We have one group that has a couple in it. The male of the group is a great player both in terms of actual role playing and in game mechanics. He helps out the GM significantly in terms of printing our and updating hero lab/core fore character sheets and having a laptop at hand with every single paizo pdf on it. He is a plus player anyone would want in a table.
The problem is his girlfriend. Her main roleplaying experience is from the Vampire Masquerade setting with LARP. This has contributed to what I call the "Everything is about my character" syndrome for roleplaying games. We literally can not have a single session where she is not trying to "lead" the group no matter the situation.
I could deal with that both IC and OOC. What I can not deal with is she thinks it is "appropriate" roleplaying for her character to not help in fights and in two cases intentionally not even come to fight when the party is running into trouble.
One real example of game play: we're supposed to be helping a town. Guards were posted to protect some tunnels we discovered under the town. Three out of our four players want to explore the tunnels and the GM is broadly hinting that we need to check out what it in the tunnels.
Well little miss leader decides we are not doing that. She wants to go hop the town wall to follow tracks we found a day or two earlier from a desecrated grave. She uses her character's alignment of CN to literally tell us at the table "She's chaotic neutral, she can do anything she wants with no repercussions". She puts up a huge fight both IC and OOC about not wanting to go into the tunnels. She clearly tells us and the GM she thinks it is a waste of time...even after the GM pretty much tells her we really need to check those tunnels out.
The rest of us in the group simply outvote and tell her we're going into the tunnels. She responds by having her character avoid every fight she can in the tunnels and not staying with the group. The GM has to send in monsters approaching her while she was alone to get her to run to join the rest of the group.
When she finally does we arrive to fight the big bad in the tunnels. This is not an easy fight as the monster is invisible and can fly. She literally does nothing in the fight except as a bard throw up inspire courage and throws up some illusionary walls to hide behind. She does nothing else the entire fight and when the GM gets peeved that she is doing this the GM responds by having the monster drop summoned monsters right on top of her. She still refuses to fight the creatures and it forces the rest of us to both kill the extra mobs and then finally the big bad.
I asked her twice during this was she literally going to do nothing but hide behind illusionary stone walls. She then tries to passively aggressively explain why her character (and not the player who was IRL mad at the rest of us for not doing what she wanted) would not fight because "bards are not front line fighters and some times the best thing to do is sing one song and hide the rest of the fight."
After the session is over myself, the other player and the GM are quite upset about this. We only have four players in a group and this particular player is so sensitive that we are leery about confronting her over this behavior. If she were to leave the game or be asked to leave it would mean her boyfriend, the really good player I mentioned earlier, would go with her out of principle.
So any advice would be appreciated. I've had to deal with problem players as I've played ye olde school D&D back in the 80's up till present time but I've never dealt with a player who literally keeps their character out of combat out of spite that the she or he didn't get their way.
We don't have a whole lot of players that play Pathfinder in our local area so losing two players would be almost impossible to replace in this group.
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Ouch.
Ok; what you have is a person who likely feels she is never listened to, so she goes above and beyond and forces herself into positions that require people to listen to her. Combined with low self esteem and a lack of introspection, she doesn't realize that this is what she is doing. Because she is immature, she lashes out at those who don't listen to her every word. In game, this lashing out comes in the form of "not helping." Out of game, the lashing out comes in the form of lying, justifying her in game actions, and passive aggressiveness.
Here's my best advice for dealing with someone like this: give a little and take a little. She wants to lead and she wants to be respected. So let her lead and respect what she has to say. Swallow your pride a bit and listen to her; take what she has to say to make a decision, and allow her words to influence the group decision.
But that's just half of it; the other half is to put your foot down. She HAS to learn that while sometimes her decisions are what is done, sometimes she won't get what she wants and she has to listen to others. She has to respect your voice and your decision just as much as you respect hers. You'll have to let her know this, too (but don't bring it up until you've gone the extra mile to show her the respect she desires).
If you manage to get yourself into a position where she'll listen; teach her about the cooperative style of the game and that as a group effort, sometimes you lead and sometimes you follow, and everyone has to allow for that. You can say things like, "last time we followed your lead and went to the graveyard, this time lets go to the tunnels. I know you don't want to, but to get along with everyone, you might just have to eat this one and not take lead." (A bit of an aside, this was told to me by an elder coworker a few weeks ago when I was arguing for a document control system; I lost the argument and our company went with another format that I still don't like, but I had to eat it and just live with the decision. I've won many other arguments, though, which have lead to improvements around my workplace).
It's a bit of give and get, and my bet is that her experience in life has been that she never got and always gave and was tired of it, so she unconsciously started forcing her opinion everywhere and immaturely throws a tantrum when she doesn't get what she wants. If you really want to keep the boyfriend, then you've got to start taking this scenario as a challenge (or an adventure!) and start working some therapists and psychologists advice for relationship building and repairing, and help her become a mature woman who understands herself and others around her.
It's time to be a paladin and help someone grow, both morally and as a person.
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Well little miss leader decides we are not doing that. She wants to go hop the town wall to follow tracks we found a day or two earlier from a desecrated grave. She uses her character's alignment of CN to literally tell us at the table "She's chaotic neutral, she can do anything she wants with no repercussions". She puts up a huge fight both IC and OOC about not wanting to go into the tunnels.
You've gotten some good advice from bookrat. I'd agree that it sounds like she doesn't feel like her opinion is respected--referring to her at little miss leader here doesn't suggests that maybe she doesn't get much respect at the table, either.
My girlfriend, also an inexperienced player, gets this sometimes from some players in the group I GM. She gets cut off, overruled, or ignored at times. Obviously, I don't know how your problem player gets treated, so all I can say here is that this is a two-way street. Everyone needs to be having fun. And everyone will need to work together to find a solution.
