PDA

View Full Version : [Any] DMs who have had Players walk away



Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-16, 01:24 PM
Recently, I quit a 3.5 game I had agreed to play. This is unusual for, as a rule, I see games through until they end or break up. Here, several factors weighed in me leaving the game but one predominated - I wasn't having fun, and didn't think the situation would improve.

Now, there are dozens of threads on players with problem DMs and the usual advice (and good advice at that) is for the player to speak with the DM and leave if things don't improve. However, I have yet to see a thread about a DM who has just lost a player because the player had complaints about the campaign.

Anyone have this happen? How did the player walk out? Did they offer constructive criticism before or after? Did you take it?

Tyndmyr
2010-08-16, 01:41 PM
It hasn't happened. Ive had players leave due to moving, or due to schedule conflicts(moved onto a shift where they were literally working during the game), but that's it.

Likewise, it's rare for me to leave a game...though there have been games I've declined to join because they played in a way that I thought would be un-fun.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-16, 01:50 PM
I'd like to note that having a player walk out of your game, even justifiably, does not make you a bad DM - provided that you learn from the experience.
For example, I've asked one player to leave after I realized her disruptive play style was due to a conflict in our desired games (she wanted a socializing game; I wanted an adventure) and I ended a game after noticing a general conflict in our desired games (they wanted a dungeon crawl; I wanted a game of political intrigue).

The first case taught me to carefully enunciate what the "point" of a given game was to be. If I know someone just isn't up for that kind of game, I either don't invite them in (it can be hard to say no) or I keep an eye on them to see if they are working well within the party.

The second case taught me that I needed to roll better with the players. Instead of trying to bait them with a plot they didn't care for, I should have just reworked the story to focus on what they wanted to do (crawl some dungeons) and put my plot desires into the background. Instead, the game reached the point where the players were making suicidal decisions to avoid my plot hooks - and I (wisely, IMHO) shut down the game when we reached a good stopping point rather than allowing things to escalate.

valadil
2010-08-16, 01:51 PM
Anyone have this happen? How did the player walk out? Did they offer constructive criticism before or after? Did you take it?

From what I've seen, there's rarely a big event made of a player leaving. Instead they become repeat no-showers. Eventually you expect them to ditch. Then you stop thinking of them at all because it's been so long. They don't give a reason for dropping, so much as simply make themselves absent.

I've only left one game that I can think of. I explained that I needed a break from roleplaying and that I wouldn't have fun gaming unless I took one. The GM could have taken it badly (sounds a lot like an "it's not you it's me" cliche even though it was legit it my case), but didn't so far as I'm aware and we continued to game together once my sabbatical was over.

I've had two players leave games I was running. One had to move. The other had anxiety issues. Neither had anything to do with the game itself, so I never really fussed over it.

valadil
2010-08-16, 01:54 PM
The first case taught me to carefully enunciate what the "point" of a given game was to be. If I know someone just isn't up for that kind of game, I either don't invite them in (it can be hard to say no) or I keep an eye on them to see if they are working well within the party.


More GMs need to do this. I don't withhold invites though. I invite powergamers to my political intrigue games, but explain why I don't think they'd like it if they treat it like every other D&D game.



The second case taught me that I needed to roll better with the players. Instead of trying to bait them with a plot they didn't care for, I should have just reworked the story to focus on what they wanted to do (crawl some dungeons) and put my plot desires into the background.

I only agree with that to a point. I'd rather not GM at all than run a mindless hack and slash dungeon crawl. I will cater to the players' interests within the scope of the game I want to run. The key is communicating that scope to the players, as indicated in your previous comment.

Aetolus
2010-08-16, 01:58 PM
I had 2 LARPers join my campaign. They were very awkward, and they didn't really fit in.

They didn't have a very good experience because my campaign was mostly about problem solving and plot complexity, as opposed to acting and silliness and time wasting.

They left for lack of interest, I was more than happy to see them go.

dsmiles
2010-08-16, 02:03 PM
I was stationed overseas in Korea, and had quite a few players quit. I ran a game with about 12 players, and approximately half of them quit when their characters died. Didn't hurt my feelings any, 6 is still too many players to be effective, but 12, seriously? And they wanted to split the party?

Dziadek
2010-08-16, 02:08 PM
One of my players walked out of my game because he gave up to early... his character got arrested and he didn't even THINK of trying of escaping (I would make the escape easy for him).

Aside from that, few other players walked away because they didn't have enough time to play regulary.

My regular group now consists of four players.

Umael
2010-08-16, 02:10 PM
I have been the player who has walked away, and I have been the GM who has made a player leave. I have also been the one who watched as a player walked away, both as another player and as a GM.

In some of those cases, it was just a difference of opinion, and those are regretable, but they might also be completely unavoidable.

In other cases, it was because of a breakdown in communication, and those suck.

As a GM, the first thing you should do is communicate. Make sure the players know that if you are open to listening to what they have to say, and that you want them to listen to what you have to say.

Storytime.

Something like four years ago, while running my d20 Rokugan game, I had up to ten players at one point. Two of them were a couple, let's call them Nathan and Francine. Another player, let's call him Kim, was going away soon, and I was working on an extra-special game just for him.

Due to character interaction, I wanted Nathan's character to do something. It was something in-character and plot-reasonable, but naturally, I wanted his okay first. Unfortunately, just a few hours before game was to start, Nathan gave me a call. Francine was not up to going to game, and he needed to be with her.

This is where the communications broke down.

Wanting Kim to have a bash of a going-away game, I pushed him to see if he really needed to be there with Francine, if Francine couldn't just come over, and finally if he could just come over long enough to drop off his character sheet. What I DIDN'T tell Nathan was that I wanted his character to do something in-game because it would help make Kim's last game with us incredible.

What Nathan heard is that I was saying that my game was more important than his wife.

Now, before I get villanized, here is where Nathan screwed up (remember, communications is a two-way street). Instead of confronting me about this, Nathan drove by, dropped off the character sheet, and stormed away after telling one of the other players that both Francine and he were done playing in my game.

When I found out about this, I was upset and angry. Upset, because I had just lost two very good players who seemed to be having a good time, and angry because I was accused of something that I, in no way, meant, nor was I given a chance to defend myself or even apologize.

(You will note that in all of these problem threads, one common advice is "talk to the GM/player". Nathan skipped that step.)

Quite some time later, Nathan and I talked. We both admitted we screwed up and apologized to each other. Whenever I see Nathan, I tell him that there is still a place at my game for his wife and him. He thanks me, but he never accepts. I don't think he ever will, no matter how many years go by.

Lessons learned:

* Always keep in mind what's important. Don't every let the game divide the group. Stop and keep your perspective from time to time.
* Communication is key. In-game and out-of-game. Make sure you clearly explain yourself and give the other person a chance to do likewise.
* Screw-ups aren't excuses for other screw-ups. Two wrongs don't make a right. Treat your problem player or problem GM as you would like them to treat you, if the situation was reversed.

JadedDM
2010-08-16, 02:13 PM
I've had a number of players walk out on me. Most of them are silent drop-outs. They don't say anything, they just stop showing up.

Those who do say something rarely are honest about it. They usually make up some excuse, like they are too busy with real life. But then a few days later I'll spot them signing up for a different game.

Balain
2010-08-16, 02:14 PM
There was one campaign we were playing where one of the players who is a rules lawyer and the DM who plays loose with the rules sometimes got into a huge argument and the DM threatened to punch the player. We all said to calm own and relax and take a break. We ended up stopping for the night. That campaign basicly died.

Not the exact same, but it just wasn't fun night and since then I refused to play if both of those two were inviolved. I would play with one or the other but not both.

Lord Vampyre
2010-08-16, 03:26 PM
The last group of players to leave one of my games was due to logistic issues. I tend to live quite a distance out of town, they simply weren't able to make the trip on a regular basis. And unfortunately, I wasn't willing to run a game in one of their small apartments, where everyone was struggling for elbow room.

The other issue I had was that they tended to be repeat no shows. I don't hand out xp to people that don't show up to game. A lot of complaints all around. All in all they had fun, they just didn't like the way I tended to manage things. Gaming is a cooperative experience, IMO, and if your not there you're not contributing. Eh, sometimes it just doesn't work out.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-16, 03:51 PM
Lessons learned:

* Always keep in mind what's important. Don't every let the game divide the group. Stop and keep your perspective from time to time.
* Communication is key. In-game and out-of-game. Make sure you clearly explain yourself and give the other person a chance to do likewise.
* Screw-ups aren't excuses for other screw-ups. Two wrongs don't make a right. Treat your problem player or problem GM as you would like them to treat you, if the situation was reversed.
Absolutely solid advice.

I'm not terribly surprised to hear that most people who've had players leave have had them do so under mysterious circumstances. The no-shows, the thin-excuses - it can be very hard to speak with a DM when you have trouble with their game.

I always ask my players to be up-front with me about what they like and dislike about a campaign. Perhaps out of insecurity I tend to doubt it when they say "everything's OK" but to mitigate against that I try to frame the questions in a "did you like A or B more? Why?" manner. I've had mixed results, but it's a lot better than sitting around not asking.

Anecdote
In the game I left, I originally left with a non-descript note saying that I didn't think it was a "good fit" for myself. Now, I had very specific reasons for not liking the game, but I felt like it would poison the relationship to offer these up unasked: this was the second game of his I'd been in (the first was a OD&D Dragonlance Module) but I enjoyed him as a player and a friend. This particular campaign was set in his "baby" of a campaign setting that he was finally trying out; he did not seem very receptive to in-game concerns about the plot.

He replied with a warm "I'm sorry to hear that but OK" and then asked if I had any specific complaints - and so I gave them to him in as constructive a manner as I could. The minor stuff he agreed with and claimed that he wished I had brought them up before quiting; however, he remained steadfast on my major complaint - railroading.

I have mixed feelings on how this turned out. On one hand, the game really wasn't a good fit for me, so it was best that I got out before I poisoned the game - either by subverting it via lampshades (a process I had already become) or by post-game complaining sessions with other disaffected players. Plus, I was able to communicate my problems to him in a diplomatic way and, hopefully, the fixes he makes will be enough to keep everyone else in the game.

On the other hand, he refused to address the major complaint - one shared by at least one other player than myself - and I am now no longer in a position to influence the game. While it is true that you should never try to indirectly fix a game, I worry that the game is headed towards ruin as a result. To be true, this is now the other players' problems (and I'm not talking to them about the game - well, unbidden anyhow) and if they don't like it, they can do something about it. Still, I feel like I've left a friend to be hoist by his own petard; I feel certain that a Player Revolt is in his future.
So, what are peoples' thought on getting player feedback? On offering it to a DM? I think we can all agree it's important, but there must be a time and a place, no?

AtopTheMountain
2010-08-16, 04:04 PM
It wasn't a big deal or anything, but one or two other players in a group I've been in (though playing, not DMing) for around 3 years left because they didn't like 4E (which we switched to after it came out).

gomipile
2010-08-16, 04:15 PM
As a player, I have walked out on two different campaigns, both of em because I was not having fun anymore.

The first time, it was because all of the other players and one in particular were very annoying to be around, and in the last session they did several things that ruined the roleplaying experience for me. The DM in that case is a friend of mine, and we have talked about it several times, in fact the history of that campaign is a running joke in our circle of friends now.

The second time it was a combination of the DM's "players vs. the DM" style, the group as a whole's herd-of-cats mentality, and some recurring situations hat made me feel as though there was no point to me being there, in game or out. I have not talked to that DM about it because I don't want to offend him. Also, the reason I left was that I just was not having fun, and nothing short of nearly every person involved's attitudes towards the game changing would have helped that. I was the one who didn't fit in, and I recognized that, so I just stopped going.

