DM's rant about a really uncaring player

[Taimino]

So let me give the background, Im DMing for my friends at College, they are currently doing the Forge of Fury, previously they did the Sunless Citadel. (i decided to do book campaigns considering 3 out of four players had never played D&D before)
during sunless they were a 4 person group that consisted of a Human Rogue, A human archery ranger, a human duel wielding ranger, and a dwarf barbarian. After sunless they off'd their archery ranger for another person who is an elf wizard as they proceeded to continue into the Forge of fury.
they get through the initial role-play and information gather time to figure out where to go, do the traveling, the random encounters, more RP, etc., until they finally reach the entrance, kill two orcs, get hit by some arrows then stop outside the door to the interior, and call it a day for the time.
Now here's were things get annoying, not just for me, but for the other party members as well.
The dwarf barbarian player decides that for the next 3 weeks worth of sessions he is going to raid on WoW and ignore playing D&D, which kind of annoyed the other players. they attempted to play but without their fourth they didn't have the actual motivation to get going.
So finally this morning/tonight the Dwarf player decides to join (after 1am) so we all were like... SIGH fine...
anyway he comes up stairs playing STARCRAFT and ignoring everything that's going on... they get to the inside, and are confronted by orcs on the other side of a chasm with a rope bridge (those ones made up of three ropes with no other support, effectively this (http://gadgets.boingboing.net/filesroot/bridge%20scout.jpg), only very old and not taken care of)
The wizard excited to actually get some real combat in uses his magic missiles to widdle them down on his first turn, and the ranger (duel weilding one) uses a bow and kills one.
ON the DWARF BARBARIAN'S TURN WHO IS STILL PLAYING STARCRAFT, I get his attention and he says "Oh i want to run up to an orc and hit him"
I respond with a simple, "umm... there's a Rope bridge above a CHASM between you two."
He looks at the map i pointed to and he says "So? I want to run across the rope bridge!"
I give him a not so subliminal warning again, "you want to RUN across the ROPE bridge that's above a CHASM?"
he responds with "YES will ALL OF MY MIGHT"
I sigh... roll his horrible balance checks that get even worse because of his recklessness, roll the last saving grace as well, he utterly fails both, drops 200 ft down the chasm... takes 74 damage and goes to -30 and utterly dies.
all he has to say was "THAT WAS AWESOME! so I'm dead now right? well oh well Ill just go downstairs"
We all kinda feel that slight sense of murderous intent as he leaves the room.
The remaining party members use up all their resources to barely escape back to town alive.
I roll one random encounter (mostly to test to see how bad off they are) and if it were not for the duel wielding ranger (who has two bastard swords) taking out all but 1 of the random wight's health they would have been in horrible conditions...
I let them go without any more encounters so they get to town safely, slump my head down a bit as well all agree its time to stop playing for now...

*edit; added in a bit more description to what the bridge looks like

[GoatBoy]

There's a surprising number of people who act excited when you ask for players, but never seem to go out of their way afterwards, or don't even seem interested when the game is happening. I think it's a reaction some people have, when a game starts it feels like an exclusive, exciting thing. So, naturally, they want to be a part of it. Then when it comes time to actually grab their attention... well, you know the rest.

If you have 3 dedicated players and one flake, I think the best approach is to advise the other three off to the side that their fourth may or may not always be available, and to make sure all of the essential roles are covered among them. You can design encounters to be easily switched up or down a CR, depending on attendance.

This doesn't get around the frustration of going to all the trouble of designing a game and then just having someone disregard it, but no one ever said Dungeon Mastering never gets frustrating or thankless. It sounds like you have 3 friends who appreciate you, so try and concentrate on having fun with them.

[Gwendol]

You should agree on ground rules before proceeding, but other than that he might actually have acted in character... D&D is a contact sport after all.

[Lonely Tylenol]

You should agree on ground rules before proceeding, but other than that he might actually have acted in character... D&D is a contact sport after all.

