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Katana_Geldar
2011-04-26, 08:53 PM
Okay, does anyone have any advice on this at all? I talked to a few other players from the weekend and we decided it's time to give them the flick. It's more a playstyle thing, and a long time coming as some of their habits during the game have disurbed me more than once.

Problem is, I don't have either of their numbers and I can't meet them before game night. I'm the founder of the group pretty much, I know I should not fob this off on someone else. Any suggestions?

Plus side is, without them we have a more normal-sized group.

Kaun
2011-04-26, 09:05 PM
Nobody else in the group has their #'s or emails?

Personally i would just give it to them straight, tell them that you find the group is too large for you to comfortably DM and that their prefered play style is something that differs largely from where you want the direction of the game to go.

Appoligise for having to resort to this action and let them know if the situation changes you will be in touch.

They are going to feel hurt to some measure no matter how you handle it so you are best off just being honest about things.

Katana_Geldar
2011-04-26, 09:07 PM
Yes, one of my friends has their numbers but he won't give them to me without their consent.

snoopy13a
2011-04-26, 09:18 PM
Yes, one of my friends has their numbers but he won't give them to me without their consent.

Tell your friend to either give you their numbers or to handle it himself. You should definitely tell them before the next game night. Otherwise, it wouldn't be fair to them.

Kaun
2011-04-26, 09:57 PM
Yes, one of my friends has their numbers but he won't give them to me without their consent.

Get him to set up a meeting, or get him to send them both a text with your # asking them to call you ASAP.

Erom
2011-04-26, 10:14 PM
I'd say, if you can't get in touch with them before next session, you're going to have to suck it up and give them the boot after next session. I wouldn't feel good about kicking someone out at the beginning of a session they traveled to expecting to play.

rayne_dragon
2011-04-27, 12:22 AM
These two:


Get him to set up a meeting, or get him to send them both a text with your # asking them to call you ASAP.


I'd say, if you can't get in touch with them before next session, you're going to have to suck it up and give them the boot after next session. I wouldn't feel good about kicking someone out at the beginning of a session they traveled to expecting to play.

Sir_Mopalot
2011-04-27, 02:18 AM
Out of curiosity, and feel free to keep it private, but what exactly about them is so bad? I find a certain schadenfreude(sp?) in finding out that my group is not so terrible. :smalltongue:

Mastikator
2011-04-27, 02:33 AM
A backup plan could be to ask for everyone's phone number and email during your next session.

Then kick them out before the game starts.

You should always be able to contact everyone in your group.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-04-27, 02:46 AM
Tell your friend to either give you their numbers or to handle it himself. You should definitely tell them before the next game night. Otherwise, it wouldn't be fair to them.
Definitely.

Personally, I like to do these things in private and in person but it is definitely better to tell them before they come out for the game than to not.

Another thing that might work is to type out a polite email and sent it to the go-between to forward to the two people you're kicking. This way you can ensure that your intended message gets sent.

Also, if the go-between fails to inform the two Problem Players, consider smacking him one :smallannoyed:

MlleRouge
2011-04-27, 04:56 AM
It looks like they've put you in a position where you will have to either use a go-between or kick them at the actual session.


I would suggest you do as Kaun and others said, and try to have the friend forward your number along and ask them to contact you. If they don't, it's their fault and they'll just have to find out at the next session.

For the record, I find your desire to take responsibility as a group leader and tell them yourself to be very respectable :)

Dr.Epic
2011-04-27, 05:03 AM
Facebook? Surely you're friends with them online or at least know their full names and can find them and send them a message.

Jolly
2011-04-27, 02:41 PM
You have people in your group you have no way of contacting? :smallconfused: That seems... very unusual.

Also, if their playstyle is an issue, have you considered actually talking to them about it, instead of just "Obtw you know those things you've been doing? We all hate those, and you can't play anymore."

Mutazoia
2011-04-27, 08:48 PM
Also, if their playstyle is an issue, have you considered actually talking to them about it, instead of just "Obtw you know those things you've been doing? We all hate those, and you can't play anymore."


Giving them a chance to change is always preferable to springing the pink slip on them all sudden like. My group has had to drop a player before (mentioned this in a different thread), but we gave him several chances to change before we did so.

After that, the method used depends on the person(s) involved. In a perfect world they would take the criticism as intended and ride off into the sunset with no hard feelings. If they're not the kind of people to take criticism well your going to have drama.

Our group chose a passive-aggressive method of canceling the regular meeting for a week then re-grouping with out informing our problem child. But we had very good reasons for doing things this way. See the spoiler if your curious.

Our problem child was definitely not the kind of person to take criticism...at all. He would throw a fit if anything bad happened to his character or his meticulously laid plans didn't work. We ran two seperate groups one RPG group on the weekend at a private residence and a board game group at a public venue during a week day. On our week day sessions, if he didn't get a strong lead in a board game immediately he would become dejected, the further he fell behind, the more dejected he would get. If it became apparent he was going to come in dead last, he simply quit and went home. If some one made a move that he was going to make, he would get mad. If some one made a move the actively hurt his chances of winning... case in point: we were playing Talisman. For those dear readers that are unfamiliar with the game, to pass a certain point in the game you had to have, you guessed it, a talisman. There were never enough for every player to have one so once they were all out, the only way to get one was to attack another player. Well our problem child had one and was running around building up power, when another player (with out a talisman) managed to land on his space on the board, allowing him to attack the problem child. (the odds of being able to plan to land on some one in that game are astronomical at best..so this was totally a random chance thing). The fight ended with the problem child losing and having his talisman taken. Immediately he jumped up (nearly flipping the table) and started cussing the other player out at the top of his lungs, slammed his drink into the trashcan with as much force as he could muster (and I mean into not inside..bounced it off the side spraying coke everywhere) and stormed out. Given such a violent reaction to losing an imaginary item in a board game in public, we were quite unwilling to risk finding out his level of violent reaction to what he would obviously see as a direct slight to him personally, in a private residence.

