| American Ninja |
Well, you raise a few points here dee, and I will give my 2 cents on them.
First up: There seems like a mismatch in expectations between you and your players. In my experince it has never been adventageous to just let it stew.
If you don't like his character - tell him to change it. Confront the people you see as rules lawyers and say "Look guys/gals, this isn't working" Tell him what your problem is, and look for a resolution. If he is being an unreasonable a**!~&~, call him on it.
Rules:
Rules are a tougher question. There seem to be 3 sub issues here
A) You have Rules Lawyers (And a powergamer! Hurrah!) - and your not one.
B) You don't feel you can just tell them to STFU
C) From subsequent posts, your not that experinced with the fruiter aspects of the game - grapple is actually pretty easy once you get it head around it, but it's *weird* because it has a different mechanic from the rest of the game.
My suggestions are:
A) Well, this is a social problem - there is a brilliant article on "gamer architypes" in the the DMG II which I personally find fascinating. The gist is that there are half a dozen types of players - the power gamer, the butt-kicker, the tactician, the specialist, the method actor, the storyteller, the casual gamer.
The problem is basically that you have 2+? players who are rules powergamer/tactician archetypes and some other players who arn't. You yourself are not one of those archetypes - I'm guessing storyteller.
You need to realign everyones goals - and meet yours!
Not a clue how to do it - I'd suggest talking to the players again.
B) Well, just tell them to shut the hell up, but this is not a long term solution. If the game is getting stuck on rules, learn them. Inside out. Or toss them. The powergamer/tactician types are going to be using the lot. Got arcane casters? It only gets worse, flip to the end of the book and look up the full complexity of a high level caster.
Now, if this isn't going to work for you, ditch the powergamers, or ditch the rules. If you want to play D&D option A is easier
C) Repeating point B again - preparing a reference sheet is good, but you don't actually learn anything. I reckon you need to get to grips with the system a bit better - play out some grapples. Other common "gamestoppers" are Polymorph, Summoning spells (gawd), attacks of oppotunity, and other combat manuerves like tripping and sunder. I'd suggest banning polymorph (Head the rules lawyers off at the pass) and boning up up on the others.
As the DM, your the games facilitator, and ultimately the responability to keep combat moving lies with you.
Third point: DM NPC's.
I've put these in my games before. It never worked. I think I seriously alienated some of my players at one point actually. If the players don't want the help, they obviously don't want to help. A few fatalities will help you sort out your dislike of some people's characters to I'd guess ;)
However, at the end of the day, my main point talk to the dang player.
Ironically, as I went to confirm that those player archetypes are actually in the DMG II I found this http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050603a which might help.