Good morning:
I'm having trouble and I'd like to hear from GMs. Tell me about the time you kicked a player out of your group and why (or post a link).
My details are unnecessary. I want to read about your experience.
Thanks in advance.
Repeated no calls/no shows<--has happened more than once. I now have it in my GM guide/coc that I give out.
I was about to remove one due to playstyle differences. He expected to have plot armor, and complained about it, but he left on his own.
No he did not use the term "plot armor", but that is what it was.
It's always been pretty simple really. If someone isn't a good fit for my table I address the issue with them face to face, if that doesn't work I politely uninvite them from my table and inform them they were not a good fit for the group.
If someone wants to be dramatic about it, thats their problem not mine.
Most of my issues with players haven't been behavioral, they've been attendance. I run a game every week and I expect that anyone at my table keep an 80% attendance record, with exceptions for extenuating circumstances. We cap the game between 4-5 players and a GM and so we almost always have a wait list of people wanting to get in. About a year ago a young couple who had been coming began missing more than 50% of the games so I informed them I would be filling their seats with someone else. They had things going on outside the game that precluded them from playing consistently so it wasn't a big deal.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Without getting into my personal details, I can say with absolute certainty that there are better ways to handle this and worse ways.
Things to do:
Call them rather than text/email
Directly tell them that they should not return
Tell them why without being a dick (ie, I want to run a different kind of game than you want to play.)
Thank them for being part if your game previously.
Things NOT to do:
Air out grievances in a public forum (ie obsidian portal messageboards)
Confront them while they are at your house.
Be coy about what you want.
Be passive-aggressive (ie. Do crap to their character, gripe at them for play style differences)
Be insulting
Keep anything they may have left at your place.
Poison the group against them (or even try).
Other tips:
If it is a few people who you would rather let move on, then you should openly dissolve the group and then call the people you want to keep back in.
Have a couple of house rules about the group known upfront.
Some I use:
After 3 sessions of no-call no-show I will replace you.
Cheating is not tolerated.
No smoking in my house, (this includes IN MY BATHROOM!)
Take whatever drinks you want out of the fridge, don't take my liquor!
You are welcome to bring food, don't leave your trash on the table.
If I can smell you from 5+ feet away, you should get back in the shower and try again.
Smelling your cologne counts as smelling you.
Those all seem like common sense stuff, but having the info out in the open will make your life better.
Talk to the guy in private and express your concerns, and get to an agreement.
if he doesn't complies then ctrl alt dlt
I've removed quite a few players over the years.
Poor attendance / lack of commitment did it for 3.
Attitude did it for another.
4 years of continuous irritating behavior did it for one.
A player telling me how his cleric -who would be receiving spells daily- was an atheist and didn't have a deity because OOC he didn't 'believe' and when I said no I was accused of being too controlling!
And one for trying to ban me from using any paizo AP's because he had found the paizo website first! - yeah, that was a very strange one.
I was very non-confrontational at the time, and the player in question was the owner of the local game store. Note the 'was'. Anyway, he was brash, pretty much bullied other players into going his way, cheated on dice and stat rolls, and unless I did a weekly audit his wealth kept going up. If I tried putting a player next to him to watch rolls, he switched to those tiny spice dice which was silver on black, so that no one but him could read the rolls. I was about to kick him out when the host of the game finally booted him instead.
Things to do:
Call them rather than text/email
Directly tell them that they should not return
Tell them why without being a dick (ie, I want to run a different kind of game than you want to play.)
Thank them for being part if your game previously.Things NOT to do:
Air out grievances in a public forum (ie obsidian portal messageboards)
Confront them while they are at your house.
Be coy about what you want.
Be passive-aggressive (ie. Do crap to their character, gripe at them for play style differences)
Be insulting
Keep anything they may have left at your place.
Poison the group against them (or even try).
These are very helpful - thank you.
Thankfully, I haven't needed to kick anyone from a group since this unfortunate event. Prior to that, I've only dropped players when they get angry with other players over real world garbage and let the drama disrupt the game. Didn't happen that often, but I always dropped the one contributing the least amount of gameplay.
Last year, one of my players decided to run her own game between our group's sessions and invited me along. Her coworkers composed the rest of the group and had some experience with Pathfinder. One the player's gunslinger tried to leap onto a chandelier and fire at an escaping enemy (if he got the grit needed from a successful stunt). He gloriously failed with the rolls, 3-4-1, and fell to the next floor. After sulking for the rest of the session, he finally died to a trap and decided to flip over the table. By the time the dust settled and we all managed to keep from waking every neighbor in the complex, she had kicked half the group from future games.