A cautionary tale about this: I'm running a campaign myself, and while mine's a little different in scale (it was twelve at the time), I have had a player that has been just this in his attitude. In spite of the fact that I had a hard ban on computers and cell phones (unless being used for gaming) that I started enforcing after people started playing games on their phones during the first session, this player would bring his computer to every session, and would play some MMO or other (the sessions that he was there for weren't many, but the MMO was rarely the same). Even with the large numbers we had at the table, everyone sat around and faced each other, except for him; he would sit at the couch, away from view of the others. He would often use terms like "tank" and "healbot" and the like to kind of describe how he would interact with the rest of the world from a metagame perspective: "I tank that guy" or "we need a healbot" or something like that. Unless it was his turn on the initiative order, he didn't interact with the party or the game world unless it was to explain why he wasn't interacting with the party or the game world, and it was always the same three words, which I would never thought could have caused me to set my teeth on edge:

"I'm a merc."

Never a variation of this. Fight or flight vs. a pair of wolves? "I'm a merc." There's a town under attack (and it's the one you're in)? "I'm a merc." Highwaymen are kidnapping a nobleman and his daughter (and it's the road you're on)? "I'm a merc." A man of wealth and distinction wants to negotiate the terms of a job he's offering you? "I'm a merc." (This was actually, paradoxically, used to explain his lack of desire to interact with said noble to find out the nature and price point of said job!)

The worst part of it is, those words caught on, and now I hear them being used (unironically) to describe the reason why someone won't interact with X aspect of the world.

Sometimes, out-of-character justifications for in-character non-interaction just suck.

[Gwendol]

Sounds like your ban was a bit soft...? Why keep the player around if, with the ban in place, he still had a computer, and still was playing on it?
This is what I meant with the first paragraph: agree on the ground rules, and make sure to enforce them. That the dwarf barbarian, on entering a dwarven keep, finds its sullied by the presence of orcs, rushes forward heedless of dangers of doing so across the rope bridge, THAT could certainly have been done totally in character.

The "I'm a merc" -line though... My suggestion is to force something out of the player by having him act in-character for once. Or (eventually) kick him off the game for not playing.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Sounds like your ban was a bit soft...? Why keep the player around if, with the ban in place, he still had a computer, and still was playing on it?

The session in particular that I'm recalling, where I did actually let it slide (the others, the computer did go away), was his last session, and it was such a horrible session (from my perspective) that having someone sitting quietly off to the side and playing APB while I beat my head against the wall with the rest of the party was actually beneficial, because it meant he was the least of my worries. After that, I cracked down on my party for all the headache-inducing behavior of that session (the blatant, intentional non-interaction with the world being one thing, but talking over players while they are declaring their actions and using metagame knowledge that the player was never meant to be made privy to in casual conversation which undermines roleplay were others of that particular night), but since he had quit in the intermittent week, and he was the only offender of that rule after the first week, I haven't brought it up since.

/shrug


This is what I meant with the first paragraph: agree on the ground rules, and make sure to enforce them. That the dwarf barbarian, on entering a dwarven keep, finds its sullied by the presence of orcs, rushes forward heedless of dangers of doing so across the rope bridge, THAT could certainly have been done totally in character.

The "I'm a merc" -line though... My suggestion is to force something out of the player by having him act in-character for once. Or (eventually) kick him off the game for not playing.

He ended up quitting of his own accord over matters of his personal life (I realize now that I wrote everything in the past tense, but never explicitly stated that) before I reached my breaking point or dealing with his non-interaction became a priority over the overtly disruptive behavior of a couple of the others (which was actually just one person being really disruptive and a few others being peripherally disruptive by association).

