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agentnone
2010-12-07, 11:13 PM
Hey all, the title pretty much says what I'm looking for. Here's what happened:

Myself and a friend co-DM a 3.5 D&D group. Dave (my friend) started a new campaign about a month ago. Level 1 characters, core books only, random starting class, no multi-class until level 5. Anyway, we had a player roll a rogue. He's played them many times before and bragged about how awesome he was at it. Anyway, he had full creative reign to make the character however he wanted within the restrictions of core books only. We had just hit level 2 at the beginning of our last session. Halfway through the session he had his character commit suicide because the player didn't want to play him anymore. He even said he intentionally killed it for that specific purpose. This angered the group due to it being an easy way out to make a new character considering we all rolled a class we didn't want to play, but we're all making the best of it and having fun. The DM took this as an insult, and the group gave him hell for about an hour. Now Dave is looking for some way to punish the player using in game mechanics. He already made a new character at level 2, so he's already 200 xp behind the party. I suggested to Dave he take a 10% xp penalty until level 3. Considering we're a moderate to heavy roleplay group, he had his character choose to dive into water with no guaranteed exit as opposed to run out of the room and climb a 30 foot ladder to safety. He could have easily asked the DM to retire the character instead of pulling a move like he did. Not to mention he made the character how he wanted to so it's his own fault he didn't like it. Anyway, just looking for some suggestions on how to punish him for his actions in a group where he was told doing that wouldn't be tolerated. Thanks.

Mystic Muse
2010-12-07, 11:15 PM
If it's not going to be tolerated, don't tolerate it. Usually this means kicking the player out but it could mean something different for each group.

Reynard
2010-12-07, 11:18 PM
Ehhh... I'd either just kick him out of the group, or just give him another chance. Make him roll for his class again, of course, as that's what everyone else had to do.

Also, make the family of the dead rogue come back to demand to know what happened to their kid. : P

agentnone
2010-12-07, 11:19 PM
I had thought about talking to Dave about kicking him but the problem is if he leaves so will another player and it's not fair to the one that didn't do anything wrong.

agentnone
2010-12-07, 11:21 PM
Ehhh... I'd either just kick him out of the group, or just give him another chance. Make him roll for his class again, of course, as that's what everyone else had to do.

Also, make the family of the dead rogue come back to demand to know what happened to their kid. : P

Well he already made a new character. Problem with the family part is no one else in the party was around when he did it, so we as an adventuring group don't know what happened to him.

Mystic Muse
2010-12-07, 11:25 PM
I had thought about talking to Dave about kicking him but the problem is if he leaves so will another player and it's not fair to the one that didn't do anything wrong.

If the other player chooses to leave because another player does, it isn't your fault. It's totally fair to kick out a bad player and have another player leave too because it's still his choice. If he has to leave because another player does then that's another matter entirely and should of course factor in.

Reynard
2010-12-07, 11:25 PM
I had thought about talking to Dave about kicking him but the problem is if he leaves so will another player and it's not fair to the one that didn't do anything wrong.

Why does the other person have to leave if the problem player does?

EDIT:
Well he already made a new character. Problem with the family part is no one else in the party was around when he did it, so we as an adventuring group don't know what happened to him.

So? That's just going to make them more persistent, and if you've got nobody capable of an accurate explanation, and he didn't leave a suicide note... it can become a plot point. Maybe he was murdered by a gang who didn't want the competition?

Chilingsworth
2010-12-07, 11:26 PM
Personally, I think stealing the choice of character class from players is sketchy, myself. But, the method my dm uses for this sort of thing is to dock the player's new character a level. Since this player already has a new character, you could still hold him back a level when the party next levels up, I guess.

Mystic Muse
2010-12-07, 11:28 PM
Why does the other person have to leave if the problem player does?


It could be that the problem player is the other player's ride or that the other player requires the problem player in some way to get to the gaming session.

agentnone
2010-12-07, 11:35 PM
Why does the other person have to leave if the problem player does?