Ticking time bombs like that are really hard to catch early, but it's better to be safe than risk people getting hurt
Before doing anything talk to the rest of the group about the problem and make sure everyone is on the same page. Even when only one person is causing problems these things can often split up a group. If the one of the other players is best friends with the offending player they may side with them. Once the group has come to a decision then someone in the group should contact the offending player and let him know the decision.
Normally this would be the GM but if another player is hosting the game then he may be the best person to deliver the decision. Whoever delivers the decision should do it calmly with no personal attacks. If the GM or host is unable to do this have someone else be the bearer for bad news.
If the player is kicked out of the group then just let it go. Don’t keep dwelling on the problem once it has been solved. Also avoid talking about the player any more than then necessary especially to people outside the group. If the player is allowed to continue in the group and is no longer doing the things that caused the problems let it go and give him the benefit of the doubt in the future. If he is giving another chance and does not change then start the whole process over with the goal of removing him from the group.
Most recently, I kicked out a player for routinely no showing sessions and refusing to commit any of her time to learning how to play her class or the game in general. To provide an example, after several months of gameplay, she was still somewhat foggy on how to make an attack roll, or how channel energy works (She was playing a cleric of Pharasma).
First I threatened to kick her out if she didn't improve her playing habits. This generally didn't go over well with the rest of my players because they were capable of things such as "mercy" and "love", so I let her slide on the promise that she'd step up her game. I did my best to be a diplomat about it, telling her I'd spend any amount of time necessary to help her improve, and that it was a good GM's job to make sure their players aren't having problems. And that wasn't just talk. I would have done whatever needed to be done.
For a week or so, she did much better (which suggested that it was certainly within her power to at lease be passable), but after that she fell back into her old habits. She had been playing so poorly for so long that my players were getting tired of her themselves. She was seriously hampering the pace of the game, so I gave her a final ultimatum. Shape up or bow out. We had a long talk, and I was stupefied by what she told me. She was apparently under the impression that she was only to make her character do something when the GM explicitly told her to act. According to her, she didn't know that she could roleplay of her own initiative. After clearing that up, I thought everything would be ok.
But it totally wasn't. After all that I just had to face the music that she was just a bad player, so I dropped her and gave her cleric to the guy who plays the barbarian.
Whew that was long-winded. But yeah if I had any advice to give, it would be to be polite and tolerant and understanding if you have a problem player. Communicate with them and see if there's a solution to whatever problem may be. However, don't let your willingness to work with them stop you from doing what needs to be done if it in fact does need to be done.
|
I am the GM of our group, but the game is everyone's game. When someone wants to add a new player, everyone in the group gets a say as to whether they are accepted. Once a player has played in a few sessions, we casually discuss it and if no one has any objection, we let them know that they are 'officially' in the group. So far, we have had two new players come on. One has left and another has been asked to leave.
Removing someone from our group:
In the one instance where a player was removed...it was because myself and other players were becoming frustrated with the 'bad' player's tardiness, lack of communication on game days, and a general lack of commitment. In our group, we agreed that everyone has to be present to play. To give some examples:
- A week before each session, an email goes out to confirm if people can play (because of work schedules). On one occasion, he did not reply at all, leaving us all hanging...so the game was cancelled.
- Another week, he arrived to the game withing his character sheet (really?)
- Another week, he emailed the night before the game that he would have to leave 3 hours after the game started because of a scheduled mid-term
- In general, he was also usually late in replying to emails about the next game, causing a bit of disappointment with me and some players.
- He would give excuses of certain real life events causing his lack of communication and scheduling difficulty...but I had repeatedly told him that RL always takes precedence, but if he just let the group know his schedule, it would be ok.
Individually, some of these issues are small and can be forgiven, but as a whole, they become frustrating. After several discussions about being better at communication and being more on the ball, small things continued to happen until several players began to get very annoyed at the 'bad' player. I set up a straw poll to allow players to vote on what to do....and it was a pretty solid majority to remove him from the group. Most said that they did not want him to return.
