Has anyone ever had to exclude/kick someone out of their gaming group, what method was used, and were there any repercussions?
To start things off: I kicked a player out of my gaming group once because she was more interested in other things than actually roleplaying and detracted from everyone elses enjoyment of the game. I'm not particularly proud of what I did, but it was necessary from a gaming perspective. I kicked her out over the phone (yes it's as slack as doing it to a girlfriend, and I felt bad afterwards). Thankfully, there were no repercussions.
Yep; told a guy that now is the time he is invited to leave and not come back. He was brought be a friend who appologized, but the guy had been a real jerk in and out of the game all evening and I invited him to leave; the other players backed me up; was a bit tense, but it worked out OK. For some people it was a very tense moment.
Of course, I was in a game once where one player pretty much tried to murder another player during a session and we had to force them apart and disarm everybody and they are banned from playing in the same house anymore at the same time. But that was more the one of the guys is pretty wierd, but our friend and the other is a bit of a hard case and intolerant and our friend and the two didnt get along.
But I imagine this sort of thing just happens, is worse when some guy is knockin on someone else's girl which seems to happen quite a bit then the two guys don't talk out of the game and if the girl is a player; she usually drops out of sight. This sort of thing has happened a time or three and we have had a few players who were dating when they started then broke up and kept playing then the new beau of one wants to play; and ick, that sort of thing is uncomforable so should be avoided.
Egad; I sound like a bleeding soap opera. Just to be clear; we have years without any of this kind of drama.
I've only had to do it once. Long ago, while still in the military, our game group met off-base at the home of one of our group. One of the players, a known "head", made the mistake of lighting up a fairly sizable blunt at the table. I was not the only military guy present and we were all instantly on alert, because if the place got raided our gooses (geese?) were cooked six ways to sunday. I very blunt and insistant. The guy never came back (got the message I suppose) and non of the others, military or otherwise, said a word. No repercussions.
I've had a couple of friends who've had to dump players. Their advise has always to been to be honest, factual and most of all calm about it (which I wasn't above). Explain why you don't think they fit at the table, that their invitation is being revoked and that the not return. Let it go there and let the chips fall where they may.
You can't please everybody, and shouldn't try. Do what's best for your game. Don't sweat the details. If others disagree, let them vent. If they want to go too, let them move on. You can always find replacements.
am kinda surprized this thread has seen so little comment....
Never had to do this personally, but I've seen it done where the campaign plays out, and the player isn't invited back to the next one, or they're just not told about the new campaign.
I've kicked people out, and been kicked out myself. Sometimes, one person just isn't a match with the rest of the group. Or everything is fine at first, but over time, personality conflicts develop and escalate to the point that someone has to go.
The time I was kicked out, the DM's best friend got tired of me pointing out rules he'd "overlooked" or "misunderstood," and began to complain to the DM when they were alone that I was reducing the level of fun for him. Eventually, they decided to tell me that the group was "taking a break from playing," which fooled me for a couple of days until it became clear that we weren't going to play something else instead (you can't tell me a true gamer is going to just stop playing games entirely!) at which point I knew exactly what was up and told them to just level with me. The DM apologized for being such a coward about it, and we parted amicably after that. I quickly found another group in my area, and have been happily gaming with them for a couple of years now.
Usually we've never had to resort to kicking a player out. Typically they leave of their own volition.
All new players in my campaign receive the spiel from the get-go: "You could like us, and we could like you, or the vice versa could also be true at the end of the night. Play - if things don't work out, thats okay - no hard feelings."
After a player has been a part of a gaming group, the spiel changes: "The game is about having fun. If your not having fun, your wasting your time and ours. Your better off finding a new group."
When I used to GM Heroes Unlimited, there was this guy who insisted on playing Spider-Man, which in and of itself I could deal with. But he didn't want to be Spidey, he wanted to be a womanizing, drug addict Spidey. Now I am far from a prude, and I do not really see a problem with aomeone playing a Superhero
from comicbooks if they do not want to create one. Even if he had played in character(as unseemly as the character was) I would have been ok with it but, this guy, just wanted to act like a jerk. Basically overacting the negative aspects, and not even playing the game, this went on for about 3 hours, untill I could not take it anymore and told him to get the hell out of my house. Honestly it only took so long because I was afraid other people might want to quit; if I tossed him,as some of the players were more his friends than mine, it turned out however that his antics were upsetting to pretty much everyone. I have never has this kind of problem again.
Way back in the day when I was 14 I ran my campaign in Whitianga New Zealand ( Google that ), there was a cat who was more my friend that any of the other guys and he was a rush for the treasure greedy snatch player... we tolerated it for a while but then on a secret vote it became clear that is was time for him to go.
I secretly informed the other players NOT to touch the nice golden telescope that was in the next treasure pile . He raced for it and on looking through it he could see some man lying down wearing some sort of long thin hat over his face... but the focus wasn’t quite in and he could probably see better with a bit of turning.... Tuning the telescope activated the magic blade that pierced his eye and drove into his brain killing him, driving the character onto the ground with the telescope sticking out of his eye. He headed off home and the party fed the body to a demon they met, to prevent and possibility of being raised.
When he asked to start a new character I said he had to go to the end of the waiting list of new players who wanted to start. We took on another player and that went well until I started a relationship with a ex of his that he was owned over.
The other guy full back into playing sports and after a few months was being mean to us, so that was fine.
