Advice for Dealing with Problem Player


Advice


I have been having a lot of problems with one of the long time players in my group, and I was hoping I could get some advice. Just as some background, I have been gaming with him at least once a week for the past five years, and I mostly knew what to expect with him. He loves to min/max his characters (but at the same time try to give them a unique backstory even if it never fits the campaign setting). He also cares nothing for the lore of the games we play, whether Pathfinder, Homebrew, anything, he just can't be bothered to learn about it, and when he wants to do something that the world doesn't support he just insists we should handwave it. He also loves to argue that he should be allowed to use skills like Knowledge for things they're not assigned for. Which is fine, but its never to cover for party deficiencies, and so he just winds up stealing focus from what other people are good at. Which is him in a nutshell. He loves for his character to be great at his things, show off on every roll, self-congratulate himself on every "great" thing he does, and never cares that he takes away from "spotlight" moments for other players just to stroke his ego. Which would be fine. It is how he's always gamed, and I am used to it by now. But in the past year things have taken a turn.

So I'm running a game of Rise of the Runelords for this player and four others. On top of all his usual habits, now every time we sit down to game this guy has to do something that prevents us starting. As an example, a couple weeks ago he was playing music on his computer so I asked him to turn it off. Instead he made it super quiet. I could still hear it, so I asked again, to which he just started doing the typical five year old "I can't hear anything, what do you mean?" And he kept doing it for ten minutes, while everyone at the table asked him to stop repeatedly. In addition, he's never paying attention. He has his laptop out at all times, which is fair because his character sheet is on it and he does sometimes need to do schoolwork while we game, but most of the time he is just browsing memes and trying to show people next to him goofy stuff he found. Whenever I ask him what he does he always needs to be reminded what's going on. Combat is the only time he seems aware of things happening, and even that has become a chore. He's playing an archer (because he's scared his character will die in melee) who he's done everything possible to cheese his ranged attacks up short of dumping every stat but Dex (gotta be good at those knowledge skills other people have to). And for all his complaints about wanting to use skills in new ways, I figured he would appreciate a challenge where his bow is somewhat off the table. So I had one of the fights occur in the spell fog cloud. Other players all seemed cool with the challenge. All this guy did though was pout that his bow was useless and go back to searching the Asylum they were in and cracking jokes about all the closets he was finding. Meanwhile his party was nearly dying. If this were a one time incident I'd be mad but move on, but now every time there's any sort of challenge or obstruction that makes ranged combat hard or melee necessary, he'd rather pout/use his turn to crack jokes or spend 30 minutes on his turn analyzing the various things he can do and seeing if he can break the rules.

At this point I'm just not sure what to do. I've tried talking to him in the past, essentially just addressing that I frequently feel like he never pays attention or doesn't want to be playing the game. And he always insists that he does and he's having fun, or that he wishes his character was more involved in the story. But then his table behavior won't change, or I'll give him "spotlight" moments to shine and he'll just actively avoid them/find a way to play them that only hurts the party. I like this guy as a person outside of the game, and even if I wanted to kick him out we game at his girlfriend's apartment and she would leave with him. Any advice?


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You've been more than fair. If he's ruining the game for everyone else, he needs to learn the ultimate lesson.

Pack up your stuff and find another place to play. I'm sure you all live indoors. You don't have to play at his girlfriend's place. If you lose her, too, too bad. Life's too short to waste on people who intentionally ruin your fun.

"Energy vampires are emotionally immature individuals who have the sense that the whole world revolves around them. They are almost incapable of seeing things from another person’s perspective. They often lack empathy. They believe that they must take everything they can get from others and that giving anything will deprive them of essential resources. It’s as if the whole world exists just to serve them and you are the latest object upon which they have set their sights for exploitation."

https://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/11/14/how-to-avoid-being-draine d-by-energy-vampires/


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Yes, ask him to GM the game, in fact, insist on it. He sounds like he wants to be running the show anyway, and it would be inconvenient to kick him out. You relax, roll up a character of your own, and let him do the hard work. He can play cool battle songs on his laptop, look up images and handouts online in the middle of a session, and generally everything that bothers you now would be fine if he was GMing. If he isn't paying attention to what the party is doing, it will make his monsters less effective too, so bonus.

Otherwise, I would not continue playing with this person. You can't be "Captain I-Will-Fix-A-Player". It's been 5 years, and you've been too polite, almost too accommodating. I understand it's a relationship, but just like any relationship, you have to end the abusive ones even if it hurts to do so.

My 2 cents, anyway.