The problem player is the other ones ride. They live like an hour drive from where we game, so kicking the problem player will end up kicking the one that didn't do anything. Me and Dave are using this as a first offense for him and a warning for everyone else.

Not making him level when we do did cross my mind, but the DM does xp according CR and who all is at the session so we level at different times anyway. Not a huge difference but enough. Me and another player were level 2 for a whole session before the rest caught up. We just want something to use as a teaching tool to not intentionally kill off a character like he did. I guess we could always tell him that if it happens again he's kicked. The other player will then be hard pressed to make sure he follows through lol

And we did random starting class because Dave wanted to do something different. Plus it was the players' decision to do it, not his. He just decided the random die results.

Safety Sword
2010-12-07, 11:38 PM
Personally, I think your issues started when you didn't let people play the characters they wanted to play.

If your whole group has characters they don't want to play, it's not going to be all that fun for them.

Now trying to look for a way to punish the players because he "opted out" when he wasn't playing a character he wanted seems rather spiteful to me.

agentnone
2010-12-07, 11:42 PM
Personally, I think your issues started when you didn't let people play the characters they wanted to play.

If your whole group has characters they don't want to play, it's not going to be all that fun for them.

Now trying to look for a way to punish the players because he "opted out" when he wasn't playing a character he wanted seems rather spiteful to me.

As I had just said in my previous post, it was the players came up with the idea to randomly roll for starting class. I was at work when this happened, so I didn't even get to voice my concern, but I sucked it up and went along with it. He knew what could potentially happen when he agreed to do that like everyone else did. Guess I should have mentioned that the players decided to roll random for starting class instead of the DM. He just regulated it. lol

Ignatius
2010-12-07, 11:45 PM
Someone on this board once suggested upping the 'to hit' value for players that cheat...

So every time a player kills off their own character, add +2 to all monster defense stats on that player's turn only to make it harder for the new character to hit...

Mystic Muse
2010-12-07, 11:47 PM
Someone on this board once suggested upping the 'to hit' value for players that cheat...

So every time a player kills off their own character, add +2 to all monster defense stats on that player's turn only to make it harder for the new character to hit...

Bad idea. If players ever roll the same result in a session, they'll know the DM is handicapping the player, and it won't look good on the DM.

agentnone
2010-12-07, 11:48 PM
Someone on this board once suggested upping the 'to hit' value for players that cheat...

So every time a player kills off their own character, add +2 to all monster defense stats on that player's turn only to make it harder for the new character to hit...

I like that. How long does it last though? The whole campaign? Until his character dies due to a failed save?

Chilingsworth
2010-12-07, 11:51 PM
Someone on this board once suggested upping the 'to hit' value for players that cheat...

So every time a player kills off their own character, add +2 to all monster defense stats on that player's turn only to make it harder for the new character to hit...

Even assuming this is done openly, it'd still seems like too much work to be worth it. A proper player punishment, imo, should make a minimum of extra work for the dm. Wait... here's an idea, borrowed from a Nodwick comic I vaugely remember: laminate his character sheet, and make the character practically immortal, then force the player to keep that character for all eternity! bahahaha!! :smallbiggrin:

Mystic Muse
2010-12-07, 11:52 PM
I like that. How long does it last though? The whole campaign? Until his character dies due to a failed save?

I think that, maybe instead of making it look like you're tolerating the player, but secretly handicapping him you should tell him that this is a problem, he needs to stop and that if he doesn't, he's gone.

Ignatius
2010-12-07, 11:53 PM
Bad idea. If players ever roll the same result in a session, they'll know the DM is handicapping the player, and it won't look good on the DM.

I think the whole point with this thread is to make sure that the player's know what the result of killing off your character is.

That way they can trade off rolling up a new character with the potential embarrasment of falling 1 short of actually hitting something.

In terms of how long it lasts:


For ever
For 1 level
For 1 session
Whenever the DM remembers
Any other option?

agentnone
2010-12-07, 11:55 PM
I think that, maybe instead of making it look like you're tolerating the player, but secretly handicapping him you should tell him that this is a problem, he needs to stop and that if he doesn't, he's gone.