Katana_Geldar
2011-04-27, 10:02 PM
Out of curiosity, and feel free to keep it private, but what exactly about them is so bad? I find a certain schadenfreude(sp?) in finding out that my group is not so terrible. :smalltongue:

It's as if neither of them are serious about the game when we want to be serious about it. Of course, we're not serious all the time (like on Paranoia nights) but just playing for the desire to kill things as well as do weird things is a bit much for us.

Examples:

One of the players was playing a cleric, he did not have a name for his character until about 2 hours into the game, and only because the DM asked for his character's name. Given that our campaign setting is homebrew cooperative where everyone brings something to the table, this didn't go down well.

The other for some reason is playing a monk like a barbarian. Charging into fights like a tank, getting into bar brawls with bars full of dwarves, this led to him spending time in the drunk tank with a disruptive player who has left. Problem is that I've explained to him several times how Monks work in our campaign setting, they're quiet little bad asses who are very unassuming until the time they whup your ass. And this is because of the monastic setting which disciplines them into this mould. Monks were supposed to be rather rare outside of certain areas, which makes it improbable that there would be two in the same party, one of whom has played a monk at the very beginning of the campaign and does this amazingly well.

And I'm not alone in thinking it's time to get rid of them either. Gaming is cancelled this week, so I have some time.

There's also the fact that one of the other players is very uncomfortable being in the room with one of these guys. I don't want to lose her and neother does anyone else in the group.

Mutazoia
2011-04-27, 10:22 PM
One of the players was playing a cleric, he did not have a name for his character until about 2 hours into the game, and only because the DM asked for his character's name. Given that our campaign setting is homebrew cooperative where everyone brings something to the table, this didn't go down well.

Lol for some, coming up with a name that wasn't a direct rip off of Tolkien or sounding like you pulled random letters out of the scrabble bag can be a challenge :smallbiggrin:


The other for some reason is playing a monk like a barbarian. Charging into fights like a tank, getting into bar brawls with bars full of dwarves, this led to him spending time in the drunk tank with a disruptive player who has left. Problem is that I've explained to him several times how Monks work in our campaign setting, they're quiet little bad asses who are very unassuming until the time they whup your ass. And this is because of the monastic setting which disciplines them into this mould. Monks were supposed to be rather rare outside of certain areas, which makes it improbable that there would be two in the same party, one of whom has played a monk at the very beginning of the campaign and does this amazingly well.

Maybe this is why he's out adventuring...he got kicked out of the monastery for being a knuckle head. :smallbiggrin:

Seriously though...sounds like its time to have the talk and go from there.

Oracle_Hunter
2011-04-28, 01:03 AM
And I'm not alone in thinking it's time to get rid of them either. Gaming is cancelled this week, so I have some time.

There's also the fact that one of the other players is very uncomfortable being in the room with one of these guys. I don't want to lose her and neother does anyone else in the group.
For what it's worth, I think you're going about this exactly the right way.

If they're just PUG guys, you've done pretty much all you should do. If these gents are friends of yours (or someone at the table) it wouldn't hurt to have spoken to them privately to find out what their deal is - but it is hardly necessary.

Of course, it sounds like you've already made up your mind so it likely doesn't matter what I think about it. Good luck! :smallsmile:

Tyndmyr
2011-04-28, 06:04 AM
There's also the fact that one of the other players is very uncomfortable being in the room with one of these guys. I don't want to lose her and neother does anyone else in the group.

This is the important one. The others are fairly trivial. If they can't get along decently with the other players as people, then there needs to be a change. Playstyle is often fixable. Personality conflicts are more problematic.

I have a cohort that hasn't been named for two sessions, as everyone tries to outdo each other with increasingly improbable names for him. Bardy McBardson(the Bard), Beef McPorkslab and other such horrible suggestions happen constantly, much to the DMs dismay.

And playing against type is pretty common, really. Just because monks are generally trained a certain way doesn't prevent you from having an outlier. I wouldn't even consider that a problem. Hell, I like when people try something new. If I see one more "hurr, hur, I'm a barbarian that can't read, likes to drink and hit things", I'm liable to start forcing some creativity down people's throats.

Tiki Snakes
2011-04-28, 08:26 AM
This is the important one. The others are fairly trivial. If they can't get along decently with the other players as people, then there needs to be a change. Playstyle is often fixable. Personality conflicts are more problematic.

I have a cohort that hasn't been named for two sessions, as everyone tries to outdo each other with increasingly improbable names for him. Bardy McBardson(the Bard), Beef McPorkslab and other such horrible suggestions happen constantly, much to the DMs dismay.

And playing against type is pretty common, really. Just because monks are generally trained a certain way doesn't prevent you from having an outlier. I wouldn't even consider that a problem. Hell, I like when people try something new. If I see one more "hurr, hur, I'm a barbarian that can't read, likes to drink and hit things", I'm liable to start forcing some creativity down people's throats.

Tyndmyr nails it here. The cleric thing is minor, the Monk I can't agree with at all. If the trope is that all monks are the same, and there's already one in the party, there almost HAS to be a second monk who is almost entirely different. (A 'Black Whirlwind' type as in Jade Empire, by the sounds of it almost to a T.)

But if the group is too full, and you don't all get on, worse still if there is some reason that another player is actively uncomfortable simply being around them, then it's probably best they go.

I would endorse doing it between sessions, however necessary. Entirely more fair and less likely to become confrontational (to my mind) than doing it after they have travelled all the way to the game and doing it infront of everyone else. This means either getting the guy with the contacts to set something up, or doing it AFTER the next session though.