I think part of it had to do with my lack of preparedness at first--I had originally created the game world to be fully fleshed out, have a rich and fulfilling plot and develop intrigue throughout, realized that no plot survives a PC party and scrapped the whole thing in favor of an open world where the players' interactions are the driving force of the story, and then wound up with a large party of people among whom none was willing to impose their will upon the world as opposed to following the DM's sightseeing tour, leaving a power vacuum early on--and while I've shored up a lot of the early problems my table had, he left before I could address "lazy in-character justifications" while it was still a problem, and now I think the very echo of the words "I'm a merc" in my mind is going to haunt me for all eternity... Or until the token evil guy in the party tries to engage in PvP over something trivial and the game turns into a LARP; whichever happens first. :smallbiggrin:

Anyway, I have a knack for derailing threads, and this one isn't about me, but I just wanted to say that I agree, with the cautionary caveat that unless you specify that your players can't have a simple, catch-all excuse to not even try to immerse themselves in the game world, they can and will try to find the easy way out. Look for patterns like the one above.

[Kalmageddon]

Oh joy, one of those players...

I had one too.

He regularly turned up late to gaming sessions and always played the tank, only he didn't even try to play it smart, he basically just made a character with tons of hp, charged in and never used any feat except for cleave, until the enemy was dead or he was dead. Outside of combat he never payed attention and usually played videogames on his laptop, when asked to comment on a situation he would just quote the movie or videogame where his character was ripped from.
But the worst part, and the reason I ultimately kicked him off the party, was that he never, ever, kept his character sheet updated, except to add loot or level up. He never run out of potions, in fact he used the same ones every encounter and they misteriously replenished themselves in between battles, same things with arrows and other single use magical items. And when confronted about it he wouldn't apologize or admit his mistake, he would be outraged and yell that we couldn't call him a cheater (no one did) and that it was just a stupid game. Sometimes he would even leave the session halfway because of it.

If the other players are on your side with such people, kick them out, no point in keeping a player that spoils the fun for everyone and hasn't even the decency of apologizing.

[elpollo]

I respond with a simple, "umm... there's a Rope bridge above a CHASM between you two."
He looks at the map i pointed to and he says "So? I want to run across the rope bridge!"
I give him a not so subliminal warning again, "you want to RUN across the ROPE bridge that's above a CHASM?"
he responds with "Yes, I wish to cross the rope bridge that, due to being in the front of an active orc den, has every reason to be safe and in good condition, what with the orcs needing to cross it every time they go for food or pillaging. Since 3 out of the 4 player characters need to be up close and personal with the enemy to be remotely effective, I shall bravely lead the way."

I've run (well, jogged) across a rope bridge before, and (as you can perhaps tell) did not plunge to my death. I have no reason to believe that increasing my pace slightly would have led to my death. Rope bridges can be made (and have every incentive to be kept) incredibly sturdily. You've taken a party with 3 melee characters, each of whom have every interest in crossing the bridge and engaging in melee as quickly as possible, mentioned the words "rope bridge" and "chasm", and expected them to take the fact that there is a difficult balance check (with failure meaning instant death) from that?



I sigh... roll his horrible balance checks that get even worse because of his recklessness, roll the last saving grace as well, he utterly fails both, drops 200 ft down the chasm... takes 74 damage and goes to -30 and utterly dies.
all he has to say was "THAT WAS AWESOME! so I'm dead now right? well oh well Ill just go downstairs"

Perhaps he doesn't seem engaged because all of your encounters are in situations that lead to him being able to do nothing or having a very good chance of death before he can even properly try.

Did it need to be a 200ft drop? Why would 10ft or 20ft not have been enough? Did it even need the balance check? You've got fairly low levelled PCs attemtping to rush an entrenched enemy - that already makes things significantly more difficult. Adding in an instant death trap doens't make things fun.



We all kinda feel that slight sense of murderous intent as he leaves the room.
The remaining party members use up all their resources to barely escape back to town alive.

They're in no rush. Half the orcs coming after then will probably fall and die on the way out.



I roll one random encounter (mostly to test to see how bad off they are) and if it were not for the duel wielding ranger (who has two bastard swords) taking out all but 1 of the random wight's health they would have been in horrible conditions...
I let them go without any more encounters so they get to town safely, slump my head down a bit as well all agree its time to stop playing for now...