I like that too. Its easy to remember and no work on the DM. I guess if it happens again then the other player will have to look for alternate transportation lol

Ignatius
2010-12-08, 12:02 AM
If there is nothing secret about this method - in that both the players and the DM know that this penalty applies and that sure you could roll up a new character, but its probably not going to have a way bigger to hit value to offset the +2 extra defense score, then I don't see this as tolerating the player.

Making it harder for a player to hit, coupled with the automatic XP loss for rolling up a new character and starting at the base XP for that level would be enough of a turn-off to me to kill my own character. Running headlong into a battle and making myself easier to be killed however, would be a different story!

I guess it comes down to this. Do you want to keep the players you have, keep the same number of players (but not necessarily the same people) or kick someone out cause he didn't keep this one rule, or compromise so that he knows you are all unhappy with his actions, but want to keep the campaign rolling.

Mystic Muse
2010-12-08, 12:03 AM
I think the whole point with this thread is to make sure that the player's know what the result of killing off your character is.


To me, this specific solution doesn't deal with the problem. If the thing in question isn't to be tolerated, don't allow it period.

I'm all for second chances and have them in my campaigns, but it sounds like the player got his second chance.

Vladislav
2010-12-08, 12:07 AM
Is there a particular reason why the new character can't start from level 1? If he complains, tell him that starting from level 1 is the natural state for the entire rest of mankind.

agentnone
2010-12-08, 12:12 AM
Is there a particular reason why the new character can't start from level 1? If he complains, tell him that starting from level 1 is the natural state for the entire rest of mankind.

He had already made his character at just enough xp to be level 2 and played it so its a little late to take that level away now.

I think what we'll just do is use him as an example and tell everyone that it won't be tolerated. It happens again, then we'll kick him. Thanks guys (and gals?).

Stormageddon
2010-12-08, 01:43 AM
I actaully did what you're player did in your game last game I played. Although I had the choice of character class to play and my DM was fine with it as he didn't like my character either. Here's the thing, you could have continued to have him play the character and have him lose interest in the game stop coming and lose two players. And now you can punish him have him lose interest and stop coming resulting in the same two players gone. Or you could have a talk with him tell him that you found his actions to be bad roleplaying and to not do it again and move on having fun with the game. Is he always a problem or is this the first offense?

Roderick_BR
2010-12-08, 01:46 AM
Ehhh... I'd either just kick him out of the group, or just give him another chance. Make him roll for his class again, of course, as that's what everyone else had to do.

Also, make the family of the dead rogue come back to demand to know what happened to their kid. : P
It would bother the rest of the group, not the guy that "just arrived" after the old one died.

I think that starting up behind in XP is enough. Forcing him to reroll the class would be good too, to invalidate a bit his dirty trick. Or force him to make another rogue. You could even justify that the group is willing to only hire a new rogue.

Callista
2010-12-08, 02:23 AM
If you handicap the PC, you will handicap the entire team. They need the PC to pull his own weight.

He's already starting a level behind. That's enough. Talk to the guy about not doing this again, and talk to the other DM about opening the option to re-train their PCs.

Vizzerdrix
2010-12-08, 02:26 AM
This angered the group due to it being an easy way out to make a new character considering we all rolled a class we didn't want to play,

Yeah I'm willing to bet he wasn't the only one that wanted out of his character, and several players wish they thought of this first. I honestly can't fathom why anyone would agree to play a character they don't want to play in the first place, and seeing as the whole group feels this way, why continue? Why punish someone for wanting to play something other that the class they had to take? Punishing a player for wanting to play something they want to play? In a Game that is designed for fun? That's backwards.

Dexam
2010-12-08, 03:13 AM
Reading this, I'm reminded of an experience of mine in player punishment. It was back from the early days of D&D 3.0, and I was playing in a low-level campaign. One player had a particularly high character turnover rate, usually due to doing stupid things, and would tend to replace old characters with practically identical new characters - usually a friend or relative of the deceased previous PC, so the new PC could come in bearing a grudge against whatever had caused the death of the previous character.

