TheRPGSite

Compared to the rest of you, I think I qualify more as a dabbler than a serious role player by your definitions.  I played a lot in my youth, and in fits and starts for a few moths at a time here and there more recently.  There's plans afoot to start up an AD&D 1E game next month.  We'll see if it comes to pass.  

Anyway, when I did play RPG's, I was almost always the DM/GM.  I had the deepest knowledge of the rules, and was the only one willing to put in the work necessary.  I thoroughly enjoyed being a DM/GM.  But, as with every party in every campaign ever run I suppose, there were problems.  In my most long-lived and successful D&D campaign, the main problems were personality differences and game balance, one stemming from the other.  

Specifically, we had a group of 4 players, with two characters each.  Two of the players were hard core role players, one was a munchkin, and one was just an idiot.  The munchkin rolled up a ranger just because they get 2d8 hp at 1st level, and his second character is a cleric, created specifically to keep the ranger healthy.  I had a house rule that allowed rangers to move silently through foliage, and hide in it, using thieves' tables for moving silently and hiding in shadows, with the same penalties for wearing metal armor as found in the Unearthed Arcana.  While rolling for the magical component of a treasure hoard in one of their early adventures, the item that came up was a Sword +5 Defender.  I thought this would be perfect for the ranger, since it would allow him to put the "plus-es" into his AC and wear lesser armor while still being protected, and still enjoy all the benefits of his class.  

Of course, the first thing he does is go out and buy a suit of plate mail.  This dude became a walking tank.  The plus-es went into his AC exactly one time in a two year campaign.  This used to annoy the role players - and me - in equal measure. One of the role players was a half elven ranger, who lost the random dice roll for the sword, and often took off his metal armor to take advantage of the house rule.  He would have put that item to so much better use.  And the Tank would cleave through all opposition in short order, often leaving little for the rest of the party to do in many combat situations.  Anything that would have been a challenge for him would have made mincemeat out of the rest of the party.  I used to go out of my way to dream up things to counter him.  Too bad we never finished that underground campaign.  It was populated with a healthy community of rust monsters and disenchanters.  And I purposely had a village full of people that worshiped the cleric's deity get slaughtered by their enemies just before the party arrived, and when the cleric failed to perform burial rituals in accordance with their religion, I stripped him of his powers until he made amends, which sent him off on a solo side campaign, leaving the rest of the party for most of a session.  I made a lot of mistakes as a DM, but none I regret so much as giving him that damn sword.  

So my question for the DM/GM's out there is: was this me trying to restore/maintain game balance, or me being vindictive because this guy and his tactics upset so many of my carefully laid plans?  In my defense, I think this stuff started to infringe on the other players' good time.  After a while, even the role players started to cower behind him, and came to rely on his massive combat abilities as the solution to every problem, doing little themselves.  Sometimes out of a sense of laziness, and sometimes out of a sense of the inevitable; Bob's just gonna kill everything in 3 rounds anyway, so why bother?  So I'd like to think I was doing the Lord's work.  What do you think?

The idiot used to piss me off, too because whenever he didn't get something he wanted as easily as he wanted to, he'd pout.  He had a notebook that he used to keep his character stats in, rather than just a character sheet, and he kept a "burn list" on the succeeding pages that included stuff like a tavern where the bartender wouldn't sell out the crime lord they were contending with that session, and a bumbling but necessary NPC that was going to lead them to an artifact they needed to recover.  This was the kind of player that, when he starts getting dirty looks from an NPC in a tavern, rather than try to figure out why, throws his war hammer at the guy.  Or the time he was clinging to the side of a mountain path and decided to lasso the manticore attacking the party with his grappling hook.  Him I didn't have to TRY to kill; quite the contrary.  I didn't WANT to kill the PC's, and would go out of my way to prevent anyone actually getting killed; hurt, and threatened with death, OK.  But I didn't even want the Tank to actually DIE. The Idiot made this hard. At times, I was sorely tempted to let his ass die.  But the party had come to rely on some of his skills (he was the MU).

Quote from: IggytheBorg;818330So my question for the DM/GM's out there is: was this me trying to restore/maintain game balance, or me being vindictive because this guy and his tactics upset so many of my carefully laid plans?  In my defense, I think this stuff started to infringe on the other players' good time.  After a while, even the role players started to cower behind him, and came to rely on his massive combat abilities as the solution to every problem, doing little themselves.  Sometimes out of a sense of laziness, and sometimes out of a sense of the inevitable; Bob's just gonna kill everything in 3 rounds anyway, so why bother?  So I'd like to think I was doing the Lord's work.  What do you think?

Seems like this guy and his tactics bugged you...a lot. As a GM I find I'm happier when I'm willing to give up my ideas of what would be cool for the PCs and just go with the players ideas of what would be cool for their PCs. Even when the players are just so obviously wrong and I am so obviously right. ;)

Also, over the years I've found that trying to change player behavior by having things happen to their characters in the game world never ends well. Telling the player why what they are doing is a problem and asking them if they ware willing to change may work. Buy if that doesn't work then nothing you do to their character will ever get them to change for the better.