Gnomo
2010-08-16, 04:18 PM
I have never walked out of any game as a player, and never have found good reason to do so, this has a lot to do of how I see the game, I think it's mainly your own fault if you don't have fun playing. Most of the times when I see a player posting how terrible their DM was to their poor little character I refrain from posting cause I would probably just write "Whiner".

Earthwalker
2010-08-16, 04:20 PM
So, what are peoples' thought on getting player feedback? On offering it to a DM? I think we can all agree it's important, but there must be a time and a place, no?

Player feedback is of course important.
Of course it doesn't just have to be a list of things that need fixing, saying what you enjoyed about the last session and telling the GM he did well at X is also a good idea.

Same goes the other way with the GM saying what he liked and voicing any concerns.

When GMing I am usual a wreck by the end of the night as most of my players default mode is complaint mode. Wanting more....

More xp, more money more power and so on, this is usually just joking so the times when I get someone thanking me or saying they liked a certain encounter is always helpful

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-16, 04:24 PM
I have never walked out of any game as a player, and never have found good reason to do so, this has a lot to do of how I see the game, I think it's mainly your own fault if you don't have fun playing. Most of the times when I see a player posting how terrible their DM was to their poor little character I refrain from posting cause I would probably just write "Whiner".
I suppose there's some truth to it - I mean, it's not like "having fun" is an objective state; everyone has fun for their own reasons.

Still, I know from experience as a DM that there are right ways and wrong ways of running a RPG. Certainly it varies from system to system, but within a system there are some clear Do's and Don'ts that need to be adhered to.

I'm glad to hear you've always had fun in RPGs - you are most fortunate.

skywalker
2010-08-16, 05:00 PM
I don't think I've ever had a player quit. I'm almost certain I've had the group say "we'd like to not play that anymore."

I have quit a couple of games, but I've never told a DM in any way that I was dissatisfied. Just kind of drifted away, because I didn't think it would help them in any way to hear from me.

That's also because the first game I quit was over me being burnt out, and the second one was over me wanting to punch the DM in the face. That just wouldn't have ended well had I offered criticism.

Yora
2010-08-16, 05:06 PM
Once our dm decided to play the Tomb of Horrors, but was about the only one who thought it was a good idea. At some point during the second session of constant dying, we told him that there's really no reason why our characters should be in the dungeon anyway, and that we'd not continue to amuse him by running into traps we couldn't possibly have anticipated.
I played that campaign to the end, but when they started a new one, I told them I'd not be with them for this time. We played a lot (often twice a week) and I had enough D&D for now. However, I kind of did quit the group, because their style was really anoying me and not much fun. However, I wited for a convenient moment. :smallbiggrin:

potatocubed
2010-08-16, 05:24 PM
I've had a guy throw a tantrum, tear up his character sheet and storm out, after I assessed a (fatal) penalty on his Fortitude save against some dust of sneezing and choking because he stuck his nose in the bag and took a deep sniff.

He came back the next week with a new (appallingly broken) character, though.

Roga
2010-08-16, 05:40 PM
I touched on one of the reasons I've dropped a game before. It's actually caused me to drop from 3 separate games. Kenders and the people, GM and player alike, that love of using them to infuriate the the other players.

Repost from the Best idea ever shot down thread, spoiled so as not to spam.

Situation: Party has your stereotypical Klepto Kender, which I despise. I'm been in 5 games with them and they've always been the reason the game collapsed. I was determined to Kender-proof my character.

My Solution: I'm playing an Oozemaster, and had commissioned a Special Bag of holding that was a Small Iron flask. The nozzle was 1 inch across so I could squeeze anything I wanted in there from a Canoe to a potion using Malleability. So I was the only person who could get things out of it. I paid for it, and it's cap, to be immune to Acid. And I would swallow it when I didn't need it, and could reach in and pull it out as a full round action. I would sleep myself in a larger Urn (also immune to acid) and coated myself in my Con damaging slime.

GM Response: I wake up in my urn and find that despite my defenses the Kender had unintentionally stolen my flask. To compound the issue, he had put a note in it and threw it in the ocean to see if anyone would ever read his message. I hate kenders, that's the game that made me refuse to ever play in a game with one again.


ME: How exactly did he "accidentally" Open my Urn, reach down my throat without taking at least 1d6 Con, and pull out my flask?
DM: He's a Kender
ME: But explain how, I put a lot of investment into protecting myself. You knew my intentions when I commissioned those items.
DM: I already said, He's a Kender.
ME: *Incomprehensible Rage*


This partially derailed the previous thread to ranting about Kender. While I appreciate comments, I politely ask you to continue with the subject at hand.

Sjet
2010-08-16, 06:04 PM
Joined a game that consisted of several long time friends and a long running game. I meshed pretty well with everyone except one player. We got along well till the game started, but we had very different styles of play. Stuck with it for 7 months before letting the DM know I wasn't going to be coming back.

BlckDv
2010-08-16, 06:23 PM
I have been in many seats relative to this issue.

I've been a bad DM who had a player walk out on me because he could see that the group was headed for ruin (he was right)

I've been a good DM who has had players storm out or just vanish because I refuse to cater to their unreasonable whims or spotlight hogging (and I've had players thank me for standing up when they felt it wasn't their place to complain)

I've been a player who let a DM know that his game and what I was wanting for my fun time were not matching up, but I didn't think he was a bad DM.

I've been a player who let a DM know my concerns, then quietly left the group when the DM went all frothy mouthed on me.

Key things I have learned from this are:

I ALWAYS have a pre-session for any campaign I run. I set down what style of DMing I am looking to do, we talk about what players desires and goals we can work into it, and what level of rules vs. from the hip style play we want, among other things. Having a night when you get to know everyone OOC before you start to play can really help to let the players keep PC and player issues separate in their heads.

I have a firm "Argue later" rule. If I make a bad rule call during game, you can ask me "Are you sure it isn't ..." and I'll double check in my head, but if I say "yes, I'm sure" or if looking it up will take too long, we run with what I said, even if I am wrong. AFTER the game, we look it up, see if I was right or wrong, and if I was wrong, I send out an email letting folks know what I was wrong about and how it will work in the future. My players accept that an occasional bad rules call is made up for by exciting fast paced play, and talking about it later when the scene is already set and done takes a lot of emotion out the rules debate if a point is grey. Your PCs life does not depend on it; he is already dead or saved.

I try to make things right. If I make a bad rules call and it does cause a PC death or long term harm, I try and do something for that player to make up for it; I might allow a character concept I know they have wanted that I didn't want to do the work to let in, or I might let their replacement PC come in with IC knowledge that the party has been wanting for sometime, but I always make the fix something going forward, not backwards.

I'm going to stop now before this post becomes Gargantuan and I take another penalty to Dex.

Jarawara
2010-08-16, 06:29 PM
I hate Kender with a passion bordering on insanity!!!

*~*~*

But, back to the topic at hand...

I probably have had more players walk out on me, quit my game, tell me they'll never play in my game, refuse to play my game, tell me they pity the poor saps who are stuck in my game, and at least in one case, one guy offered to let me send my players to him, as they clearly could not be having fun in my games.

Of all of there, there is exactly one defining trait that they all share:
None of them have ever actually played in my game.

I believe in explicitely telling people what my game is about, and what it is not. I get them talking about what they want; I tell them what I am looking for in a player and what I am presenting in my game. Invariably, they start looking to compromise. "Jar, you don't allow Half-Dragons in your game? What if I had a really compelling backstory? No? What if we re-crunched the Half-Dragon template, weakened it a bit? No? What if we made the Half-Dragon look mostly human, more like the Dragon-blooded. You mean, you don't allow Dragon-blooded either? You do realize that in the definition of Sorcerer, it actually describes them as having Dragon-blood in their ancestry. What? You don't allow Sorcerers either? What do you allow? Wizards?" (long pause) "You don't allow Wizards???"

And that's just one example. They then try to negotiate on any of the other thousand restrictions and stipulations, and they find me unwilling to negotiate on much of anything. As one of them said: "So it's your way or the highway?" To which I replied: "Of course, why wouldn't it be?"

Then I describe limited nature of the setting, the seemingly raidroaded pre-plot of the game, including the stipulation that if your characters wander out of the campaign area, I won't follow. They simply 'leave', and must be replaced with new characters so as to follow the storyline.

And NPC's! Gah, I love 'em. Call them DMPC's if you will, expect to have multiple NPCs traveling with the party for extended periods of time, and I *will* be tracking what they are doing and how they are developing within the plotline throughout the whole of the campaign.

Somewhere around there they all realize I must be the worst DM in the world, and often they also conclude that I don't have any actual DMing experience, and really should just be writing stories to myself in the dark of my room.

They tell me they quit! (Even though they've never played.) They tell me "Fine, I just refuse to play then!", even though often we were only chatting up each other's games, and I had never actually offered to DM for them. They tell me they'd never want to play in my games! Fine, I can accept that. I offer what I offer, if you don't want it, don't buy it.

One of them stated outright: "You will never find anyone to play in your games!"

WRONG. What he should have said, is "You'll only ever find a *few* people to play in your games."

And those few, whom I occasionally find, when presented with all my crazy restrictions, see them and say "Great setting, great roleplaying opportunity, just what I was looking for." (Actual quote from one of my players)

So I have probably the highest percentage of players who have 'quit my game', all without ever actually having played in my game. But of those who have played... over 30 years of running my game... NONE of them have ever walked away.

(Technically, a few have moved away, and some no longer have the time, but they still pine away for the good ol days when we could play, and their characters still exist in my world, ready to take up the sword and spell and fight the good fight once again.)

*~*

By telling my players what to expect, and finding out what they are looking for, I am able to avoid most of the issues that seem to come up often in groups. I only ever have the players that want the very type of game I am providing, though I am sure that there's still people out there who feel sorry for us. After all, I must be the worst DM ever.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-16, 06:37 PM
I have never walked out of any game as a player, and never have found good reason to do so, this has a lot to do of how I see the game, I think it's mainly your own fault if you don't have fun playing. Most of the times when I see a player posting how terrible their DM was to their poor little character I refrain from posting cause I would probably just write "Whiner".

I've had bad DMs. OOooh, have I had bad DMs. I don't generally quit games over that, though. I just screw with them. Granted, I'll voice my concerns first. But when the entire party is listening to someone drone on and on about his railroad plot, well, screw it. You make your own entertainment. Come up with "Wouldn't it be great/fun/amusing/awesome if..." ideas of things you can do, IC, and just go with it. If everyone is having fun, there's a limit to what the DM can practically make you do. I don't know why people act like the DM is all powerful, sometimes. It's still a community game.

true_shinken
2010-08-16, 06:43 PM
My 2-year long campaign has seen a lot of players come and go.
The first two were my ex-girlfriend and her best friend. Then, two other players left because they didn't like the way I settled things on the whole 2-PCs-turned-NPCs-thing.
Then, I had a casual gamer leave the game because it was 'too complicated' and a dedicated gamer leave the game because of time constraints.

Cheesy74
2010-08-16, 06:45 PM
I've had a very serious problem player who seemed to want roleplaying simply for the sake of roleplaying. He was good at his class and excellent at playing his character, but became very angry when opportunities for roleplaying were glossed over because the players screwed up, or because he perceived some kind of injustice. After a few discussions about the issues (which failed to produce results), I gave him an ultimatum: shape up next session or leave.
It worked. Usually if people stay more than a month or so, they like your campaign enough to want to stay. To stay in a good game, players will change a lot. I know that because I've been a problem player in other campaigns and have been threatened in the same way. I'm not saying use threats to keep your players in line, but make guidelines and their consequences very clear.