Why was it a problem to check out her angle first? If the tracks are meaningless (or something you're not ready for), the GM can have the trail run out after a short distance. If the GM wants you in the tunnels, same thing--the trail runs cold and there are no further leads that way. It could have been a 10 minute sidetrack that would have avoided the entire situation.
Of course, she does have to learn that she won't always get what she wants. If she wants to hang back, or not help, then eventually her character is going to get killed while she's off alone or in a corner. Hopefully it doesn't come to that.
Actually I have to side with the player on this one. (EDIT: I came into this thread eager to share my hard-earned wisdom of handling toxic players)
You guys blatantly restricted her agency. Granted she did not follow the meta of helping the party do what she thought was a dumb approach to a problem. There really was no reason not to follow the tracks instead of diving into cramped tunnels full of possible choke points and traps.
You guys did the initial wrong and her further behavior is still wrong, but reactionary.
She seems to me, one that is putting her roleplaying ahead of the game aspect. Her character is not compelled to follow the party in a direction she does not want to go in. There is no inexplicable force compelling her to stay with the party. You guys then forced her the player to follow instead of convincing her character to follow. The behavior afterward was do in large part to the fact that you guys pulled her out of the experience. In-character, she still thought the whole approach was dumb and was not going to risk her life for a bunch of forceful idiots that dragged her into danger.
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If she played the original World of Darkness setting I can suggest a few things that might help get her helping the group more.
Had a player that did the Chaotic Neutral alignment for everything. It is not everything. now it does sound like both sides of the group are having issues.
The GM might want to add a few elements of Horror since she was a Vampire player to keep her interest up. But 2nd vampire had several clue bits in them for garnering attention and it made sense for her to want to check out the trails in the woods. Since she's playing a bard I am guessing she played a member of the Toreador clan. That dealt with seduction and beauty
more than the others, so I can see the character if she is following that clan dynamic will likely act immature and standoff-ish every time she's not the center of attention. Pretty much a Toreador, but she did help which means she was trying to find something/someway to keep getting noticed and to be depended on, even if only a bit.
I would suggest talking with the game master, because if this is the style character she is making and wants to be the center of the story, make her a central story arc in the most surprising ways.
For example, my CN problem member wanted to always be the most important to the group, but didn't want to deal with people. So when the focus came on him from NPC that noticed his power and assuming he was the leader all the time, He tried to lead and found he was having a hard time beyond hitting things. So slowly he started putting more thought into his characters so that they didn't all seem like powerful leader types and made strong supporting characters to the players that liked taking the leading roles.
To me the player was making characters to be a leader, but once in the leadership role and he said he had fun but didn't like making the choices for the group.
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You have my sympathies. I have probably the most extended experience with the most problematic players you could imagine in the years since I began playing (1981), and I always cringe when I hear about this sort of thing. I feel you. This person sounds like a combination of a couple problem players of my own. Probably not coincidentally, they, too, are both female. I find female problem players have a different bag of tricks from the male problem players, though I will say that in my experience the males are more chronic and less apt to change for the better before getting tossed from the game.
This is a particularly difficult situation, because you don't want to lose the boyfriend in the equation.
Now, I am going to throw something out that you might not like.
She is being a jerk, yes.
So are the rest of you. The GM is responding to her stubbornness by trying to punish her character. You guys are getting riled up by her behavior right in front of her, and trying to push her. You are fighting on her terms, allowing her to control you emotionally and make you angry. She is pushing buttons (perhaps unwittingly) and you are responding in kind.
As a father, let me tell you that the worst thing you can do is let your kid see that he is upsetting you. It is the quickest and surest way to lose control of the situation. Same thing goes for being a GM and for playing in a group.
In short, the problem player wants attention, even (maybe especially) negative attention, and man are you guys giving it to her.
I am not going to give you a magic bullet to fix this, because there isn't one. It's a precarious position. But the rest of the group is also responsible for making it so. You are placing too much importance on the boyfriend's role in your game. This makes it unbearable to lose him, which in turn ratchets up the tension. You also seem to be making some real assumptions as to why she acts this way. I have a feeling you don't know for sure that LARPing has caused this behavior. Like Uma Thurman's gangsters in Pulp Fiction, gamers are worse than a knitting circle when it comes to sitting around gossiping and making assumptions about others.
You all need to be honest and speak with each other, and you all need to be flexible. If you don't want to lose the boyfriend, you will have to deal with the girlfriend like grown up human beings, rather than inflexible man children whose favorite toy is threatened. Get the group together and talk about everybody's role without pointing fingers. Find some common ground and play there. Stop treating other people like children of a lesser god and concentrate on the positive things they bring to the table. I bet you'll find that if you can zero in on something positive in her, and help her accentuate that, she will back off on the more obnoxious stuff.
End of line.
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"You are not the only player. Choosing to create a contrary, and adversarial PC, was a choice you made. Your PC's alignment, personality, and actions are all your choice. 'Just roleplaying your PC', is never an excuse for bad behavior. In the end, everyone is here to have fun, including you, and we should all work together to make that happen. So, let's do that. How do you think all of us, can make that happen?"
This, or something similar, is one of the best ways to approach this.
Inclusive, without focus on being adversarial to the player.
If, said player still refuses to respect everyone's desire to have fun, then no solution, other than her leaving, will ever work.
Even if this causes the entire game to dissolve, it must be done.
A game without fun, is never worth it.
Give her character only 10% of the XP awarded for the fight, that should give her a strong hint that she is doing something the wrong way.
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One real example of game play: we're supposed to be helping a town. Guards were posted to protect some tunnels we discovered under the town. Three out of our four players want to explore the tunnels and the GM is broadly hinting that we need to check out what it in the tunnels.
