How to deal with grumpy veteran player?

[kyrt-ryder]

Lay the law down, he is NOT allowed to tell someone else how to play their character.

If he absolutely must vent, his character being a cleric provides him with an opportunity to vent IC, ranting about how Paladins aren't what they used to be and how her Order must be ashamed of her behavior etc etc.

[Chris Kenney]

Grond wrote:

I appreciate everyone's input and advice. I called him this evening and told him I was sending him a link in an email and I wanted him to check it out and give me a call once he had.

About thirty minutes later he called and was apologetic. It turned out my suspicions were right in that he wanted to play a paladin this campaign and was not expecting the, as he admitted, new girl to want to play a martial character and thought she would want to play an Elf magic user of some sort.

I asked him why he thought she would want to play an Elf magic user because it honestly confused me and he sheepishly responded that almost all new players that were girls in his experience wanted to play an Elf magic user of some sort or some kind of Dark Elf ranger.

We had a nice talk and I told him that kind of thinking was really insulting to other people, explicitly sexist even, and he agreed. He then asked me how I liked how he RPed his paladins over the years. You could have cut the dead silence that stretched out with a sword. I finally told him that while I didn't mind the "typical" paladin every once in a while the fact he played it the same way each time made it less interesting. Not to mention it made it always a source of IC conflict with any kind of rogue class or a character that was not very religious.

He said he would apologize in person to Theresa at our next meeting and he would stop the attempts to alignment check her and criticizing her RP. I told him I would hold them to this and if he did not change then despite our being friends for about 20 years I would ask him to step out of the campaign. He agreed.

So hopefully all of these comments that came from someone else besides myself helped turn him around. We have this argument before to lesser degrees over the years and I think he just tuned me out this time because he thought it was just another argument and not a real issue affecting other players.

Thank you guys and gals for your help. :)

Glad to see it worked out!

[Aaron Whitley]

Grond wrote:

I appreciate everyone's input and advice. I called him this evening and told him I was sending him a link in an email and I wanted him to check it out and give me a call once he had.

About thirty minutes later he called and was apologetic. It turned out my suspicions were right in that he wanted to play a paladin this campaign and was not expecting the, as he admitted, new girl to want to play a martial character and thought she would want to play an Elf magic user of some sort.

I asked him why he thought she would want to play an Elf magic user because it honestly confused me and he sheepishly responded that almost all new players that were girls in his experience wanted to play an Elf magic user of some sort or some kind of Dark Elf ranger.

We had a nice talk and I told him that kind of thinking was really insulting to other people, explicitly sexist even, and he agreed. He then asked me how I liked how he RPed his paladins over the years. You could have cut the dead silence that stretched out with a sword. I finally told him that while I didn't mind the "typical" paladin every once in a while the fact he played it the same way each time made it less interesting. Not to mention it made it always a source of IC conflict with any kind of rogue class or a character that was not very religious.

He said he would apologize in person to Theresa at our next meeting and he would stop the attempts to alignment check her and criticizing her RP. I told him I would hold them to this and if he did not change then despite our being friends for about 20 years I would ask him to step out of the campaign. He agreed.

So hopefully all of these comments that came from someone else besides myself helped turn him around. We have this argument before to lesser degrees over the years and I think he just tuned me out this time because he thought it was just another argument and not a real issue affecting other players.

Thank you guys and gals for your help. :)

Way to handle it! Good job! Also glad to see "Josh" was mature enough to recognize his mistakes and ask for feedback. That's awesome.

[Quandary]

Good to hear it worked out! Not only for you and the rest of the group, but for "Josh" as well.
And maybe even he might learn from this, and change up his approach to RP, open to something fresh and new!

[Bob Bob Bob]

Bloodrealm wrote:

Bob Bob Bob wrote:

I personally have made a death-seeking misanthrope paladin who doesn't really believe in justice and righteousness winning and thinks people are awful but is going to keep throwing himself into dangerous situations until either he gives up (and falls), he dies, or someone proves him wrong.

I don't think a person like that would be willing or able to become a Paladin in the first place...

Good thing he didn't start that way! No, seriously, people can change a lot over time. In fact, the iconic paladin's story has her start as a street urchin thief.

As for the OP, good to hear that things worked out. Step 1 is always "sit down and have a conversation like mature reasonable adults". Even if you're not, you can usually fake it for long enough to have a discussion. And it's nice to see that level of self-awareness in a player.

[Grond]

Josh is actually a great guy. He just got his, well I think it is a stretch perhaps to say his feelings were hurt, but when we did the group meeting for classes and setting he was wanting to break out his standard paladin and was shocked when Theresa beat him to the punch and declared she wanted to play a paladin.

Perhaps I as the GM should have read his initial reaction to her better but thankfully we can put this behind us. I actually think it came as a shock to him that a female gamer was very much wanting to not do the stereotypical magic user or healer character and that his RPing of a paladin was not the cup o' joe that every other player wanted in a group.