This guy eventually left to start his own campaign, but that's neither here nor there.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-16, 06:48 PM
By telling my players what to expect, and finding out what they are looking for, I am able to avoid most of the issues that seem to come up often in groups. I only ever have the players that want the very type of game I am providing, though I am sure that there's still people out there who feel sorry for us. After all, I must be the worst DM ever.

While I feel you have a lot of improvement to do in GMing, given your "my way or the highway" approach, you've hit on the main way to prevent disappointment. Set the expectations accurately.

I point at the wall, containing almost every 3.x book printed, and tell them to go nuts, we'll be sandboxing. The only things I ban are infinite combos and tainted casters. Thats it. I have more people that want me to DM for them than I can possibly deal with. It's a popular way to game, and more importantly, they know in advance, so nobody ever has to bicker about exactly what build options they can select, or what settings they can draw from.

arguskos
2010-08-16, 06:53 PM
I've been deposed as DM once (for good reason, I was being a terrible DM and needed to walk away from the table, and when I didn't, they took the table away).

I've also had a player ragequit D&D a few times (yes, it's possible, no, it wasn't fun). When they're about to throw a table at you cause they died from a random crit, it's a bad situation. I don't really feel bad about it, since going into games I am VERY CLEAR about this: I always run worlds that are dangerous, lethal almost, and you might die to random bad luck. If that's an issue, please say so before we begin play so I can address it and we can work something out.

I've also had players just vanish. I try and find out why, and to this day, it's always been legit stuff like they need to work more hours and can't play, or they're just not having fun anymore, or there's issues at home, or whatever. I don't worry about such things, since they happen, and I try hard to have contingencies in place in case of player drops.

EDIT: As a player, I've never dropped out IRL. I did it once online, cause I wasn't having fun and time was an issue. Otherwise, yeah, I stick things out.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-16, 07:12 PM
Online is different. Expecting the same things from an online game as a RL game is a sure path to dissapointment. People fade out all the time. You get some exceptions, but I'd wager that more pbp's die before they hit the standard 13.3 encounters for a level than make it. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if over 50% died before the first encounter.

Boren
2010-08-16, 07:16 PM
I touched on one of the reasons I've dropped a game before. It's actually caused me to drop from 3 separate games. Kenders and the people, GM and player alike, that love of using them to infuriate the the other players.

Repost from the Best idea ever shot down thread, spoiled so as not to spam.

Situation: Party has your stereotypical Klepto Kender, which I despise. I'm been in 5 games with them and they've always been the reason the game collapsed. I was determined to Kender-proof my character.

My Solution: I'm playing an Oozemaster, and had commissioned a Special Bag of holding that was a Small Iron flask. The nozzle was 1 inch across so I could squeeze anything I wanted in there from a Canoe to a potion using Malleability. So I was the only person who could get things out of it. I paid for it, and it's cap, to be immune to Acid. And I would swallow it when I didn't need it, and could reach in and pull it out as a full round action. I would sleep myself in a larger Urn (also immune to acid) and coated myself in my Con damaging slime.

GM Response: I wake up in my urn and find that despite my defenses the Kender had unintentionally stolen my flask. To compound the issue, he had put a note in it and threw it in the ocean to see if anyone would ever read his message. I hate kenders, that's the game that made me refuse to ever play in a game with one again.


ME: How exactly did he "accidentally" Open my Urn, reach down my throat without taking at least 1d6 Con, and pull out my flask?
DM: He's a Kender
ME: But explain how, I put a lot of investment into protecting myself. You knew my intentions when I commissioned those items.
DM: I already said, He's a Kender.
ME: *Incomprehensible Rage*


This partially derailed the previous thread to ranting about Kender. While I appreciate comments, I politely ask you to continue with the subject at hand.

........That's not a kender that's a Rogue 20 Wizard 5 Arcane Trickster 10...
and your DM being ridiculous


I've had bad DMs. OOooh, have I had bad DMs. I don't generally quit games over that, though. I just screw with them. Granted, I'll voice my concerns first. But when the entire party is listening to someone drone on and on about his railroad plot, well, screw it. You make your own entertainment. Come up with "Wouldn't it be great/fun/amusing/awesome if..." ideas of things you can do, IC, and just go with it. If everyone is having fun, there's a limit to what the DM can practically make you do. I don't know why people act like the DM is all powerful, sometimes. It's still a community game.

One of the few times that I will be intentional disruptive is the 'I wanna DM' whiner that has only played once or twice, doesn't know the rules well, or at all really; and complains and/or demands his way into the DMs chair because he has the 'completely awesome' idea. Yep that's when I will and have slipped Pun Pun into the game and proceed to do anything I wanted because it was all legal by RAW and when the game was too up the creak I just hit the 'I win' button and end the game (much to the relief of all the other players I might add) I do not like doing this, but if the person learns from it, people can and have come back later, when they were ready to DM, and run vary enjoyable games. And if I ever ask to play a kobald in your game you better look long and hard at my character sheet lol :smalltongue:

Kaun
2010-08-16, 07:26 PM
I have had a few players leave over the years.

Its more often then not because they have got a new Boy/Girl Friend and have lost interest in gameing for a while.
(They always come back tho :amused:)

I have had one player leave because the game wasn't as hack and slash as he would like and he didnt think he had time due to work. (mind you it was not long after a big Wow content patch.)

Generally i have a fair few people floating around wanting a spot anyway so im never overly fussed.

I do try and gather as much criticism about my games as possible because i think it helps me run better games in the future.

HunterOfJello
2010-08-16, 07:41 PM
The only players who I've had walk away were players who were completely new to the game and jumped in at a bad time or were weird flakes anyway. I've never lost a player that I missed.

Considering how much fun all the other players were having at the same time, I don't really blame my DMing skills for the result.

elonin
2010-08-16, 07:43 PM
I've actually left one game in which the dm was being obviously biased. I arrived mid campaign so expected to be down a level or two. No problems with that. Found that one character had been rolled with effectively 5d6. Then instructions were to roll with 5d6 drop 2 for each stat. One of the players didn't understand the instructions and just applied all 5d6. Being in a rush to start playing I bought in a character from another game which had been generated with 30 point buy. Also ended up poor because I just ended up bringing the wealth on the character sheet which wasn't nearly up to WBL and the dm had previously been playing it as a monty haul but had stopped just prior to my arrival. Then there was the hobbit (or maybe a kender not sure) whose player decided to do his best to get under my skin. He only came to the game 1/2 of the time but when he was there he spent more time taunting my character than doing anything else. The dm decided that it would be funny to give the kender a rod of wonder at the end of a session. With everyone there I warned him against pointing that thing at me (that I'd take it as an attack). Sure enough the next session he fired the thing at me and I fired an arrow at him. I'm not normally into pvp but felt pushed into it. The dm bent the rules, as in warping them to say that my attack never happened even though it got far enough for me to make a natural 20 and then confirm the critical. I can appreciate any in game repercussions that happen, but had to leave since the dm allowed another character (the godzilla that I mentioned earlier).

Thiyr
2010-08-17, 01:42 AM
I've dropped a game before, largely because I was constantly thinking that I wanted to just skip going to it. It ended up being a mixture of the playgroup (two players i didn't mind, but one player was just so abrasive, and pretty much played like a person-shaped bag of testosterone), and that the DM was just kinda...well, bad. Didn't know the system very well, players were strongarmed into doing what she wanted them to do, and the plot was kinda...boring and exposition-reliant.

Saw someone get asked to leave a longrunning game as well. This was a case of the player making everyone have a worse time. He would complain, argue rules, argue situations where everyone, including the DM, was explaining why what he was doing wouldn't work, refused to do -anything- that wasn't specifically what he built himself for, regardless of how bad his build was in the situation (holding a bottleneck isn't a good place for a scout/dervish character), and yet still managed to take up large amounts of time deciding what to do once his turn came up. Never really contributed, either mechanically or in RP, yet claimed he was extremely effective. He obviously didn't want to be in the game (and said as such). In fact, his only reason for staying in the game was "Because otherwise I wouldn't be in a game". So he was asked to leave. Suprisingly, he didn't make a big fuss about it.

Wonton
2010-08-17, 02:00 AM
I actually have a story with a happy ending, which is why I'm posting it amidst all this doom and gloom.

Our group consisted of 6 players + DM, and the weird thing was that we didn't have a dedicated playspace, which meant that every week we'd basically go through some buildings on campus (we're all university students) until we found an empty room.

Well, this week, the only room we could find was reserved for someone the whole day, someone who clearly hadn't bothered to show up, cause the room was empty. I said we should play here, the DM (a good friend of mine) said no, it's reserved. I said I'd take the fall if we got into trouble, he said no. The argument escalated until I was *this* close to yelling at him for not thinking about the group, and only being worried about himself.

I, rageful and seething, agreed to keep looking, and eventually one of the players caved and we went to his house. The session was quite bad, the DM railroaded us quite heavily (i.e. half the party is captured, now you're brought before the big villain, who starts monologuing about how he's going to feed you to his pet Kraken). In the end, me and the other powergamer at the table sort of forced our way off the railroad, but ended up using up most of the session in our escape, so the others barely got to play. In the end, everyone left somewhat unhappy for various reasons.

This was the last game before winter break, and when we came back, I (who hadn't really talked to the DM in about a month) just assumed the game had ended, and had moved on with my life. But he approached me a week after and said something like "Hey man, you missed last week's session. You coming next week?". And we finished that campaign, and are gonna be playing again in September. :smallsmile:

chaotoroboto
2010-08-17, 03:31 AM
I can say that the two times I've had people drop - one dramatically, one fading away - the game improved. People leave games because a) real life gets in the way or b) they aren't having fun. And if they're having enough fun, then they find a way to push around real life. The same when I've played in games and other players left, the game has generally improved.

My dramatic moment was a player who broke my rules. My rules are: no characters who don't do anything, and no characters who are anti-party. Like you don't have to always agree with everyone, but you can't kill other party members or steal their stuff.

This dude only ever GMs, but for some reason he played in my game, and he had some pretty loose interpretations of the rules. I've caught everyone in my game cheating dice, calling 1s as 20s, etc. I don't mind too much - as long as it's evenly spread and not too often, because people have fun cheating. But this guy had gotten into the habit of rolling his dice behind his character sheet and calling them where no one could see. So I start the game by saying that I need everyone to roll all their dice on the table, and someone else has to call them for them.

Encounter starts: the party is in a cave, and it's basically a tunnel. It's a meatgrinder from the beginning to the end, and there's water rising from the start so they've got a time limit. Well, duder runs his drow through all of the tunnels, sneaking past every combat encounter without making any attempt to help anyone in the party, and then sits and waits while party members almost drown, or get slaughtered, or walk into traps that he evaded but didn't disable, or whatever.

When the party catches up to him and gets to relative safety, he "roleplays" his character bullying another character. But really, he as the player was bullying the other player. And I mean, the other player is the easiest guy to pick on in the world, and I asked him into the game partially because I felt bad about how crappy I treated him in middle school.

So anyway, the whole game was completely tense, and I lied and said that we'd hit a good stopping point for the night. So as people were leaving, I went up to the different postgame groups and gave everyone the little talk about how we're playing a light game and that I said from the start that we weren't going to have any anti-party stuff and no one who doesn't do anything.