The rest of us in the group simply outvote and tell her we're going into the tunnels. She responds by having her character avoid every fight she can in the tunnels and not staying with the group. The GM has to send in monsters approaching her while she was alone to get her to run to join the rest of the group.
In game. The GM should just let her wander of and accept the concequenses of it instead of trying to direct the character with monster flushes and hints. If you all stand on your head to make her act like you want her to she will Quickly loose interest in playing with you. And so would most folks.
Out of game this can be adresses with a talk where you all talk about what you want from the game. Tunnels and monsters and a GM telling what to do, may not be on top of everybodys list.
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It's always unfortunate to hear about these problematic player cases. I would honestly love to always get along with everyone, but often enough, that's not the case for other people.
What I can somewhat recommend is to have a nice dishonest chat with her. Yes, you heard me right. Dishonest chat. Be polite, pamper her a bit, but represent the group's interests. Being completely honest at this point will probably feel like a personal attack and she might react with aggressive behavior like before. I am sure also that her boyfriend will notice that you are trying to fix the situation and he might help out a bit.
Do consider and be prepared to lose them both. As troublesome as it sounds, it's better to be prepared then unprepared when it happens. Make a list of other potential gaming candidates. Planing in advance can save you some trouble later even if it doesn't happen.
The rest of advice would sound probably very similar to what bookrat said. Give little, take little, but make your stand. She needs to understand sooner or later that GM controls the game flow, not her. Give her the benefit of the doubt also. Tracking those tracks in the above example seemed like a good idea even to me personally.
Adam
People don't always play the way you want them to. Maybe it is about expectations on how the game should be played, or maybe it is about not wanting to be railroaded into doing something they don't want to do.
I'd suggest in character negotiations, such as, "If you help us in the tunnels, we will help you follow those tracks in the graveyard."
Not every player is a combat murder-hobo. Some players have characters that are either grossly sub-optimal, or spend the whole fight self buffing and moving into safe positions. Some players read a book or play on their phone, unless someone tells them to roll some dice. It sounds like it wasn't a TPK, so I don't see the problem with her being sub-optimal. If the GM is one to balance encounters, then they should take into account that her character is not an over-optimized DPS machine.
Considering she was hiding behind an illusionary wall, yet still got attacked by summoned monsters, you can't blame her for being paranoid.
Do you like spending time with this person? If so, work things out. If you just plain don't like her for some reason, than stop hanging out with her.
There are so many possibilities here that I just can’t see where to start.
* Other goal - GM dropped a hook into the pond (tracks from grave) it is perfectly reasonable to want to check it out.
* Chaotic Neutral – could go either way here. Some players do often use this as an excuse to behave like an ash-hat. As others have said, “I’m just playing the character” is not justification for being a jack-hole. You could have chosen a non-jack-hole character personality. On the other hand, some players do manage to do the CN justice and can be a fine member of the team. Not enough information given to discern a pattern.
* Outvoted on tunnels issue – Is she often being outvoted and legitimately feels like here PC is always ignored? Is the bard a diplomatic character that was decided by the group to be leader then not allowed to lead? Does the bard ever get to have some spotlight time? Again, might or might not be reasonable behavior.
* Doesn’t fight – Does she never fight or did she just not participate in this fight? Some players/PC’s hate being pushed into anything. It sounds like the other players and GM pushed her into something she really didn’t want to do then got upset when she didn’t give it her all. Did you really expect otherwise? Some players (like myself) will go along with the group vote and give it complete focus and effort. It can be easily predicted, because I always do. From what you said; she always wants to be independent, doesn’t like being pushed, doesn’t like fighting, isn’t that much of a team player, and so it should have been pretty damn predictable that she wouldn’t give it much effort.
* Nonfighting bard – Actually this can also go either way. Not all, but some groups actually are completely fine with a non-combatant member. A couple of years ago, one of our new players had some trouble with this exact issue. He came from groups where people did specialize to the point where a non-combatant wasn’t that unusual. He brought a skill/diplomacy/scout/spy monkey. He really had not ever intended to contribute much in combat. But he was really great in the other areas to the point where the other PC’s didn’t have to put much effort into those aspects. That was a perfectly acceptable strategy in his previous groups. It is not my preferred style of play, though I don’t mind it. But most of the group was pretty ticked off that he was useless in a fight. It was not an acceptable strategy in this group. Was the player ever told that the group expects everyone to fight? I know my fellow player was not. Once he learned that expectation he did not again make the same mistake.
I guess it all comes down to “we aren’t there so we don’t know enough.”
In-character – No chaotic neutral doesn’t excuse being a jerk. But from the story I don’t see enough to really say if it was jerkish behavior. That comes down to attitude and intention which we can’t decide. Are the rest of you chaotic or lawful. It isn’t entirely unreasonable that a bunch of lawful types wouldn’t want to rely on a chaotic type in a small team situation.
One time, I’ve been in a group where the mostly lawful types had to drop the chaotic guy. All really were playing in-character and no one got upset. It just eventually became obvious that there was no real way the lawful types would continue to put up with the chaotic type.
But that is rare that it really is just an in-character thing that won’t generate ill will.
Out-of-character – Sorry, but it is discussion time. Not sure what to tell you but it sounds like your gaming styles are incompatible. Possibly you can all adjust your expectations somewhat so everyone will still have fun playing the game. But if you expect change only on her side, you are pretty much doomed to failure. If she is the only one that gives, she won’t be having fun and will be gone sooner or later. Odds are taking the boyfriend with her. If everyone else changes to accommodate her, you won’t be having fun and will soon get resentful.
The only thing that has a chance to succeed is everyone compromise a little.
But to be perfectly honest. I rarely see that succeed. The group can’t have a discussion without hurt/anger (even though everyone says it won’t be a problem) and not everyone is willing to compromise (even though everyone says they are).