Perhaps large numbers of creatures with energy drain is not an appropriate encounter for three already injured PCs with no way to counter it (or even heal).

[Canarr]

I understood that last part as meaning the dual-wielding Ranger took out all but one of the single, random wight's hit points - not that he killed a lot of wights on his own.But then, I could be mistaken.

Though I'm with elpollo on one thing: having the melee characters try to cross the bridge to get to the enemy - and do so fast - is not something that should be a surprise for the GM placing such an encounter.

[Narren]

I've run (well, jogged) across a rope bridge before, and (as you can perhaps tell) did not plunge to my death. I have no reason to believe that increasing my pace slightly would have led to my death. Rope bridges can be made (and have every incentive to be kept) incredibly sturdily. You've taken a party with 3 melee characters, each of whom have every interest in crossing the bridge and engaging in melee as quickly as possible, mentioned the words "rope bridge" and "chasm", and expected them to take the fact that there is a difficult balance check (with failure meaning instant death) from that?

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I was imagining that "rope bridge" meant two pieces of rope, strung out over a chasm. That's how I use the term, at least. In that case, yes, I would imagine charging across a piece of semi-taut rope would be problematic.




Perhaps he doesn't seem engaged because all of your encounters are in situations that lead to him being able to do nothing or having a very good chance of death before he can even properly try.

Did it need to be a 200ft drop? Why would 10ft or 20ft not have been enough? Did it even need the balance check? You've got fairly low levelled PCs attemtping to rush an entrenched enemy - that already makes things significantly more difficult. Adding in an instant death trap doens't make things fun.

It's an obstacle to be cleared. There could have been numerous solutions that don't include charging forward. I don't think the OP really included enough information about the encounter for us to be able to bash him for it, nor did he say or even imply that all of his encounters lead his players to be powerless or subject to instant death.

I've dealt with this kind of player before, and I'd probably be pretty insulted if someone told me that it was my fault that he wasn't engaged, when I've got 6 other players (or 3 in this case, I guess) that are enjoying the game. Some people just aren't into it, no matter what you do.


Perhaps large numbers of creatures with energy drain is not an appropriate encounter for three already injured PCs with no way to counter it (or even heal).

Agreed on this point. What level was the party?

[sonofzeal]

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I was imagining that "rope bridge" meant two pieces of rope, strung out over a chasm. That's how I use the term, at least. In that case, yes, I would imagine charging across a piece of semi-taut rope would be problematic.
The problem is that "rope bridge" covers this (http://www.dont-look-now.com/uploaded_images/rope.jpg), this (http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiousexpeditions/1452309259/), and this (http://tenrikyo-resource.com/tr-wp/media/2011/07/carrick-a-rede-rope-bridge.jpg). A quick google search gets me plenty of pictures of bridges I'd feel comfortable sprinting across, and a number that I don't think I'd risk even standing up on. But it sounds like the DM warned the player that there'd be danger crossing this particular incarnation of "rope bridge", which is fair enough. As long as they made that clear, I have no qualms.

[prufock]

Sounds bad. If a player is not actually engaged in the game, they're better off not playing. This has nothing to do with his actions (the description of the bridge should have been made clear since "rope bridge" can mean several different types of bridge, and the mechanics should also have been made clear). Players who are engaged do stupid things all the time. It's his attitude that was the issue.

I say continue to game without him. He's more interested in PC games, anyway. Rebalance your encounters for 3, or give them a slight power boost, or let them get a hireling to round out the party.

[Taimino]

The problem is that "rope bridge" covers this (http://www.dont-look-now.com/uploaded_images/rope.jpg), this (http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiousexpeditions/1452309259/), and this (http://tenrikyo-resource.com/tr-wp/media/2011/07/carrick-a-rede-rope-bridge.jpg). A quick google search gets me plenty of pictures of bridges I'd feel comfortable sprinting across, and a number that I don't think I'd risk even standing up on. But it sounds like the DM warned the player that there'd be danger crossing this particular incarnation of "rope bridge", which is fair enough. As long as they made that clear, I have no qualms.