Duder interrupts me twice - once to make fun of another player who had already left, once to tell me that someone else is cheating - and then leaves, and calls one of the other players from his car to say he's dropping out of the game because I'm not interested in having real roleplaying in it.

So yeah, I felt bad about him leaving - I'm sure I could have handled my end better - but the games since have all been more relaxed and no one leaves angry or exhausted any more. I don't have to make people roll in front of me, and my players roleplay without fights breaking out between PCs.

I got the feedback I needed from how he was playing and how he left - he didn't have to tell me anything.

Dragonus45
2010-08-17, 06:32 AM
It kind of funny, but all the people here complaining about kender reminds me about the only game i ever really felt like leaving in. The funny part is that i was the kender, basically i always wanted to try a kender character. But not the generic kleptokender, a CN leaning CE kender who had a bad run in with a few guards that left him an chronic *******. He was a bard, but not a bard just a rouge with a lot of skill points in perform since sorcery and dragonlance are not friends. He used his taunts to be as offensive and mean as possible and had a more than usual for kender knowledge of the value of what he was stealing and often used the fact he was a kender to get out of trouble if he got cought with anything valuable. Yes he loved shiny things but he made it a point to avoid grabbing everything that sparkled cus thats how he wound up getting beaten in a prison in the first place. Well the dm was a rabid dragonlance fanboy who owned every book and ran a dm pc super wizard in the form of his gf who he gave great stats and bent the rules for. Well i didnt mind that a whole lot cus the game was still fun and we got to murder dragons, but the dm kept pointing out that i wasn't really a bard whenever i tried to be bard like. And he kept making my character be a kleptokender. Yes its kinda funny when i find some poor guys wedding ring in my pack three weeks after i swore up and down that i didn't have it. But then he started making it more hindering, ending up with me jacking some palidins holy symbol (cus it was shiny and golden). I almost quit right there, but he was my roommate so i was kinda stuck.

Kurald Galain
2010-08-17, 06:59 AM
Other than personality conflicts, I've had a few players leave because of time constraints, not enough free time, that sort of thing.

I've had one player who walked away because of DM'ing issues. Essentially, we were playing a low-level campaign focusing on character personality and political conflict between two cities, whereas he was expecting an epic campaign to save the world. This was handled quite fairly, we were both honest about what we expected from the game and how this didn't match.

About a year and several levels later, the campaign had turned into an epic save-the-world story, but he had no way of knowing that in advance.

Shademan
2010-08-17, 07:02 AM
Back in my earliest and most horrible days of D&D I was DMing. and it ended with me disbanding the entire thing. The players refused to respect my authprity as DM, refused me the RIGHT to make jokes AT ALL (even tough they did) and the cousin of one of the players (who only was there one time) would be so disruptive that he even said stuff like "bugbears dont act that way" upped to eleven.
In the end I said "This is the way I DM. You don't like it, so i won't do it for y. And you won't find any other DM's around here. goodbye"

my 8 year old little brother and his friend was better players AND roleplayers. sheez

dsmiles
2010-08-17, 07:14 AM
Back in my earliest and most horrible days of D&D I was DMing. and it ended with me disbanding the entire thing. The players refused to respect my authprity as DM, refused me the RIGHT to make jokes AT ALL (even tough they did) and the cousin of one of the players (who only was there one time) would be so disruptive that he even said stuff like "bugbears dont act that way" upped to eleven.
In the end I said "This is the way I DM. You don't like it, so i won't do it for y. And you won't find any other DM's around here. goodbye"

my 8 year old little brother and his friend was better players AND roleplayers. sheez

But maybe YOUR bugbears act that way. I know people complain about my monsters all the time. "Kobolds aren't smart enough to lure us into a deathtrap!" "Goblins are supposed to be EASY!"

Shademan
2010-08-17, 07:22 AM
yeah, offcourse explaining this didnt work.
"I am DM! I decide how this world works! The DM can do whatever he wants!"
"Nnnoo he can't. he must follow the books"

:smallfurious:

panaikhan
2010-08-17, 08:00 AM
I can only remember one player leaving a campaign I DM'd.

Basically, the guy turned every session into "CSI: Dungeon", even if he wasn't playing an investigatory-styled character. He'd constantly ask for details that were not evident, to the point where I'd say as DM "If you really need to know, I'll simply make something up. It's not relevant".

Anyway, he fails to turn up for a series of sessions, then phones up one day and asks how his character is doing. I reply by telling him that the party carried on without the character present.
He didn't come back.

dsmiles
2010-08-17, 08:07 AM
Basically, the guy turned every session into "CSI: Dungeon", even if he wasn't playing an investigatory-styled character. He'd constantly ask for details that were not evident, to the point where I'd say as DM "If you really need to know, I'll simply make something up. It's not relevant".

This, IMO is a player FAIL. If the we, as DM, think you need to know something, we'll tell you, or roll some search/spot/listen checks behind the screen and give you clues based on that. Some players just don't get it. Not every room calls for a detailed search.

"You're in a 10x10 room, there are bars on the window, and the door seems pretty solid." This seems like a pretty complete description to me.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-17, 08:24 AM
In fairness, it used to be pretty common for players to be penalized for *not* searching absolutely everything. Plenty of modules contained clues or loot that wouldn't be given out unless the player specifically opted to search for them.

Sure, it's supposed to encourage thoughtful gaming, instead of rushing from one combat encounter to the next, but some players react by searching *everything*.

Badgerish
2010-08-17, 09:21 AM
I've had a couple of people drop out of an online game with no feedback or notification what so ever :( This was disruptive as we didn't know what to do with their characters and waited at the start of the next few sessions to see if they turned up.

I've dropped out of one game (also online), but I privately listed my grievances, got told that things where not changing and stuck it out until there was a good situation to leave the party.

I'm close to dropping out of a face-to-face game, quiet possibly in the next session. If I do that, I'm 95% sure the other players will walk too. It's a shame, but they guy just isn't a good GM :(

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-17, 09:23 AM
I've had bad DMs. OOooh, have I had bad DMs. I don't generally quit games over that, though. I just screw with them.
IMHO, this is the worst thing a player can do. Just because you're not having fun doesn't mean other players aren't having fun. It's almost impossible to tell, too; it's just so easy to put on blinders once you've decided the game is no longer fun.

This is exactly the reason I left my last game - I realized I had been lampshading perceived problems in the game and had provoked at least one other player to angrily lash out at the DM because the DM was screwing him over. I was being a bad example, and that guy's actions reminded me how disruptive I could be to the game as a whole.

Erom
2010-08-17, 09:44 AM
I've lost player due to level preferences differences- we rotate DMs and do one-offs, and so we don't like taking too much time to roll up characters, and this player wanted world-shattering-power. But it was a pleasant and honest affair, so no bad blood.

Then again, we never recruit from the game stores or whatever, just from personal friends of current players, so personality conflicts are extremely rare.

dsmiles
2010-08-17, 09:47 AM
I recruited from a game store once. Once.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-17, 09:53 AM
IMHO, this is the worst thing a player can do. Just because you're not having fun doesn't mean other players aren't having fun. It's almost impossible to tell, too; it's just so easy to put on blinders once you've decided the game is no longer fun.

This is exactly the reason I left my last game - I realized I had been lampshading perceived problems in the game and had provoked at least one other player to angrily lash out at the DM because the DM was screwing him over. I was being a bad example, and that guy's actions reminded me how disruptive I could be to the game as a whole.

Oh, it's pretty easy to tell. Complaining and arguing, unprovoked by you is a good sign. The looks they have on their faces. Lack of attendance. Boredom or annoyance is almost palpable when a game starts to go bad.

Bust out the humor, the interesting ideas, etc. If the DM responds by railroading harder, that's not going to work for him.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-17, 09:58 AM
Oh, it's pretty easy to tell. Complaining and arguing, unprovoked by you is a good sign. The looks they have on their faces. Lack of attendance. Boredom or annoyance is almost palpable when a game starts to go bad.

Bust out the humor, the interesting ideas, etc. If the DM responds by railroading harder, that's not going to work for him.
Er... when a game gets that bad, isn't it better to either talk the DM into changing or finding a different game to play?

It seems like a lot of passive-aggressive work to steal a game from under the DM's nose.

Abies
2010-08-17, 10:01 AM
The only game/campaign I've ever dropped out of was a 2nd edition D&D game back in college. The DM was a terrible DM vs Players, railroader, control freak <insert colorful metaphor>.

He had approved Psionics but never bothered to learn anything about them, or how they worked. So whenever my character did anything he didn't like, hed just made it not work for no explained reason.

As DM he distributed treasure to the players, and forbade trading. "So he could keep track of our capabilities better". Whats worse is that taking the magic items away from the party members in convoluted ways was a frequent event in his games. He enjoyed giving my character helmets, which are useless to a 2e Psionicist since Psionics did not work through metal helmets.

He fancied his games as political intrigue, but tolerated no deviation from his proscribed plotline. The easily identifiable clue to the next encounter had to be followed, or nothing would happen at all.

Every encounter ended with the entire party captured, unconscious dead or dying. Sadly this was 2e so you could be forcibly resurrected, so none of us ever stayed dead because the DMPC would promptly raise/rescue/heal us. This was the only member of the party to ever emerge unscathed from a fight, and who would wipe the floor with any and all enemies after the rest of us lost, and who the DM would "roleplay" as a beliting jerkoff who wondered why he even had us around.

This lasted 3-4 sessions untill I just responded with "Yes why do you have us around? No I'm talking to you, the real person, not your stupid character. I don't feel like being a prop in your masturbatory power fantasy. Either learn to DM a real game or let someone else run the game."

I DM'd for that group minus the original DM for the remainder for the semester. Oddly I had no complaints, I'm not usre if it was because I actually ran a good game or if I was just so much better by comaprison, no one felt the need to raise an issue.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-17, 10:02 AM
Er... when a game gets that bad, isn't it better to either talk the DM into changing or finding a different game to play?

It seems like a lot of passive-aggressive work to steal a game from under the DM's nose.

The only things that can be stolen are those that belong to someone. The game is no more the DMs than it is anyone elses.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-17, 10:09 AM
The only things that can be stolen are those that belong to someone. The game is no more the DMs than it is anyone elses.
Be that as it may - why not just talk with the DM and drop out if he doesn't change?

If you talk to him, he might get the point a lot faster than if one of his players starts leading a revolt.

And if he refuses to change, you can just leave and start your own game instead of getting into a power struggle with the DM. If nobody else is having fun, they should be happy to join your game instead.

dsmiles
2010-08-17, 10:18 AM
The only game/campaign I've ever dropped out of was a 2nd edition D&D game back in college. The DM was a terrible DM vs Players, railroader, control freak <insert colorful metaphor>.

He had approved Psionics but never bothered to learn anything about them, or how they worked. So whenever my character did anything he didn't like, hed just made it not work for no explained reason.

As DM he distributed treasure to the players, and forbade trading. "So he could keep track of our capabilities better". Whats worse is that taking the magic items away from the party members in convoluted ways was a frequent event in his games. He enjoyed giving my character helmets, which are useless to a 2e Psionicist since Psionics did not work through metal helmets.

He fancied his games as political intrigue, but tolerated no deviation from his proscribed plotline. The easily identifiable clue to the next encounter had to be followed, or nothing would happen at all.

Every encounter ended with the entire party captured, unconscious dead or dying. Sadly this was 2e so you could be forcibly resurrected, so none of us ever stayed dead because the DMPC would promptly raise/rescue/heal us. This was the only member of the party to ever emerge unscathed from a fight, and who would wipe the floor with any and all enemies after the rest of us lost, and who the DM would "roleplay" as a beliting jerkoff who wondered why he even had us around.