Before you play next, you guys should as nicely as possible ask her to help in the fights more because it is making it difficult on the rest of you. If you do it in a nice way, hopefully she won't overreact.
"You are not the only player. Choosing to create a contrary, and adversarial PC, was a choice you made. Your PC's alignment, personality, and actions are all your choice. 'Just roleplaying your PC', is never an excuse for bad behavior. In the end, everyone is here to have fun, including you, and we should all work together to make that happen. So, let's do that. How do you think all of us, can make that happen?"
This, or something similar, is one of the best ways to approach this.
Inclusive, without focus on being adversarial to the player.
If, said player still refuses to respect everyone's desire to have fun, then no solution, other than her leaving, will ever work.
Even if this causes the entire game to dissolve, it must be done.
A game without fun, is never worth it.
BBT pretty much nails it here.
She doesn't seem to understand the concept of a group game versus individual game. VTM is more an individualistic game with a focus on role playing. While Pathfinder and D&D can be played that way, in my experience it is more a roll playing game focused on combat with a side helping of actual role play. And both are just fine, so long as you understand what the focus of the game will be and how to help everyone have fun and meet the expectation. The female player doesn't seem to understand this social contract. Explain to her that Pathfinder is a functional group game and that sometimes you take meta-actions for the sake of the cohesiveness of the group and keeping the adventure flowing (especially in the case of Adventure Paths which are pretty on the rails).
My primary example of this is a character I had for Skull and Shackles campaign. I had an undine ranger who's backstory entailed being locked up for 60 years in a Chelaxian prison and being branded as a pirate after his parents were caught and executed for piracy. (He was aboard the ship but too young to be an active participant, instead serving as a cabin boy basically). Based on his experiences he had a gross distrust of most everyone and really hated being locked up or forced to do things against his will. And so at the beginning of the campaign when...
It's also important to know that my character gave up hydraulic push to gain the amphibous quality so I could breath in water. My character would have most likely started a fire below deck and saw the ship sunk and everyone aboard dead at sea while he slips overboard and swims away.
But that would have completely derailed the campaign and effectively ended it before it ever really began. Sure, my character would have been justified in such an action. He didn't know the other characters of my fellow players yet. They were just some people that happened to get captured at the same time he did. He had no reason to care about what happened to them so long as he got away. However, knowing the in character thoughts and the out of character information (that this is a game we collectively chose to play and that I don't want to ruin it for everone) ...you know what I didn't do? Start a fire and attempt to burn down and sink the ship.
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I found some of the responses about player agency to be... misplaced.
You see, the rest of the group voted to go down into the tunnels, whether the GM strongly hinted that they needed to go down there or not. In that particular instance, if anyone railroaded this girl into going down into the tunnels rather than pulling the rest of the group her way, it was the rest of the party, and that, right there, is player agency at its finest.
Now I get that she felt that she didn't want to play because she didn't get her way. Poor, poor special snowflake.
Here's where you, as the GM, went wrong.
You kept trying to fight against her agency as a player beyond that. If you, as the GM, gave the warning that the tunnels were too dangerous to venture through if you're going it alone, then each decision has reasonable and natural consequences. If that includes death, dismemberment, or a fight for your life where you come out unscathed, then so be it - provided that you're not being unnecessarily cruel and retaliatory. If it means that the character becomes hopelessly lost until the rest of the party finds them (and they can just sit out of all of the action), then so be it.
You did end up railroading her to rejoin the group. When she refused to get into the fight, she may have been responding to feeling railroaded, but she was lashing out against her fellow players, not the GM. This is why I don't find any particular sympathy for her "special snowflakeness".
So... There were some wrongs made on both sides.
Now, if I may, I'm going to put on a different hat.
As a former freelancer for White Wolf...
White Wolf builds into each one of its games a personality flaw in every player. Players get to choose their own flaws, and they are allowed to manifest their personality flaw in-game, as it was intended to enhance role-play and make supernatural beings more human. As humans, we're all flawed. White Wolf deliberately attempts capitalize on this fact in order to avoid players playing a flawless Superman, which may be a player's choice, but it goes against the nature of the games that White Wolf creates, and so, it's eschewed.
All of White Wolf's games include this element; Mage, Vampire, Werewolf, Exalted, etc..., though it's not a universal system, and it varies a bit from game to game. I never found it to be a terrible part of their games, but like any other element of any RPG, it's prone to abuse.
You see, you can play your personality flaw if you wish, but you don't have to, most of the time. When your character encounters whatever circumstances that would cause their personality flaw to become manifest, you build up points against your flaw. When you reach a certain threshold, your flaw must be played out. For example, if your flaw is uncontrollable rage, you might gain points against it when you witness the suffering of others that you cannot do anything about, and when you've finally "had enough", you fly into your uncontrollable rage. Of course, the player can play a raging douchecanoe all they wish, but they can do that without their personality flaw.
Of course, this flaw does confer some other benefits, but that's something for another time.
Before I remove the hat and walk away, I want to state that this gal was deliberately playing a personality flaw that she built into her Pathfinder character unnecessarily. It is, perhaps, how she's choosing to role-play her Pathfinder character, but even in White Wolf games, it would have been a douchecanoe move. She doesn't have to play that way, and perhaps that particular element is something that should be discussed with her.
If she wants to keep that personality flaw in her Pathfinder character, take notes. Have her write it into her character's backstory, and if there's a reasonable means of incorporating it, do so. You might even give it to her as a "free trait" that confers some sort of minor bonus (like +1 to Will saves on compulsion effects or something) when she role-plays it through without punishing the other players by doing so.
Removing the hat...