Honestly the only reason I'm more trying to roll with it in this case, and not just kicking him, is that as much as I know he bothers some at the table, others don't really mind, or at least place a high value on him as a friend, and so kicking him very easily breaks up the entire group, which speaking semi-selfishly means I have to stop tabletop gaming in person. Even putting together this group was a challenge at times, and Society/Encounters play in my area is really sub par.


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I will say that you can stop playing tabletops with him and still be his friend.

Make it clear he is a cool guy but that he is straining the game. Give him the option to improve or you will 'regretfully' have to exclude him from your games.

I just went through having to exclude 4 people from my irl game. 4 people whom I considered to be some of my closest friends, and still do.

Be polite. Offer a chance to change. Explain your reasons. Make sure you use non accusatory language. Explain it as a difference of styles. Not something he is doing wrong. I hope that all makes sense.

Remember, no gaming is better than bad gaming

The Exchange Owner - D20 Hobbies

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I've a long time believer that games should be fun. If someone is making you not have fun, ask them to stop, ask them to leave, or you leave. Life is too short.


I recognize that behavior very well. Had a player like that. We had been friends for about four years, but that didn't mean that I was obligated to role-play with him - I simply stopped taking him into consideration when scheduling the sessions. That was about two and a half years ago. Haven't really talked to him since then. I honestly can't say that I miss him and I think that my current group composition is better without him.

My point is: Even if you consider him as a friend, he may not be the kind of guy you want to role-play with. If discontinuing to role-play with him means that your friendship is over, there is a chance that it won't matter to you, because there is an abundance of other people in this world. You can afford to be picky (and so can others, be careful!).


He has to go.

Sczarni

You should not undervalue yourself so much before this individual. I personally realize how much can gaming, as a social activity mean to a person like you, but if a person cannot be reasoned with, give him the final warning and boot him if necessary. Stay cool when giving this warning. Be polite. Play a fair game. If your other friends cannot understand this, they don't deserve to game with you. You are better then this.

Also, some people are awesome in general, but horrible as players due to many reasons. Don't be stressed so much about it.


Paul Migaj wrote:

Yes, ask him to GM the game, in fact, insist on it. He sounds like he wants to be running the show anyway, and it would be inconvenient to kick him out. You relax, roll up a character of your own, and let him do the hard work. He can play cool battle songs on his laptop, look up images and handouts online in the middle of a session, and generally everything that bothers you now would be fine if he was GMing. If he isn't paying attention to what the party is doing, it will make his monsters less effective too, so bonus.

Otherwise, I would not continue playing with this person. You can't be "Captain I-Will-Fix-A-Player". It's been 5 years, and you've been too polite, almost too accommodating. I understand it's a relationship, but just like any relationship, you have to end the abusive ones even if it hurts to do so.

My 2 cents, anyway.

If someone's intolerable as a player, why would making them the GM be any better? I'd expect this sort of player to hard-railroad the campaign, over-emphasize combat, get upset when players try to exercise agency, and have his "badass" NPCs (or, God forbid, GMPC) steal the show.

Silver Crusade

If his behavior has changed recently in game, is there something going on with him out of game? Is he dealing with stress/social/emotional problems that are causing him to act out?


Eliandra Giltessan wrote:
If his behavior has changed recently in game, is there something going on with him out of game? Is he dealing with stress/social/emotional problems that are causing him to act out?

I had been working with this assumption for awhile, because he had gone through some decent amounts of upheaval in his life, but a lot of it has really settled down for him personally, so I'm not sure I would buy it as much as a reason, especially since a lot of these things are all behaviors and habits that he has had before.

I appreciate everyone's input on this. Out of curiosity, if I do decide to go ahead and issue a warning about booting him, does anyone have thoughts on if this is something I should or should not run past my other players first?


I think it's very important that you are honest in a (possibly) sensitive situation such as this: Talk to him first, inform the others later about what you have said to him. This way he will hopefully feel level-headed with your reasoning and conspired against - You can make the decision, "to have a talk", on your own since you're the DM of this game. Otherwise I would have advised you to talk to the others first.
And as always: Be polite and don't give him a reason to feel accused and targeted by anything.


Rub-Eta wrote:
And as always: Be polite and don't give him a reason to feel accused and targeted by anything.

To add to this, one good approch for this is to focus on yourself and your observation

I notice these [changes]
I notice these [undesirable behavior]
I notices the other are not enjoying themselves
I notice the spotlight is not equally shared
I feel that the world and mood I'm created is being disregard
I feel that my judgement/calls/rules is being question/disregarded.
Etc.

This way it gets the message across without being accusatory or targeting him.

