Vaecae
2010-04-01, 08:51 PM
I have an issue. I had a group of players I DMed for earlier this year, and then we all kind of broke off after a few unexpected breaks from playing. I've talked with a couple of them recently and they would like to play again. I've aquired promission for a voice over system to use as we're not all able to come together in physical form, so it's ment to be played online, but this is not where the problem lies as that worked just fine before. The problem is in one of the players who will most likely be joining us in the game.
This player was in the group before, and he's played the game we're playing for a while. He's not nessisaryly a bad player, but he can be very inflexible. He has a tendency to try to solve all his problems with force, doesn't not like to wait for other players to do something that doesn't include him, and whenever he tries to play a caster (which he does often) he always seems to try to make spells do more then they're designed to do. He's the kind of player that even if you sent an army charging at him wouldn't run, but sometimes won't go into an obvious dungeon/hook if it sounds too creepy. Lastly I swear he has no concept of how to play any alignment at all.
Dealing with most players has never been a problem for me before, but this one guy seems to always find some way to erk me as the DM, usually by trying to do things that either he can't, or that really shouldn't or don't need to happen. I shy away from killing people's characters and in a good 4 months of play no one else suffered any character deaths, he had 3 and some npc tag alongs that were attached to his druid. I don't try to be perticularly mean to him, and have only purposely killed one of his characters because he was trying too damn hard and failing at everything he tried to do with said character. (Strangely after that character died the rest of that one adventure went disturbingly smoothly.)
The thing about it is when I've DMed solo games for this player he's much better and doesn't try to do so much over the top or 'me smash' as when he's with other players. It's when there's other people that he seems to get all stupid on me. There was even one side quest the group desided to take on that our very adept rogue knew he could do on his own and wanted to go and fulfill it while the rest of the group continued on the main mission of the night. This was fine by me and everyone else, but when this one problem player got it into his head that that would mean several minutes where he'd have to wait and listen to someone else do something while he twiddled his thumbs he got all **tt hurt threw a fit and went offline for over an hour...
The rest of the party proceeded with the mission while the rogue and I did his solo quest in instant messages so the rest of the group wouldn't have to wait thru it. This means the whole reason the problem player left didn't even happen like he thought it was going to. That of course left a sour taste in our mouths across the board, and I couldn't really do anything short of calling him a cry baby, which I didn't think would help.
I don't want to tell this player not to come when we start up again, but I dread having to deal with his whining, poor roleplaying, and constant need for attention. I had gotten so flusterated at him before we broke off that I made a senerio specifically designed to make him suffer for some of the things he was inclined to do (specifically not giving me his clerics and/or wizards spells for the day listings) which I know means I'd gone to far as the DM. When you spend over a day coming up with ways to screw one player you need to find another fix. I just don't know how to fix it, or what to fix exactly. Like I said he seems to be fine or at least much better when there's no one else in the game with him, I still facepalm alot over his ideas, but at least he doesn't become a pain.
So now I come to the forum for help. How do you as a DM deal with a player who just won't bend or tries to be too much of the party. I mean I've had the urge to tell him before that he's not trying to win something and it doesn't matter who has a bigger one even if you do whip em out and measure, but I don't think that would get me anywhere. I'm up for any sort of suggestions anyone might have. I don't know if talking to him will help at all because I tried to do that before when he first started this stuff. I can ask again and again for him to get me things for his characters before and even during a game and he just ignores my requests. I can even ask the other players for help but they tend to just shrug and say idk.
If it was just my old group that was getting together it wouldn't be that pressing an issue, but with this new session we plan to start will be coming a dear friend of mine who wishes to play and is the one loaning the voice over system to us. He and I are fairly close and he was the person who introduced me to dnd and all manner of other roleplay outside video games. I want him in my game, he's a great player, and also a cool dm. The thing is he and my problem player have always disliked eachother, and I know if my problem player starts to do something irritating that my friend will make it all of his characters' life goals to cause problem boy's characters pain. Which in all honestly would be great laughs for me, but I don't want my group to break down over hurt feeling and baby sh** after the first couple of times that happens. We're all friends here but some ties are closer then others, if we start to have issues I know who'll side with who, and the whole game will fall to pieces along with us.