So, it comes time again for the player to yet again roll up a new character, and this time he surprises us all: "I want to play a half-celestial half-orc." The DM thinks about this over a meal break, consults with the other players, gets constantly pestered by the player, and eventually acquiesces with the following condition: "Okay... but your alignment has to be Lawful Good." The player grumbles a lot at this, mostly due to the fact that his previous characters have all been Chaotic Stupid barbarians or fighters, but eventually agrees to the condition. Lo and behold, the party is joined by a LG half-celestial half-orc fighter, and we continue our current mission of attempting to cleanse a Dwarven outpost of a nasty Orc infestation.

After playing this character for less than one hour comes the fateful announcement from the player: "You know what? Lawful Good blows! I want to play a new character." Myself and some of the other players exchange looks - we knew this was coming, we just didn't expect it quite so quickly. The DM responds: "Too bad. You wanted to play this character so badly, you're going to have to just keep on playing him."

Once again, like some kind of telepathic communication or hive mind, without a word being spoken, a number of us know what he's planning next, and what we have to do to teach this player a lesson. Sure enough, the player then attempts Suicide by Orc, charging recklessly into combat in every attempt to get the character killed. The other players spring into action, doing everything in their power to keep this character alive at all costs. It was one of the more hilarious sessions we had, as the other characters poured every healing spell and potion they had into trying to keep this character upright, literally diving in front of Orc axes to prevent injury to the half-celestial when the healing ran out; all the while the player pleading with us to just let his character die so he could create a new one. Seriously, I had never seen better teamwork from our characters until that point.

Despite our best efforts, eventually the half-celestial falls into negative HPs. However, we manage to stabilise the character - and so begins an even worse punishment for the player. After stashing the unconscious character in a safe location (and one of the more devious PC's secretly relieving him of his weapons "for his own safety"), the rest of the players continue the mission, forcing the player to sit there and watch the rest of us enjoy playing while he could do nothing. After a couple of hours of this, he's outright begging the DM to let him create a new character. The DM stands her ground, flatly refusing on the grounds that his current character is still alive and therefore still playable - he just happens to be unconscious at the moment. The frustration of the player is palpable, and the rest of us are enjoying this immensely.

The situation finally resolves itself when the character eventually regains consciousness and proceeds to fly to the nearest habitat - an Elven city - where the player then forces the DM's hand by rudely disrupting a royal ceremony. Fed up and knowing that this kind of behaviour won't stop, the half-celestial half-orc is promptly Fireballed, arrested, thrown into prison for a looong time, and the DM finally allows the player to create a new character.

The player then proceeds to roll up a Chaotic Stupid Half-Orc Barbarian with a grudge against the Elven royal family... :smallsigh:

Tytalus
2010-12-08, 05:19 AM
Is there a particular reason why the new character can't start from level 1? If he complains, tell him that starting from level 1 is the natural state for the entire rest of mankind.

This. Having to start a new character at (party level) -X is a pretty good deterrent.

icefractal
2010-12-08, 05:25 AM
As I had just said in my previous post, it was the players came up with the idea to randomly roll for starting class. I was at work when this happened, so I didn't even get to voice my concern, but I sucked it up and went along with it. He knew what could potentially happen when he agreed to do that like everyone else did. Guess I should have mentioned that the players decided to roll random for starting class instead of the DM. He just regulated it. lolThis player's idea, or a vote taken by the group? Seems quite possible that he wasn't actually for it, but would rather play this than nothing. Also, there are other reasons besides "random class" that a player might want to switch characters - sometimes you just realize that the choices you've made and the way you've been playing have led to a character you're not interested in playing any longer.

At that point, what exactly is served by making someone play a character they don't want to? Sure, they could request to retire the character. Maybe that would be better. Or maybe ...
* You'd then be here asking "Should we let this player retire a character? Maybe we should institute some kind of punishment."
* Events in the game would make it impractical to retire the character for quite a number of sessions.
* There's really no IC reason for the character to retire, and "suicide by risky maneuver" makes no less sense, and at least gets it done with quickly.