Verdant Wheel

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Newbie to tabletop roleplaying, but I know enough about people to know that you've gotta be honest. Tell your table what's up and ask what they think should be done about the problem. It makes things easier for you, engenders a supportive atmosphere and makes you the sort of Game Master that people want to see.

If the rest of your group isn't seeing this behaviour, try to point it out and explain to them. If, in the end, you're really the only one that's seeing this, try to see if you yourself are getting the wrong impression. You sound incredibly reasonable and forgiving to me, however, so I don't think that you'll be the only one. Try to make clear how hard this makes GMing and tell them that you're not having as much fun with this player.

Don't make the games less fun for yourself by dealing with this. Not just for yourself, either. You're the GM, the leader, the focus of the table. If you allow yourself to become unhappy, your table will become unhappy too.

Those are just my eight farthings, however. As I said, I'm a newcomer to this whole scene, but I've seen friendships go down because people just wouldn't tell each other how they were feeling. They weren't honest, and that was the poison in the proverbial well of their relationship.


We have players like that in our Runelords game. We have a strong group that has been with us for many years. Give the guy a sword, even if he claims not to be proficient. That way he has a weapon. (We have an Archer fighter that has a sword as a backup weapon). Start to give the guy negative XP for what he does at the table and what he doesn't do during the game.

Have you talked to his girlfriend about his disrupting the the game? Maybe SHE can get through to him.


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I have exactly That Guy at my table. Recently he rarely shows up, but I've learned to deal with him a lot of time ago.
This requires complicity from the other players.
When he tries to distract the other players I just go on with the story and never interrupt the game. My players don't pay attention to him as they are interested on the story. As he only wants.attention and he's not getting it, he ususally stops doing it.

He also loves stealing other character's spotlight, often by getting in the middle of conversations talking nonsense. As a GM I focus on the player who was playing the scene and ignore any comment from him that is not relevant for the story. I only reward him with attention when he interacts in a non disruptive way and tries to immerse himself in the game.

I keep storytelling even if I know he's not paying attention. I don't repeat my descriptions just because he is not listening: «If you weren't paying attention nor was your character». That can cause him to do something stupid because he didn't listen but when he realizes that he's being laughed at for not listening he starts listening.

When he realizes that the only way of getting attention comes from not disrupting the game, paying attention and collaborating with other players but not by trying to eclipsate them he becomes a much better player

He is not perfect but he doesn't disrupt the game and everybody is happy. We are not trying that all our players are the best at it, only that everybody enjoys the game.


...And that is the reason why he rarely shows up in your stories. When he shows up, at least he didn't ruin the story for the other players. I have even stopped wishing he didn't come!


ngc7293 wrote:
Have you talked to his girlfriend about his disrupting the the game? Maybe SHE can get through to him.

Please, don't do this. This is exactly what you're not supposed to do. You can not fix a problem by penalizing the player. If you want to get rid of the player, it's easier and less painful to just ask them to go away.


Honestly, if you've talked to him about it and there's been no change, I'd kick him. But if you're determined to keep him I've got two words for you: "Table rules".

Don't make it about him, even though it is, as he'll probably just get offended and make a big drama-laden scene.

Rule 1: No devices. Each player needs a printed character sheet, pencil and dice. There is a rule book for the table. This reduces distractions and prevents rubbish like him playing music.

Rule 2: During combat you have 30 seconds to decide on your action. You have everyone else's turn to hum and haw.

As for the rest of the problems: Stop letting him use knowledge rolls for things that aren't relevant, this encourages balanced character creation. Part of the problem is that you've let him get away with having a character that does one thing and misuses skills for everything else. So put your foot down, if he sulks, point out that he decided to make a character that can only do that one specific thing and is welcome to create a new one.

If he wanders off in combat when his one gimmick doesn't work, then hit him with something else. He goes into a building to explore while the party is fighting for their lives, guess what, there's a rat swarm in that room too!

Do this and he'll have to either shape up or will voluntarily leave the party.


Been through this kind of disparity before, and it likely won't end well for someone involved.

I think we all want to bring decency to the situation, be polite and caring, etc.

Maybe just call him out on his bullsh&t behavior next time he pulls it. Sounds like you've been playing as a group for some time, so this could come as a friendly but pointed jab - "OK, we'll get started just as soon as Guy is done listening to that killer Nickleback tune on his lap top" or "Hey Guy, you're up, what's on the ol' lap top? If it's school work, +2 to this roll! Meme, minus 2. Try to keep one ear on the game, man."

Humor is great at diffusing tension and circles back to the It's A Game point of view. Maybe a few other players pick up on it and join the fun.

