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Kadakism
2013-02-22, 06:25 PM
So, I've been running my first campaign (3.5) for a few months now. It has more or less gone well, but I've made plenty of mistakes that are starting to come back and bite me. I know that a lot of these are my fault, but they all kind of stem back to a single player in my group who has exploited my mistakes.

My first and biggest mistake was letting said player play as a Drow. I offered everyone else the chance to play a level adjustment character, but they refused. He was the only one who took advantage of the offer.

Later, I entertained the idea of allowing each player to have a homebrew feat, as long as it was run and approved by me. Again, everyone else decided that they didn't want it, except for him.

Now that I've let him have his race and feat, he feels entitled to them. I, and the other players, have asked him to get rid of them for the sake of not overshadowing the party, but his response is that if that happens that he'll quit. I would be fine with him quitting, except that he is the only means for about half of the party to get a ride to the sessions, not to mention that he is one of my best friends and I feel that he would hold a grudge over me "targeting his character."

My final straw though is that I recently found out that he used his computer (he uses an electronic character sheet) to look up the puzzle I was running them through in order to get it done faster because he felt that the rest of the party was "being stupid and wasting [his] time."

Most of the other players have suggested to me that I simply kill his character off, forcing him to make a new one. But he already knows that we dislike his character, and so I feel like he would suspect that his character's death wasn't random. I and the other players have talked to him about his attitude multiple times, but it hasn't improved.

I would really appreciate any advice I could get on what I should do.

RolandDeschain
2013-02-22, 08:51 PM
Sounds like you already realize where you went wrong. If you offer up any home brew, everybody eats or nobody eats. Frankly, I'm a little surprised your other players turned you down; it indicates a major disconnect between them and this other player. Also, am I to assume you are letting him play a drow with no level adjustment? What level are your characters?

LoL...you could make his character an offer he can't refuse, and by that I mean promote his character out of the adventuring business.

Surfnerd
2013-02-22, 09:21 PM
Out of curiosity whats the feat he created for his drow? Please tell me it doesn't have anything to do with being able to overcome light sensitivity.

The one glaring problem I see with this is the cheating to win the puzzle. That would irk me to no end. I know how hard it can be to challenge someone who is doing wrong by the gaming group, but if he confessed to his cheating I'd deal with that swiftly.

The other players not jumping on the EL races or homebrew feats is their own fault. They cant make it the one players fault that they did not seize upon the opportunity. I'd just remind them that the offer still stands or they had their chance.

As far as overshadowing the rest of the party. I assume you mean combat. Just build the campaign into a different direction where the other players feel they contribute equally. And play up the social interactions of playing a drow on the surface. I refer to the animosity and fear not hordes of fanboi's wielding dual scimitars.

Or theres also his background coming for him. Why did he leave, who did he urk off or is he a spy working for some house or an army readying for invasion? You could always push the players to support their comrade by letting them get to know his character and then heaping the accusations on all of them.

Pesimismrocks
2013-02-23, 03:17 PM
I dont see how letting him playing a drow or using a homebrew feat overshadows the party. The drow has level adjustment and the homebrew feat was run by you.

The fact he tried to cheat on the puzzle is the main issue. If he is your friend, simply speak to him about the issue, or remove him from problem solving areas like these.

More information would be useful. Class and homebrew feat especially

W3bDragon
2013-02-24, 04:44 AM
There are two distinct issues here that need to be separated. First there is the issue of his race/homebrew feat. The second issue is the puzzle cheating incident.

For the race/feat situation, your options seem to be:

* Let him keep playing his character as is and make changes to the campaign to give the other PCs their share of the spotlight:

This is a reasonable option and probably the least confrontational, but it won't address the resentment issue the other players have with his character, though perhaps it'll pass with time and as they get more of the spotlight.

* Kill his character off or retire him and force him to make another character:

This option is really unfair to him. You allowed him to make that character and got him involved in the campaign. Its not his fault and he doesn't deserve to be forced to start over with a new character midway through the campaign.

* Offer him to adjust the homebrew feat or replace it with something else that is from the official material. For example, adjust the feat and give him a bonus feat or two, or an item, or whatever:

You can announce that upon playtesting this homebrew feat, you've revised your decision about it and you'll do your best to compensate him for YOUR mistake. The other players need to be on board with this option before you offer it to him. Also, if he declines, you're back to square one.