IC consistency isn't everything. You know what would be an alternate method to get rid of a character? Start playing them in a really annoying manner - stealing from other characters, always starting trouble, playing potentially fatal pranks, and so forth. Very IC - you're not forcing anything, the rest of the group is forcing it by killing/banishing you. But do you really want that?

Jornophelanthas
2010-12-08, 07:29 AM
He had already made his character at just enough xp to be level 2 and played it so its a little late to take that level away now.

I think what we'll just do is use him as an example and tell everyone that it won't be tolerated. It happens again, then we'll kick him. Thanks guys (and gals?).

So either the DM takes that level away from him retroactively, or shouldn't award the first 1,000 XP that he earns (which will put him behind in XP as if he started out at level 1).

I would favour the latter, explaining openly that he should be penalized in this way for disrupting the game like he did. (What matters is not that he killed his character, but that everyone else at the table took offense, and that he still went through with it.)

Edit:
Also, have the DM communicate clearly to the group that anyone with a character who dies starts out at 1 level below the rest. Make it a houserule, so that the player does not feel picked on. If you feel like it, give the DM fiat to suspend the penalty if the character died in a suitably heroic way.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-12-08, 10:30 AM
For the love of God...

Don't use in-game mechanics to "fix" problems with players

This never ends well. Just go to the Player, ask him why he killed off his character, and talk to him about his problems and resolve it out-of-game! Not only is it the mature thing to do, but explicitly mixing in-game and out-of-game elements like this can taint a game with people feeling like they're being persecuted within the hobby they enjoy. That's bad all around.

Specific Advice
Here, it sounds like the Player didn't like the idea of Random Classes. Fine. Tell him "We're playing a game with random classes. If you're not happy with that, then you shouldn't play the game." Then the DM either retconns the death or the Player leaves the game.

Of course, that seems like water under the bridge now. Here, just treat the character death like you would any other character death and have the DM tell the table that this sort of stuff won't be tolerated again in the future.

DwarfFighter
2010-12-08, 11:12 AM
How about rewarding the players that stick with their original random character? There are lots of options:


A +10% xp bonus per session.
A re-roll once per session.
Max hp. on the Hit die each time you level up.

Tie the bonus to the original character and that's an incentive to stick with it. Also, players that lose/swap characters can gain the bonus if they stick with their new character for a couple of levels.

-DF

valadil
2010-12-08, 11:14 AM
I wouldn't play in a group that punishes players like that. Tell him he handled the situation poorly and that he could have just asked for a new character. Reacting to his childishness with drama isn't going to fix anything.

Vladislav
2010-12-08, 11:18 AM
To play obligatory devil's advocate to valadil, I wouldn't play in a group that even has players who act like that.

Comet
2010-12-08, 11:54 AM
Don't use in-game mechanics to "fix" problems with players


I was going to post this, but then I noticed that someone had already posted this so I instead decided to quote this. This is good advice, this.

Talk to the players, tell them that "Dude, next time you're tired of a character just tell me. We'll get rid of that character quick and easy and then you can play something more fun. Sound good?"

Turning everything into mechanics and game rules is unnecessary if you have, to put it bluntly, basic social skills. D&D is not Monopoly.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-12-08, 11:55 AM
To play obligatory devil's advocate to valadil, I wouldn't play in a group that even has players who act like that.
Meh, one bad apple does not spoil the lot. Particularly with less cohesive groups this sort of situation can crop up when different play styles rub up against each other.

This is why I advocate Oracle Hunter's 3 Step Guide to Problem Player Resolution:

(1) Identify the Problem
It's easy to tell when there is a problem in game but it is much harder to identify exactly what the problem is. Before doing anything else, step back and try to figure out specifically what is going wrong. The best way to do this is to poll your players - ask them if there's anything they'd like to change about the campaign or if they have any problems. This doesn't always work, but sometimes your players will be candid enough to tell you what's bothering them.

