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.