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Well, for now, he is level 1.
But he has purposefully told me that he will be fighting like a rogue.
And his backstory is the most generic thing you have ever seen. A nameless nobody from a random village got raided by orcs and his parents got murdered, he decided to seek power and became a wizard. Who fights with his quarterstaff to the exclusion of spellcasting. Yeah.
I did. He does not want to be an arcane trickster. He wants to be a wizard. But the only class he knows how to play is a rogue. And badly at that.
I mean he takes the dirty fighter trait. Because he thinks it is good. Not because it complements his backstory.
Well, for now, he is level 1.
But he has purposefully told me that he will be fighting like a rogue.
And his backstory is the most generic thing you have ever seen. A nameless nobody from a random village got raided by orcs and his parents got murdered, he decided to seek power and became a wizard. Who fights with his quarterstaff to the exclusion of spellcasting. Yeah.
Well, if he makes it to level 2 then he isn't playing badly, and if he's enjoying his character (and his play isn't stopping the other players from getting their fair turn) then more power to him.
If he takes a trait and doesn't make-up his own back story for it then use the default and enforce it, so for dirty fighter, "You wouldn't have lived to make it out of childhood without the aid of a sibling, friend, or companion on whom you could always count to distract your enemies long enough for you to do a little bit more damage than normal. That companion may be another PC or an NPC (who may even be recently departed from your side)."
So you could have that sibling/friend/companion show up angry that the PC didn't stay and defend the village, or help the village rebuild. Or, if the player says that NPC died in the original attack you can either pull a not-dead-yet trope or the NPC raised as undead to seek vengeance on the PC.
Or flip it and that NPC comes seeking the PC's help because the village is under a new threat. Or anything else.
But then you can also just ignore it. If the player doesn't feed the DM with back story then you have nothing to work with there (without coming up with it on your own as above). So focus on the other players that made well rounded back stories and "show" no-backstory-Joe the fun of being the center of an adventure based on a back story by creating one for one of the other PCs.
Add to that...what else is 1st level Wizard to do? Spell wise, generally at best with a maxed out 20 Int, that's 3 spells (not including cantrips). Three rounds of actions IF the spells chosen actually are good for the encounter. After that...yeah, the Wizard either sits back and watches or Hand of the Apprentices to stay in the action. A careless, or foolhardy, or overconfident Wizard would forgo staying at range with Hand of Apprentice and dive into melee or burn through all their spells just because they can cast them.
Saving spell-use for optimal moments and working with what other options he has (specifically Hand of the Apprentice) is pretty much what a 1st level Wizard should be doing...fighting like a rogue with ranged abilities.
Based on everything you've posted about this player, minimalist-generic back story notwithstanding, he's seems to just be either playing within a comfort zone with a new class or is playing par-for-course having had only 1 level to experience and work with.
I ran a campaign with a Wizard back in 3.5 and he frustrated/scared the other players every encounter as he would;
Round 1: Assess the strength of the foes.
Round 2: If foes seemed on par to the party's strength then sit back and watch (scenario A). If foes seemed more powerful than the party...hide and cast mage armor (scenario B).
Round 3: If A, keep watching, make comments to the fighter to fight better. If B, cast shield.
Round 4. If A, as per Round 3. If B, buff party member with invisibility or some other spell.
Round 5. If A, as per Round 3. If B, scorching ray, dispel magic, etc., usually on most magical foe.
Etc.
But note the similarity to a rogue. Hide, "get into position" (meaning cast needed spells), then attack. And the lower the level...the less options he had and never had the Hand of the Apprentice option.
So the best advice I have is: Let it go, accept him as the player he is. If his wizard dies because he's rushing into melee to get flanking bonus that's okay. If his wizard survives then he's playing his character well and if he's doing something every round to help the party in the encounter (attempting to deal damage, buffing himself or other PCs, etc.), then awesome!
I'd just kill him. No intelligent enemy is going to see a flimsy wizard running into the fray and not focus on killing him ASAP. It just so happens that that lines up with my desire to remove said character from the game and teach the player a lesson.
We cannot dissuade him from this. Any tips on how we should proceed to wean him of this?
It's kind of sad but also cute in a way, isn't it?
I'm afraid there is nothing you can do.
I've known a guy that played rangers for 20 years. Still that way. I also play in a group where one of the players almost always plays Halfling rogues.
Personally, I'm OK with anything as long as everyone is having fun. If I was the GM and he was branching out to wizard, I'd work with him to make that a viable form of combat for as long as I could. In general I try to make people happy where it makes sense.
And i do not mean the same character every time. This guy loves rogues. So no matter what, he always plays EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER, REGARDLESS OF CLASS like a rogue.
We cannot dissuade him from this. Any tips on how we should proceed to wean him of this?
I mean his last character is an elf generalist wizard who uses Hand of the apprentice with a rapier. And that is his primary mode of attack. Not spells. Dude. Why.
I actually tooled up a wizard with Hand of the Apprentice and took a feat to allow him to use it with a nice sized sword. I did this for story reasons (went along with the plot of the campaign).
He was a fine wizard, who just happened to have a decent ranged attack and some skill with a blade. So what? Was I really such an idiot and a terrible player because I sacrificed a feat for some flavor, rather than some big fat metamagic trick?