(2) Talk to the Problem Player
If you figure out that a particular either has a problem with the game or is the problem with the game (sometimes both!) you need to talk to the Player to see if you can work something out. Most Player problems can be fixed with simple tweaks to the setting: more of a particular style of gameplay, less of a different kind of gameplay, or something similar.

(3) If you Can't Fix the Problem, Ask Them to Leave
Sometimes, you can't fix the problem with a Player. You can ask them to suck it up but, to be honest, if they could do that they would have done it already instead of becoming a Problem Player. In these situations it's best to get the Problem Player out of the game ASAP: they're not having fun in your game and soon you won't be having fun either. The following statement is a good template for breaking the news to them

"I hear your concerns with the game but I'm afraid I won't be able to accomodate your requests. If this isn't really a big deal for you I hope you can adapt your play-style to be less disruptive to the game. Still, I fully understand if you'd prefer to drop out - the game isn't fun for you, and there's no reason for you to keep playing a game you don't enjoy."

You can also offer to invite them to a game in the future in which their play-style would be appropriate - but this is strictly optional.

EDIT: A nota bene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nota_bene) for the above.

Sometimes you will have a Problem Player who is also essential to the campaign. Perhaps the Problem Player is the S.O. of another Player you really want in the game; or perhaps the Problem Player provides food or transportation. In these cases you need to weigh whether you're willing to accomodate the Problem Player at the expense of the quality of your campaign.

This is a hard decision, but it does come up and "kicking the Problem Player" is not always the right answer. If the Problem Player is providing something sufficiently valuable to the campaign that the issues they produce are dwarfed then you may need to change the game to have it at all. Again, asking the Problem Player to change is going to be tricky at best and is almost always unproductive - few people are willing (or able) to change so easily.

oxybe
2010-12-08, 12:17 PM
i'm kinda amazed and partially appalled that it took over 1 page for someone to mention "don't use in-game penalties to fix out-of-game problems".

i don't see how making the guy's experience crappier would make him want to continue playing, especially since he offed his character because he wasn't having fun with that PC.

i do tech support and one thing we're thought to do in training is to fix the customer before you fix the problem, should you have a problematic customer.

sometimes there isn't any real "problem" other then the customer expecting X and getting Y (either due to a PEBKAC/ID10-t issue, or the customer was misinformed) or is just really frustrated with the experience.

this usually means sitting down with the customer and empathizing with them. get under the surface and actually understand what their issue is. this way you can start seeing eye to eye and come to a resolution that won't cause the customer to be even more frustrated. sometimes you can do it by yourself, sometimes you need to get tier 2 or customer relations on the line.

either way: fix the customer before you fix the problem.

this is a lesson that transcends "tech support" and can go into many facets of when you're dealing with other people.

if someone is doing something you don't like, try to understand why they're doing this before you try to fix the perceived problem. otherwise you'll probably find that the person will either repeat it (disregarding the supposed fix; you're penalizing either way by imposing a mechanical penalty or by forcing him to play a character he doesn't want to play) or simply leave as you're not providing the experience he wants.

and from what i hear, you don't want him to leave, as he would bring another player with him.

so hear him out, listen to what he has to say (here is where my manager would say "use active listening and probe the issue") and come to a solution as a group.

otherwise you're better off telling him to leave as you'll then remove the problem from your group and he can do activities he can have fun with.

Vladislav
2010-12-08, 12:19 PM
i don't see how making the guy's experience crappier would make him want to continue playing, especially since he offed his character because he wasn't having fun with that PC.Not sure about the others, but speaking for myself, after I read the original post, "make him want to continue playing" immediately became a non-goal.

And I'm not sure how the customer service metaphor applies. I see the main problem not with "player unhappy with game", but "player acts like <censored>, which makes other players unhappy".

The key point is that other players, who have done nothing wrong, are having their game experience hurt as a result of his behavior. It's the other players' needs that have to be addressed in this debacle before the problem player.

Don't put the <censored>'s needs before the needs of the good players, who did nothing wrong.

obliged_salmon
2010-12-08, 12:36 PM
I'm so confused. The group (minus the OP) decided to roll randomly for character generation. This is awesome. I played a single session 2nd edition game where me and the other player rolled a halfling thief and gnome thief, and we ran an treasure acquisition company. Joy!

