Fiery Diamond
2010-04-06, 04:10 PM
So, I've been thinking. For all of us who DM and play, there will be problem players to deal with. I have some things I've said about a problem player in this thread about DM mistakes. Here, I'll quote myself.
Letting one of my players get her way.
No, really. I keep making that mistake, too. Because if I don't let her get her way NOW, I have to retcon all the crap I let her get away with in the past. I'm going to have to figure out how to deal with this.
So, basically, the story is this:
1) I'm running a high-powered gestalt campaign (everyone started out with total ability score combined modifiers of 12-13; I've homebrewed some ways to get skill points and bonus feats/bonus spells based on using up points granted each time you level up (1 point at level up, 3 points for a feat); I'm using a system similar to UA action points on steroids to represent them being chosen by the gods; etc.)
2) I have trouble getting some players. So, eventually I end up with 4 players. One is at least as experienced as I am (she is playing a monk//sorcerer) and isn't really a problem so long as I patrol for spell abuses. The second is a complete novice (he is playing a druid//ranger) and is actually a smart powergamer who causes me a bit of a headache -- he does all kinds of research out of game to find out what his best options are. The third is also a complete novice (she is playing a rogue//ranger) and needs assistance to really do well in combat-she's playing a tank! as a rogue//ranger!-, but is a great roleplayer. The final player manages to talk her way into being in my game somehow. She is a cleric//bard. She is the problem player.
3) Problem player (I'll call her PP for short) is a unique circumstance. She has rather extensive background experience with D&D. She likes to try to find broken ways to do broken things and thinks this is a perfectly acceptable method of approaching the game. She thinks that she knows a lot and that whatever she "knows" must in fact be always 100% the case and she will argue for it forever. She throws fits and tries to make it seem like it's your fault and that you're an ass if you don't let her get her way or tell her that she's wrong.
You can already tell that she's a problem, right? Well, you haven't heard the clincher. SHE KNOWS NEXT TO NOTHING ABOUT D&D!!! Yes, this despite years of experience with it. Despite making up and writing stories set in D&D settings. Despite being an annoying Drizzt fangirl (though she would deny it). Despite all of her attitude of knowing everything and always being right.
I mean, when it takes her five minutes (no lie) to figure out how to calculate her attack and damage bonuses after losing her first character sheet when we've been playing for months even though she still has all the stats with her, she has to look up every spell before casting it to find out its duration, what type of save it has, how long it takes to cast, whether it has an expensive material components, and so forth (and by "before casting" I mean: "Oh, my turn? I want to cast "Spell X" on the bad guy. What? You don't know exactly how it works and everything? Someone give me a book. Okay, I cast it." "Um...I'm pretty sure that has a material component and takes ten minutes to cast." "It does? Oh, crap, I didn't see that. Well ****, I guess I need to think of something else. There goes my broken use of that spell."), when she has to ask how to figure out her save DCs every time I ask her what the DC is for a spell she's casting... there's a problem.
Here's an example of her attempting to "do something powerful": "I cast Sepia Snake Sigil on a flag-sized piece of paper with huge letters on it and wave it in combat." I mean, WTF?
4) Now that you know the setup, here's the problem with PP. In character creation, she decides that she wants to make a character she invented for a story. She's friends with player 3, so she drags player 3 along into playing that character's twin. In her story, the twins are two elven girls (one is a homebrewed elven subrace and the other is a drow...magic rape had something to do with how that happened or something) who have a telepathic link and psychic powers, including the ability to destroy the minds of those who try to affect their minds.
I go, "Sorry, no drow. Sorry, no psionics. Sorry, no destroying people's minds. Let's see how we can represent the other things (such as sharing damage and being able to rez each other or die if they fail to do so) and some of those things in less broken ways than you have listed at the moment." That's mistake number one. I should have just said, "No. Create a character from scratch."
Mistake number two: I let her convince me of some very bad things.
1-Telepathic Link: Can communicate any distance, can feel other's pain (and take .25x damage in NL), use best results for all perception-related and knowledge checks, can see through each other's eyes (including the effects of detect magic and such), cannot be flanked if the other can see, immune to mind-affecting effects unless both twins are affected by the effect.
2-"Can I get some way of casting spells through the link?"
3-"I'm based on the concept of mind-f*ing! Aren't I glorious? I'll put full ranks in diplomacy and then roleplay my diplomacy horribly and say I'm fabulous because I have lots of ranks! Even though you already said that roleplaying was mostly divorced from the skill for your campaign!" ...Okay, she didn't convince me of this one, but she seems to think she did, which is almost as bad.
Mistake number three: Not correcting mistake number two, and so letting the problems compound. The fact that PP thinks that anything that has a will save is a "mind-affecting effect" despite the rules doesn't help.
I'm seriously considering just scrapping all my previous rulings for that and starting over, even though I know it will provoke a hissy fit.
