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

[ThirdWizard]

I... I... agree with The Shaman? Trippy!

The Players have to play something they enjoy, but the DM also has to run something he'll enjoy. It's usually not that hard, in my experience, to find a middle ground of things that everyone likes to play at the gaming table, even if you're a group of friends come to play together with different tastes.

I've found that the big stuff is usually not really that important. Whether its a game set in the far future or traditional fantasy or superheroes or whatnot. The most important thing is the micro, the details of how the game works from minute to minute. At least, in my experience. Options and Core this and Supplement can make people infuriated or excatic, but once you get playing, they mean so very much less.

Again, in my experience.

 

[The Shaman]

I... I... agree with The Shaman? Trippy!

It's a monkeys, typewriters, works of Shakespeare thing - probability dictates that it had to happen at some point...

 

[prosfilaes]

Or you could say, "I really really really want to run a Traveller game; would anyone mind if we do that for a while?"

And if your players have your enjoyment in mind, they should agree, even if it's just a few sessions long and then back to Ptolus.

If I didn't want to run D&D, they'd just go to someone else in the group willing to run a game. When everyone in the group DMs but one or two people, they're not going to play Traveller just because I want to.

 

[Seeten]

As a note, I played in Elephant's online D&D WLD game, and he let me play a Drow Dread Necromancer/Hexblade gestalt, so it isnt like core only was his restriction. He just wanted a few days to read the material. I gave him plenty of heads up, character approved.

 

[the Jester]

Elephant, from what the other player in your game posted, it sounds like at least some of them may be willing to stick with you and form the nucleus of another group. I'd ask around about a new place to play, and let the problem player go as politely as possible.

 

[Seeten]

Problem Player owns the WLD book, by the by, so Elephant would have to go out and buy it to keep the game going.

 

[Felix]

If I didn't want to run D&D, they'd just go to someone else in the group willing to run a game. When everyone in the group DMs but one or two people, they're not going to play Traveller just because I want to.

Would they find someone else to DM if you just asked?

If not, it's worth a try.
If so, well, that wouldn't be very nice of them.

 

[Elephant]

As a note, I played in Elephant's online D&D WLD game, and he let me play a Drow Dread Necromancer/Hexblade gestalt, so it isnt like core only was his restriction. He just wanted a few days to read the material. I gave him plenty of heads up, character approved.

I was more liberal about materials in the online group. Since I didn't have a guarantee that the party would be balanced when people were actually playing, I wanted each character to be more powerful to aid in survivability.

With the face-to-face group, I was much more cautious. I still let a lot of things in - like an Archivist from Heroes of Horror, a Knight from the PHB II, etc. - but I disallowed a few things, too.

The idea was to start at core and expand the extra stuff only slowly, not explode instantly into "anything WOTC" and find myself drowning in a sea of overpowered combinations.

 

[Hussar]

See, now this I disagree with. The assumption that anything from a non-core source is going to be broken.

Take a look at the various threads about Complete Warrior, Complete Arcane and Complete Divine. The single most common complaint about all three books is that the classes are weak. Or, at least weaker than the PHB classes.

Can you create unholy monsters from splat books? Oh yeah. But, then again, I can do the exact same thing with core. My halfing fighter riding on a dog pumping out triple digit damage at 8th level proved that quite nicely. Gotta love lances.

While I can fully appreciate being wary of some sources, (for my WLD game, BOED and BOVD both got nerfed as well as Savage Species) but, to blanket bar non-core is perhaps a tad harsh.

Although, looking at your comments Elephant, I would say that this is NOT what you did. You've already mentioned allowing other classes. THis has much more to do with a player pulling a hissy fit because he couldn't spend the thirty seconds of his own time to make your life easier.

I really empathise with you on that. Drives me around the twist as well.

 

[Felix]

The assumption that anything from a non-core source is going to be broken.

I think more likely is that it has the possibility of being broken, so it must be reviewed by the DM to see if it is broken; in the case of an inexperienced DM, they might a) not be able to distinguish the difference twixt broken and not, and b) not want to spend the time finding brokenness and instead focus on improving other DMing skills.

Would you agree that non-core is at least more likely to be broken than core?