If she really wants to play a bard that doesn't get into the fight, then I'd calculate my encounters to accommodate for that style of play. You know she's not going to get into the mix, and you shouldn't punish other players by dumping on them when she doesn't want to play ball. Of course, once in a while, some rogue might find her hiding spot and stick her with something sharp and pointy. She can't just hide forever, after all. Of course, a better method might be either providing her with a deliberate antagonist (perhaps an evil bard) to fight against, or finding a way to compensate for what effectively becomes a "free bonus" to the party if she gets to enhance her allies without risking her hide by enhancing their opponents, which could "encourage" her to lend an additional hand. Careful, though, as that could backfire, and as I mentioned before, the point is not to punish the other players for her poor gamesmanship.
Ultimately, you shouldn't tolerate her "special snowflakeness" if it's spoiling the enjoyment of the rest of the party, no matter how awesome a player her boyfriend may be. She doesn't get to do whatever she wants without repercussions because she's Chaotic Neutral. She gets to do whatever she wants without repercussions because the GM chooses not to impose repercussions. However, she does get to do whatever she wants.
Just remember, all actions in-game have consequences, both for players and for GMs.
Best wishes!
Oh, Bodhizen, a wonderful point!
A player should be allowed to do whatever they want, but not without consequence. And that does not include controlling other player characters.
If she didn't want to go to the tunnels she could have go alone to follow the tracks. The other players collectively decided they wanted to go to the tunnels, and they should be allowed to. And she wanted to do something else, and she should be allowed to.
Now, both of these actions have consequences. You shouldn't unfairly punish one player/group, but if she got herself in over her head...well she decided to go out alone.
At some point though, it is best for players to understand and agree to a social contract and deomocratic process for the game, and it appears they did that both in and out of character.
I appreciate all the input and advice.
To fill in some of the questions raised by various posters:
I am not the GM. I am a player. My wife is the GM. This is her first time being a GM and outside of this issue the game has been mostly fun.
The player in question is a friend to all of us as is her boyfriend. OOC she's a nice, intelligent person with a very headstrong and willful personality. She speaks her mind with no apologies. Her relationship with her boyfriend is that she, to put it simply, "wears the pants" and he seems content with that.
I am not trying to judge her as a person or ask others to do so. I realize that you guys are getting one side of this and so I am trying to be as honest as I can.
Someone said this above in a post:
"I mean, my knowledge of White Wolf is constant betrayals, back-biting, ad overacting BS. People will throw tantrums because that is legitimately what their character is SUPPOSED to do, because that vampire clan and/or vampire character is a tantrum-thrower. He's royalty after all, and dumb enough to have thought guzzling toxic syrupy undead blood like Cisco's Red was a good idea. If that's the reason she's playing it like that, then you are not only within your rights but halfway expected to try and murder her later for it."
This. This right here is exactly how she is playing her character. The rest of our group IC gets along fine. Her character sticks out like a sore thumb because, and this is just my freely guessing, but she associates Pathfinder RPing with White Wolf. Which after having done that in the past they are just not the same. Character drama for the sake of drama is what drives most of the RPing and hence the game in that setting. It simply does not in Pathfinder.
We have until that argument about going into the tunnels done pretty much everything she suggested IC and OOC for the party to do. She was asked when we were making characters if she could make a party face character and she did with a bard. She does a good job as a party face by asking good questions to the GM (as NPCs) and being intelligent enough OOC to know how to connect plot elements and clues to move our group around. IC her and her boyfriend made it so their two characters already knew each other before the party formed by having his fighter be her bodyguard as she was a traveling bard. Which means she is already used (IC) to bossing him around and his character complies with pretty much everything she says.
Which is what made this incident all the more jarring for the rest of us. Our characters swore to protect this town (for a reward) and to find out and destroy what's causing all the evil around it. Having three guards disappear around newly discovered tunnels under the town seemed a far more immediate threat than chasing down a trail over a town wall. I also have to point out that the other three members of the group are all of a good alignment and did not feel our characters would simply shrug their shoulders and not at least attempt to find and possibly rescue the missing guards. Not to mention the common sense fear of going to bed in a local inn without checking out tunnels directly underneath you that three guards have already went missing in under 24 hour period. What character of any alignment would go to sleep knowing this?
We did not, I have to add, force her or railroad her to go with us in the tunnels. The GM did ask her after the initial argument OOC about the tunnels if she wanted to go explore the trail on her own or did she want to stay in town or what exactly did she want her bard to do. She reluctantly chose to go with us but she was not forced to do so. We did in the OOC argument tell her that the rest of our characters were going but none of us said "and you have to go as well". The GM probably saved her character's life later in the tunnels by not having the mobs or the big bad jump her when she was alone. I realize that some of you as GMs or players would have used that exact opportunity to teach her a lesson about being alone in unknown and hostile caverns but our GM did not want to do that.
What BBT said is true. These games are about fun first and anything else second. I will try and find some way to ask her nicely to contribute in any upcoming fights because we didn't build this party with the idea of one person in a small four person group being a non combatant. I appreciate the advice others have given about making her character feel more included in group decisions but quite honestly this player in question already has her way almost all the time. Perhaps we should have nipped that earlier in the bud but there's never been a situation like this before where there was such a divergent opinion on what the group should do.
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Someone said this above in a post:"I mean, my knowledge of White Wolf is constant betrayals, back-biting, ad overacting BS. People will throw tantrums because that is legitimately what their character is SUPPOSED to do, because that vampire clan and/or vampire character is a tantrum-thrower. He's royalty after all, and dumb enough to have thought guzzling toxic syrupy undead blood like Cisco's Red was a good idea. If that's the reason she's playing it like that, then you are not only within your rights but halfway expected to try and murder her later for it."
This. This right here is exactly how she is playing her character. The rest of our group IC gets along fine. Her character sticks out like a sore thumb because, and this is just my freely guessing, but she associates Pathfinder RPing with White Wolf. Which after having done that in the past they are just not the same. Character drama for the sake of drama is what drives most of the RPing and hence the game in that setting. It simply does not in Pathfinder. ...