One player rolls a rogue and says "I don't want to be a rogue." The other players roll whatever and...don't want to be those characters either. Methinks, your group should not have decided to roll randomly for characters.

Even so, when one player wants to switch, everyone else says "no, you can't switch! You can't play characters that you actually WANT to play in a ROLE PLAYING GAME! How absurd!" I mean, they agreed not to change their crappy characters, so why should that other player be able to?

Am I reading this right? Am I missing something?

Let him play what he wants to play (PLAY being the operative word), since I can't imagine a good reason not to.

My very strong opinion.

oxybe
2010-12-08, 12:42 PM
Not sure about the others, but speaking for myself, after I read the original post, "make him want to continue playing" immediately became a non-goal.

And I'm not sure how the customer service metaphor applies. I see the main problem not with "player unhappy with game", but "player acts like <censored>, which makes other players unhappy".

The key point is that other players, who have done nothing wrong, are having their game experience hurt as a result of his behavior. It's the other players' needs that have to be addressed in this debacle before the problem player.

Don't put the <censored>'s needs before the needs of the good players, who did nothing wrong.

then why to keep him at the table then? why not just flat out state: we don't want you here, please leave?

this leads me to believe the OP wants to keep this guy at the table (and since the OP stated this guy leaving means another player would leave, since he relies on ProblemGuy as his drive, kicking PG out isn't the number 1 option).

you don't just fix behavior by simply bonking him on the nose. at best you fix it in the short run but the problem WILL come up again. you need to find out the cause of the behavior before you can fix it.

Vladislav
2010-12-08, 12:47 PM
The cause of the behavior is very obvious, there's no need to investigate - he's an egoistic person, who only wants to do whatever he wants to do.

The solution to this problem is not by coddling him, but by setting an example of positive reinforcement to the other players. The time you could spend talking to him about his grievances, just spend running the game. Don't worry, he'll GET IT (TM) eventually.

One thing about egoistic persons is that, beneath the childish facade, they actually know very well what's good for them. If you don't provide any positive reinforcement to the problem player in the shape of spending any extra time on his issues, he will fall in line quickly enough.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-12-08, 12:51 PM
The cause of the behavior is very obvious, there's no need to investigate - he's an egoistic person, who only wants to do whatever he wants to do.

The solution to this problem is not by coddling him, but by setting an example of positive reinforcement to the other players. The time you could spend talking to him about his grievances, just spend running the game. Don't worry, he'll GET IT (TM) eventually.

One thing about egoistic persons is that, beneath the childish facade, they actually know very well what's good for them. If you don't provide any positive reinforcement to the problem player in the shape of spending any extra time on his issues, he will fall in line quickly enough.
That seems a little... pat for an answer.

I usually take a cautious approach when responding to "table troubles" on a forum. Aside from the inherent limitations of the medium, forum posts only tell the story from the perspective of one person. Even when the poster has the best of intentions it is easy to forget to include important information and even to simply make a mistake. This is why I always advise more communication between the parties in any sort of "table trouble" dispute.

pinwiz
2010-12-08, 01:00 PM
The cause of the behavior is very obvious, there's no need to investigate - he's an egoistic person, who only wants to do whatever he wants to do.

The solution to this problem is not by coddling him, but by setting an example of positive reinforcement to the other players. The time you could spend talking to him about his grievances, just spend running the game. Don't worry, he'll GET IT (TM) eventually.

One thing about egoistic persons is that, beneath the childish facade, they actually know very well what's good for them. If you don't provide any positive reinforcement to the problem player in the shape of spending any extra time on his issues, he will fall in line quickly enough.

This seems to be based on many assumptions, and I will disagree with you. I don't think he is egotistical at all, from the one or two posts describing him. He just seems like he made a dumb and selfish decision. From what it sounds like, they haven't talked to him about his motives or told him that in their group, that behavior is not ok. It is not coddling someone to find out their position on an issue.