One advantage I find to periodically switching from GMing one system to GMing another system is that it provides a easy and neutral way for everyone to start over. New system. New world. New characters. All that makes it easy to leave mistakes behind like who got what magic item.

Quote from: IggytheBorg;818330So my question for the DM/GM's out there is: was this me trying to restore/maintain game balance, or me being vindictive because this guy and his tactics upset so many of my carefully laid plans?  In my defense, I think this stuff started to infringe on the other players' good time.  After a while, even the role players started to cower behind him, and came to rely on his massive combat abilities as the solution to every problem, doing little themselves.  Sometimes out of a sense of laziness, and sometimes out of a sense of the inevitable; Bob's just gonna kill everything in 3 rounds anyway, so why bother?  So I'd like to think I was doing the Lord's work.  What do you think?

I'm pretty well exclusively a player (I've tried GMing several times, but it's never stuck; I just don't seem to possess the special something it takes to make a decent GM), so take my input with the necessary quantity of salt. As a player, however, I also consider it one of my primary tasks at the table to do whatever I reasonably can to make the GM's job easier, up to and including some measure of wrangling unruly behavior and calling out other players on bullshit. If what you described were happening at my table I'd probably tell the guy to stop wasting everyone's time and just go play WoW, as that's obviously what he wants to be doing anyway. I get that min-maxing is fun for some folks, but if that's all you're interested in there are other games in other mediums that facilitate that far better.

That said, while I wouldn't necessarily say you were being vindictive, I would posit you did seem to be trying to solve an out-of-game problem with in-game solutions, which never ends well for anyone involved. When there's a clash of personalities and/or play styles like that, the only really effective approach is to sit everyone down OOC and hash it out. Anything less is just sending the inevitable drama down the line with interest.

Quote from: IggytheBorg;818331I didn't WANT to kill the PC's, and would go out of my way to prevent anyone actually getting killed; hurt, and threatened with death, OK.

There's your problem.

It's not the GM's job to keep PCs alive. That's the players' job. Otherwise, you are playing RPGs with bowling lane bumpers and that's lame.

The idiot in the group never had to learn how to play better because you treated him like a baby and awarded his behavior. The munchkin was given all the limelight because you made sure he always had a safety net.

Next time, let the dice fall where they may.

It's healthy to vent about our "youthful indiscretions."

That said, yeah, you made quite a few of your own problems. The grappling hooked manticore should have easily ripped him off the mountain side and plummet him to his doom, plate mail be damned. His aggro countenance to all peaceful NPCs should have developed an entire town wide hostility; you should have "no arms within town" custom, and if necessary devolve into using overbearing rules. et cetera.

There are many things worth learning at this website. Stick around and you'll pick up some great ideas. Feel free to vent frustrations and ask questions. We're here to share past experience.

:)

Quote from: IggytheBorg;818330I think this stuff started to infringe on the other players' good time.  After a while, even the role players started to cower behind him, and came to rely on his massive combat abilities as the solution to every problem, doing little themselves.

I suspect that it was bothering the other players even before you realized it.  This kind of "I'm so vastly superior to all the other PCs" situation pretty much always causes bad feelings with the other players.[1]  The ideal way to deal with such situations is to sit down and talk out of game with the player (or, possibly, the entire group, but one-on-one is probably better) about how he's affecting everyone else's enjoyment of the game.  Hopefully, you'll be able to work something out that everyone can have fun with.

And, if that doesn't work, kill him and take his stuff.


[1] The one exception I can think of is Ars Magica, where the person playing the magus is far more powerful than the other PCs.  However, magi tend to also have weak areas where they need non-magical PCs to step in (social, combat, etc.), so the game isn't just "all magus, all the time".  Perhaps more importantly, it's also designed for each player to have multiple characters and a different player's magus participates in each adventure, so everyone gets their turn at having the uber-character.

Quote from: Spinachcat;818374It's not the GM's job to keep PCs alive. That's the players' job. Otherwise, you are playing RPGs with bowling lane bumpers and that's lame.

QFT

1)  Anything that happened when the referee or the players were 14 does not constitute a need to change the rules.  We've all read Lord of the Flies.

2)  If you are unhappy with the actions of someone at the table, have a reasonable, adult discussion to achieve a workable compromise.  And when that fails, kill them and take their stuff.  In game actions never solve out of game problems.

3)  Not gaming is better than bad gaming.

4)  Now fetch me a beer.

Quote from: Spinachcat;818374It's not the GM's job to keep PCs alive. That's the players' job. Otherwise, you are playing RPGs with bowling lane bumpers and that's lame.

The idiot in the group never had to learn how to play better because you treated him like a baby and awarded his behavior. The munchkin was given all the limelight because you made sure he always had a safety net.