To be fair. I know some PF and 3.x groups that also play that way. Not my personal poison, but I sort of understand the allure.
Does she seem to be noticing that your playstyle and her playstyle are not same? If not you may have to gently point it out. Then see if you guys can compromise.
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She was asked when we were making characters if she could make a party face character and she did with a bard. She does a good job as a party face by asking good questions to the GM (as NPCs) and being intelligent enough OOC to know how to connect plot elements and clues to move our group around.
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I will try and find some way to ask her nicely to contribute in any upcoming fights because we didn't build this party with the idea of one person in a small four person group being a non combatant. ...
Yeah, I kinda wondered if that might not be it. Like I said, many groups having someone be the non-combatant face person is ok. Someone should have said something like. "Well sure! A party face is always great, but we still expect everyone to be able to pull their own weight in a fight."
I would like to point out, since it was mentioned and commented upon, that White Wolf does not promote the idea that characters should betray, backbite, overact and throw tantrums. Character drama for the sake of drama is not a feature of their gaming systems. I've had (mostly) positive experiences with White Wolf games as a player, GM and freelance writer (the mostly describes some unpleasantness with freelancers that ended up driving other writers off the line).
Vampire might be like that, but I avoided Vampire because it's not the kind of game that I was interested in playing, and because Vampire players do have a reputation (earned or unearned) for playing that way. This does not apply to Mage, Changeling, Werewolf, Trinity or Exalted, in my experience.
Best wishes.
I wouldn't go so far as to say the gaming system tells the players to do so. But I will say every player that I know in that system (admittedly not very many) seem to feel that is the way it is 'supposed' to be played.
They're having fun with it. So I have no problem with it.
A few suggestions:
We literally can not have a single session where she is not trying to "lead" the group no matter the situation. Three out of our four players want to explore the tunnels and the GM is broadly hinting that we need to check out what it in the tunnels.
(snip)
Well little miss leader decides we are not doing that.
(snip)
The rest of us in the group simply outvote and tell her we're going into the tunnels. She responds by having her character avoid every fight she can in the tunnels
First of all, avoid dismissive language like "little miss leader". It's a personal attack, it sounds like you have no respect for the player as a fellow adult and fellow gamer, and it comes across as sexist and invalidating. (Personally, this kind of language would get my hackles up, and I would be done.) As much as possible, try to treat her like you would any other party member and gamer: try very hard not to let her gender or previous experience color your actions. (This is really, really hard to do, for anyone.)
Second, ask her why she expects to be in charge of the group. Did she build her character expecting to be the group leader (not an unusual situation with the high charisma/party face type)? If so, she could have been legitimately upset that no one followed her. Talk with her (IC and OOC) about everybody's role in the group and come to some agreement about who is in charge and in what situations. (e.g.,"when we're talking to people, you take the lead, when crap hits fan, Joe's in charge," etc.)
I could deal with that both IC and OOC. What I can not deal with is she thinks it is "appropriate" roleplaying for her character to not help in fights and in two cases intentionally not even come to fight when the party is running into trouble.
(snip)
She literally does nothing in the fight except as a bard throw up inspire courage and throws up some illusionary walls to hide behind.I asked her twice during this was she literally going to do nothing but hide behind illusionary stone walls.
Did you suggest anything specific for her to do? If she's as inexperienced as you say, she might not realize that she can do something else. If she built her character as a non-combatant, she might not have any clue how to contribute in combat. Try something like "hey, can you summon a {thing}" or "do you have {spell}--that would help a lot". And fill in those blanks with specifics: if she doesn't know what she can do in combat, odds are pretty good that she doesn't know what she can/should summon or what spell would help out in a specific situation.
Also, don't sell support characters short. I hear a lot of people on these message boards complaining about "bards who do nothing but sing", and I had a lot of trouble in my early gaming days feeling like my bard was pretty damn worthless (she tried to participate in combat, but she sucked at it, and it was very frustrating). Then my GM pointed out that mathematically, 1 point of damage on every single attack was actually "my damage", and he calculated the number of times attacks would have missed without the +1 to attack--not to mention Saving Finale and Timely Inspiration. Just because she isn't keeping up with the fighter's DPR doesn't mean she isn't contributing.
She then tries to passively aggressively explain why her character (and not the player who was IRL mad at the rest of us for not doing what she wanted) would not fight because "bards are not front line fighters and some times the best thing to do is sing one song and hide the rest of the fight."
Why do you assume this was passive aggressive behavior? It could very well be that she built her character as a coward (if so, ask her to explain that to the group in advance so other players know what to expect), that her character was pissed off at the group (whether she was or not), or that she honestly thinks that this is how one is supposed to play bards (see my earlier comment about the numerous complaints about bards--this isn't just her).
It also sounds like she might be upset because the rest of the group is trying to tell her how to play her character or run her character for her: this is a problem for a lot of inexperienced players and female players (and younger players, but that's not relevant) tend to have this problem more often. If you try to be aware of this issue, you can come up with ways to phrase your suggestions without putting her on the defensive about wanting to play her character her way.
OOC, the GM might want to explain the "unwritten" rules of this campaign and the group expectations, and make it clear that these apply equally to everybody at the table (as a new player, she might not know that this group is more cooperative than competitive). Honestly, this could be the source of most of your problems. If your group has been playing together for a while, you guys have already established a group dynamic both as players and characters, and unless someone explained her to her, you're expecting her to be psychic (and somehow "know" what she's supposed to do to fit in) or just passive (and let you guys just run her character to fit in with the group best).
