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IsmAsm
2012-11-26, 06:10 PM
This is a sort of multipart problem, so I'll try to condense it as much as possible.

I've been playing with this group of my friends (and I was friends with everyone in the group before it formed) for about a year now, and some conflicts that maybe should have been addressed earlier are coming to a head. For starters, one of my friends is having some roleplaying issues. She comes to the sessions and she says she enjoys them, but she's rarely prepared and often seems to be doing her own thing. A lot of the time she isn't at the table and is cooking food, which we appreciate but I think we'd prefer she actually played. Even when she is playing her character is often quiet and/or inactive. This last session our DM provided us with an interesting moral dilemma. As both sides were valid, this caused the party to split as they sided with whichever option appealed to their sensibilities, but all she said was "I'll go with the majority rule" and then tuned out of the debate.

When I asked her why her characters never seemed to do anything, she told me that she felt she was being yelled at for roleplaying. For instance, her character would occasionally cast spells on the party when she was upset or whatever, and then the party would (in-character) get angry because most people don't like having spells cast on them. She thought that we were, in real life, angry with her, not understanding that our characters were not always going to agree with everything her character did. Because of this (and this was not the only incident) she stopped roleplaying in attempt to make everyone like her character. Has this ever happened to anyone? How do you try to fix something like this?

Furthermore, her apparent lack of interest in the events in the game has caused a good portion of the group to become irritated with her. We're starting another game soon and they don't want to start a new game with her and then have to kick her out shortly after it starts. I know that she has been going through a tough time recently and that being evicted from the group would crush her. I'm also DMing the new game and I'm the only one who spends a lot of time with her outside the gaming group. As DM, arbitrating this dispute is soon to become my responsibility, and I also know that if she is kicked out most of the flak will fall on me. Any suggestions?

LordofDragons24
2012-11-26, 06:27 PM
I'm no expert at this kind of thing, but I'll throw in my thoughts.

It sounds like you need most to talk to your friend outside of the group, talk her through whatever tough times she is going through. If She's having a rough time with something then I wouldn't want to say she's a bad player. If you can help her move through whatever difficulties she is having then maybe you can start talking with her about roleplaying further.

You should also try and talk individually with the other members of the group, explain that she is having a hard time outside of the group and it makes it hard for her to participate. I don't doubt everyone's had times when we just couldn't work with others when we had other things going on in our heads. You should appeal to the other members outside of the character world, and just let them know this. If I was going through a tough time, I wouldn't want to be expected to perform at my best in group.

If you can help her through her hard times, I'm sure she'll be much more willing to roleplay with everyone else. Perhaps ask the other members to lay off any anger towards her in the meanwhile (but do make a point of asking her not to cast unpleasant spells on the party if they don't agree with her character's/her point of view- teamwork, respect for other people goes both ways).

Simply put, I find empathy to be the best way to deal with these things, and taking time to make a personal appeal, outside of the group, is much better than trying to deal with it in-group or on group time.

Hope that helps.

IsmAsm
2012-11-26, 06:59 PM
Unfortunately, everyone is aware of her issues, as I've been telling them to lay off her for awhile. Her roleplaying--I think, fears might be a better word to use, come to think of it--started before then. I've been trying to help her through her problems, and I think she's getting better, but most of the others are fed up with her bringing her drama to the group. As the problem starting event happened in late May, and most of my friends are emotionally tougher than she is, they all think she should have gotten over it by now.

Not the nicest response in the world on their part, but there you have it. Sigh.

Vorr
2012-11-26, 09:03 PM
Any suggestions?


Um, what? You story did not make too much sense.

So she attacked the other characters (Roll Playing) and they got mad and yelled at her so she decided to stop Role Playing? How are the two connected? So maybe if she was less hostile to her fellow players she would role play more? That does not make sense....

It's often a good idea, when a problem like this comes up, to write down specifically what you'd like done. Do not just write down ''her to play more''. Write down at least twenty specific actions you'd like her to do. And the fun part is that if you can't think of any, then the problem is more on you and the other players.