Next time, let the dice fall where they may.

This, so much this.

If a Player is acting stupidly with their character, then the consequences of that stupidity will happen. It is an evolutionary process and stupidity kills.

Quote from: jeff37923;818469This, so much this.

If a Player is acting stupidly with their character, then the consequences of that stupidity will happen. It is an evolutionary process and stupidity kills.

I see the merit to this argument, of course.  My concern at the time was that killing him and having to take up precious game time to have him roll up another character (he was TERRIBLE at coming up with a concept, and could not be trusted to roll up a character honestly on his own) would have dragged everyone else's good time down even further than his low level of play did.  I saw my overarching goal as ensuring everyone had fun to the extent possible.  But considering how much the combat oriented tank and idiot bitched at every puzzle or role playing opportunity, while the two role players enjoyed every opportunity to do everything, eventually it became more about seeing that the two role players and I had a good time.   But the aforementioned stall in the flow would have infringed on that.  Tank and idiot having fun was incidental after awhile.

Were you being vindictive?  Yes, you were.  It's always been a source of amazement to me that in a hobby that lives and dies on the spoken word, the overwhelming majority will do anything, try everything, ignore things, be a complete prick, all to avoid at any cost having an open, frank, adult conversation about their issues.

Bob wasn't a dick for using the tactical options you allowed him to take in the manner he saw fit, and he wasn't a dick for not using those options when he didn't feel like doing so.  Nor was he being a dick for not having his cleric perform heaps of burial rituals, not if you hadn't made it clear that doing so was a required pastoral duty, and that pastoral duties took precedence over everything else ... something that is very rarely asked of PC clerics in RPGs.  (Never mind that when D&D permits clerics to "worship" vague philosophical abstractions, so that the players don't have to deal with pesky doctrines or dogmas, I'm sure a lot of players have no notion of the concept.)

There are a bunch of ways you could've handled this:

* "Listen up, folks, I made a goof.  Rangers are supposed to be lightly armed and armored fighters.  So I'm houseruling that they're not allowed to wear metallic armor."

* "Listen up, folks, I made a goof.  Two characters apiece is a bit too much.  So we'll work with one apiece now; pick the one you prefer."

* "Hey, Bob, listen.  Your character's just gotten so damn powerful with this combo that combats are just a matter of you bashing everything and everyone else twiddling their thumbs.  That's not a lot of fun.  Can I talk you into changing characters?  I'll let you do up a new character of the same level as the others."

* "Listen, you two great roleplayers.  I'd like a campaign focusing on RP, not on tactical problem solving.  So I'm basing the new group around you two.  Do you know any other good RPers who might want in?"

Quote from: nDervish;818418I

And, if that doesn't work, kill him and take his stuff.


[

I did have a great deal of fun at his expense in one of my best gaming sessions as a DM.  The PC's are in a clearing in a forest, and hear a huge crashing and thrashing around.  Eventually, a green dragon comes crashing into the far side of the clearing. I let slip that, looking past where the dragon just broke thru the treeline, there are no more fallen trees.  The party's best role player considered this for a moment, and he knew that detail was supposed to mean something, but couldn't place what it was.  The party then succeeds in subduing the dragon, and forcing it to fly them to its lair and given them its treasure trove, which included a suit of apparently magical plate mail.  

Tank thinks he's found the rainbow's end, and immediately strips off his armor to don the new suit.  Then, everyone feels a pinprick and falls deeply asleep.  The pinpricks were, of course, pixies' sleep darts.  The whole thing was an illusion they pixies created as a practical joke on the PC's.  The lack of trampled timber was a flaw in the illusion, given as a hint so someone might try to disbelieve.  There was no dragon, no treasure, and no magical plate mail. Tank and Idiot were pissed that we had "wasted" the better part of an entire session on this. The other two were ecstatic, and thought it was one of the best sessions we'd ever had.

Quote from: Ravenswing;818495* "Listen, you two great roleplayers.  I'd like a campaign focusing on RP, not on tactical problem solving.  So I'm basing the new group around you two.  Do you know any other good RPers who might want in?"

The five of us were friends IRL as well.  This would no doubt have led to hard feelings.  

The house ruling against metal armor would not have been a viable option because it would have nerfed one of the role players, who was also playing  a ranger.  

And Bob having the cleric did inure to the benefit of the rest of the party as well.  It was just obvious that Bob rolled him up just to keep the other guy healthy. It was endemic to his personality to want to have one up on everyone else.  I actually didn't have a problem with the cleric per se.  I certainly didn't want to remove him from a position where he could help the party just to be vindictive.  I dropped some pretty strong hints about the burial ritual thing, and saw that as just a blown role playing opportunity.  The vindictiveness was reserved for the ranger.  

An adult conversation probably would have been the way to go.  What can I say?  We were beer addled 17 year olds.  What Bob's response would have been, who knows?  I know he wouldn't have been happy. He might have quit over that, perceiving me as unfairly singling him out and going on a power trip.  It could have meant the end of the game as a whole, with the rest of the party quitting too.