This lasted 3-4 sessions untill I just responded with "Yes why do you have us around? No I'm talking to you, the real person, not your stupid character. I don't feel like being a prop in your masturbatory power fantasy. Either learn to DM a real game or let someone else run the game."

I DM'd for that group minus the original DM for the remainder for the semester. Oddly I had no complaints, I'm not usre if it was because I actually ran a good game or if I was just so much better by comaprison, no one felt the need to raise an issue.

Oppressive Dungeon Master is oppressive.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-17, 10:48 AM
Be that as it may - why not just talk with the DM and drop out if he doesn't change?

If you talk to him, he might get the point a lot faster than if one of his players starts leading a revolt.

And if he refuses to change, you can just leave and start your own game instead of getting into a power struggle with the DM. If nobody else is having fun, they should be happy to join your game instead.

See, you're still on the mentality of revolt and such. As if one person is in complete control. Revolt, power struggle...you're missing the point. You make your own fun, and instead of trickling away from the game table one at a time, you and your friends simply do whats fun. If one person continually makes trouble and wants to force everyone to do things his way, HE is the problem, and he should leave. His position at the table is irrelevant to that.

Sliver
2010-08-17, 10:56 AM
Be that as it may - why not just talk with the DM and drop out if he doesn't change?

If you talk to him, he might get the point a lot faster than if one of his players starts leading a revolt.

And if he refuses to change, you can just leave and start your own game instead of getting into a power struggle with the DM. If nobody else is having fun, they should be happy to join your game instead.

Heh, I had a few times I dropped out of a game. Those games were online, in a local community site. And there were very few actually average+ DMs...

One that I played with the most, was railroading us a lot and liked to put us up against a lot of mooks so he can rescue us with his uber DMPC that would leave and do something epic somewhere else. We had about two/three fights, in a weekly game that went through, I donno, three four months?

He once started the game, left us in a cave without description of what or where, and told us he had to do something, so we should play by ourselves for a while.

I was still new to the system so didn't know the rules, so my character wasn't well built or anything. But it got blinded all the three times I used detect magic.

The DM decided that my character was boring (note, I was the only player he didn't work with to make a connected backstory. Just threw in "taught in a magical academy" and done) so what did he do? He cast charm person on me and I was seduced and raped by some female my character just saw on the street. Apparently, I got dominated through sex. Forced to become evil and leave the rest of the players. You know what I did? Got taken to some random temple and became an undead raising NPC. That's more interesting then playing, right?! I couldn't even watch what the others did, because it was through MSN and he didn't want me to see. It's worse, because he just wouldn't describe anything, so the game was so dull and boring that we stuck through just to play with each other, and he took it from me.

When we finally reunited, he started talking about how they will go through a ritual to release me from the spell, so I just asked to skip further and he sounded bummed out that I didn't want to read his "epic" description.

Thing is, we did talk to him. Several times. Before we started the game, he used to brag on the forums about his awesome game knowledge and RPing (I played with him once. He acted like an idiot. Played a warlock that tried to convince the enemy he was evil too and we were his prisoners. While we were slaughtering the enemy) but after a few talks admitted that he was new. He acted as if he was listening to us and trying to improve, but even the next game didn't change, nor any of the games that followed. I just didn't show up to one game, the others quit after that one that I didn't come to.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-17, 10:59 AM
I've actually never had talking with a DM work. I reccomend it, because I feel people should have a chance to change, but in my experience, they tend to either get defensive, act like they don't understand, or nod a lot, then make no actual changes.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-17, 11:07 AM
See, you're still on the mentality of revolt and such. As if one person is in complete control. Revolt, power struggle...you're missing the point. You make your own fun, and instead of trickling away from the game table one at a time, you and your friends simply do whats fun. If one person continually makes trouble and wants to force everyone to do things his way, HE is the problem, and he should leave. His position at the table is irrelevant to that.
Well... unless you're playing a pure cooperative storytelling game, the DM is still the one who has to do the work preparing the encounters and drawing the maps. I'm all for player power, but if the DM doesn't show up for a game then it isn't run - someone else will have to DM, unprepared.

A DM may not be a god, be he is the one who puts the most work into making a game happen. Constantly undercutting his work is a good way to turn a mediocre DM into a failed one - and if no one will run your games, then you will have to permanently be the DM for any gaming to get done.

EDIT: I, too, have never had talking with a DM work... but it seems like the right thing to do. Part of the reason I started this thread was to see how other people's experiences matched up with mine. The more I read, the more a "quiet withdraw" seems the appropriate response, with more being said only at the request of the individuals involved.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-17, 11:19 AM
Well... unless you're playing a pure cooperative storytelling game, the DM is still the one who has to do the work preparing the encounters and drawing the maps. I'm all for player power, but if the DM doesn't show up for a game then it isn't run - someone else will have to DM, unprepared.

The DMs that DM the poorest also tend to, generally, be the ones who don't put much work into it. Unless you count "writing an epic story" or similar as work.


A DM may not be a god, be he is the one who puts the most work into making a game happen. Constantly undercutting his work is a good way to turn a mediocre DM into a failed one - and if no one will run your games, then you will have to permanently be the DM for any gaming to get done.

If the party is unhappy with his DMing, then he's already failed.


EDIT: I, too, have never had talking with a DM work... but it seems like the right thing to do. Part of the reason I started this thread was to see how other people's experiences matched up with mine. The more I read, the more a "quiet withdraw" seems the appropriate response, with more being said only at the request of the individuals involved.

It does seem right. I generally offer advice if people are interested...but if not, oh well.

Quiet withdraw is definitely the easiest response. Im not sure if that makes it most appropriate or not, but it certainly requires the least effort and conflict.

Another_Poet
2010-08-17, 12:34 PM
I had a player leave. He is a good friend of mine and we still hang out often.

However, at gaming we would bicker constantly. He would argue with me on every ruling. I like to use house rules and set up unusual situations, with very tactically challenging battles that require a lot of creativity from the players. I also like grit and grey areas. He likes to use gaming as an escape, to feel like a hero for a while, to know that everything will be played strictly by the book and level-appropriate so that the PCs will emerge triumphant and beloved. Therefore he often felt robbed when he would go into the magic-restricted, high-challenge sewer campaign I run.

He didn't speak to me in detail about this originally. He excused himself from gaming for a month or two because other things in his personal life were so hard he didn't want to be too escapist. He took a hiatus not just from my game but from another game we're in too.

After a while I asked him to come back to my game and that was when he explained that he didn't really enjoy playing in it. His advice was partly constructive and partly negative, but at least I was able to understand where he was coming from.

He felt railroaded and beaten down. I felt that he was making unnecessary rules quibbles and being too literal in demanding all RAW all the time. I also felt that he forgot many details of the setting or past sessions and then got upset when his character's decisions didn't accomplish what he wanted (because he wasn't using all the information available to the PCs.)

To a large extent we had been talking past each other and not getting where the other was coming from. We remedied that but he felt it was best he not re-join the game, and gave me some instruction on how he would prefer his character be written out. (He gave up his life of adventuring and magic because all it brought him was pain and dead friends, and decided to found a shelter for battered women with the money he had earned. Kind of a nice ending.)

We do play as PCs together in another game run by a different GM. That game works better for this player because it is a lot less RPing-intensive. It is more of break in the door, kill lots of things and feel good about yourself. We don't have to remember a lot of details or solve great capers or dig too far to find pay dirt. It is a nice relaxed game that works for everyone.

My friend still won't play in my campaign and I don't hassle him about it. He did say that next time I run a one-shot he would like to join, because overall he thinks I am a good GM and if it is a one-shot it is unlikely to be a grand enough storyline for him to feel railroaded or overwhelmed.

So, it resolved peacefully and without (long-term) hurt feelings.

ap

Rigor_Mortis
2010-08-18, 02:14 PM
I was in one game where everyone almost walked away, it was close.

A year into the campaign, the DM sets us up with a chance to draw from the Deck of Many Things as a "reward" for dethroning a despot.

The first 2 players get fairly lucky pulls. One of them getting the card that removes all wealth and nonmagic items for her 1st, then a small keep for her second draw, which is funny.
Someone else lost all of their wealth, then all of their magical items. They laughed.
I somehow manage 2 amazingly lucky draws.
Then the final player claims 4 draws and gets:
Two of Spades (She was a Paladin...)
Queen of Spades
Queen of Hearts
THEN Ace of Clubs.

We ended the session there.
We come back next session to find out that the DM had let her "re-draw" all of her cards and suddenly she pulled 5 beneficial cards.
But the DM didn't tell us this, they just did it and hoped we wouldn't notice?
None of us showed up to the next session, and I emailed the DM and told him why.
He emailed back that the player had told him she was going to quit.
The other players agreed that the preferential treatment wasn't fair, we knew he had a crush on her. The rest of the players said they weren't going to play anymore, I told them to come to 1 more session.
We all showed up at the next session and I used one of my wishes to retcon the entire Deck of Many Things.
(It really does swallow games.)

MariettaGecko
2010-08-18, 02:37 PM
I haven't played in any games where I have quit, but I have had games where players have quit coming. In some cases, those players cited busy home lives or whatever, in some cases, they cited travel distance. Generally, however, it hasn't been a problem with me... At least, if it was, they didn't communicate that to me.

That said, I always have as a house rule that if the players have an issue with my game, I ask that they please approach me with the issue. Generally, my players have been pretty good about approaching me with issues out of game, when they have had them. As a general rule, I would much rather someone come to me and tell me that they weren't really enjoying themselves and give me a chance to correct the issue than to have them just tell me they are leaving and why (or just simply fade out).

Umael
2010-08-18, 02:51 PM
Then the final player claims 4 draws and gets:
Two of Spades (She was a Paladin...)
Queen of Spades
Queen of Hearts
THEN Ace of Clubs.

And for those of us who don't have the Deck of Many Things memorized, those do...?

Tyndmyr
2010-08-18, 03:13 PM
I was in one game where everyone almost walked away, it was close.

A year into the campaign, the DM sets us up with a chance to draw from the Deck of Many Things as a "reward" for dethroning a despot.

The first 2 players get fairly lucky pulls. One of them getting the card that removes all wealth and nonmagic items for her 1st, then a small keep for her second draw, which is funny.
Someone else lost all of their wealth, then all of their magical items. They laughed.
I somehow manage 2 amazingly lucky draws.
Then the final player claims 4 draws and gets:
Two of Spades (She was a Paladin...)
Queen of Spades
Queen of Hearts
THEN Ace of Clubs.

Black cards are generally horribly bad.

This problem all started when she decided to draw 4 times. You should NEVER draw four times, unless you are tired of life.

A warning might be appropriate...redrawing every single card till you get something awesome is definitely not. Blatant favoritism will kill the game dead.

Yeah, the deck needs to be used with care. Think about it hard before giving it to a party. The one who found it in my last party Ive given it too refused to ever draw from it. However, he offered draws without explanation to people in passing. In a theives guild. EVERY SINGLE ONE drew the sudden change to opposite alignment. After the first three had sudden changes of heart, and went off to go found an orphanage, start a religion, and cleanse the world of evil, the remainder had caught on. He became quite unpopular there.

Sipex
2010-08-18, 03:28 PM
That is the most amazing application for a deck of many things I've ever heard. So simple yet so out of the box.

dsmiles
2010-08-18, 03:41 PM
This is the first I've heard of somebody letting somebody else redraw with the deck. But, yeah, the deck is bad. Two cards is scary, three nearly gave me a heart attack. Four...well..."Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out."