As DM you can put more focus on her character. Make her part of the story. Add whatever she likes to the game and make her role play for it.

Winter_Wolf
2012-11-27, 12:04 AM
It almost sounds like your friend enjoys the social gathering aspect of the game rather than the game itself. At least that's what I get from your OP description of the situation.

I say this from a place of enjoying the social gathering aspect of many activities more than the activity itself: drinking, table top RPGs, fishing, bowling, billiards. Other than the table top gaming, all those activities I could do by myself if I wanted, but I don't because doing those things by myself is just mind numbingly boring to me. Your friend probably actually does like the RPG, but mainly because it brings people together. The gaming itself might be probably is secondary.

NikitaDarkstar
2012-11-27, 05:17 PM
To be honest, you might need to be a bit more specific here.

But if I understand it correctly she doesn't quite understand how role-playing and IC/OOC actions work? She did something ingame that was fairly hostile (casting hostile spells on team members?) and got upset when they reacted IC'ly and thought they were mad OOC? So either she thinks her character is the only character that gets to be aggressive against others IC, or your group has communication issues? If it's the former your friend needs to change her play style, sorry but it's just as simple as that (At least tone it down to "I create a bucket of water and drop on his head" instead of BAD spells). If it's the later the group needs to sit down and talk it out, just go over their play style with each other.

As for how to get your friend to actually role-play? See if you can run a few sessions with just her or perhaps her and one more person at the most and just get her comfortable with acting in character. If she wants to, let her roll up a new character for these one-on-one sessions (or offer to explore some side of her current character deeper with her) and just see if you can get her to open up. Of course make sure to ask her what she wants in a game and try to include it (it's possible that she just prefers a different style of play).

Out some rules in place. When you get together to play you sit down and play. No if's, and's or but's. There will be breaks of course, but it's not acceptable that one person just wanders off and does her own thing, if she wants to do that she can't play.

Personal Drama stays at home. You may have had a ****ty day or week or month, but unless your house just burnt down and took your favorite goldfish with it don't bring it to the table. If she wants to talk about something she can come early or stay late or you can meet up another day, but don't bring it to the table.

If a character is unable to co-exist in a group for the most part (some minor conflicts will happen, it's part of role playing and what makes it interesting) that character will be NPC'd and the player will re-roll. Offensive spells against team members is the exact same thing as stabbing them in the back with a dagger and you should not be surprised when the party treats it as such.

Make it clear that the rules applies to everyone.

And seriously, get together outside of the game, all of you, grab a beer and/or pizza or whatever you guys like and just talk things over. Seriously communication is key and just getting away from the table can help with sorting things out.

Driderman
2012-11-28, 05:57 AM
Some groups just don't agree on what constitutes proper roleplaying.
I'd wager a guess that your "friend with issues" is a rather inexperienced roleplayer and the rest of the group are pretty set in their particular way of playing, which leads to conflict when she breaks the unwritten rules of interparty-interaction that the rest of the party subscribe to.

Judging from the information provided, I'd also say that the rest of your playing group doesn't really like your friend. Maybe that can be alleviated, maybe it can't, but sometimes it's simply best for all parties if a disfunctional gaming group splits up.

Could you perhaps find another group to play with, together with your issues-friend? Or maybe stick to playing boardgames for while, while she gets her things in order? That way, maybe her and the rest of the gaming group can create some positive experiences together, that will help them to find common ground once she gets back into the gaming group.

Anxe
2012-11-28, 08:03 PM
She sounds like the Watcher type of player to me. She wants to hang out with her friends and doesn't care if that's playing D&D or cooking food as you said. Best thing would be to not pressure her. Hell, maybe she'd be okay with playing a sidekick character instead of a main character.

When this happened in my campaign it was fine. My other players didn't care that much and eventually the Watcher stopped playing as she found another group of friends that did activities she liked better.