Quote from: Ravenswing;818495Were you being vindictive?  Yes, you were.  It's always been a source of amazement to me that in a hobby that lives and dies on the spoken word, the overwhelming majority will do anything, try everything, ignore things, be a complete prick, all to avoid at any cost having an open, frank, adult conversation about their issues.

You say "have an adult conversation" like you're dealing with adults. 99% of the time, the people that you need to tiptoe around like this are exactly BECAUSE you can't just talk to them without them flipping the fuck out. If it was someone who got the hint like that you wouldn't have to do any of that.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;818505You say "have an adult conversation" like you're dealing with adults. 99% of the time, the people that you need to tiptoe around like this are exactly BECAUSE you can't just talk to them without them flipping the fuck out. If it was someone who got the hint like that you wouldn't have to do any of that.

Don't play with people like that.

I implemented that advice at age 19 and never looked back.  It makes gaming so much more pleasant.

And once again, "not gaming is better than bad gaming," and gaming with utter rampaging fuckmortons is one of the epitomes of bad gaming.

Quote from: IggytheBorg;818490I see the merit to this argument, of course.  My concern at the time was that killing him and having to take up precious game time to have him roll up another character (he was TERRIBLE at coming up with a concept, and could not be trusted to roll up a character honestly on his own) would have dragged everyone else's good time down even further than his low level of play did.  I saw my overarching goal as ensuring everyone had fun to the extent possible.  But considering how much the combat oriented tank and idiot bitched at every puzzle or role playing opportunity, while the two role players enjoyed every opportunity to do everything, eventually it became more about seeing that the two role players and I had a good time.   But the aforementioned stall in the flow would have infringed on that.  Tank and idiot having fun was incidental after awhile.

Well, now in retrospect, you have learned this was wrong. How? Because you felt things fell apart as people were no longer having fun. You now know better. Yay!

And I don't see how hard it was to have him roll up a PC stat line in front of you and then return later once he's made a character concept for you to later OK. He just rolls the chargen dice in front of you, you write it down, he goes off to scribble something and comes back for you to audit and OK. Not all that hard.

Besides, it lets the social players play as he busies himself creating a PC. Also, it sounds like you also learned that catering to him and his complaints at the expense of your other players never bore reciprocal fruit. So basically letting him run the show only made your table worse, and now you know you have to master your own table! Yay!

Are you feeling better through this confessional process? :)

What do you feel like running soon? How will you apply the lessons you learned?

Quote from: IggytheBorg;818490I see the merit to this argument, of course.  My concern at the time was that killing him and having to take up precious game time to have him roll up another character (he was TERRIBLE at coming up with a concept, and could not be trusted to roll up a character honestly on his own) would have dragged everyone else's good time down even further than his low level of play did.  I saw my overarching goal as ensuring everyone had fun to the extent possible.  But considering how much the combat oriented tank and idiot bitched at every puzzle or role playing opportunity, while the two role players enjoyed every opportunity to do everything, eventually it became more about seeing that the two role players and I had a good time.   But the aforementioned stall in the flow would have infringed on that.  Tank and idiot having fun was incidental after awhile.

Understandable, but that is part of the learning process. Moving on with the game for the Players that have characters and leaving those whose PCs have died behind. By ensuring that the short term goal of everyone, even the idiot, was having fun then you sacrificed the long term goal of your sense of enjoyment for the game - to the point that it bothers you years later, as this thread demonstrates.

Quote from: IggytheBorg;818498What can I say?  We were beer addled 17 year olds.

That is a mitigating factor. Sadly, we hear similar stories involving 37 year olds.

Is Bob still a douchebag? Do you still game with your old crew?

Quote from: IggytheBorg;818498The five of us were friends IRL as well.  This would no doubt have led to hard feelings.  

Geek Social Fallcy #3: (http://plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html) Friendship Before All

It seems you're now older and wiser, but, still...  Check out the link.  I personally find them easy patterns to slip back into and being aware of them helps to avoid that.

Quote from: IggytheBorg;818498The house ruling against metal armor would not have been a viable option because it would have nerfed one of the role players, who was also playing  a ranger.  

From what you've said here about the two RPers, I get the impression that they probably wouldn't have minded.

Quote from: Spinachcat;818524That is a mitigating factor. Sadly, we hear similar stories involving 37 year olds.

Is Bob still a douchebag? Do you still game with your old crew?

I haven't seen or spoken to him in years. I do still occasionally game with the guy who was the best role player of that group, with a new group of like minded but very busy guys.  We don't get to get together that often.

As for what I'd like to do, I'd love to resume that campaign where it left off, and just bump everybody up to the appropriate level with new characters (or the role player could use his old ones; he still has the character sheets).  The best parts of that campaign had yet to be realized. Doing so is on my bucket list.

