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Mystic Muse
2009-04-07, 05:33 AM
hello. I'm running a 4th edition campaign and I have a slight problem with my gaming group. simply put a lot of the players are disruptive. I ahve six players.(might be five this one player threatened to quit) and they can't seem to settle down.

one of the antagonists is my brother who never takes the game sriously and wastess everbody's time by giving joke answers, replying stupidly or taking a stupid action which by houserule has been outlawed. my houserules are not evil alignments, no killing random people just for fun, no betraying temmates and no stealing items from your allies. that is all so it shouldn't be that much of a restriction. and they're free to kill innocent monsters just not innocent townspeople.

the other two are my cousins who can't seem to stop tackling each other no matter what I do. they come over once a week and if I kicked them out they'd have nobodyto play with so what can I do to convince them to actually sit down and behave?

normally I wouldn't be as sensitive but once played a a session where there were only three of the players and there was almost no disruption.

Zincorium
2009-04-07, 05:40 AM
1. Have you talked to them? This should be the first rule of DM-player interaction, but it gets missed sometimes. Anyway, if you haven't, do so, if you need reasons we can provide many of them.

2. If the game works better with three players, play with three players. No amount of game balance or social inclusiveness is worth having a bad time during your recreational hours.

3. Relax. No one is policing your game to make sure it's run properly, do whatever you need to do personally to have fun- from your description everyone else in the group is taking that liberty.

Tempest Fennac
2009-04-07, 05:45 AM
How is killing innocent monsters not evil? If you're not running a world where non PC races are seen as "always evil" by the general population (like in Goblins), killing monsters should cause the party problems due to people wanting to bring them to justice. I agree that kicking the disruptive players out is the best idea in the longrun due to how they are ruining it for everyone else.

kamikasei
2009-04-07, 05:47 AM
Burn them with fire wait, wrong window.

Ahem.

Zincorium speaks truth. Basically, you're organizing a regular social event, which you host, centred around an activity. If some of the invitees are disruptive enough that the rest of the group can't enjoy the activity, the only real options are:
a) ask them to behave better, making it clear that the issue is the group's enjoyment, not "I have control issues" or "I am a buzzkill" or any other defensive reaction they may have (and of course, be sure that that's true!);
b) if that doesn't work, disinvite them.

It's a matter of social protocol and not really something that can be solved through the game or rules around the game.

Mystic Muse
2009-04-07, 06:05 AM
the innocent monsters thing was so it didn't feel too restricted and only one person would really feel the need for that anyways. they can also only kill innocent monsters if it's in a dungeon and they have no reason to believe they're innocent.

as I said before one player is my brother who is younger than me and does not live in a different house so it would be impossile to uninvite him

also the two toehr players come over once a week because they're homeschooled and it's sort of a family get together. I have no bearing in it and if I told my mom she would just say it's selfish.

the problem isn't that it takes fun away from other players. the problem is I put a lot of time into being a DM, I actually had to make all of their characters for them ecause they don't have access to a gaming store or library and that took about ten hours. plus another five to read the players handbook and get the info I needed. I also took a while to get it all down on character sheets and now it's going to take a while to get the descriptions for feats done so I don't have to look at my computer egvery time I want to know the effect of a power. oh and the screwing around would take up about two hours of a three hour session so we would never get anything done and I might as well disband the group.

I might just kick the players out. my brother can play with the other two cousins if need be. oh and I actually like your solution kamikasi. believe me you have no idea how tempting that is. however I'm not belkar so it ain't happening

and I'm not a control freak I just don't like spending a few hours a week on somethin that is never going to be done.

Tsotha-lanti
2009-04-07, 06:37 AM
one of the antagonists is my brother who never takes the game sriously and wastess everbody's time by giving joke answers, replying stupidly or taking a stupid action which by houserule has been outlawed. my houserules are not evil alignments, no killing random people just for fun, no betraying temmates and no stealing items from your allies. that is all so it shouldn't be that much of a restriction. and they're free to kill innocent monsters just not innocent townspeople.

He's clearly not actually interested in playing. Tell him he's "free" to no longer play.


the other two are my cousins who can't seem to stop tackling each other no matter what I do. they come over once a week and if I kicked them out they'd have nobodyto play with so what can I do to convince them to actually sit down and behave?

Tackling each other? Can you explain?

Seriously, your OP answered your question already: without these three people, the game goes smoothly. Therefore, remove these three people.

Also, you're all teens and/or pre-teens, right? Back at that age, I had the same problem DMing anything whenever the group was bigger than 4-5 people, no matter who was involved. You can only cram so many kids around a table and get any productivity.

Mystic Muse
2009-04-07, 06:42 AM
exactly what I said. they will actually attack each other. it's not actually serious but it gets annoying.

yeah it seems those players don't really have any interest anymore. guess I'll give the wizard to the player who wanted a wizard originally. makes it so that it isn't pointless that I wrote down all the spells and things.

I'll tell the other players they're free to quit. however if they don't and continue to instigate things then I will be fored to kick them out without a second thought but I'll do it by killing their characters if it's possible. they'll probably be annoyed by that and just quit. kicking them out seems like it'll have repercussions.

Tsotha-lanti
2009-04-07, 06:48 AM
Alternative: make some boffers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boffer). Back in junior high, we'd regularly break for about an hour of beating each other up until we were too exhausted to be disruptive, and then continue playing. It's a common-sense pedagogical tactic: exhausted kids don't have the energy to make trouble.


kick them out without a second thought but I'll do it by killing their characters if it's possible. they'll probably be annoyed by that and just quit. kicking them out seems like it'll have repercussions.

That sounds like classic mixing up in-game and out-of-game, which is always a spectacularly bad idea.

Mystic Muse
2009-04-07, 06:59 AM
okay I'll take your advice about in game and out of game into consideration. unfortunately for your first piece of advice I don't want somebody to lose an eye and they don't do it frequently enough to make them exhausted. only frequently enough to be disruptive. maybe I should learn to make knockout drops to settle them down.

kamikasei
2009-04-07, 07:12 AM
kicking them out seems like it'll have repercussions.

Deal with those repercussions. Trying to use in-game weaseling to solve an out-of-game, interpersonal issue is bad and unproductive, but much worse, it's poor DMing. :smallwink:

Olo Demonsbane
2009-04-07, 08:48 AM
I have played with 5 year olds so I know your problem...

When my brother DMed for a group of 4 boys, all under 10 (including me; this was a long time ago :smallwink:) he made up a houserule called "Sillies" (I know, stupid name). If you were acting disruptive, he would give you one. If you got three, something would happen to your character, say, lose a magic item. If you got 9, you would be removed from the mission. This was all worked into the plot...he was really good at improvising.

This tactic works, but don't carry it too far (and name it something else). Don't use it if people are joking around, use it if they are being truly disruptive.

TwystidMynd
2009-04-07, 09:12 AM
I agree with the sentiments of most of the other posters:
This is a social issue, not an in-game issue. Dealing with it in-game and hoping it resolves itself that way is a capitally bad idea.

If talking to your family doesn't work, then you'll have to uninvite them. I'd recommend apologizing for the fact that the game isn't working out, and explaining that you're still willing to play Rock Band and Halo 3 or whatever with them, but that it's too difficult to play D&D with them around.

Mystic Muse
2009-04-07, 12:03 PM
okay. I'll tell them to shape up or ship out. I alreadytold my brother so that problem is resolved. if he doesn't behave next session I'm banning him. and it's not even as if I mind silliness it's when they deliberatley waste time for no good reason other than to be morons for laughs.