Jeff Albertson
Explorer
Slap him about the face and neck.
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D&D 5E What to do if a player keeps reading the adventures
- Thread starter Lord Vangarel
- Start date
the Jester
Legend
Another, milder but still effective, approach is to not award xp for anything that he's read. Just let him know that he will not benefit from it. (It would be different if this was a case of "I read that module five years ago," but from the sound of it, it's more "I bought the module you're running so I can read it".)
JackOfAllTirades
Explorer
Wik
First Post
Okay. My take on this is similar to what others have said, but here goes:
1. You can't kick the guy, and you're not willing to directly confront him on his problem behaviour. While a lot of people are saying "boot him!", I get where you're coming from. Some people don't want to be all confrontational about D&D... it is, after all, just a game. So, what you need to do is set up a situation where his problem behaviours won't come into play.
2. To do this, you should make sure his dice rolls are in the open. And, to be fair, ask everyone to do their dice rolls in the open. Yours as well, for the most part. That nullifies any dice cheating problems that could come into effect.
3. You're going to have to convert modules, I'm afraid. Buy old modules - the 1e ones are great, and I've been running an entire campaign on old Dungeon modules, so it's totally doable. Converting is going to take a few hours per module, but it'll be worth it. And don't, whatever you do, let the players know what module they're in. Take any of the D&D specific names and change 'em. Tsojanth becomes "Tothar", sort of thing. If you file off the serial numbers, by the time the player figures out he's playing White Plume Mountain, it'll be too late to read ahead (hopefully).
Seriously, converting modules isn't that hard. Last week, I converted an old 2e module of about thirty pages, and it took me around six hours... and that was WITH writing my own stat blocks, magic items, etc. If you wanted to do a direct conversion, you could probably manage it in two hours.
4. Let slip to other players that you're doing this, for this exact reason. You might not be confrontational about it, but some players might be, and could help you solve this problem.
5. Get a lot of magic items, spells, etc, from third party sources. Online is great - there's so much stuff, that even if you say "this is a staff of Ice", a google search on his part ain't gonna help much, because a million "staffs of ice" will pop up.
6. Realize that a reason people cheat in games like this is a feeling of insecurity. They want to be awesome at the game, and don't feel they have the ability to be awesome without getting an edge over other players (somethign that makes them "better" than everyone else). If you want to curb cheating, you need to build up self esteem in situations where he got his awesome boon by NOT cheating. These types of players, if you can't kick em, require a fair amount of coddling. It sucks, but there it is.
1. You can't kick the guy, and you're not willing to directly confront him on his problem behaviour. While a lot of people are saying "boot him!", I get where you're coming from. Some people don't want to be all confrontational about D&D... it is, after all, just a game. So, what you need to do is set up a situation where his problem behaviours won't come into play.
2. To do this, you should make sure his dice rolls are in the open. And, to be fair, ask everyone to do their dice rolls in the open. Yours as well, for the most part. That nullifies any dice cheating problems that could come into effect.
3. You're going to have to convert modules, I'm afraid. Buy old modules - the 1e ones are great, and I've been running an entire campaign on old Dungeon modules, so it's totally doable. Converting is going to take a few hours per module, but it'll be worth it. And don't, whatever you do, let the players know what module they're in. Take any of the D&D specific names and change 'em. Tsojanth becomes "Tothar", sort of thing. If you file off the serial numbers, by the time the player figures out he's playing White Plume Mountain, it'll be too late to read ahead (hopefully).
Seriously, converting modules isn't that hard. Last week, I converted an old 2e module of about thirty pages, and it took me around six hours... and that was WITH writing my own stat blocks, magic items, etc. If you wanted to do a direct conversion, you could probably manage it in two hours.
4. Let slip to other players that you're doing this, for this exact reason. You might not be confrontational about it, but some players might be, and could help you solve this problem.
5. Get a lot of magic items, spells, etc, from third party sources. Online is great - there's so much stuff, that even if you say "this is a staff of Ice", a google search on his part ain't gonna help much, because a million "staffs of ice" will pop up.
6. Realize that a reason people cheat in games like this is a feeling of insecurity. They want to be awesome at the game, and don't feel they have the ability to be awesome without getting an edge over other players (somethign that makes them "better" than everyone else). If you want to curb cheating, you need to build up self esteem in situations where he got his awesome boon by NOT cheating. These types of players, if you can't kick em, require a fair amount of coddling. It sucks, but there it is.
I imagine that this would punish everyone in the campaign as the party hampered with a permanently level 1 character struggles against increasingly difficult encounters.
And then the DM wonders why his campaign never worked out.
Rune
Once A Fool
Somehow, I suspect [MENTION=1210]the Jester[/MENTION] wouldn't see that as a problem.
the Jester
Legend
Given my playstyle, it would work just fine.
dd.stevenson
Super KY
I had a player once who I was 90% certain was reading along in the adventure as we played (it was an online game.) Turns out, I actually liked the guy and didn't want to boot him. So I just let it ride. Oh, occasionally I would swap names in the module just to tweak him, and I made fun of him when he blurted out specific info (names, etc.) that the party wasn't privy to yet. But by and large, I just let it go.
Turns out these adventure paths run about the same whether the players know what's in 'em, or not. They are paths, after all.
dd.stevenson
Super KY
So, theoretically, what would it take for you to not want to play with him any more? Because from what you say, he's starting to sound like a good candidate for culling.
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