When Players don't respect the DM's rules - Help!

[mearls]

My advice, talk, one on one, with some of the others in your group. Ask them "Am I being reasonible with my rules, trying to get the feel of things with as simple a game as possible?" Experienced players and especially DM's will most likely tell it to you straight, and with a great deal of understanding. Heck, every DM was a noob at it once upon a time, they know the preassure.

I think this is great advice. Hearing everyone else's perspective can really help. I had a campaign where two players constantly complained about the plot, the books that were available for building characters, and the direction of the story. I talked to the other three players in private, and they all really liked the game, liked their characters, and were happy with things. In the end, we parted ways with the two unhappy guys, picked up two replacement players, and kept on having fun.

 

[RamYaz]

If you want to DM, you are in command! First, issue a warning; second, dismiss him; and third, kick him out of the gaming group.

 

[der_kluge]

I can sort of see this guys position, but I think he's being a baby, personally. I sort of went down this road with my last party. A couple of my players owned books I don't own, and insisted on playing characters from said books. At first, I declined, but then later on I allowed them to play a warlock and a warmage. I hated both characters, if for no other reason that they added nothing to the party, and neither of them could even read magic, detect magic, or even dispel magic. What a worthless spellcaster, IMHO.

On the ability score issue, I give characters a 15, 13, 12, 11, 10, and 8 with 8 points to spend however they want. No one rolls dice, no one cheats, no one gets excessively high scores, and it just solves a ton of problems. I also told them I wanted to stick to core rules only, but I will allow certain other classes/PrCs but my main concern is maintaining a balanced party.

What class did this guy want to play?

 

[TheAuldGrump]

This is an icky one - I would try talking with him between games, talk to him about the issues that you had with the 'everything goes' games, and remind him that you are a newish DM, and want to get a feel for the game before going much beyond core.

Go over the new character with him, telling him that you are considering allowing it as a permanent character, but that you want to go over the class abilities first. Then kill the character in the most painful and humiliating way possible. Err, I mean allow the character on a probationary basis, letting the player know that it is probationary. It does not sound like the character is unbalancing, at least from what you have described, so making it probationary both asserts your control and allows him to play something he likes. If the character really does not work out then at least the pair of you will have tried.

And remind him that the game has to be fun for the DM too - some players have this strange impression that the DM owes them a fun game, but they don't owe him anything in return. It is a game, if you do not have fun then don't do it.

The Auld Grump

 

[Shadowslayer]

I agree with you, it is a co-operative sort of thing. The intent is to have fun for everyone. The problem here though is that the player in question was not cooperateing.

I dunno. I'm reading the initial post and it looks more to me like the issue is a power struggle. Which to me is bogus. "Respect your rules"? This is a group thing, where its already been established by the other players that they're willing to go along with aftermarket stuff.

It was written that the other players were "pretty good about it" Does this mean that they welcomed the core-only bit with open arms, or that they just didn't gripe out loud about it?

It just looks to me like the "offending" player just didn't appreciate the change-up that came with switching DMs. Sure it could have been handled better, (but on the other hand, contraqry to what some posters have said, I've seen nothing here that suggests he threw a tantrum) And in the end, it worked out. quote "and it ended up being a lot of fun. His character played a key role in the game that day, and it was a lot of fun for the whole group." unquote.

So what's the problem? The only regret I'm seeing here is that the OP wonders if he should have caved. He sees this as an authority/respect thing...and I'm telling you "its just games" Leave the ego at the door. After all, you're playing over at this guy's place, he's part of your established group, and I'd say he's quite justified in feeling that this is his game as much as anyone else's.

 

[ShadowRaven]

Okay Shadowslayer. I see where you're comeing from. Also I don't mean this as anything against you, for the most part I agree with what you're saying, however, in the sake of being as helpful as possible to the OP I'm gonna run with what you're saying. Hope ya don't mind, and if you do...well fell free to yell at me.

Now, because neither of us where there, the tantrum point is really well, moot. Did he, did he not? doesn't matter really.

What he didn't do though, was the few basic things the DM asked for, and did some things to get his way. Sure, it turned out fun, and his character proved to be valuable. The question though is, could he not have done that by going core? The rest of the group did. It may not have been quite what they wanted to do, but they atleast complied. When dealing with a new and inexperienced DM, that's probably the best.