Gnomo
2010-08-18, 04:42 PM
I was in one game where everyone almost walked away, it was close.

A year into the campaign, the DM sets us up with a chance to draw from the Deck of Many Things as a "reward" for dethroning a despot.

The first 2 players get fairly lucky pulls. One of them getting the card that removes all wealth and nonmagic items for her 1st, then a small keep for her second draw, which is funny.
Someone else lost all of their wealth, then all of their magical items. They laughed.
I somehow manage 2 amazingly lucky draws.
Then the final player claims 4 draws and gets:
Two of Spades (She was a Paladin...)
Queen of Spades
Queen of Hearts
THEN Ace of Clubs.

We ended the session there.
We come back next session to find out that the DM had let her "re-draw" all of her cards and suddenly she pulled 5 beneficial cards.
But the DM didn't tell us this, they just did it and hoped we wouldn't notice?
None of us showed up to the next session, and I emailed the DM and told him why.
He emailed back that the player had told him she was going to quit.
The other players agreed that the preferential treatment wasn't fair, we knew he had a crush on her. The rest of the players said they weren't going to play anymore, I told them to come to 1 more session.
We all showed up at the next session and I used one of my wishes to retcon the entire Deck of Many Things.
(It really does swallow games.)
I still fail to see how this is a problem, besides envy I don't see why the rest of the players would think of leaving the game just because there is some "preference". I have played with biased GMs before (never being the one getting the benefits), but as long as they are not trying to shut down my character everything is fine.

Tharck
2010-08-18, 05:35 PM
I've walked away from two games. Both due to DMs and their DM style.

1st DM
The first DM I had when I was 9 and who got me started playing was my much older cousin. Great game. He stopped DMing for about 7 years and when he started his new campaign he was a complete control freak about it. Everyone had 3 characters and people got to choose which of those three to bring along on any adventure - long story short. I found a Crystal Ball and a Spellbook which was trapped. I wanted the spellbook very much since a lvl 7 wizard had it and I was level 3. I sold the Crystal Ball to another wizard for him to remove the hostile spells off the spellbook. Apparently this caused an assassins guild to come kill me for a crystal ball I no longer had and he killed my character over the phone because my character wasn't invited on the next adventure. The PC's were pissed off I sold the Crystal Ball for a Spellbook. The PCs anger drove the DM into killing my character.

2nd DM
He favored PCs (a girl he liked and who is married to my best friend) by not killing them, ignoring them when they were low on health and bending or breaking rules to make them more effective. He made retarded off the cuff rule calls - charging horses get +2 AC and no negative to AC while charging against Caltrops because they take long strides. It's okay to think that a Druid, Sprites, Pixies, Faeries, will team up with Knights in Dragonlance with priests running around even though only Goldmoon was the only priest, and the building the sprites, knights, and druid were guarding was nothing more than a ... building... with no special properties other than it had a well inside of it. He'd also rip the guts out of plot and story on online Modules and add some dungeon hackery for his - to get to the evil giant's secret lair head EAST for 3 WEEKS. Any case, done.

Tharck
2010-08-18, 05:39 PM
I still fail to see how this is a problem, besides envy I don't see why the rest of the players would think of leaving the game just because there is some "preference". I have played with biased GMs before (never being the one getting the benefits), but as long as they are not trying to shut down my character everything is fine.

Why roll dice? <---- When that question makes complete sense to you - you understand completely.

darkpuppy
2010-08-18, 06:07 PM
Most players who've left my games have left due to a difference in play styles, and were usually younger players, with expectations of lots of combat. This is a shame, really, because when there's combat in my games, I make sure it's both as tense and entertaining as possible.

However, one of the best skills a GM can learn, apart from listening and safe discussion (both useful skills, I'll agree), is knowing when a campaign isn't going anywhere. Good example, the first nWoD game I ran wasn't going anywhere for several reasons (including one player I was trying to wean from munchkinism, and, thankfully, succeeded... eventually), so, after discussion with the group (main complaint: the system's a bit slow for them), we agreed to nuke the campaign. Indeed, when my old group and I killed a campaign, we killed it stone...dead. When a Realms campaign started getting bogged down, we all agreed to end it spectacularly. The end result involved a red dragon in the marsh of chelimber that had eaten a convoy of wagons (including a couple with explosives in... don't ask!), and a lucky fireball from our last standing hero (barely!) making a lovely crater/lake combo where a third of the Marsh of Chelimber *used* to be.

Essentially, I always try to get feedback from players, because, if there's a problem, I want it solved. Everyone should be having fun, and if the problem's there, you gotta hunt it down and string it up... for the sake of your players.

Mordar
2010-08-18, 07:18 PM
I recruited from a game store once. Once.

All of my positive gaming experiences over the last 15 years have resulted from a game or bookstore posting - and there have been several. Now, in all cases (both as GM and as player) there have been interview processes that had nothing to do with gaming. In fact, several of those game store postings generated friendships that lasted well beyond the original games (and extended outside of gaming).

When seeking replacement players, we have turned down 'applicants' because of clear "game store" issues...but I think we've had more bad friend-of-player instances than bad recruit instances.

YMMV, but an interview process is your friend...and not an interview that includes a game session.



If the party is unhappy with his DMing, then he's already failed.

The danger here is twofold - first, ego. If I am unhappy, without discussing it, can I ever be sure others are similarly unhappy, or am I just seeing them through my unhappy glasses? Second, "failed" is inappropriate...because it could always just be "failing", leaving a chance for recovery.


Quiet withdraw is definitely the easiest response. Im not sure if that makes it most appropriate or not, but it certainly requires the least effort and conflict.

Antagonism will not rectify the situation, though...and "make your own fun" at the expense of someone else is no better than the original situation. It just seems a less, well, mature option. Talk it through, walk away, start a different game...all of those are better options, IMO.

- M

Kurald Galain
2010-08-19, 04:25 AM
I still fail to see how this is a problem, besides envy I don't see why the rest of the players would think of leaving the game just because there is some "preference".
I do feel that the "DM's girlfriend" syndrome is annoying.

By which I don't mean DMs who have a girlfriend in general, but a DM who continually derail the game in an attempt to please a girl he likes (whether or not she actually likes him back). For instance, we had this DM once that gave his clingy girlfriend reflex saving throws to avoid melee attacks, and had a high priest on stand by who would teleport in to heal her whenever her character got injured. Yeah, that was pretty annoying.

dsmiles
2010-08-19, 04:45 AM
I do feel that the "DM's girlfriend" syndrome is annoying.

By which I don't mean DMs who have a girlfriend in general, but a DM who continually derail the game in an attempt to please a girl he likes (whether or not she actually likes him back).

Ditto. This really generates a lot of "DM Hate" at the table.

Umael
2010-08-19, 10:44 AM
I still fail to see how this is a problem, besides envy I don't see why the rest of the players would think of leaving the game just because there is some "preference". I have played with biased GMs before (never being the one getting the benefits), but as long as they are not trying to shut down my character everything is fine.

Think of it this way.

"Preferential" treatment is like loud music. Really, really, really loud music.

Yes, some people tolerate it, or even like it. But most people don't. It ruins the enjoyment of the game.

That fact that you have no problem with it doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that your post seems to indicate that you are unable to understand why everyone else objects to it, solely because you do not object to it.

I will grant that there are times when "preferential" treament could be allowed, even tolerated, although it is questionable if it should be encouraged. The biggest example I can think of is when playing a game with someone who does not understand fully how the game works. Showing a bit of initial bias as a way of the recruitment of new players can also be considered valid.

But when "preferential" treatment is based on personal likes and dislikes, it can mean multiple detrimental things. It promotes an atmosphere of unfairness. It harkens back to the "GM vs. Players" mentality, but establishes the favored player as a "mole" in the group, possibly causing resentment amongst the other players towards the favored player. It can insult the "favored" player by implying that he or she needs special attention in order play with the others - or worse, it can stunt the development of the player because he or she will be used to the pampered treatment.

So saying that "everything is fine" is not enough.

Rigor_Mortis
2010-08-19, 01:17 PM
And for those of us who don't have the Deck of Many Things memorized, those do...?

Two of Spades --> Instant change of alignment (She was a Paladin...)
Queen of Spades --> Permanent -1 on all saving throws
Queen of Hearts --> Gain 1 major magical item
Ace of Clubs --> Lose ALL magical items permanently

CakeTown
2010-08-19, 01:27 PM
Almost walked away from a game once.

I'm the party rogue, and I have the least amount of hp in the group. We were fighting some owlbears, and they were doing quite a bit of damage to our tanks. I decided to try and hide in a tree, so I could gain combat advantage, and use my sneak attack. The warlock thought I was being useless, and so attacked me. It only did about 10 or so damage, but it simply pissed me off so much I nearly walked away from the table right away. But I calmed down and stayed. Ended up almost dying, but the DM changed his rules so he doesn't allow PVP anymore. So hopefully it won't happen again. In this case, the DM was good, it was a player who annoyed me.

Vantharion
2010-08-19, 01:39 PM
I've lost a couple players from time to time.
Mostly it is because they don't exactly want out of an RPG what I'm dishing.
My games usually tend towards problem solving, understanding a threat and plot/silliness.
Two of my old players, still good friends really enjoy hack and slash. They want to hear how their 17th level barbarian who's desperately afraid of furry things acts while raging in a pet shop. Myself and other players don't enjoy that as much and get bored. They were the ones who more or less made the move and neither party has been unhappy with it.
Early on in my DM career I wasn't prepared yet to be a DM (Considering there were 4-5 of us who had never done ANY sort of DND before). We all took a year long break and came back and it was fun.
I might be asking two players to NOT act so rowdy next time around. Having fun is acceptable but not at the expense of the DM or the game. (Two players out of six were just being plain old pains)
Losing players isn't really a problem, it's driving them away and it is important to learn WHY they don't want to play anymore, if you deem it an appropriate reason, there is no reason why it can't happen.

Umael
2010-08-19, 02:15 PM
In this case, the DM was good, it was a player who annoyed me.

Although there is some debate about whether the GM has the authority to keep players in-check out-of-game, it is generally accepted that the GM has enough influence that if he or she fails to keep an unruly player in line that it will reflect poorly on the GM.

(Not saying that your GM was a bad GM, just that if he didn't rule AND enforce the rule that kept the warlock player in check that it would look bad for the GM.)

Tyndmyr
2010-08-19, 02:25 PM
In most games I've played, unprovoked aggression usually ends badly for the aggressor. Especially for the squishy, squishy caster who tried to harm the rogue, who is likely standing watch.

Those nights can be terribly dangerous.

Sliver
2010-08-19, 02:52 PM
The warlock thought I was being useless, and so attacked me.

The warlock thought you were useless so decided to hurt the party by not dealing damage to the dangerous opposition and take away party resources (since you will have to be healed) to teach you the importance of helping? :smallamused:

dsmiles
2010-08-19, 06:21 PM
{Scrubbed}

CakeTown
2010-08-19, 07:03 PM
The warlock's player and I didn't get along. He's not known for keeping out of character stuff separate from in character stuff.

We get along better now, so I'm not expecting him to try something like that again. And if he does, I'm sure the DM will put a stop to it.

darkpuppy
2010-08-19, 07:09 PM
Yeah, this sort of thing is why, while I allow PvP for good reason, like dsmiles, I also have a rule that what's out of game stays out of game. Maybe I should edit my DM rules post...

Anyways, I've never seen a call for such hostility being brought into my games, and anyone who does so usually gets kicked out after three strikes. Only ever happened once.

