually putting their character in more danger (as it is one less combatant on the PC side, and therefore if the rest of the party fails due to your character not participating - who do you think the bad guys are going to focus on next.....your character, and you won't have anyone to back you up).

You don't have to deal damage in order to be a valuable asset to an encounter. They are just the most direct ways of contributing. I gave some other suggestions above. Another option is grappling / shoving.

 

[nswanson27]

Thank you.
I won't presume to respond at the behest of others, so I confine this to what I said, and let others respond to what they said.

Again, have monsters harass the character despite the character not being a threat. If that doesn't work, kidnap the character and abandon him, helpless, in a dangerous area. (Maybe you don't need to hogtie him if there's a convenient set of coat-hooks that you can just suspend him by his belt-loops from?)



--
Pauper

1) Not all enemies respond to the most serious threat. Some are, well, "evil", and look for the weakest in the herd. The guy running away and hiding would fit that description. Also, you don't seem willing to acknowledge the power-balance issue that comes from a player not helping in combat. This serves as a meta-gameish way to address that problem and keep things fair for all. Not saying it's perfect, but it's better than pretending there is no problem and doing nothing about it.
2) There's nothing "bullying" about that scenario of tying them up after demonstrating they will not engage and help with a critical component to adventuring after-the-fact. That's called "survival". It's in-character, and it's a perfectly reasonable response for game play. There are countless real-life examples of where something like this happening in an army during wartime wouldn't get them tied up - they would be court-martialed and executed. This is because inaction can and is just as much of a force-factor as action. Whether you or I or anyone else likes that reality is beside the point - it's done for a reason. They're not just being "mean".