* End the campaign:

Reach whatever logical ending you can for the campaign and end it there. Take everything you've learned and start a fresh campaign with new characters. Armed with more experience, you'll hopefully be able to avoid these mistakes in the future.

That more or less addresses the first issue, as for the second one, that is rather more serious. You need to have a talk with him, preferably privately.

You need to tell him that being a first time DM, it is rather tough for you to make an interesting campaign for all the players and the task, though sometimes fun, can often be unrewarding when the players aren't supportive. Him being one of your best friends, you expected him to be supportive. But his shortcutting of your puzzle like that was disrespectful to you and to the work you put into the campaign.

Its not the issue of cheating on the puzzle and more the issue of feeling that because he was frustrated, he felt it would be acceptable to sabotage your work on the campaign and steal away the other PCs' chance of fun in figuring out the puzzle. Tabletop RPGs are first and foremost about cooperative play. Each player adding to the tally of fun that everyone is experiencing and making the game a memorable one for all involved.

Finally you can add that if he has any grievances with the way you run your game, he can voice them at the end of the session and they can be worked out, but taking matters into his own hands like he did is no better than you as the DM deciding to teleport them to the final battle of the campaign without warning while they're injured and underlevelled because the players "were being stupid and wasting [your] time."

AuraTwilight
2013-02-25, 05:00 AM
The fact that he cheated on the puzzle with the reasoning that "The rest of the party is stupid and wasting MY time" means he's A) not a team player, B) self-centered and not interested in making things fun for everyone else, C) is only looking out for his own 'winning'.

If he doesn't cut that crap out, cut him out.

Lost Demiurge
2013-02-26, 03:34 PM
::Shrugs:: I wouldn't play with him. I recommend that you start looking for ways to get the other guys there without relying on the jerk.

Lord Il Palazzo
2013-02-26, 04:32 PM
If you're running things by the book, the race and feat shouldn't be too big a deal. The drow race comes with a +1 Level Adjustment so he should have one fewer class level than everyone else. (That is, if a human in your party is level 5, the drow should only be level 4.) Especially if he's a spell caster, this should do a lot to balance his racial bonuses since he'll have to wait an extra level for each new level of spells.

With the feat, it's all a matter of what the feat was. A homebrew feat isn't necessarilly any more or less powerful than a published feat (and even those vary wildly). If the feat was too strong, you might need to find a way to tone it down, but allowing homebrew in and of itself wasn't the problem. As I say this, I'm assuming he had to take the homebrew feat as normal at one of his level ups rather than just getting an extra feat. If not, that's more the problem and you should either make him lose a feat of find some way to give everyone else an extra feat (homebrew or not).

His cheating on a puzzle is definitely the bigger concern. I've known groups to have a no laptops/phones/tablets at the table rule which might help, but some groups rely on this kind of aid (with electronic character sheets, the SRD and such) so it isn't always an option. Even if you kept tech away from the table, he's shown that he's willing to cheat and there's a good chance he'd try something else later if he thought he could get away with it. The only advice I can really give is to talk to him. Explain that you're trying to run a game with more to it than just a string of fights and that the puzzles are part of the game. If he's not interested in a game like that, he can hang back and let the other players work the puzzles or he can find a different game. Make it clear that you won't allow cheating at the table and if he can't or won't agree to that, he's out. Even if he agrees, keep an eye on him. He's already shown that he's willing to play dishonestly so just saying he won't cheat isn't exactly an iron-clad guarantee.

If you and the other players have already talked to him multiple times and he won't budge, there isn't much else to do. Give him an ultimatum: either he shapes up (whatever that means in this case) or he leaves the group. It stinks when it has to happen, but if he's ruining thing for everyone else and refuses to give an inch, you don't have many options besides keeping him as is or getting rid of him all together.

Tsriel
2013-02-26, 05:06 PM
There are two distinct issues here that need to be separated. First there is the issue of his race/homebrew feat. The second issue is the puzzle cheating incident.

For the race/feat situation, your options seem to be:

* Let him keep playing his character as is and make changes to the campaign to give the other PCs their share of the spotlight:

This is a reasonable option and probably the least confrontational, but it won't address the resentment issue the other players have with his character, though perhaps it'll pass with time and as they get more of the spotlight.