There are bunches of other clowns we have had to eject from the group - “Logan the Grogan”, who character was eaten by giant mantises and my favorite “the guy of whom we do not speak” . He was a lunatic who was also a cheating rules lawer, I had to pretend that I was getting a divorce because I was playing too much D and D and to save my marriage I had to stop entirely.
Never had to do this personally, but I've seen it done where the campaign plays out, and the player isn't invited back to the next one, or they're just not told about the new campaign.
Likewise...either the gamer is faded out like this or they leave on their own. I haven't come across anyone being actually kicked out from the campaign.
I've typically only played with people I was friends with already, and I've always favored smaller groups (like 7 players in grade school dwindled to 2-3 later on, which I preferred). There's therefore never been an issue. As an undergrad I turned down quite a bit of potential gaming because I didn't like the dynamic of some groups, or didn't know the people well enough, or both.
The good thing about my gaming group is that we're all either family or have been very good friends for a really long time outside of gaming, so those issues don't come up.
I have had to crack down on the heavy drinking though, as it made gaming after 9pm really difficult and it got annoying to find even my close friends still boozing it up and being loud hours after the game ended and I wanted to go to bed.
Now we just go to bed and tell our friends that if they want to stay and drink, be quiet about it and if they need to crash on the couch, they know where the spare blankets and pillows are. If these people weren't my close friends outside of gaming, I'd have kicked them out already had they not stopped.
I drink at the gaming table, but I pace myself and it usually takes me 9-10 hours to finish a six pack or a bottle of wine, which is no problem with my lithe 225# frame.
In the past, dropping hints like "maybe gaming isn't for you." "It's not you, it's us" "I love you, I'm just not in love with you" (Oh, wait, that last one wasn't from gaming....) usually worked to get someone extricated.
I got kicked out of a group once. We had been playing weekly and coordinating bits and peices of each session over e-mail prior to the actual meet up and after one session I just never got e-mails any more. I figured oh well and moved on.
Ran into the guys at a party later (was still friends with them all) and found out that the DM was developing a guilt complex over my PCs dying over and over (i'm a fluff guy and these guys were serious power gamers). I think I burned through 4 characters in 6 sessio ns. He figured he'd rather deal withthe guilt of me getting booted rather than killing me over and over. Funny stuff.
I have done it, and I'll do it again. This guy had a habit of getting upset at my ruling and walking off the table, refusing to play. One game,I just did not let him back. Years later another friend invited him to play. I was really upset at the guy who brought him, for he was thier when I threw him out of my game. I finished the game with him, then told him never to come back, I 'll never game with him again. During this second game every time something happened he refused to act and waited for me to kill off his character. He new I did not like him and whined about it the whole game.
F@#k that s@#t! I refuse to play for fun a game with people who just spoil my fun.
I got kicked out of a game once via not being invited back. It really irritates me when folks do that, for any reason, but it's their problem in the end.
In college I played in a game where nobody liked one guy. The DM's solution was to repeatedly kill off his character...which did nothing to loose the guy.
Have I mentioned that I'm a HUGE fan of the direct approach? Oh well, we're all cowards deep down inside, in one way or another.
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One problem our gaming group has had is
THE ATTACK OF THE GAME-CRASHER!
-In other words, this one guy, Andy, shows up uninvited to a game not knowing how to play, and getting on everone's nerves with his inability to RP. For more, see the thread: 'Heathansson - w.r.t. Munchkinism' in Off-Topic Discussions.
Anyway, the solution was to not mention D&D around Andy EVER AGAIN. Cruel, but efficient.
Ran into the guys at a party later (was still friends with them all) and found out that the DM was developing a guilt complex over my PCs dying over and over (i'm a fluff guy and these guys were serious power gamers).
Hmm, I have encountered the same "creative differences" problem also (being the fluffy one among powergamers) but then it has been me who has willingly left the table...
In college I played in a game where nobody liked one guy. The DM's solution was to repeatedly kill off his character...which did nothing to loose the guy.
My big concern at the moment is that I played in college with Tequila Sunrise and that it wasn't me dying over and over that got me kicked out, but instead that I'm a big jerk....
My big concern at the moment is that I played in college with Tequila Sunrise and that it wasn't me dying over and over that got me kicked out, but instead that I'm a big jerk....
I'm confused. Are you saying that we know each other or are you just hypothetically putting yourself in the situation I described?
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I'm confused. Are you saying that we know each other or are you just hypothetically putting yourself in the situation I described?
My big concern at the moment is that I played in college with Tequila Sunrise and that it wasn't me dying over and over that got me kicked out, but instead that I'm a big jerk....
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he's joking that it sounds like the two of you might have been telling the same story from different sides. Your story was about intentionally killing off a jerk's characters to get rid of him. His story was about being let go because his characters kept dying. So the fear is that they didn't actually let him go because the characters were dying, the characters were dying because they wanted to let him go.
Personally, I've never given anyone the boot from a gaming group. My preferences with respect to gaming tend to differ from most of the people I currently play with, so if someone were going to leave it would probably be me. Since I graduate soon anyway, I've kind of resigned myself to either gradually bringing them around to my way of seeing things or just grinning and bearing it until this summer.
well, I dont tolerate violence between real life peoples at my gaming table; sure way to get you kicked out of more than just the game. Am not a big fan of yelling either or arguing without a point, and I am not fond of rule lawyers, but my players vote on who joins and who doesnt and they dont like people who act the above ways either so usually we have a pretty happy group.