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I've usually had a pretty good time playing with my friends, but occasionally someone new will get out of line or someone will be in a rotten mood, and will start doing stuff that gets on everyone's nerves.
My solution is that every time a player does something to make themselves unpleasant at the table, from out of nowhere, a squirrel leaps on their character's face and starts scratching it up, dealing a point of damage. It's incredibly funny and is even better when their character is out in public or trying to do something important.
That's really funny but I'm in the "don't deal with out-of-game problems in-game" camp.
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That's really funny but I'm in the "don't deal with out-of-game problems in-game" camp.
That's the solution for in-game problems. The solution for out-of-game problems is that you get pelted with dice. (Which sucks for the bad players because one of my players is an ex-marine and I usually delegate pelting duty to her).
Or "pants'd" on your next Mountain Dew run.
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You should have the squirrels secretly being controlled by a villainous druid who seeks revenge against the party for petty reasons, and who attributes the party's not being mauled to death by his squirrel assassins as them outmaneuvering him, increasing his fury and lust for vengeance.
"You turn the corner and suddenly, a Tarrasque!"
That's really funny but I'm in the "don't deal with out-of-game problems in-game" camp.
I'm with Grimmy on that. Dealing with out-of-game stuff in-game rapidly leads to bad things happening, people getting mad and groups breaking up.
As for response, my usual solution is take the player aside after the session/during a break for a talk. If they keep being a problem after one or two of those private chats and it goes on for more multiple sessions, the player eventually gets booted/stops being invited to games. Pathfinder is about having fun; a player who messes up other people's fun doesn't belong.
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One night, we were playing and I had a new guy who was just being a belligerent a&*+~+* all night, in-game and out. Everyone was having a bad time and he refused to cut it out.
Fast forward about an hour later, and he was making an impassioned speech to the mayor to get him to pay them extra to kill a monster threatening the town, when all of a sudden a squirrel came flying through the window of the town hall, landed on the guy's face, started scratching the hell out of him, took a bite out of his ear, and then jumped out the other window.
Needless to say, mayor was not impressed, refused to pay extra, and took back his offer to forward half the bounty up front.
He didn't come back.
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To be honest, I think those are pretty terrible ways to manage a table.
You are best to deal with people alone, away from the table and with honest, open discussion.
Throwing dice is rude and so are random in-game punishments. They are rude because they assume
A: That the victim is being a pain intentionally.
B: That you are always right.
C: That two wrongs make a right.
And we all know what assuming does to you and me...
I ask them to correct their behavior or leave. The choice is theirs.
It's a crappy situation, but the safe bet in the long run is the grown-up approach. We had a situation a couple of years ago. He had more than enough opportunities to respond in a grown up manner, after each member of the group in turn had a talk with him. We had to turn our backs on a guy who had been a core member of our group for years, and a close friend of mine, like a brother. Great role player too. We lost the positive aspects he brought to the table, but more importantly the negative ones. I still miss him sometimes.
A friend of mine tells a story from when he was younger, he had a "Cosmic Anvil" drop upon the head of a PC of a particularly difficult to manage player. The Anvil turned the character permanently plaid. Hilarity ensued.
These days, if someone is causing issues, theoretically we have a nice civil talk with them privately about the problem, and if they do their best to improve, great, and if they don't, they are asked to leave and/or no longer invited to join campaigns. Not as amusing as the Cosmic Anvil, but probably more effective in the long run. I say theoretically because it's not very often we have "bad behavior" at our tables these days. Most of the issues I've had personally with players have been resolved with a civil conversation.
I have had dice thrown at me when I was gming it is hard to focus on the game then.
That's really funny but I'm in the "don't deal with out-of-game problems in-game" camp.That's the solution for in-game problems. The solution for out-of-game problems is that you get pelted with dice. (Which sucks for the bad players because one of my players is an ex-marine and I usually delegate pelting duty to her).
What I'm saying is, someone being in a rotten mood is an out-of-game problem. "Punishing" them for that in-game makes the world less believable, which isn't worth it to me.
I think Elamdri's point is that that's what happens if the bad mood leaks into in-game. You leave your RL problems when you sit down at the table. just because Roger Smith had a crappy day at work, doesn't mean that Larrifoddle the gnomish wizard has to drop a lightning bolt on the town and put explosive runes on everyone's packs. That's disruptive to the game, and you better believe that someone's gonna take issue with that in the game world.
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Rabid flying squirrels apparently.
If not them, who else?
If the gnomish wizard drops lightning on town and explosive runes on everyones backpack, bad stuff happens. That's not a punishment it's a natural reaction right? The fact that he did those things to disrupt the game, I would deal with by talking to him or not playing with him.
Then again I did laugh out loud when I read about the squirrel in the mayors office so whatever works.
Then again I did laugh out loud when I read about the squirrel in the mayors office so whatever works.
Like I said. If the squirrels don't act, who will?
Anyway, I kinda like this idea because it's a light-hearted way of handling a bit of nonsense. I have a new player who's playing a very "CN" rogue (he's Chaotic Evil, despite his insisting otherwise) and repeatedly trying to wipe out the party. They're sparing him only because they need all the help they can get right now.
Maybe next time he tries to shoot the very temperamental ranger's beloved panther/pickpocket said ranger/poke the ranger with his knife/look at the ranger funny, the rabid squirrel might make an appearance. I'll make sure to describe its rabid features as hammishly as possible. ;)