IC or OOC, try asking her to explain her character's personality and motivations, and ask her what types of approaches would work to get her character involved in a given encounter. Flattery? Bribery? Threats? Pitiful pleas for help? Then play along.
She responds by having her character avoid every fight she can in the tunnels and not staying with the group. The GM has to send in monsters approaching her while she was alone to get her to run to join the rest of the group.
She does nothing else the entire fight and when the GM gets peeved that she is doing this the GM responds by having the monster drop summoned monsters right on top of her.
OK, this was a huge mistake on your GM's part, and I strongly recommend not doing it again. No matter what the actual, underlying situation is, this will just make it worse. Here's why:
Option 1:
If she is honestly trying to play her character, the GM just punished her and picked on her for no apparent reason. That is only going to make her more defensive.
Option 2:
If she is being a "special little snowflake" or a spotlight-hogging glory hound, the GM just gave her more incentive to continue acting this way. The GM gave her a special encounter and forced the whole group to come to her rescue: it really is all about her! (If you're convinced that this is the issue, the best thing to do is ignore her. Let her character run off by herself and have nothing interesting happen at all. She'll come back to where the action is soon enough just so she can get some "camera time".)
Option 3:
If she was being passive aggressive, the GM is doing exactly what you're accusing her of doing: getting mad at someone IRL and taking it out on her character. All this will do is validate this approach and encourage more of the same. I mean, if this is how your group works, how else should a new player act if they want to fit in?
Overall suggestions for dealing with these kinds of situations:
1) Try not to project explanations onto her behavior: there are multiple possible motivations, and you need to figure out which ones are correct before you try to solve the wrong problem. (Now, if she said "I need everything to be about me" or "you pissed me off, so I'll take it out on your character", then clearly this suggestion doesn't apply.)
2) Try to understand her point of view or her "story" of the events in question. Everyone has a different background and different experiences that color their version of events. What to you is just "asking her to live up to normal gaming expectations" could be "sexist BS" or "new player abuse" to her. What to you is "passive aggressive BS" or "diva tantrums" could be "playing my character" to her.
And this goes both ways. Try to get her to understand your point of view, too. (If you want to be non-aggressive about this, use phrases like "When you did X, it came across like Y" or "I felt like you were doing Z".)
3) And the big one: Treat her like a rational adult until she proves otherwise. (If she proves otherwise, then all bets are off.)
Even if a person isn't optimized for combat, IMO, they ought to find a way to contribute during combat encounters. Even a well-placed Aid Another is a valid contribution.
Yeah, I kinda wondered if that might not be it. Like I said, many groups having someone be the non-combatant face person is ok. Someone should have said something like. "Well sure! A party face is always great, but we still expect everyone to be able to pull their own weight in a fight."
The bard song was better than an 'aid another' action but for this group was not considered sufficient.
In my example above, our face character used a bow during fights. But he almost never hit anything and couldn't do significant damage if he did hit.I thought it was ok, since we skated the court scenes. But much of the group did not like it.
If the bard was sufficiently optimized for non-combat roles, it could actually end up being a detriment if it participates. If the rest of them need to keep stopping what they are doing to save the bard from any threat or AoE spell, then they might actually be better off with her just hiding.
Don't know if it is true, but it is a possibility.
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Wow, we had a player exactly like this, in pretty much the exact same module too, I'm betting.
Quick and easy solution: Add a 5th player.
The GM wouldn't even have to adjust the module's difficulty. You would not be facing an adventure designed for four players with five, more like facing it with only 4.2 (or whatever her contribution happens to be). You can then give her character permission to be delightfully irrelevant without setting the party back too much. And if at some point she gets on board with the mission objective, then great ...that's a much easier problem to solve.
I would like to point out, since it was mentioned and commented upon, that White Wolf does not promote the idea that characters should betray, backbite, overact and throw tantrums. Character drama for the sake of drama is not a feature of their gaming systems. I've had (mostly) positive experiences with White Wolf games as a player, GM and freelance writer (the mostly describes some unpleasantness with freelancers that ended up driving other writers off the line).
Vampire might be like that, but I avoided Vampire because it's not the kind of game that I was interested in playing, and because Vampire players do have a reputation (earned or unearned) for playing that way. This does not apply to Mage, Changeling, Werewolf, Trinity or Exalted, in my experience.
Best wishes.
Just to comment: I played the Werewolf game, even had the Rage CCG back in the day. We did not have this "drama for the sake of drama" driving the game. But the group she plays with for Vampire in their LARP...this really is what they do. Their gaming sessions are about characters acting like complete asses to one another most of the time and drama through the roof. Some of that carries over into OOC sniping at each other. I do not play with her Vampire group despite repeated invitations for exactly this. I do not consider it my kind of role playing. Having some adversarial relations in a party is one thing; having the entire game devolve into Machiavellian schemes that derail a narrative are not.
Wow, we had a player exactly like this, in pretty much the exact same module too, I'm betting.
Quick and easy solution: Add a 5th player.
The GM wouldn't even have to adjust the module's difficulty. You would not be facing an adventure designed for four players with five, more like facing it with only 4.2 (or whatever her contribution happens to be). You can then give her character permission to be delightfully irrelevant without setting the party back too much. And if at some point she gets on board with the mission objective, then great ...that's a much easier problem to solve.
I've asked the other player I mentioned to bring their teenage son to our next game to watch. If he's interested in playing we will bring him into the campaign ASAP. And yes, the module we're doing is a RotRL campaign. I'm trying to avoid spoilers in my combat descriptions accordingly.
Yeah, I kinda wondered if that might not be it. Like I said, many groups having someone be the non-combatant face person is ok. Someone should have said something like. "Well sure! A party face is always great, but we still expect everyone to be able to pull their own weight in a fight."Even if a person isn't optimized for combat, IMO, they ought to find a way to contribute during combat encounters. Even a well-placed Aid Another is a valid contribution.