The first picture was what the book's picture and general description seemed to fit the most, not even I, personally, would feel comfortable crossing that.


Originally posted by elpollo
Perhaps he doesn't seem engaged because all of your encounters are in situations that lead to him being able to do nothing or having a very good chance of death before he can even properly try.

Did it need to be a 200ft drop? Why would 10ft or 20ft not have been enough? Did it even need the balance check? You've got fairly low levelled PCs attemtping to rush an entrenched enemy - that already makes things significantly more difficult. Adding in an instant death trap doens't make things fun.

Well I didn't create the area of which the PC's are in, as I stated they were in the Forge of Fury, a pre-created campaign. I said I chose to use the book campaigns because my group was 75% (3 out of 4 people) were new to the game and I didn't want to start throwing things at them that weren't say, completely thought through previously, before they became accustomed to the rules.


Originally Posted by elpollo
Perhaps large numbers of creatures with energy drain is not an appropriate encounter for three already injured PCs with no way to counter it (or even heal).


Originally posted by Narren
Agreed on this point. What level was the party?

The PC's are currently at level 3, the duel wielding ranger in the party was the main reason why i found it legitimate to throw this single wight at them. The ranger had the capability of duel wielding Bastard swords, his str was a 17 (+3) and his total mod to hit with head sword at this point was +4/+4.
He met the prerequisites for, and took, all the two weapon fighting feats to enable him to be so skillful at wielding said two blades. Not only that but his favored enemy was undead giving an additional 2 damage to each strike.
Min: 12, Max:30 (because you cannot crit a wight)

[SpaceBadger]

If someone habitually doesn't show, run that person's character as an NPC. There is no reason the rest of the players should put their game on hold or suffer through missing 1/4 of their party.

[Taimino]

I understood that last part as meaning the dual-wielding Ranger took out all but one of the single, random wight's hit points - not that he killed a lot of wights on his own.But then, I could be mistaken.

Though I'm with elpollo on one thing: having the melee characters try to cross the bridge to get to the enemy - and do so fast - is not something that should be a surprise for the GM placing such an encounter.

as to the first comment, I apologize for my wording there :smallsmile:

The second, well I'll be honest, If he had done the obligatory Barbarian rage and rushed forward without giving it a second thought i wouldn't be as concerned about the falling part as it would have been more in character. The character himself based off Int score and the way he role-played, was not in all senses of the word a "dumb ass" for on many occasions he displayed the sense of danger in attempting to encounter a further opponent in one case he even did the whole "sit on ground and do nothing" thing until the enemy was taken care of by both (at the time) rangers that were in the party.
Besides that the orcs had already taken considerable amounts of damage (one was even dead) and the other was barely holding on, the barbarian also had Javelin's which by taking a -2 to his total hit modifier, could have hit the orc, and i explained this to him as well.
I mostly just felt that his decision to run full force across the bridge was attributed to his uncaring outlook on wanting to play anymore.

[Linkscoolfriend]

Friend of mine would jump on his comp the absolute second he lost interest in a game session. Not a rant about a player though, he was THE DM. Dear lord, that was rough.

As for your situation however, you probably could have described the entire scene in visually striking detail, leaving no pebble to the imagination, and he wouldn't have noticed. I believe that his decision was based entirely on inattention, so no amount of describing the bridge would have altered his choice. Had a few players like him as well. They don't game with us anymore.

[Taimino]

If someone habitually doesn't show, run that person's character as an NPC. There is no reason the rest of the players should put their game on hold or suffer through missing 1/4 of their party.

well i do do this sort of thing with my friends i normally play with at home, and has happened with this group as well, but only with the other party members, not this specific player.
every time I either try to make him an NPC or have one of his fellow players act for him, all he would do is complain about the choices we made on his behalf, and being the stubborn kind of person, would not accept "oh well you weren't there" as an appropriate response.