What are some stories and examples of problem players you have had to deal with? Do tell!
Letting one of my players get her way.
No, really. I keep making that mistake, too. Because if I don't let her get her way NOW, I have to retcon all the crap I let her get away with in the past. I'm going to have to figure out how to deal with this.
So, basically, the story is this:
1) I'm running a high-powered gestalt campaign (everyone started out with total ability score combined modifiers of 12-13; I've homebrewed some ways to get skill points and bonus feats/bonus spells based on using up points granted each time you level up (1 point at level up, 3 points for a feat); I'm using a system similar to UA action points on steroids to represent them being chosen by the gods; etc.)
2) I have trouble getting some players. So, eventually I end up with 4 players. One is at least as experienced as I am (she is playing a monk//sorcerer) and isn't really a problem so long as I patrol for spell abuses. The second is a complete novice (he is playing a druid//ranger) and is actually a smart powergamer who causes me a bit of a headache -- he does all kinds of research out of game to find out what his best options are. The third is also a complete novice (she is playing a rogue//ranger) and needs assistance to really do well in combat-she's playing a tank! as a rogue//ranger!-, but is a great roleplayer. The final player manages to talk her way into being in my game somehow. She is a cleric//bard. She is the problem player.
3) Problem player (I'll call her PP for short) is a unique circumstance. She has rather extensive background experience with D&D. She likes to try to find broken ways to do broken things and thinks this is a perfectly acceptable method of approaching the game. She thinks that she knows a lot and that whatever she "knows" must in fact be always 100% the case and she will argue for it forever. She throws fits and tries to make it seem like it's your fault and that you're an ass if you don't let her get her way or tell her that she's wrong.
You can already tell that she's a problem, right? Well, you haven't heard the clincher. SHE KNOWS NEXT TO NOTHING ABOUT D&D!!! Yes, this despite years of experience with it. Despite making up and writing stories set in D&D settings. Despite being an annoying Drizzt fangirl (though she would deny it). Despite all of her attitude of knowing everything and always being right.
I mean, when it takes her five minutes (no lie) to figure out how to calculate her attack and damage bonuses after losing her first character sheet when we've been playing for months even though she still has all the stats with her, she has to look up every spell before casting it to find out its duration, what type of save it has, how long it takes to cast, whether it has an expensive material components, and so forth (and by "before casting" I mean: "Oh, my turn? I want to cast "Spell X" on the bad guy. What? You don't know exactly how it works and everything? Someone give me a book. Okay, I cast it." "Um...I'm pretty sure that has a material component and takes ten minutes to cast." "It does? Oh, crap, I didn't see that. Well ****, I guess I need to think of something else. There goes my broken use of that spell."), when she has to ask how to figure out her save DCs every time I ask her what the DC is for a spell she's casting... there's a problem.
Here's an example of her attempting to "do something powerful": "I cast Sepia Snake Sigil on a flag-sized piece of paper with huge letters on it and wave it in combat." I mean, WTF?
4) Now that you know the setup, here's the problem with PP. In character creation, she decides that she wants to make a character she invented for a story. She's friends with player 3, so she drags player 3 along into playing that character's twin. In her story, the twins are two elven girls (one is a homebrewed elven subrace and the other is a drow...magic rape had something to do with how that happened or something) who have a telepathic link and psychic powers, including the ability to destroy the minds of those who try to affect their minds.
I go, "Sorry, no drow. Sorry, no psionics. Sorry, no destroying people's minds. Let's see how we can represent the other things (such as sharing damage and being able to rez each other or die if they fail to do so) and some of those things in less broken ways than you have listed at the moment." That's mistake number one. I should have just said, "No. Create a character from scratch."
Mistake number two: I let her convince me of some very bad things.
1-Telepathic Link: Can communicate any distance, can feel other's pain (and take .25x damage in NL), use best results for all perception-related and knowledge checks, can see through each other's eyes (including the effects of detect magic and such), cannot be flanked if the other can see, immune to mind-affecting effects unless both twins are affected by the effect.
2-"Can I get some way of casting spells through the link?"
3-"I'm based on the concept of mind-f*ing! Aren't I glorious? I'll put full ranks in diplomacy and then roleplay my diplomacy horribly and say I'm fabulous because I have lots of ranks! Even though you already said that roleplaying was mostly divorced from the skill for your campaign!" ...Okay, she didn't convince me of this one, but she seems to think she did, which is almost as bad.
Mistake number three: Not correcting mistake number two, and so letting the problems compound. The fact that PP thinks that anything that has a will save is a "mind-affecting effect" despite the rules doesn't help.
I'm seriously considering just scrapping all my previous rulings for that and starting over, even though I know it will provoke a hissy fit.
What are some stories and examples of problem players you have had to deal with? Do tell!