See, from where I am standing it doesn't look like an ego issue at all. Nor is it a matter of the DM trying to test out his authority. It's a matter of a lack of experience on one part, and an either inability, or unwillingness to compromise on another. I mean, it doesn't sound like the 'offending' player is a munchkin or whatever you want to call him. Just sounds like he doesn't want to adjust to something. Of course I could be wrong, it has been known to happen from time to time.

Still, like you said the game is about co-operation. However co-operation also means compromiseing at times. The OP did some compromiseing himself, turned out good. Still now he's left with the question of 'how much do I need to give, and how much should I expect others to give?' So here I ask, what advice would you give?

 

[SteveC]

To my mind, a lot depends on whether the player is a friend or just a "gaming acquaintance." If a friend of mine did this, I'd say something to the effect of "knock it off, you're being a jerk, and no one is having any fun. What's really going on here?"

If I didn't know the person that well, I would look for another place to play, and then set my rules and stand firm, otherwise I'd stop the game and move to a different GM. Life is too short to not have fun doing something, and you're not having fun running the game.

--Steve

 

[Mishihari Lord]

So what's the problem? The only regret I'm seeing here is that the OP wonders if he should have caved. He sees this as an authority/respect thing...and I'm telling you "its just games" Leave the ego at the door. After all, you're playing over at this guy's place, he's part of your established group, and I'd say he's quite justified in feeling that this is his game as much as anyone else's.

The problem is that this is likely to turn into an ongoing problem. The DM has a much harder job than any of the other players, and it's quite reasonable for him to ask that certain restrictions be observed to make his life easier, especially if he is still a relative novice. If this guy wants to be special and not follow the rules everyone else is abiding by in this case, it's likely that he wil continue to demand special treatment in the future, which makes for unending DM headaches.

The established procedure of the group seems to be that the DM sets the rules.

I think someone already mentioned this, but I'd have a discussion with the whole group along the lines of "X isn't happy sticking with the PHB, how many of the rest of you feel this way." If X is the only unhappy one, the say that it's unfair to give him special treatment and ask him to find a way to have fun with a PHB character. I would expect the group's support at this point. If everyone is unhappy playing PHB only characters, I would then ask who else in the group would like to DM, then.

 

[Shadowslayer]

See, from where I am standing it doesn't look like an ego issue at all. Nor is it a matter of the DM trying to test out his authority. It's a matter of a lack of experience on one part, and an either inability, or unwillingness to compromise on another. I mean, it doesn't sound like the 'offending' player is a munchkin or whatever you want to call him. Just sounds like he doesn't want to adjust to something. Of course I could be wrong, it has been known to happen from time to time.

Still, like you said the game is about co-operation. However co-operation also means compromiseing at times. The OP did some compromiseing himself, turned out good. Still now he's left with the question of 'how much do I need to give, and how much should I expect others to give?' So here I ask, what advice would you give?

OK, my advice would be, get the group together and hammer out some common rules. Is it core only, are certain supplements allowed? WHich ones? etc. And then go with that no matter who is DMing. (this is how my own group does it) The inexperienced DM will just have to come up to the challenge. (It's not rocket science...actually the EL/CR thing is an imperfect system whether its core only or wide open)

I disagree though, that its not an ego/control/authority issue. From where I'm sitting, thats exactly what it looks like. The OP said that it all ended up working out, but still had the niggling feeling that he'd been undermined. So never mind that it worked out in the end....it didn't work out HIS way, hence the post.

QUOTE
"However, I feel like I should not have caved. It's not about character stats, it's about this player not respecting me or my rules. I don't want to be unable to keep up with new material, especially new material from books I don't own.

The most awkward part is, the problem player hosts the games, so I don't feel like I can lay down the law as much as I'd like to. If necessary, I can probably see about someone else hosting the game, but I'd prefer not to do so."
UNQUOTE (emphasis mine)

Here you have a guy who would consider switching up the group and dumping one guy because he's not being afforded due respect? Oh yeah...it sounds like an ego thing.

ANyway, I'm just saying that I feel that some sort of group consensus is in order. As I said before, I have no way of knowing if the rest of the group embraced the core-only thing, or just merely went along with it. It could be that the other player was out of line. I don't have the whole story. Was the offending player guilty of wanting special treatment? I don't see that. I see that he just wanted to play the way the group had already established in prior campaigns.

 

[frankthedm]

"If I can bring in a deck of many things into the game I ran to make things fun for the PCs, you can handle extra material in your game."

:\ That tells me enough.