Maybe Guy gets it and you can break immersion and have the Don't Be A Jerk conversation.

This might be better than doling out an etiquette lesson.

... Or his gf doesn't want his scruffy-looking nerfherder friends leaving empty 2-liters of Mountain Dew on the floor and Cheetos stains on the upholstery.
Humor!

Good luck, the best adventures require compromise from all. Even the rogue.


Cleric4Besmara wrote:
I have been gaming with him at least once a week for the past five years, and I mostly knew what to expect with him.

That's awesome.

Cleric4Besmara wrote:
He loves to min/max his characters (but at the same time try to give them a unique backstory

I like him already!

Cleric4Besmara wrote:
even if it never fits the campaign setting). He also cares nothing for the lore of the games we play, whether Pathfinder, Homebrew, anything, he just can't be bothered to learn about it, and when he wants to do something that the world doesn't support he just insists we should handwave it.

That's complicated. You want a player to create a rich backstory that helps you enrich the story you are composing with the players. The players aren't supposed to know much about they world they are gaming in, so when the player creates a backstory, he is in practice, writing his own pages in your book, and expecting you to make room in your campaign world for his ideas. That's legit, even good and something you should want up to a point. But perhaps he is demanding for particular sets of rules/interpretations? Less cool. It's one thing to say that his Elven Ranger comes from a tribe of hunter-gatherers that live in the desert and hunt with poison arrows. It's another to insist that you play with the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Unearthed Arcana Rules for double specialized Ranger-Archers.

Cleric4Besmara wrote:
He also loves to argue that he should be allowed to use skills like Knowledge for things they're not assigned for.

You should be firm with this, although perhaps not brittle. Maybe it's not entirely inappropriate for someone who knows about mushrooms on the forest floor (Knowledge Nature) might have a chance of knowing something about mushrooms on the cavern wall (Knowledge Dungeoneering). He might not know the particulars of of the bloodthirsty humanoids that are attacking, but he might be able to figure out that they are trying to drive or lure the party into a trap through knowledge of tactics. But there is no Knowledge Tactics skill in Pathfinder, what would you use? Profession Soldier?

And that's something there: maybe he is trying to create something with his imagination that is already in the rules, and what you need to do is rather than shut him down, explain to him the legal way he might achieve a similar effect. Also, as much as possible, I vet my characters with my GM in advance in an effort to predict and resolve conflicts before they reach a gaming session.

Cleric4Besmara wrote:
its never to cover for party deficiencies, and so he just winds up stealing focus from what other people are good at. Which is him in a nutshell. He loves for his character to be great at his things, show off on every roll, self-congratulate himself on every "great" thing he does, and never cares that he takes away from "spotlight" moments for other players just to stroke his ego. Which would be fine. It is how he's always gamed, and I am used to it by now.

Well, that wouldn't be fine with me. To me, that sounds like he sucks. You must love him a lot.

Cleric4Besmara wrote:
But in the past year things have taken a turn.... he was playing music on his computer so I asked him to turn it off.... he's never paying attention. He has his laptop out at all times, which is fair because his character sheet is on it and he does sometimes need to do schoolwork while we game, but most of the time he is just browsing memes and trying to show people next to him goofy stuff he found. Whenever I ask him what he does he always needs to be reminded what's going on. Combat is the only time he seems aware of things happening, and even that has become a chore.

You problem player not only is disruptive, but also disengaged. It sounds like he should no longer play Pathfinder with the group.

Cleric4Besmara wrote:
Honestly the only reason I'm more trying to roll with it in this case, and not just kicking him, is that as much as I know he bothers some at the table, others don't really mind, or at least place a high value on him as a friend, and so kicking him very easily breaks up the entire group, which speaking semi-selfishly means I have to stop tabletop gaming in person. Even putting together this group was a challenge at times, and Society/Encounters play in my area is really sub par.

The group really likes him, and so do you.

It sounds like maybe the whole group needs a change in pace.

Perhaps step down and make someone else take a turn as GM.
Perhaps put the campaign on hold, and when you get together, just play Settlers, Who is the Werewolf, Munchkin, or just race RC cars for a little while, or something.

Take his pulse and the pulse of the group. There always might be something else going on that you are completely missing.


Rub-Eta wrote:
ngc7293 wrote:
Have you talked to his girlfriend about his disrupting the the game? Maybe SHE can get through to him.
Please, don't do this. This is exactly what you're not supposed to do. You can not fix a problem by penalizing the player. If you want to get rid of the player, it's easier and less painful to just ask them to go away.

I simply presented it because it has worked before in our games.

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