It'd also be nice to play w/ someone else DM'ing for awhile.  When we started our current set up maybe two years ago, the idea was we'd all take turns DM'ing pre-made modules, so no one got stuck doing all the work.  I ran Ravenloft, and then one of the other guys started a Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classic. Our party's 1st combat, I got use a character I had rolled up when I was in high school and never gotten to use.  As I rolled for damage on my 1st hit scored, the role player says: "That's the first time you've rolled player damage in what. . . 25 years?"  Sadly, he was pretty much right.  More of the same would be divine.  

In an ideal world, I'd love to play and GM some Rifts sessions, and maybe Blood of Heroes (the DC Heroes system without the copyrighted DC Heroes).  We did that for awhile, with Bob GM'ing, when we lost one of our number for a few months while he was studying abroad.  It was fun to see someone else (particularly him) having to deal with the less pleasant aspects of being a GM

It's REALLY hard to work around a major GM error. Sometimes the rules set doesn't help either. In the 5E playtests, I allowed a fighter to play a Tengu (modified the Elf class to fit). What a mistake, because FLIGHT auto-solved so many issues. Plus, he was just so tanky-tank, and so buffed out on HP's that the campaign suffered from the same problem as you described above--he could wade through most things that killed off the others. In planning out the campaign capstone, I had to specifically plan for HIM, in lieu of the group. It worked out anyway, as their foe had been scouting them from within for weeks, so I had a narrative reason for focusing on the tank. I felt it was a logical way to approach the encounter, just to ensure it was sufficiently challenging for a capstone.

On the whole, though, if I make a mistake, I try to live with it. If it starts to be become an issue for everyone, then I'll try to work with the player, maybe offer some sort of tradeoff. I think using in-game play should be a last resort to solve an issue I created in the first place. Now, if the player is being a complete douche, then maybe a little GM-vindictiveness might be the way to go. Sometimes humility must be served (with fava beans and a nice Chianti).

Quote from: IggytheBorg;818551As for what I'd like to do, I'd love to resume that campaign where it left off, and just bump everybody up to the appropriate level with new characters (or the role player could use his old ones; he still has the character sheets).  The best parts of that campaign had yet to be realized. Doing so is on my bucket list.

Was it a Grand Campaign, where there was an overarching development arc? Or were the characters getting to name level and switching into Domain Management fun? Sometimes the world itself can easily slip into a Sandbox, if you find your notes fun and want some extra use from them. Then you can run plenty of 1st levels and let them build their own stories in your already made content.

Quote from: IggytheBorg;818551It'd also be nice to play w/ someone else DM'ing for awhile.

Yes. A drought is no fun. Though I do love GMing, and find myself constantly critiquing myself and others (in my head) on how to improve. Maybe I got the GM bug and need to get it out a bit more.

Quote from: IggytheBorg;818551In an ideal world, I'd love to play and GM some Rifts sessions, and maybe Blood of Heroes (the DC Heroes system without the copyrighted DC Heroes).  We did that for awhile, with Bob GM'ing, when we lost one of our number for a few months while he was studying abroad.  It was fun to see someone else (particularly him) having to deal with the less pleasant aspects of being a GM

Mwa ha ha! Another falls behind the screen to discover it isn't so smooth & easy! (Like a milkshake!)

Well, that and its Rifts — a pyrotechnic display of ideas, and trying to bring it all indoors for dinner. That world & system runs away from pretty much every GM at some point. ("No, wait, come back! ... I love you!")

I don't think it's fair to yourself to still regret how you handled something - anything - when you were 17. Life is a series of embarrassments. Carry on. Do more things.

//Panjumanju

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;818505You say "have an adult conversation" like you're dealing with adults. 99% of the time, the people that you need to tiptoe around like this are exactly BECAUSE you can't just talk to them without them flipping the fuck out. If it was someone who got the hint like that you wouldn't have to do any of that.

Okay, the OP has a reasonable pass for the reason he gave: they were beer-addled teenagers who weren't grown up yet.  Fair enough.  Panjumanju's right in that he oughn't beat himself up over it.  (Hell, I can think of a lot of dumb things *I* did when I was 17 -- and a college freshman loose on my own in Boston -- and teetotaling me didn't even have booze to blame for them.)

Grownups don't have an excuse.  The last player I sullenly put up with, despite that he was an abrasive idiot, was the boyfriend of my oldest friend, and I kept him around because I didn't want to offend her.  I finally got a clue and turfed his ass, and that was 28 years ago now.  It took me too long then to get it, but I got it: life's too short to saddle yourself with assholes, in your freaking hobby, because you don't have the balls to deal with messes.

I've had to have "that talk" with newer players three times between 2003 and 2005; none since.  One of them did, indeed, flip out on me, and he got the gate that day, for good.  He was pretty surprised to be thrown out, but I don't need people at my table, in my home and in my life who are raving assholes.  At my age, I just don't.  