Personally, I've never been fond of most of the metamagic feats, anyway.
in Weekly William's Group we have
Dale, whom always plays orphaned dwarven fighters with a waraxe, heavy steel shield and composite longbow, they always wear plate, and never seem to use power attack. he's always afraid of marriage, and projects a level of greediness and is always orphaned by Orcs
Seth; always plays characters that cover the face role and 2-3 other roles, usually amazing at support characters and good at hogging the spotlight
Aaron; always plays hybrid classes, always sleazes around with every NPC, regardless of his character's ability to seduce, always plays creepy fanservice characters, FATALite in training, almost as creepy as my buddy Larry, Creepier than me, Creepy as my Ex Girlfriend Shirley
Larry; FATALite in training, played several characters so creepy, it puts me and Aaron to shame. nobody trusts him with my dice. Creepier than Aaron
Shirley; a girl so obscessed with Loli it puts me to shame, inspires me to coordinate loli characters with her, plays nothing but loli
Me, i play 75% loli, but the other 25% is fairly normal characters, Shirley takes it 3 steps further than me. i have a minor obscession with cuteness and youth that is unhealthy, Shirley is 3 steps worse than me
Harvey; always plays monks and clerics, always the disciplined and orderly type
Javier; always tries to build characters with options, dislikes a lack of options, easily bores of particular concepts.
Ash, my cousin, a slight bit behind me in creepiness, she likes the occasional loli, but really likes explicit gore. Shirley, Andrew and i stomach her descriptions best
Andrew, another Weeaboo in the group, happens to be a brony, as Creepy as Ash or I.
out of 15 players, we have Gasp, 6 people whom are creepy, 3 of which are far creepier than i am.
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We cannot dissuade him from this. Any tips on how we should proceed to wean him of this?It's kind of sad but also cute in a way, isn't it?
I'm afraid there is nothing you can do.
I've known a guy that played rangers for 20 years. Still that way. I also play in a group where one of the players almost always plays Halfling rogues.
Personally, I'm OK with anything as long as everyone is having fun. If I was the GM and he was branching out to wizard, I'd work with him to make that a viable form of combat for as long as I could. In general I try to make people happy where it makes sense.
I want to help him to make a viable wizard. But he doesn't want my help. "His build will be awesome". And it is not. He has planned it ahead and i perused it. No. It will fail as a wizard and it will fail as a rogue.
Being good friends with someone in a game like that, where the player insists on being terrible.. it's rough. I've been there.
One option is to shop for another player to fill the deficiency (from a tactical viability standpoint), and you're good. Unless the guy is SO terrible that he actually makes the party worse just by being there. Seen that, too.
What I hate is when a group of characters are so disparate that the only thing they have in common is the fact that all their players are at the same table. No one would really write a fantasy story with the characters acting the way they do (Classic Example: the two annoying players who insist on playing a paladin and a rogue{where the rogue thinks the class is still called thief} and are always at each other's throats. I've actually canceled campaigns before they've even started when I see that scene starting.
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in Weekly William's Group we have
Dale, whom always plays orphaned dwarven fighters with a waraxe, heavy steel shield and composite longbow, they always wear plate, and never seem to use power attack. he's always afraid of marriage, and projects a level of greediness and is always orphaned by Orcs
Seth; always plays characters that cover the face role and 2-3 other roles, usually amazing at support characters and good at hogging the spotlight
Aaron; always plays hybrid classes, always sleazes around with every NPC, regardless of his character's ability to seduce, always plays creepy fanservice characters, FATALite in training, almost as creepy as my buddy Larry, Creepier than me, Creepy as my Ex Girlfriend Shirley
Larry; FATALite in training, played several characters so creepy, it puts me and Aaron to shame. nobody trusts him with my dice. Creepier than Aaron
Shirley; a girl so obscessed with Loli it puts me to shame, inspires me to coordinate loli characters with her, plays nothing but loli
Me, i play 75% loli, but the other 25% is fairly normal characters, Shirley takes it 3 steps further than me. i have a minor obscession with cuteness and youth that is unhealthy, Shirley is 3 steps worse than me
Harvey; always plays monks and clerics, always the disciplined and orderly type
Javier; always tries to build characters with options, dislikes a lack of options, easily bores of particular concepts.
Ash, my cousin, a slight bit behind me in creepiness, she likes the occasional loli, but really likes explicit gore. Shirley, Andrew and i stomach her descriptions best
Andrew, another Weeaboo in the group, happens to be a brony, as Creepy as Ash or I.
out of 15 players, we have Gasp, 6 people whom are creepy, 3 of which are far creepier than i am.
I almost want in that group... the creepyness level would be amusing to me i think
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If the boy is to die, then let him die, and decrease the surplus population.
...three types...
1-"Terrible Paragon":
2- "Delusional Defiant":
3- "The concept channeler":
Where are these from?
Hama, I feel your pain. I have a player with the very same obsession on Rogues in my latest group. Although his take on it is more in the way he roleplays his characters than how he acts in combat. It does get tedious after some time.
He currently plays a Cleric of Milani and I had to remind him that Milani may be the goddess of evading oppression, but NOT of evading taxes :-(
Come to think of it, AFAIK there is not really a god of thieves, nor of VERY free trade, in Golarion. Maybe I should design one so that he can secretly worship him while pretending to worship Milani.
A bit late and a bit off topic, but... Besmara.
Anyway, I've run into the occasional player who always does the same thing like that. What I generally do is encourage them to try something really different just for a change of pace. If they don't want to though, or they do and don't like it, then I'm fine with just letting them do their thing.