Volos
2010-08-19, 08:08 PM
I had a player get up and walk out of a gaming session due to something out of game. I only mention this because my players had decided that I should resolve the situation, being that I am the DM. I felt as if it was unfair of them to assume I would be the judge of player to player conflict when I am only the person running the game. Here was the situation...

The party face was hosting this particular week, as he usually did. Three out of four games, we played at his house. Everyone seemed to be fine with this, there weren't any complaints or problems. The most powerful player, my druid girl, decides to become offended when the party face puts the dogs outside for barking. This becomes a bigger problem when his folks tell him to put shock collars on the dogs to keep them from barking. We get into a huge debate/fight and all of a sudden we are missing half of the group, because the druid girl walks out and takes home everyone she was giving a ride to. Then I was asked to judicate the situation. Yeah...

Has anyone else had a similiar out of game drama where they were forced into a position to either kick someone out of the game or force everyone to make nice, just because you are the DM?

Ihouji
2010-08-19, 08:48 PM
I've had a guy throw a tantrum, tear up his character sheet and storm out, after I assessed a (fatal) penalty on his Fortitude save against some dust of sneezing and choking because he stuck his nose in the bag and took a deep sniff.

He came back the next week with a new (appallingly broken) character, though.

Off topic: That is generally what I do if I feel slighted by a DM; just go into power gamer mode for 5 minutes, and come back with a horrifyingly broken character. Then proceed to make the DM wish he hadn't killed my character in an unfair way.

On topic: I have had a few players leave my games. Every time it has ether been one of the slowly become a no show a scheduling conflict, or a rules lawyer rage quiting because I play very loose games(mostly to prevent rules abuse).

Fun is the first and only permanent rule of D&D.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-19, 09:52 PM
Off topic: That is generally what I do if I feel slighted by a DM; just go into power gamer mode for 5 minutes, and come back with a horrifyingly broken character. Then proceed to make the DM wish he hadn't killed my character in an unfair way.
That sounds like a good way to stop being invited to games.

Kylarra
2010-08-19, 10:27 PM
{scrubbed}

Fiery Diamond
2010-08-20, 01:41 AM
I had a player get up and walk out of a gaming session due to something out of game. I only mention this because my players had decided that I should resolve the situation, being that I am the DM. I felt as if it was unfair of them to assume I would be the judge of player to player conflict when I am only the person running the game. Here was the situation...

The party face was hosting this particular week, as he usually did. Three out of four games, we played at his house. Everyone seemed to be fine with this, there weren't any complaints or problems. The most powerful player, my druid girl, decides to become offended when the party face puts the dogs outside for barking. This becomes a bigger problem when his folks tell him to put shock collars on the dogs to keep them from barking. We get into a huge debate/fight and all of a sudden we are missing half of the group, because the druid girl walks out and takes home everyone she was giving a ride to. Then I was asked to judicate the situation. Yeah...

Has anyone else had a similiar out of game drama where they were forced into a position to either kick someone out of the game or force everyone to make nice, just because you are the DM?

Not exactly, it wasn't really a drama, just some tension between players. I also wasn't asked to do it, I chose to do it because I knew that otherwise things would blow up.

Now, in your case: while she shouldn't have gotten upset about putting the dogs outside, I find it perfectly understandable that she would up and leave after the shock collar thing. Different people have different ideas of what amounts to animal cruelty, and the parents, while perfectly within their rights, were a little unwise to make that suggestion in front of someone who was already upset about the dog treatment. Personally, I would fault primarily the parents. I'm sorry, but property rights with pets are less important than making sure you don't seriously upset guests.

Ihouji
2010-08-20, 02:25 AM
That sounds like a good way to stop being invited to games.

The DM is a friend of mine who basically hates me DMing because the whole time he tries to break the game and I just don't let him, at that point he usually becomes angry and insists on DMing once we have finished that plot line.

I then make a balanced, fun character that I like and he immediately kills. Then since he is a rules lawyer and always insists on following the rules to the letter I make a broken character to frustrate him until he wants me to DM again.

He still hasn't figured out why I won't let him break my campaigns yet. Its happened like 4 times lol.

huttj509
2010-08-20, 02:39 AM
Not exactly, it wasn't really a drama, just some tension between players. I also wasn't asked to do it, I chose to do it because I knew that otherwise things would blow up.

Now, in your case: while she shouldn't have gotten upset about putting the dogs outside, I find it perfectly understandable that she would up and leave after the shock collar thing. Different people have different ideas of what amounts to animal cruelty, and the parents, while perfectly within their rights, were a little unwise to make that suggestion in front of someone who was already upset about the dog treatment. Personally, I would fault primarily the parents. I'm sorry, but property rights with pets are less important than making sure you don't seriously upset guests.

In addition, I'm guessing there's a reason the player gravitated to a druid...:smallsmile:

I for one can kinda understand the upset player's position in it. I mean, the shock collars are something I'd personally find objectionable, and when it's someone else's pets, and more their parent's pets, you can either shut up and sit there with it bugging you, try to convince the owners otherwise (rough to do in the middle of things, likely to blow out of proportion), or leave. Even rougher choice when you're the ride for multiple people. I dunno, I think I'da had trouble just sucking it up and keeping my trap shut.

Then again, moving the pets outside when they were being noisy, unless for a biological need, would get the folks the stinkeye from me anyway....so many nights kept awake by neighbors' dogs...

W3bDragon
2010-08-20, 04:15 AM
We get into a huge debate/fight and all of a sudden we are missing half of the group, because the druid girl walks out and takes home everyone she was giving a ride to. Then I was asked to judicate the situation. Yeah...

It sounds to me like the situation should have been solved by the host, not by you, the DM. The host should have simply said that she has a right to her opinion, but its his house and she has to respect that. If she doesn't, then she can drop out of the group or make arrangements to play elsewhere. However, ruining everyone's game night by leaving is pretty unfair.

There are times when your position as DM does make you a referee for things that, on a strict interpretation, would be outside your role. I see nothing wrong with that. If you feel that your authority as DM can settle an argument, then you should do it. My old GM was pretty capable in that regard.

For example, an argument between him and a player ends with the player throwing the character sheet in his face and walking out, only for him to sort it out with the player a few minutes later and the game continues like normal. He often settled arguments between players as well, especially when it was about the more aggressive players picking on the quieter, meeker players.

Is it the DM's job to do these things? No, but he's in a great position to do these things, and a considerate DM should mediate these things when he can.

panaikhan
2010-08-20, 08:08 AM
I can remember a campaign where I would have walked away, had it continued.
I was playing a thief 4 /psionicist 3 (2e), who was a lay-follower of one of the 'dead' gods (Cerull I think? it's been a long time)
Anyway, we were in Ravenloft, and the party find some strange alter venerated to an evil god (nobody could recognize it).
As the party thief, I go over to check it out - only to get a folded message from the GM stating "The alter is to Cerull. He asks you if you will follow him"
I reply with "I already do".
Next message: "Will you follow - yes or no"
I answer "Yes", and am promptly rewarded with an alignment change (which nerfs my psionicist levels) and 1 level of Cleric. Sinse my race did not allow Cleric / thieves, I was a first level Cleric.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-20, 09:14 AM
The DM is a friend of mine who basically hates me DMing because the whole time he tries to break the game and I just don't let him, at that point he usually becomes angry and insists on DMing once we have finished that plot line.

I then make a balanced, fun character that I like and he immediately kills. Then since he is a rules lawyer and always insists on following the rules to the letter I make a broken character to frustrate him until he wants me to DM again.

He still hasn't figured out why I won't let him break my campaigns yet. Its happened like 4 times lol.
I think this might be the definition of a vicious cycle.

How about you stop DMing for your friend, and you stop playing in the game your friend DMs? That way neither of you have to deal with a frustrated player in your games.

If you two still want to game together, get a third person to DM and both of you be players. If there is no third DM, then how about y'all do something less anger-provoking with your time. As it is, I don't see how anyone is having any fun at all.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-20, 09:53 AM
Yeah, this sort of thing is why, while I allow PvP for good reason, like dsmiles, I also have a rule that what's out of game stays out of game. Maybe I should edit my DM rules post...

Yeah. Same. PvP is awesome, but in game combat is for in game reasons. What happens out of game is entirely seperate. Apparently, though, not everyone thinks that way.

Not terribly long ago, I was playing with my GF. Through the stupidity of a third player, all of us ended up inside a large, dark, locked box. As the only human(and non-elf) there, she complained bitterly about the situation as we peered through the crack, and I expressed condolances over her misfortunate to not be born as one of the superior elven race. This swiftly escalated to her sneak attacking me, and everyone else assumed that for some reason, we were mad at each other out of game. Nope, just adding some conflict to a tense situation, and roleplaying two characters that were both a bit poor at wisdom and charisma, as well as related social skills.

PvP is awesome, when used as a means to complicate and deepen the story. Not so awesome, when used to try and "get back" at someone for real world stuff.

FelixG
2010-08-20, 10:04 AM
I had a player rage quit one of my games once the situation is as follows (twas an online game)

My game started in Sharn, i made it perfectly clear to my players it was open PVP as long as there was an in character reason, a sandbox game with no railroading, the players could do as they liked.

A new player joined up when the other party rogue had RL issues to take care of, he decided to introduce himself to the party by stealing a plot device out from under their noses after they completed a quest to get it. He left a calling card where to find him.

The two other party members, a male warforged fighter and a cleric female come in to the tavern he is working out of and proceeds to try to get the item off of him, he proceeds to insult the warforged whenever the warforged player pipes up with a comment or point. The warforged player sends a message to me saying with the next insult was going to get the rogue pummeled with a war hammer. So the warforged looks to the cleric and says to her that they could work this out without the rogues help.

The rogue speaks up and says "shut up you over grown spittoon, REAL people are talking" then spits on the warforged's face, at which point i let the warforged's action activate, he rolls in the room and damn near kills the rogue, who at that point flips out that he didn't get any warning or anything before the player attacked him and demanded that I the GM make him stop.

I reminded him it was an open PvP game and the warforged had more than a good reason to teach the rogue a lesson, especially after having his face spit on and implied that he wasn't a real person. The rogue complained that it was BS and that he wasn't being allowed to play his character and rage quit

WarKitty
2010-08-20, 10:08 AM
I had a player rage quit one of my games once the situation is as follows (twas an online game)

My game started in Sharn, i made it perfectly clear to my players it was open PVP as long as there was an in character reason, a sandbox game with no railroading, the players could do as they liked.

A new player joined up when the other party rogue had RL issues to take care of, he decided to introduce himself to the party by stealing a plot device out from under their noses after they completed a quest to get it. He left a calling card where to find him.

The two other party members, a male warforged fighter and a cleric female come in to the tavern he is working out of and proceeds to try to get the item off of him, he proceeds to insult the warforged whenever the warforged player pipes up with a comment or point. The warforged player sends a message to me saying with the next insult was going to get the rogue pummeled with a war hammer. So the warforged looks to the cleric and says to her that they could work this out without the rogues help.

The rogue speaks up and says "shut up you over grown spittoon, REAL people are talking" then spits on the warforged's face, at which point i let the warforged's action activate, he rolls in the room and damn near kills the rogue, who at that point flips out that he didn't get any warning or anything before the player attacked him and demanded that I the GM make him stop.

I reminded him it was an open PvP game and the warforged had more than a good reason to teach the rogue a lesson, especially after having his face spit on and implied that he wasn't a real person. The rogue complained that it was BS and that he wasn't being allowed to play his character and rage quit

This is why I make rules that you have to play characters nice enough to get along with the whole party.

