What do you do with unserious players?

[Decamber]

Hello!

I was wondering something. In any group, not only roleplaying, there usually is someone who finds it hard to take whatever he's doing seriously. In roleplaying groups, this guy may tend to come off-track easy and pop out irrelevant jokes and stuff. As a DM, and indeedly also as a player, these "unseriousities" could be quite annoying since it in most cases slows the game down, and perhaps even crash it totally. So, what I'm interested in finding out, is what you as a DM (and maybe otherwise!) do to keep these things off?

The reason I'm wondering, is because we have these sort of players with us (some are very serious, though!), and I find it to be irritating especially when I'm the DM...... and I also report that I'm one of those players...

Thanks!

 

[Undead Pete]

Four options:

a) Make sure that anytime he detracts from the game, his character receives the majority of the backlash.

b) Call up his mom before the game and ask her to double his dose of Rytalin

c) Ask him to mellow out privately. If it continues, boot him.

d) Kill him. Toss the body in the wood chipper. Express sorrow when he turns up missing. Recruit new stable player.


p.s. Unserious isn't a word, cowboy. Same goes for "unseriosities"

 

[The_Gneech]

It depends on how serious you want it; both goofy games and heavy ones can be very fun, in very different ways.

Generally, I like to have some metagame joking, but play the story straight. However, there are times when the goofiness won't go away, and I've had more than one otherwise-great moment get ruined by players making fun of villains and such.

If it's the whole group, there's not much you can do about it. If it's one player who keeps ruining things, ask them why the heck they're at the table if they don't really want to play.

-The Gneech

 

[Uller]

p.s. Unserious isn't a word, cowboy. Same goes for "unseriosities"

Niether is "indeedly".

The way I look at it: It's a game. Everyone enjoys it in his own way...so long has the player's attitude doesn't seriously infringe on everyone else's fun it's all good.

...but then you wouldn't be writing this...

We've all encountered such players. In my old group, about half the players were there more for the socializing than the game. They enjoyed the fights and stuff, but other than that they didn't really care about their characters, the rules, the story-line, etc. During one encounter, a couple of them started walking out onto my deck to talk between their turns. They'd wander back in...say "I attack" whatever is close by, roll their dice then wander back out. At that point I realized that all the work I was putting into the game was for my benefit only...so we broke the group up...the non-serious players now are a regular poker group (no work necessary ) and the other is made up of the more serious players (with a few others added). Things go much better now. We still get together for the socializing, but the game is important too.

 

[BOZ]

as a proverbial “non-serious” player (is that any real surprise?) i can offer you only one bit of advice. live with it and let him do his thing, or kick him out. being silly and making jokes during the game is probably his best way of enjoying himself, so asking him to cut it out may seriously impede his fun. of course, allowing him to carry on may seriously impede your fun, so you need a balance. asking him to tone it down might work, but don’t count on it. if he’s a serious joker (oxymoron intended), you’ll probably either have to live with it, or without him.

 

[Vargo]

Bring in the Piggie.

Piratecat's group has a Piggie Bank they feed whenever anybody makes an OOC statement. Your player will either learn the wisdom of his ways or go broke.

 

[Decamber]

Thanks for the replies.

The problem is that who the unserious player is varies. So as it'd be silly to kick all players (including myself), it would indeedly be more easy to do something else - for instance, bring in the Piggie.

Well, what I have to do is investigating the problem further, so that I know where the real problem lies. While doing that, please go on posting the ways you're handling the problem, would ya?

 

[Magius del Cotto]

Old group: Take a break every now and then. Let the players have their fun, then get serious again after everybody's worked the silliness out of their systems and are ready to game.
New Group: in-game violence is always an option. I don't mean actually throwing die at each other (though it is an option), I mean stuff like "friendly nudges" when the characters are doing something that would disrupt gameplay (or, as a DM, simply let them make a huge fool of themselves). Just don't dirupt the gameplay too much in an attempt to "fix" it.

 

[Decamber]

I thought on something just recently. Do you think it could work if we had two campaigns running, and play two times per week instead of one. First we have the regular campaign, and then a non-serious, humour-campaign in which we just freak out and try to get a non-tensionous (that's a word, isn't it? ) atmosphere. That could perhaps help us being serious on the actual campaign.

What do you think?

 

[Bryan Vining]

Well, I have an answer, but I'd rather not put it up here, as I can readily predict the reactions of most, and I'd rather not deal with them.

If you're interested, we can converse privately.