D&D is not a dictatorship.

oxybe
2010-12-08, 01:08 PM
i don't see anything "clearly obvious" here. dude wasn't having fun with his character and has it killed "off screen" (or at least with none of the other PCs present), hoping to roll up a character he would have fun with.

while other players seem to try to (in the OP's words) "make the best of it" and try to have fun, this guy doesn't want to settle on "making the best of it". he wants a PC he actually has interest in playing.

if the player was having fun, would he really have just offed his character? i can think of many other ways an egotistical player would domineer the game other then forcing a reroll.

honestly, if i was playing a game and had a character forced on me i didn't want to play, i would either ask for a reroll or leave. this guy seems to have opted to "force" a reroll since one is not being offered to him.

all we have is the OP's point of view, so we can only get things from one angle, which, as Oracle has said, makes it hard to get all the information, regardless of how noble or honest the OP is (the human brain will remember only so much and will fill in the blanks with some sort of mental conjecture).

really, we don't have the full story and the only things we can pretty much be sure of is this guy took the easy way out of a perceived bad character and that he OP's GM and group not liking this player's decision and would like to penalize him.

penalizing him won't help anyone in the long run. understand the motivations behind the issue and you'll have a much easier time fixing/stopping future occurrences other then "-2 to hit on all attack/-1 level/etc...", especially if you actually want the guy to stay in the group.

RaveingRonin
2010-12-08, 01:21 PM
I've character suicided too, but rarely has the reason been "I hate my character". More often then not it's "I hate how slow this *bloop* is going and I haven't had a chance to roll a single attack roll yet" (Ranged heavy game, playing a dedicated melee) or I'll "torpedo" a game session due to boredom, severe dislike for the game/DM. My friends and fellow games bitch to me about this, but seeing as I've turned a corner I hope this goes away. . . eventually.
That said, I agree that this needs to be dealt with outside of the RP-verse, preferably in calm tones and without the use of expletives. I never responded well to being cussed at or above "indoor voice" volume. Best of luck. THe one suggestion I can make is that if he's bored, try to include him specifically in the RP, so he feels more attached to a character. I tended to frag 1-shot characters WAY more often then characters I had been playing with for a while. /shrug. Anywho, good luck, and keep it off the table (the table is for dice and mini's).

agentnone
2010-12-08, 01:31 PM
Thanks everyone for all the responses. We've decided to just pull him aside and tell him next time he's unhappy with a character ask us to make a new one instead of killing it off. Especially since we didn't know he didn't like the character until after he killed it. He will also be warned that next time it happens he'll be asked to leave. Thanks everyone. Much appreciated.

Psyx
2010-12-08, 01:39 PM
Don't kick the player or penalise him in his current incarnation. Just TALK to them and let them know that this is a RPG with an emphasis on the ROLE and that his behaviour ain't how you roll around that particular table.

It would have been much nicer to ask for a re-stat or retirement, but some players come from very different games tables.

kyoryu
2010-12-08, 01:41 PM
That seems a little... pat for an answer.

I usually take a cautious approach when responding to "table troubles" on a forum. Aside from the inherent limitations of the medium, forum posts only tell the story from the perspective of one person. Even when the poster has the best of intentions it is easy to forget to include important information and even to simply make a mistake. This is why I always advise more communication between the parties in any sort of "table trouble" dispute.

This. Ever so much this.

I could see the situation in this thread from about five different lights, depending on information that we don't have, painting the "problem player" in a light ranging from completely reasonable person all the way to utter sociopath.

Stormageddon
2010-12-08, 01:46 PM
Thanks everyone for all the responses. We've decided to just pull him aside and tell him next time he's unhappy with a character ask us to make a new one instead of killing it off. Especially since we didn't know he didn't like the character until after he killed it. He will also be warned that next time it happens he'll be asked to leave. Thanks everyone. Much appreciated.

+1! Way to be the bigger person!

Safety Sword
2010-12-08, 04:35 PM
For the love of God...

Don't use in-game mechanics to "fix" problems with players



This, a thousand times. +2 for Holy.