Hell, at any of your ages, I bet you don't need that yourselves.

Quote from: Panjumanju;818612I don't think it's fair to yourself to still regret how you handled something - anything - when you were 17. Life is a series of embarrassments. Carry on. Do more things.

//Panjumanju

I don't beat myself up over it or anything.  I look back and laugh more than anything else.  Truth be told, I was more offended that he DARED to disrupt my brilliantly rendered narrative than anything else.  :-)

Quote from: Opaopajr;818562Was it a Grand Campaign, where there was an overarching development arc?

Yeah, it was.  The plan was for them to try to thwart the return of Cthulhu.  I had one of those OLD school Deities and Demigods with the Lovecraft and Elric chapters still in them, and had just read a bunch of HPL's work.

Quote from: Ravenswing;818622Okay, the OP has a reasonable pass for the reason he gave: they were beer-addled teenagers who weren't grown up yet.  Fair enough.  Panjumanju's right in that he oughn't beat himself up over it.  (Hell, I can think of a lot of dumb things *I* did when I was 17 -- and a college freshman loose on my own in Boston -- and teetotaling me didn't even have booze to blame for them.)

Grownups don't have an excuse.  The last player I sullenly put up with, despite that he was an abrasive idiot, was the boyfriend of my oldest friend, and I kept him around because I didn't want to offend her.  I finally got a clue and turfed his ass, and that was 28 years ago now.  It took me too long then to get it, but I got it: life's too short to saddle yourself with assholes, in your freaking hobby, because you don't have the balls to deal with messes.

I've had to have "that talk" with newer players three times between 2003 and 2005; none since.  One of them did, indeed, flip out on me, and he got the gate that day, for good.  He was pretty surprised to be thrown out, but I don't need people at my table, in my home and in my life who are raving assholes.  At my age, I just don't.  

Hell, at any of your ages, I bet you don't need that yourselves.

I agree; the main reason people don't boot problem players is that they play with IRL friends, and don't want to sacrifice the friendship at the altar of the game.

For instance, that old friend of yours: how did she react when you kicked her boyfriend?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;818636For instance, that old friend of yours: how did she react when you kicked her boyfriend?

Not badly at all, but then their relationship was in its death throes, and exploded messily a few months later.

I know not wanting to offend IRL friends is often the consideration.  It just doesn't make sense.  Gaming IS most of the interaction I have with certain friends -- for one thing, two of my players, friends of mine for decades, live 60 and 100 miles away from me respectively -- and if most or all of that interaction is just pissing one or the other of us off, that's a lousy dynamic that'll put paid to a friendship anyway.

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Quote from: IggytheBorg;818330Specifically, we had a group of 4 players, with two characters each.  Two of the players were hard core role players, one was a munchkin, and one was just an idiot.  The munchkin rolled up a ranger just because they get 2d8 hp at 1st level, and his second character is a cleric, created specifically to keep the ranger healthy.  I had a house rule that allowed rangers to move silently through foliage, and hide in it, using thieves' tables for moving silently and hiding in shadows, with the same penalties for wearing metal armor as found in the Unearthed Arcana.  While rolling for the magical component of a treasure hoard in one of their early adventures, the item that came up was a Sword +5 Defender.  I thought this would be perfect for the ranger, since it would allow him to put the "plus-es" into his AC and wear lesser armor while still being protected, and still enjoy all the benefits of his class.  

Of course, the first thing he does is go out and buy a suit of plate mail.  This dude became a walking tank.  The plus-es went into his AC exactly one time in a two year campaign.  This used to annoy the role players - and me - in equal measure. One of the role players was a half elven ranger, who lost the random dice roll for the sword, and often took off his metal armor to take advantage of the house rule.  He would have put that item to so much better use.

Has it ever occurred to you that the reason PC stands for PLAYER character is that the PLAYER is supposed to make the decisions for the character? So you thought you should decide what gear the PCs use? Tough titty for you.

QuoteAnd the Tank would cleave through all opposition in short order, often leaving little for the rest of the party to do in many combat situations.  Anything that would have been a challenge for him would have made mincemeat out of the rest of the party.  I used to go out of my way to dream up things to counter him.  Too bad we never finished that underground campaign.  It was populated with a healthy community of rust monsters and disenchanters.  And I purposely had a village full of people that worshiped the cleric's deity get slaughtered by their enemies just before the party arrived, and when the cleric failed to perform burial rituals in accordance with their religion, I stripped him of his powers until he made amends, which sent him off on a solo side campaign, leaving the rest of the party for most of a session.  I made a lot of mistakes as a DM, but none I regret so much as giving him that damn sword.

Are you still a DM? I hope not!

QuoteSo my question for the DM/GM's out there is: was this me trying to restore/maintain game balance, or me being vindictive because this guy and his tactics upset so many of my carefully laid plans?  In my defense, I think this stuff started to infringe on the other players' good time.  After a while, even the role players started to cower behind him, and came to rely on his massive combat abilities as the solution to every problem, doing little themselves.  Sometimes out of a sense of laziness, and sometimes out of a sense of the inevitable; Bob's just gonna kill everything in 3 rounds anyway, so why bother?  So I'd like to think I was doing the Lord's work.  What do you think?