This is my thinking. Her bard has a bow and some kind of melee weapon. In previous battles she had no problems hanging back behind the fighter and warpriest with the witch to shoot things or toss some spells. She deliberately chose in this play session to avoid combat completely and when finally forced to join the group for the big bad fight she didn't fight. Even when monsters were dropped on her and when I as the warpriest offered to bless her weapon in order for it to overcome DR.
No one in the group expects a bard to be a front line fighter. To reference Gwen Smith's post we don't chastise her for not being the DPS machine the fighter is. We know a bard is a support class and she made her character to be a great face. That does not mean in a fight a bard is useless and unable to used a ranged weapon or spells though. And as I mentioned, she had no problems fighting before this situation.
I appreciate all the input and advice.
To fill in some of the questions raised by various posters:
I am not the GM. I am a player. My wife is the GM. This is her first time being a GM and outside of this issue the game has been mostly fun.
The player in question is a friend to all of us as is her boyfriend. OOC she's a nice, intelligent person with a very headstrong and willful personality. She speaks her mind with no apologies. Her relationship with her boyfriend is that she, to put it simply, "wears the pants" and he seems content with that.
I am not trying to judge her as a person or ask others to do so. I realize that you guys are getting one side of this and so I am trying to be as honest as I can.
This a really nice approach, and I have confidence that you'll be able to solve it.
This. This right here is exactly how she is playing her character. The rest of our group IC gets along fine. Her character sticks out like a sore thumb because, and this is just my freely guessing, but she associates Pathfinder RPing with White Wolf. Which after having done that in the past they are just not the same. Character drama for the sake of drama is what drives most of the RPing and hence the game in that setting. It simply does not in Pathfinder.
This sounds like some of the "unwritten rules" that you need to discuss with her. It's also less about the overall game system than the individual campaign.
We have until that argument about going into the tunnels done pretty much everything she suggested IC and OOC for the party to do. She was asked when we were making characters if she could make a party face character and she did with a bard. She does a good job as a party face by asking good questions to the GM (as NPCs) and being intelligent enough OOC to know how to connect plot elements and clues to move our group around. IC her and her boyfriend made it so their two characters already knew each other before the party formed by having his fighter be her bodyguard as she was a traveling bard. Which means she is already used (IC) to bossing him around and his character complies with pretty much everything she says.
That sounds like a large part of the problem. If she is used to being in charge and is really good at picking up the plot points, she could have been completely taken by surprise when both the party and the GM suddenly changed points of view.
Some more specific suggestions:
1) See if there's any way to incorporate her character drama to move the plot forward. For example, the GM could have an NPC come up and engage her character in going into the tunnels.
2) Come up with some specific strategies for ways she can help in combat that are completely in character.
Hmm. How about telling her?
Get your DM's back up on this first. But seriously, sit down and say that you guys want to play a coorporative game, and she's getting in the way of that, so could she please modify her behavior to fit with that? If she's both intelligent, and used to speaking her mind freely, she should be able to understand the sentiment, especially if you put it to her calmly and respectfully.
See if you can get the DM to acknowledge he was being an ass about the monster thing first. It'll help.
Edit: LARP has the interesting trait, coming from PnPRPGs, that everyone only gets to play one character, including the NPCs.
This leads to a lot more player-driven plots, if you can call them that. For some reason this makes it less of a team game, although it certainly can be.
Just to update on how our group is doing:
My wife, the first time DM, and I talked to the other player in the group that if the problem player continued to be a problem the GM would call her out on it.
Thankfully what I did not know in the interim between when I first posted about this and when we played again recently her boyfriend talked to her about her attitude. Last game session the problem player was on her best behavior. None of the "special snowflake" behavior or refusing to help the group in combat. We made every major decision together as a group and suffered or rewarded from that as a result.
I talked to the boyfriend on the side and he confirmed that he saw how her behavior was affecting the game and that he was embarrassed enough to talk to her about it. She admitted she was doing it to "punish" the rest of the group. Thankfully he was able to make her see reason and the result was a much, much better gaming experience for all involved.
Hopefully this change in personality will be a permanent one. :O)
Wonderful news! I guess my only question would be, "Why was she trying to punish the rest of the group?" That ruins fun for other players.
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Wonderful news! I guess my only question would be, "Why was she trying to punish the rest of the group?" That ruins fun for other players.
Because the group wasn't doing what she wanted them to do or go where she wanted them to go. Everyone in the group wanted to go to the tunnels (where a recent attack from the mysterious bad guys just emerged from), and she wanted to go to the graveyard outside of town because previous hints suggested the mysterious bad guys might have been there.
Not saying it's logical or right, but she wanted to punish them for not doing what she declared they should be doing.
At least, according to my reading of the thread.
Wonderful news! I guess my only question would be, "Why was she trying to punish the rest of the group?" That ruins fun for other players.Because the group wasn't doing what she wanted them to do or go where she wanted them to go. Everyone in the group wanted to go to the tunnels (where a recent attack from the mysterious bad guys just emerged from), and she wanted to go to the graveyard outside of town because previous hints suggested the mysterious bad guys might have been there.
Not saying it's logical or right, but she wanted to punish them for not doing what she declared they should be doing.
At least, according to my reading of the thread.
Yes, that is correct. We wanted to address the issue in town with missing guards in mysterious tunnels discovered under the town and she wanted us to go following tracks over the town wall and ignore the plight of the guards.
Anyways, glad to hear it is working out. Maturity is winning out over childishness.
By the way, dropping hints isn't "railroading". It's saying, "Guys, you can check that place out, but it's going to be boring and waste gametime because there's nothing there. Maybe you should go where there's actual content prepared."
True red herrings are not fun to play with. They're timewasters.