As the GM, I felt it was my responsibility to contact the player. If any repercussions were to happen, I wanted them to be to me instead of the entire group. I set a time in the week to call him and then we have a conversation. I told him that while I did have fun having him as a player, there were also some times of frustration. I reminded him that we had talked about it before, but it seemed like things would revert back to they way they were. He said he understood. I apologized that he was being removed from the game, but it was something that needed to happen. I did not tell him he could not return as I hoped that IF he REALLY wanted to play in the future, he might take the initiative to try and to talk to the players and gain their confidence again.
In retrospect, the only thing I wished I would have done is suggest to the group to put the player on a probation of sorts to let him know that he was in jeopardy of being removed.
It is a tough thing to remove a player. The advice I would give is to keep in mind that no one wants to be removed from a group, even a group that they may not like. The act of rejecting someone is always a little disheartening for the one being rejected. Expect them to feel disappointed or sad at being removed and be sympathetic to their feelings. It is likely that you will see this person in the real world and neither they or you should want to fee anger or disappointment each time you see each other.
I wish you luck with your situation.
|
|
Last year, one of my players decided to run her own game between our group's sessions and invited me along. Her coworkers composed the rest of the group and had some experience with Pathfinder. One the player's gunslinger tried to leap onto a chandelier and fire at an escaping enemy (if he got the grit needed from a successful stunt). He gloriously failed with the rolls, 3-4-1, and fell to the next floor. After sulking for the rest of the session, he finally died to a trap and decided to flip over the table. By the time the dust settled and we all managed to keep from waking every neighbor in the complex, she had kicked half the group from future games.
Wow...I mean, wow. I have never heard of a player doing a table flip at a game.
Wow...I mean, wow. I have never heard of a player doing a table flip at a game.Last year, one of my players decided to run her own game between our group's sessions and invited me along. Her coworkers composed the rest of the group and had some experience with Pathfinder. One the player's gunslinger tried to leap onto a chandelier and fire at an escaping enemy (if he got the grit needed from a successful stunt). He gloriously failed with the rolls, 3-4-1, and fell to the next floor. After sulking for the rest of the session, he finally died to a trap and decided to flip over the table. By the time the dust settled and we all managed to keep from waking every neighbor in the complex, she had kicked half the group from future games.
He had a string of bad rolls and got upset instead of laughing it off. It happens, but I've never had a player trash the table before either. I honestly think it was bound to happen sooner or later, but it was her first time GMing and none of us expected the guy to get that bent out of shape.
And one for trying to ban me from using any paizo AP's because he had found the paizo website first! - yeah, that was a very strange one.
Ok I'm kinda curious about this; was the guy also a GM and wanted to run them or something, what was his reasoning/argument?
I once kicked out a player for both being absent so often it disrupted the campaign flow, and because he was being a jerk.
I've been on the receiving end of one of these. The experience was rather inflaming, because it was the host who wanted me to leave, but never actually addressed any of his grievances to me. The first thing I knew about it was getting a call from the GM telling me I was out.
The host is a Mormon and doesn't like swearing, and I can be pretty loose with it, I tried to keep a lid on it but occasionally I'd slip. He apparently was also mad about me not paying him back for 1 pizza (which had been three months before my last game, and I paid him for that one but forgot about the older one) and I got some milk from his fridge (which had been perfectly acceptable before, but the host moved out of town and said that wasn't okay anymore, which I'd forgotten about due to the aforementioned 3 months thing).
I wouldn't say those were unreasonable complaints, I'd known about the swearing thing being a problem since the GM had brought it up before, but the other things were never even mentioned to me, which pissed me off, especially since they guy didn't even have the backbone to say it to my face. To be honest though, I was pretty close to outright quitting myself, because I just wasn't liking the group, and the "no swearing" thing was really starting to chafe.
|
Never kicked a person out... yet. Came close a couple times but the people didn't like Society play and never came back.
I did have a person that thought they could just jump in what was an on going game (The Dragons Demand) while it was near the end. Showed up 3 different weeks expecting to jump in an empty slot, and got mad the third week and left. I was tempted to let him come in as a lvl 1 character and die to monsters on the way to the dragon just out of spite. Course there is a chance he will come back the next week and then I will have some fun...
In the military I kicked many, tho to be fair they left on deployment with 0 chance to notify, we had the rule 2 times no call/no show and your gone. Kind of hard-@ss I know but thats the military for ya.
Before that and after as a civilian I have kicked 2, one became a junky of all things, the other was just to flaky to always demand being the center of the story and show 50% at best.