ReaderAt2046
2012-11-28, 08:39 PM
Just saying that I think it can be really good in a wierd way to have a group have one player who they all feel like is a nusiance. I may be slightly biased because that's what I'm doing right now in an Avatar RPG I'm running. There's a combination of three elements that make my firebender character a major aggravation to the others.

1. Loyalty. Around the third session of the game, our characters were framed by the local Fire Nation garrison commander, and we've been outlaws ever since. The problem is that due to the speed with which this happened, my character was, and still is, more loyal to the Fire Nation than to the party. This mainly manifested as him going to riduculous lengths, up to and including blinding or hitting other party members, to avoid hurting the local garrison. Needless to say, this drove the other party members nuts.

2. Does not like being insulted. This only came up once so far, when literally the first words I heard from a new member of the party (guy's character got killed at the end of the previous session) were a prolonged stream of insults against my character's nation, religion, and race. Needless to say, my guy took offense, and challenged the insulter to a duel. For some reason, this offended the party assassin, who then tried his hardest to kill me. (He really should have succeded, but the Random Number Gods kept intervening to keep me alive until the assassin literally said, "Ok, I give up. If the spirits want this guy alive this badly, fine")

3. Cloudcukoolander: My guy is a religous zealot who preaches a doctrine that everyone else finds loony (the basic bits that have come out so far are that the Fire Nation is destined to conquer the world, at which point the Avatar will be reborn as the Phoenix King for ever, and that if you work against this plan, or any other part of destiny, you will get smacked down by fate. For example, my character believes that the Air Nomads are to blame for the Air Nomad Genocide, since they caused it to happen by refusing to serve the Fire Lord.) On top of this, my character routinely sets himself on fire (he has a special ability that protects him from all fire damage), and tends to play with fire even when inappropriate (the best so far was firebending in a library full of hundreds of ancient and irreplaceable manuscripts. It was just to light a lamp so he could read, but it still freaked everyone out.)

So that's my contribution.

Driderman
2012-11-29, 02:41 AM
Just saying that I think it can be really good in a wierd way to have a group have one player who they all feel like is a nusiance. I may be slightly biased because that's what I'm doing right now in an Avatar RPG I'm running. There's a combination of three elements that make my firebender character a major aggravation to the others.

1. Loyalty. Around the third session of the game, our characters were framed by the local Fire Nation garrison commander, and we've been outlaws ever since. The problem is that due to the speed with which this happened, my character was, and still is, more loyal to the Fire Nation than to the party. This mainly manifested as him going to riduculous lengths, up to and including blinding or hitting other party members, to avoid hurting the local garrison. Needless to say, this drove the other party members nuts.

2. Does not like being insulted. This only came up once so far, when literally the first words I heard from a new member of the party (guy's character got killed at the end of the previous session) were a prolonged stream of insults against my character's nation, religion, and race. Needless to say, my guy took offense, and challenged the insulter to a duel. For some reason, this offended the party assassin, who then tried his hardest to kill me. (He really should have succeded, but the Random Number Gods kept intervening to keep me alive until the assassin literally said, "Ok, I give up. If the spirits want this guy alive this badly, fine")

3. Cloudcukoolander: My guy is a religous zealot who preaches a doctrine that everyone else finds loony (the basic bits that have come out so far are that the Fire Nation is destined to conquer the world, at which point the Avatar will be reborn as the Phoenix King for ever, and that if you work against this plan, or any other part of destiny, you will get smacked down by fate. For example, my character believes that the Air Nomads are to blame for the Air Nomad Genocide, since they caused it to happen by refusing to serve the Fire Lord.) On top of this, my character routinely sets himself on fire (he has a special ability that protects him from all fire damage), and tends to play with fire even when inappropriate (the best so far was firebending in a library full of hundreds of ancient and irreplaceable manuscripts. It was just to light a lamp so he could read, but it still freaked everyone out.)

So that's my contribution.

Having a gaming group thinking that one of the players is a nuisance is never good. Having the characters in a group feel a character is a nuisance can be just fine. Yours seems to be the latter, OPs problem is the former.