Techsmart
2010-08-20, 10:09 AM
I have had players leave a campaign before. In my last campaign, one player showed up, but was very inactive. Usually it was "I follow them", "I do what they do"... eventually I considered telling him he jumped off a cliff and died because he followed them; However, I ended up switching campaigns before then anyways. I ended up keeping the 4 players that did participate well in the game. The one that did not do much just kind of drifted off, and another person had decided to take a promotion that left his schedule against my campaign.
I have considered walking away from a campaign I am in right now. The DM has a tendency to put us in fights over our heads (CR6 encounter against a 3-man squishy party that already took constitution damage. This same con damage was what left us without a tank), and then fail to give us adequate information about our surroundings until after we had died that could have at least allowed one of us to survive and bring enough guys to kill it. He also has a tendency to make us go around in circles without even giving us much roleplay from it all (I.E. We started in a bar, got sent to the adventurer's guild[which apparently knew nothing about adventurer's dying], then were sent to the town hall, and eventually to a random house in the middle of nowhere when we finally learned about a job we could take. Took over an hour to get there, and we barely even did any roleplay or anything).

MlleRouge
2010-08-20, 10:18 AM
Oh boy. Long post alert.


We had a campaign about a year ago that resulted in not one, but two players walking away. It was basically a module that was run just about as poorly as a module can possibly be run. The DM read all of the narration straight from the book, but then had a hard time filling in with anything of his own when the book didn't have a block of text to satisfy whatever current situation had arisen. He injected his own characters as mary sue NPCs, cared nothing for our character's motivations and interests (basically railroad city, even for a module), and the combats were all *extremely* low CR compared to the party level. We one shot everything without trying and took single digit damage (when we even got hit) from every single attack.

The first cleric's player got so bored that he stopped role playing. The other cleric got so frustrated at his character getting no decent role play from the bland mary sue NPCs that he just stopped coming...and another player PvPing him out of boredom and invented character conflict (the characters had no reason not to get along, but the players didn't really like each other's characters OOC, so they made up reasons to alleviate boredom), and eventually the guy who attacked the cleric started attending sporadically and by the end just wasn't paying any attention at all.

At first, a couple of us did try to tell the DM that we weren't having fun. It was pretty much the worst game ever. But he didn't really listen to anything we had to say, so it got to the point that we were either going to have to be harsh (which he would have taken as rudeness) or just try to suffer through it. I specifically remember asking him to dial up the difficulty on the encounters, which he responded to by doubling the number of 15 HP baddies from 5-6 to 10-12. When I mentioned that increasing the number didn't help much, they started focusing me every session, I guess to make it harder for me. I stopped trying after that.

When it was obvious that he wasn't listening to us (to be fair, not EVERYONE said anything to him. A couple of us did, but a couple just told him 'yeah, it was fun...' and complained afterwards...), some of us just started trying to find our own fun. We would take interest in NPCs or situations and try to seek out something we felt motivated to do, but he would always railroad us away. Perhaps the most disappointing was one evening when we had a generic 'sitting in the taven planning out the next mission' scene and we wound up having a lot of fun. The IC conversation became lively and everyone was laughing and having a good time (IC and OCC), and the DM stood there tapping his foot and coughing, annoyed because we were jeering with the barkeep and making jokes about the local town government instead of paying attention to his plot.

In short, there were probably some things that the players could have done to be more helpful, but it was still a terrible game and the DM ignored all constructive criticism that WAS offered, so he wound up having one and a half players walk away.

oxybe
2010-08-20, 10:23 AM
while i wasn't the GM i was there to see the most epic "ragequit" ever.

the guy who GMed this game was... bad. he had a sense of humor that was... unique and wasn't one to

the warning signs started when he described the airships as "airships powered by fire elemental farts", which he couldn't say without giggling like a schoolgirl at the word"titmouse", and only got worse when he was describing airship to airship combat as "cannonballs... BOUNCING off each other" expecting us to be amazed and repeated this several times, while we (the players) were making little to no impact on in-game events. we stood and watched on deck as stuff happened around us.

things kept going from bad to worse as he kept added his own unique brand of humor to what was supposed to be a climactic "2 airships fight above a city" and when none of the players were responding to it, he added more.

when the enemy airship finally went down (and he was describing this happening pretty close to the city's center) the enemy airship somehow managed to glide past the city limits and crash, all while having the structual stability of a broken, flying titanic. and to top it off, no collateral damage at all from all the missed cannonballs to city below.

at this point another player had had enough of the game. he got up, gave a cold & incredulous look (as though he could not fathom the events that just happened) at the GM, ripped is character sheet in twain, flung both parts at the GM then up and left. me and the other guy just sat there holding back our laughter, thanked the gm for the unique session and left.

FelixG
2010-08-20, 10:27 AM
while i wasn't the GM i was there to see the most epic "ragequit" ever.

-snipd-



Sounds like you inherited one of the worst GMs i ever played with 0.o

Guy had great ideas, but could never run the games properly without bombing badly, but il save that story for...another page!

SSGoW
2010-08-20, 10:48 AM
I had one that walked away during the boss fight! :D

In the 4e game the PC's were all level 30 and the player that walked away was a Sorcerer. During the fight the boss who was level 32 solo or brute with tons of minions and even had a huge city trap thingie that was awakening a terrasque (sp). Well after all the minions were defeated the boss was weakened and the city trap disabled, the boss hit the sorcerer with a daily attack power and with average damage dropped the sorcerer to -1 hp. The player got up slammed his stuff down and briskly walked out in a huff as he slammed the door... He said (at the time or later.. its been a while) that there was no point in continuing since he had lost.

A few interesting facts...

1) there was a level 30 NPC cleric (non violent type) that had yet to use any heling due to not being instructed by the PC's to heal (psuedo npc.. pc's actually controlled him like a merchant or summon lol). One of his powers heals you completely... The cleric walked 3 squres over to him and used said power the next round.

2) He had some power that would have given him 1/2 hp back the first time he is knocked unconcious... He stormed out before he used it >.>

3) The boss had like 30 hp left so the fight was over in a couple more rounds -_-;;;;

For a split second I thought I done something wrong... ha!

JonRG
2010-08-20, 11:39 AM
Saw someone get asked to leave a longrunning game as well. This was a case of the player making everyone have a worse time. He would complain, argue rules, argue situations where everyone, including the DM, was explaining why what he was doing wouldn't work, refused to do -anything- that wasn't specifically what he built himself for, regardless of how bad his build was in the situation (holding a bottleneck isn't a good place for a scout/dervish character), and yet still managed to take up large amounts of time deciding what to do once his turn came up. Never really contributed, either mechanically or in RP, yet claimed he was extremely effective. He obviously didn't want to be in the game (and said as such). In fact, his only reason for staying in the game was "Because otherwise I wouldn't be in a game". So he was asked to leave. Suprisingly, he didn't make a big fuss about it.

:roy: "It's like I'm watching my life, but from the outside."

Seriously, this is basically my story of the one baaaad player who eventually got wind that several people *desperately* wanted him to leave.

Name_Here
2010-08-20, 11:58 AM
I ran a D+D 3.5 game in college had a few people drop out over the course of it for reasons like schoolwork and the like never any drama with them just a "Okay you're always welcome back if things change."

Out of college I've run a couple games through a meetup group. Those have had a constant turnover with people who were regular for multiple sessions falling off the face of the planet. Had one person come and formally break up with the group due to her joining another RPG group that was closer to her house which I thought was a incredibly classy move since we didn't have to wonder "you think she's going to show up today?"

I've always made it a point to ask what people liked about the session and what they didn't like in the hopes of better tailoring my campaign to the players. Unfortunately very few people say "X was awesome" or even "Y was absolutely terrible I have no idea where you got that idea" so most of the time it's "The game was fun" which always feels like insult by faint praise.

WarKitty
2010-08-20, 12:29 PM
I got to say, as a player one of the hardest things to say is "Sorry about the ragequit, I've been going through some hard times in real life and I let it get into the game."

Elemist13
2010-08-20, 03:19 PM
I recently just finished a campaign which i was running with my four roommates and a fellow that had kinda shown up one day and ended up playing by rolling up a character without my knowledge, sitting down at the table and announcing that he walks up to the pc's and joins the party. At this point I agree to let him play due to the fact that I always try to have an enjoyable campaign and if someone really wants to play I let them if its alright with the rest of the party.

Over the following few months his Bard becomes the most annoying person in town, to both the PC's and with my NPC's. Due to this fact that rest of the party every once in a while plays tricks on him due to the heavy amount of tricks he pulls on the rest of the party and the amount of trouble that he gets them into. These tricks would usually only minorly inconvenience him unlike getting the rest of the party arrested like his usually involved. However whenever he found out what was happening he would get up from the table and threaten to quit if the tricked didnt immediately end.

This would also happen whenever a NPC would do something that would put him in eminent danger. Some of the classic examples was the cleric they were facing shattering his non magical bow or when the enchanter cast a dominate person spell to force him to stop attacking the wizard.

Needless to say, the rest of the party has agreed to not let him know about the new campaign that I am starting

CrazedMalarite
2010-08-20, 06:57 PM
I've left two games.

In the first, party size was an issue. We started with a rather large group, and then the DM apparently couldn't turn down any one else who asked to play. When there get to be at least 10 people, it really cuts down on my enjoyment for a variety of reasons. So when I was forced to miss a few games in close proximity, and it looked like my attendance would be somewhat shaky for the foreseeable future, and thus I decided it was unfair to them if I continued as a member, I wasn't terribly upset.

The second time it was simply group dynamics. There were two players I found terribly annoying. And about half the group was the 'core' group, who played in multiple campaigns together, always hung out, etc. This led to the GM favoring them, especially since the group had again grown a bit unwieldy due to the GM not turning people down. The favoritism was a huge problem because it was Mage, and as such power was very subjective. Almost every time I used magic it was considered vulgar even if I had a good explanation prepared, whereas the core group could make it coincidental with even the flimsiest of pretenses - sometimes even provided by the GM. Yes, this even included when my magic was the same as theirs but to a lesser degree. And of course, I couldn't even ATTEMPT most uses of magic because whether or not I had enough ranks in a school of magic to do something was, again, subjective.

dsmiles
2010-08-20, 07:09 PM
If there is no third DM, then how about y'all do something less anger-provoking with your time.

From the sounds of it, even playing Illuminati would be less anger provoking. :smallbiggrin:

El Dorado
2010-08-20, 07:45 PM
I've left a couple of games. The first was because I didn't gel with the other players (not the DM's fault). The second was because the I thought the group was too large and the game sessions were particularly short (stoopid RL concerns). Sometimes people just don't click; it's not anyone's fault.

Ihouji
2010-08-20, 07:45 PM
From the sounds of it, even playing Illuminati would be less anger provoking. :smallbiggrin:

I have actually never been angry about it.

It doesn't bother me in the slightest; its just everyone else would rather I DMed. I'm not going to ask him to leave as he has been a friend of mine for years. He will eventually get used to my style of DMing (the style the other 4 players like) or leave of his own accord.

Tyndmyr
2010-08-20, 07:49 PM
I've left two games.

In the first, party size was an issue. We started with a rather large group, and then the DM apparently couldn't turn down any one else who asked to play. When there get to be at least 10 people, it really cuts down on my enjoyment for a variety of reasons.

I would agree with this. Some systems work well with lots of players. D&D is not one of them. I literally get bored between combat rounds. And if I get stunned or something, I might as well bust out the laptop. It'll be a while before anything happens. Plus, coordination is hard.

I would rather have ten PCs controlled by four players than ten PCs controlled by ten players, too. Much, much faster for some reason.