This player was in the group before, and he's played the game we're playing for a while. He's not nessisaryly a bad player, but he can be very inflexible. He has a tendency to try to solve all his problems with force, doesn't not like to wait for other players to do something that doesn't include him, and whenever he tries to play a caster (which he does often) he always seems to try to make spells do more then they're designed to do. He's the kind of player that even if you sent an army charging at him wouldn't run, but sometimes won't go into an obvious dungeon/hook if it sounds too creepy. Lastly I swear he has no concept of how to play any alignment at all.
Dealing with most players has never been a problem for me before, but this one guy seems to always find some way to erk me as the DM, usually by trying to do things that either he can't, or that really shouldn't or don't need to happen. I shy away from killing people's characters and in a good 4 months of play no one else suffered any character deaths, he had 3 and some npc tag alongs that were attached to his druid. I don't try to be perticularly mean to him, and have only purposely killed one of his characters because he was trying too damn hard and failing at everything he tried to do with said character. (Strangely after that character died the rest of that one adventure went disturbingly smoothly.)
The thing about it is when I've DMed solo games for this player he's much better and doesn't try to do so much over the top or 'me smash' as when he's with other players. It's when there's other people that he seems to get all stupid on me. There was even one side quest the group desided to take on that our very adept rogue knew he could do on his own and wanted to go and fulfill it while the rest of the group continued on the main mission of the night. This was fine by me and everyone else, but when this one problem player got it into his head that that would mean several minutes where he'd have to wait and listen to someone else do something while he twiddled his thumbs he got all **tt hurt threw a fit and went offline for over an hour...
The rest of the party proceeded with the mission while the rogue and I did his solo quest in instant messages so the rest of the group wouldn't have to wait thru it. This means the whole reason the problem player left didn't even happen like he thought it was going to. That of course left a sour taste in our mouths across the board, and I couldn't really do anything short of calling him a cry baby, which I didn't think would help.
I don't want to tell this player not to come when we start up again, but I dread having to deal with his whining, poor roleplaying, and constant need for attention. I had gotten so flusterated at him before we broke off that I made a senerio specifically designed to make him suffer for some of the things he was inclined to do (specifically not giving me his clerics and/or wizards spells for the day listings) which I know means I'd gone to far as the DM. When you spend over a day coming up with ways to screw one player you need to find another fix. I just don't know how to fix it, or what to fix exactly. Like I said he seems to be fine or at least much better when there's no one else in the game with him, I still facepalm alot over his ideas, but at least he doesn't become a pain.
So now I come to the forum for help. How do you as a DM deal with a player who just won't bend or tries to be too much of the party. I mean I've had the urge to tell him before that he's not trying to win something and it doesn't matter who has a bigger one even if you do whip em out and measure, but I don't think that would get me anywhere. I'm up for any sort of suggestions anyone might have. I don't know if talking to him will help at all because I tried to do that before when he first started this stuff. I can ask again and again for him to get me things for his characters before and even during a game and he just ignores my requests. I can even ask the other players for help but they tend to just shrug and say idk.
If it was just my old group that was getting together it wouldn't be that pressing an issue, but with this new session we plan to start will be coming a dear friend of mine who wishes to play and is the one loaning the voice over system to us. He and I are fairly close and he was the person who introduced me to dnd and all manner of other roleplay outside video games. I want him in my game, he's a great player, and also a cool dm. The thing is he and my problem player have always disliked eachother, and I know if my problem player starts to do something irritating that my friend will make it all of his characters' life goals to cause problem boy's characters pain. Which in all honestly would be great laughs for me, but I don't want my group to break down over hurt feeling and baby sh** after the first couple of times that happens. We're all friends here but some ties are closer then others, if we start to have issues I know who'll side with who, and the whole game will fall to pieces along with us.