I think you have two plausible options:

1) Try to get better as a DM, and learning the difference between the role of the DM and that of the players is an important first step.

2) Or accept the fact that you just aren't cut out to be a DM.

Quote from: IggytheBorg;818330I had a house rule that allowed rangers to move silently through foliage, and hide in it, using thieves' tables for moving silently and hiding in shadows, with the same penalties for wearing metal armor as found in the Unearthed Arcana.

Ah, another shit-wit who doesn't understand the rules of the game.

Rangers 'sneaking through foliage,' or around rocks, or through caverns deep, or across windswept plains, is covered by their ridiculously great chances to surprise and not be surprised in turn (1e AD&D PHB, "The Ranger,"p. 24), which they enjoy no matter what kind of armor they're wearing. Giving the ranger 'thief abilities in the woods,' and imposing armor penalties, makes rangers worse at scouting than simply playing the rules as written.

Quote from: IggytheBorg;818490I saw my overarching goal as ensuring everyone had fun to the extent possible.

How'd that work out for you?  Not too well, right?  Every GM to certain degree is Worldbuilder, Storyteller, etc. but Master of Ceremonies, where you micromanage things on the fly to try to keep the Fun-O-Meter within acceptable tolerances is only one style of GMing, it's not the only one.  Ask Grove, he's just found that out and he still half doesn't believe it. :D

Problematic players are never helped by the MoC approach, you only reinforce their bad behavior through acceptance.  The only out at that point is even worse, Punitive GMing, where you switch from positive to negative reinforcement.  Psychological programming isn't the GM's job, that's a GM screen, not a Skinner Box.  

Now some of that wasn't necessarily punitive.  If the Cleric is not following the dictates of his God, then he's not, what's does he expect to have happen?  Dungeon O' Rust Monsters, however, is just terrible.

You should have just played it straight and if a PC dies, you MOVE ON, that's why they have 2 each, right?  You don't stop then and there to make up a new character, they can do it after this session, before next one or in between.  By switching to just being Referee at the table, just Playing the World, you could have started adjusting expectations, but you do it slowly.  At first it might seem weird, and the problematic players are going to be...problematic, but in the end, you're just moving from a state of doing things illogically in order to save them to a state of doing things perfectly logically.  They're just no longer playing with GM-issued training wheels.

So yeah, you may have had an Idiot and Munchkin, but letting them affect your campaign is completely your doing.

BTW, players hardly ever are going to use items to balance themselves out and strengthen their weaknesses.  Maybe with minor items, but give them a Big Ticket Item and they are going to specialize and strengthen their strengths, that's the most efficient use of resources - of course that's going to be the Munchkin's path, even great roleplayers have to be chasing a specific concept in mind to not take the obvious best path.

But a good rule of thumb is, if you find yourself doing what the Terrible Trio always accuse BA of doing* (even though he never is)...DON'T. :D

*Knights of the Dinner Table Reference

What a weirdly random necro.

Quote from: One Horse Town;938039What a weirdly random necro.

Vulmea used his volcanic anger to raise it from the dead.:-)

(I think my favorite aspect of the reactions is, "The player is a munchkin, but it's YOUR fault for enabling him. Bad GM! BAD!" I assume these sort of comments from from those godlike GMs who never, ever, ever have to deal with the unexpected screw-up.)

Quote from: IggytheBorg;818490I see the merit to this argument, of course.  My concern at the time was that killing him and having to take up precious game time to have him roll up another character (he was TERRIBLE at coming up with a concept, and could not be trusted to roll up a character honestly on his own) would have dragged everyone else's good time down even further than his low level of play did.  I saw my overarching goal as ensuring everyone had fun to the extent possible.  But considering how much the combat oriented tank and idiot bitched at every puzzle or role playing opportunity, while the two role players enjoyed every opportunity to do everything, eventually it became more about seeing that the two role players and I had a good time.   But the aforementioned stall in the flow would have infringed on that.  Tank and idiot having fun was incidental after awhile.

I'm sympathetic to your reasons, but if you let those kinds of things prevent you from enforcing concequences, then the players have you by the balls.

Quoteand could not be trusted to roll up a character honestly on his own

This is why I sometimes like stat arrays, especially in large groups of players, and online games. The temptation to cheat can hit even otherwise trustable players from time to time.
A stat array, point buy, or any system without randomizers, helps tremendously with this. (And removes the quirkiness of random stats, which can be a downside.)

*Edit* I fell for a necro. Braaaainssss!

Quote from: cranebump;938046(I think my favorite aspect of the reactions is, "The player is a munchkin, but it's YOUR fault for enabling him. Bad GM! BAD!" I assume these sort of comments from from those godlike GMs who never, ever, ever have to deal with the unexpected screw-up.)