[FLite]

Bob Bob Bob wrote:

Many paladin stories

Then on the other side there are the chronicles of Navero, in which the party sets free the three who must not be named, level 40+ paladins who immediately determine that the town must be put to the sword. (They detect evil in the town hall, and any town that would allow itself to be governed by evil must be evil) and set to arguing whether they would get more XP for killing all the towns people individually or all at once... (The three are also the only ones in that story allowed to break the fourth wall...)

[Rathendar]

Grond wrote:

I appreciate everyone's input and advice. I called him this evening and told him I was sending him a link in an email and I wanted him to check it out and give me a call once he had. <more stuff>

I'm glad that talking it out and being honest with him was able to gain a positive resolution. (and that he did put on the big boy pants.)

[Grond]

Rathendar wrote:

Grond wrote:

I appreciate everyone's input and advice. I called him this evening and told him I was sending him a link in an email and I wanted him to check it out and give me a call once he had. <more stuff>

I'm glad that talking it out and being honest with him was able to gain a positive resolution. (and that he did put on the big boy pants.)

I think it was the link to this thread that really opened his eyes. Well, not just think it was, he actually said it was this thread and seeing the responses from several veteran RPers that made him realize how hurtful his behavior had become.

[Omnitricks]

Sounds like the sort of a person I hate playing a paladin and the type of paladin I try to screw over at every opportunity. No seriously. Those sorts of paladins are the ones which give paladins a bad name and delude everyone into thinking paladins are meant to be disruptive a-holes.

Thank god he isn't playing in my group either as a paladin or me as a paladin. Pretty sure if I was playing my paladin with him he'd berate me everyday.

By RAW Theresa is playing within the limits set for paladin players so she shouldn't have to conform to the horrible playstyle. Tell her to keep it up. At most as someone else pointed out she will only be bound by her patron deity's code. Hell if I'm not mistaken Saraenrae also worked with Asmodeus once for something something.

[zainale]

Brother Fen wrote:

I have a similar occurrence at my table where some of the long time players don't like the way a younger player runs their cleric. I snip it in the bud every time with a quick - "he can play the character how he likes", and that's the end of it.

If Josh is complaining through his character, then it's just as much a roleplay as Theresa's paladin. If he continues to complain out of character, keep reminding him that she has a right to play her character how she likes. You can loan Theresa a copy of Excalibur and explain that Lancelot is a paladin so she can gain a better understanding of the class.

ohh no don't do that!she shouldn't change her play style at all in fact i think its great a fun loving chill trash talking pally i could totally enjoy playing with a zealot that was like that. heck it might be fun to play with both the pally and the stick in the mud cleric just to watch then dance around and see who changes who or if the characters end up married he is all ready the nagging house wife. +1 for a fiery in character romance!

[MrCharisma]

Grond wrote:

He said he would apologize in person to Theresa at our next meeting and he would stop the attempts to alignment check her and criticizing her RP. I told him I would hold them to this and if he did not change then despite our being friends for about 20 years I would ask him to step out of the campaign. He agreed.

I wrote up this huge response, and then scrolled up to see that the problem had already resolved itself. Really happy that everyone involved was mature enough to admit mistakes and move on =)

One thing for next time something like this comes up. A few people talked about how "maybe it's not a problem if she's not offended". That's true. As far as I'm concerned, as long as no one at the table is offended, you can say what you like.
Having said that, the GM is one of the people at the table. If you're offended, you can ask them to stop. It doesn't matter if their actions are directed at someone else, offensive behavior is not acceptable at your table.

+1 Hero Points to Josh and Theresa for playing the roles of awesome people who learn from real life!

[GM_Beernorg]

Score one for paladins and reasonable gamers everywhere, kudos to all involved.

[Charon's Little Helper]

I'm just amazed that the internet fixed an interpersonal conflict instead of making it worse.

*runs off to praise Al Gore about how great his invention is*

[gustavo iglesias]

Nice to hear that Josh is much more reasonable than it seemed at the begining.

It's great to hear that, and I'm pretty sure you'll have a great time as a group moving forward

[Grond]

So to bring a summary to this:

Group met last night and Josh apologized in front of everyone to Theresa. She admitted that she thought he had some problem before with how she was playing her character but more than enjoyed his character sniping and bickering at her. She thought it made the game more fun.

She actually asked him to keep doing it which frankly got a laugh from all of us. He agreed to grumble about it as his character but not to the level he was before.

Group was a little embarrassed when Josh told them I had posted about it here (they asked and got the link to this thread) but they understood why I asked for some advice here from veteran players. Thankfully all is good now and our group is back to having fun.

Appreciate again all the helpful remarks and comments. This might be the first time I've seen an internet post actually help to solve a RL issue at least in a RPG lol

[gustavo iglesias]

Dude, your group is great. Kudos to Theresa and Josh, and kudos to you for solving it. "Talk it as grown up" is always the standard advice because it is the best solution when people is reasonable, but I've seen it failing often, it's not that easy to do it well.

And to be honest, when doing it right, for the good reasons, things like having a "frisky" paladin and a "grumpy" cleric going back and forth about moral stuff, can be a great roleplaying experience.