[Slipperychicken]

Personally, I live in modern civilization a suburb, so when I hear "rope bridge", I think of this (http://www.exchange3d.com/images/uploads/aff1441/TEMP2/pontecorda7.jpg). With the details you gave in the OP, I'd have charged across it too.

[huttj509]

Personally, I live in modern civilization a suburb, so when I hear "rope bridge", I think of this (http://www.exchange3d.com/images/uploads/aff1441/TEMP2/pontecorda7.jpg). With the details you gave in the OP, I'd have charged across it too.

That's what I thought of.

Oh wait, was it one of those 3 rope V things that freaked me out in scouts? I hate those type of rope bridges. My brain might know it's fine but my gut says "____ no!" Especially when you get to the middle and someone starts swaying.

[Taimino]

Oh wait, was it one of those 3 rope V things that freaked me out in scouts? I hate those type of rope bridges. My brain might know it's fine but my gut says "____ no!" Especially when you get to the middle and someone starts swaying.

pretty much exactly that

[Dr_S]

Personally, I live in modern civilization a suburb, so when I hear "rope bridge", I think of this (http://www.exchange3d.com/images/uploads/aff1441/TEMP2/pontecorda7.jpg). With the details you gave in the OP, I'd have charged across it too.

A lot of rope bridges of that style are all wobbly too, If someone wants to move full speed across it, I don't think a balance check is unreasonable. Of course how wobbly they get often depends on how long they are and how well built they are, but having crossed bridges like that I would say for certain that unless it was significantly sturdier than the ones I've crossed I'd never run across that.

either way this all seems tangential to the op's point

[Belril Duskwalk]

The dwarf barbarian player decides that for the next 3 weeks worth of sessions he is going to raid on WoW and ignore playing D&D, which kind of annoyed the other players. they attempted to play but without their fourth they didn't have the actual motivation to get going.
So finally this morning/tonight the Dwarf player decides to join (after 1am) so we all were like... SIGH fine...
anyway he comes up stairs playing STARCRAFT and ignoring everything that's going on... they get to the inside, and are confronted by orcs on the other side of a chasm with a rope bridge (those ones made up of three ropes with no other support, effectively this (http://gadgets.boingboing.net/filesroot/bridge%20scout.jpg), only very old and not taken care of)
The wizard excited to actually get some real combat in uses his magic missiles to widdle them down on his first turn, and the ranger (duel weilding one) uses a bow and kills one.
ON the DWARF BARBARIAN'S TURN WHO IS STILL PLAYING STARCRAFT, I get his attention and he says "Oh i want to run up to an orc and hit him"
I respond with a simple, "umm... there's a Rope bridge above a CHASM between you two."
He looks at the map i pointed to and he says "So? I want to run across the rope bridge!"
I give him a not so subliminal warning again, "you want to RUN across the ROPE bridge that's above a CHASM?"
he responds with "YES will ALL OF MY MIGHT"
I sigh... roll his horrible balance checks that get even worse because of his recklessness, roll the last saving grace as well, he utterly fails both, drops 200 ft down the chasm... takes 74 damage and goes to -30 and utterly dies.
all he has to say was "THAT WAS AWESOME! so I'm dead now right? well oh well Ill just go downstairs"
We all kinda feel that slight sense of murderous intent as he leaves the room.
The remaining party members use up all their resources to barely escape back to town alive.

The bolded parts suggest a pattern to me. You have a player who does not care in the slightest and probably does not want to care. It happens. I've played D&D with a friend that is quite similar and eventually his interest waned to the point where he started taking actively self-destructive actions to intentionally get himself killed. Which while annoying might have been mildly entertaining if his actions didn't also involve waking the entire dungeon on his way to an early death.

My suggestion would be, if you have a player who would rather play MMOs than D&D for a solid month, don't play D&D with that person. Don't ask him to roll a new character and if he (for some reason) asks to roll a new character, tell him no. A player like this can become a better player, but they need to want to do better. For the sake of the game, I think your best bet is to re-adjust encounters for a smaller party or find some new players who will be able to focus on the game they are playing at the table.