In my last Traveller campaign I had a twentysomething who did not understand that actions have consequences. The PCs had run across a Highleaf smuggling operation and this guy had kept a sample of this OTU incredibly addictive substance. Their ship was boarded by Imperial Navy doing a customs inspection while they entered system from jump exit. Instead of getting rid of the sample by ejecting it from the ship, he announces, "Guys, I know this is stupid but it will be hilarious!" His character then proceeds to take the sample and insert it in his ass. Marines in Battle Dress detect traces of the Highleaf during the customs inspection that lead them to this PCs ass and the whole crew is taken to the brig with the ship impounded.

Following a couple of failed rolls on twentysomething's part, the Highleaf begins to seep into his system directly through his character's intestines. His PC is now having a drug trip while a Navy doctor tries to remove what remains of the Highleaf from his PCs intestines. The entire party was questioned by Navy and Marine officers until they learned everything. Meanwhile, the twentysomething's character is now addicted to Highleaf because of his antics and another failed die roll.

Using up a hard earned favor from a noble, the party got out of the brig and their ship out of impound. However, they now had to work off a debt for that by working as an autonomous command under Imperial Navy supervision with a Knighted Marine representative onboard to make sure that no problems occurred while working for the Imperium. Twentysomething's character had to deal with Highleaf withdrawl which was debilitating for the character when it hit. Hampered their adventuring, that all did.

Now, that was an unexpected screw up. It all was a chain reaction from a single stupid player decision.

Somebody please PM IggytheBorg so we can hear about how his campaign is going a year later.

That's the only real value of the necro.

Quote from: cranebump;938046(I think my favorite aspect of the reactions is, "The player is a munchkin, but it's YOUR fault for enabling him. Bad GM! BAD!" I assume these sort of comments from from those godlike GMs who never, ever, ever have to deal with the unexpected screw-up.)

I don't run Godlike, but I am a God, so I'll bite.

We hallowed Gods of GMing (a subdomain of the Metal Gods) do deal with LOTS of unexpected screw-ups.

But that's the point. We deal with them.

In traditional RPGs, the buck always stops at the DM screen, next to the pizza slice and cheeto bowl. A GM who allows a shitburglar to disrupt his game does a disservice to the rest of the table who are there to have fun during their valuable free time, not bask in the glow of the shitburglar.

I made my own share of mistakes by tolerating a pair of super passive aggressive players that just dragged the game down for everyone for more than a year instead of just kicking their asses out. When they finally both left, it was like a new Golden Age in the game, everybody was enthusiastic and energetic about playing again. It made me realize I waited too long.

I agree with most of what most people wrote as suggestions in this thread, which I see is old but was new to me.

Especially the consequences part. Seems to me that usually when there is a "problem" in a game, it is something that rational consequences would solve. And any time the GM is trying to prevent PCs from getting killed, maimed, or even hurt  (as this GM said), that undermines consequences and invites such problems (and also makes the game far less interesting IMO). Conventions, expectations and forced balance also undermine consequences and invite problems. Any trying to artificially and immediately prevent or punish the use of powers, abilities, and magic stuff is adding irrational consequences that also undermines natural consequences and tends (IMO) to spoil all sorts of things.

Of course, if the GM is inexperienced enough that they give out a +5 sword and have no idea what to do about that, and think that something like a Ranger wearing Plate Mail is an awful thing the GM should intervene to stop... they probably also have no idea what sorts of natural consequences would make sense. These sorts of situations though can be great ways to learn.

Quote from: Spinachcat;938059Somebody please PM IggytheBorg so we can hear about how his campaign is going a year later.

That's the only real value of the necro.




I don't run Godlike, but I am a God, so I'll bite.

We hallowed Gods of GMing (a subdomain of the Metal Gods) do deal with LOTS of unexpected screw-ups.

But that's the point. We deal with them.

In traditional RPGs, the buck always stops at the DM screen, next to the pizza slice and cheeto bowl. A GM who allows a shitburglar to disrupt his game does a disservice to the rest of the table who are there to have fun during their valuable free time, not bask in the glow of the shitburglar.

I'll grant that, but I also think it's a fair expectation that the shitburglar isn't fully absolved from his "shitburgliness.":-) It's a group activity, after all.

Quote from: cranebump;938046

Quote from: One Horse Town;938039What a weirdly random necro.

Vulmea used his volcanic anger to raise it from the dead.

:cool:

It's an interesting thread, in part because Iggs [strike]stuck his head so far up his colon[/strike] made a number of decisions which bit him in the ass: catering to a problem player, trying to solve an out-of-game problem in-game, coddling his players and their characters, and a pretty profound failure to understand the rules which created the immediate conflict.

But if it wasn't the +5 Defender, it would been something else, as it sounds like this was a doomed combination of shit-ass player and piss-poor refereeing.