Player Concern

[Daemonhawk]

Okay, so one of my "friends" has been a royal jerk to me lately, and I can handle that. My concern is that he may intentionally try to bring the game to a halt, as he slowed it down severely last session. I don't like my players being unhappy. What should I do remedy the problem? Kick him out? Talk to him out of game? Hire a Mexican mercenary named Paco to take him out?

[Righteous Doggy]

Talk to him privately and see whats up. You can always remove him if you really think he's causing a big enough problem and there isn't another way to deal with it, but usually people have a reason for doing these things.

[Zarrgon]

Well, you could get out the peace pipe and talk to him and hug and sing 'Cumbaya', but it honestly only has a flat 50% chance of working. Just as you 'talk' to a person does not automatically make them do what you want them to do.

You could take the easy way, and just kick him out of the game.

The fun way is to just not let him effect things. Just edit things so no matter what he does, it does not negatively effect the game.

[KillianHawkeye]

How is he grinding things to a halt exactly?

[Steward]

The fun way is to just not let him effect things. Just edit things so no matter what he does, it does not negatively effect the game.

Short of literally acting as if he isn't there at all, I'm not sure how you can do this without disrupting the game and calling attention to the whole situation, which is... kind of what the guy wants, if he's coming to a game specifically to mess with the DM.

The real fun way to resolve this is to have a conversation in private with the guy, and -- openly and without rancor -- share your grievances and try to work things out to the point where you guys can rebuild your friendship or break things off without causing a huge blow-up. Then, when he thinks everything's all right between the two of you, you shatter his kneecaps with a ceremonial mace.