This is the most logical fix, but not always the best one to easily implement. In this situation (and somebody already mentioned it), it's feast or famine. Either every player gets it or none of them do. In your case, following a 2/3 majority rule would resolve any democratic issues such as this. The majority said that they don't want the extra perks. Your friend should honor this.


* Kill his character off or retire him and force him to make another character:

This option is really unfair to him. You allowed him to make that character and got him involved in the campaign. Its not his fault and he doesn't deserve to be forced to start over with a new character midway through the campaign.

This is my least favorite option for the exact reasons quoted above. I'd rather end the game outright and start over than this. Still, if you go this route, make whatever event that caused this character to depart meaningful. It'll give a positive finality to said character. Played correctly, it'll even build commadre (which seems to be lacking).


* Offer him to adjust the homebrew feat or replace it with something else that is from the official material. For example, adjust the feat and give him a bonus feat or two, or an item, or whatever:

You can announce that upon playtesting this homebrew feat, you've revised your decision about it and you'll do your best to compensate him for YOUR mistake. The other players need to be on board with this option before you offer it to him. Also, if he declines, you're back to square one.

Not a viable option in my book, as he still has a clear advantage over the other players (assuming level adjustment rules are being used).


* End the campaign:

Reach whatever logical ending you can for the campaign and end it there. Take everything you've learned and start a fresh campaign with new characters. Armed with more experience, you'll hopefully be able to avoid these mistakes in the future.

That more or less addresses the first issue, as for the second one, that is rather more serious. You need to have a talk with him, preferably privately.

You need to tell him that being a first time DM, it is rather tough for you to make an interesting campaign for all the players and the task, though sometimes fun, can often be unrewarding when the players aren't supportive. Him being one of your best friends, you expected him to be supportive. But his shortcutting of your puzzle like that was disrespectful to you and to the work you put into the campaign.

Its not the issue of cheating on the puzzle and more the issue of feeling that because he was frustrated, he felt it would be acceptable to sabotage your work on the campaign and steal away the other PCs' chance of fun in figuring out the puzzle. Tabletop RPGs are first and foremost about cooperative play. Each player adding to the tally of fun that everyone is experiencing and making the game a memorable one for all involved.

Finally you can add that if he has any grievances with the way you run your game, he can voice them at the end of the session and they can be worked out, but taking matters into his own hands like he did is no better than you as the DM deciding to teleport them to the final battle of the campaign without warning while they're injured and underlevelled because the players "were being stupid and wasting [your] time."

That action of the OP's friend would really grind my gears, which leads to this bit of advice: Avoid using resources from the web whenever possible. Why? Because everyone can access it, just like your friend did. Understandably, you're new to DMing, so it would be expected that you would seek resources for you to use. If you must do this, try changing up your puzzles in such a way where it isn't obvious that you're running *that* particular puzzle. Being a DM means becoming a master of smoke and mirrors. The right hand can't ever know what the left hand is doing.

The other bit of advice, be prepared to let your friend leave the game. In the 10+ years I've been doing D20 games (9 of it DMing periodically), you will find people that you just can't game with. It happened to me with one of my closest friends. Constantly min-maxing and just *had* to be the star before everyone else. It's never easy to tell someone that close and who shares much of the same interests with you that "we can't game together anymore", but sometimes it needs to be done. Our friendship did get awkward for a little while, but we got over it and simply came to the conclusion that our gaming styles are too different to be compatible. If he's a true friend, he'll get over it and you'll both move on. If he doesn't, then he wasn't a good friend for you to have to begin with.

In your case if he does quit(since he's transporting everbody), is to take the game online. You can do PbP (Play-by-Post) or use a VT (Virtual Table) app to run your game until the transportation situation is resolved. I'd highly recommend Maptool or Roll20 if you go this route as both are free to use.

Kadakism
2013-03-05, 06:50 PM
Well, thank you all so much for the advice. After a lot of thought, I made the decision to confront the player about his actions. He responded much in the way I assumed that he would, saying that it was my fault that he cheated because I used the puzzles from the book. I told him that I felt that some form of punishment was necessary, and he told me just to take him out of the campaign.

This whole adventure has been a learning experience for me, and I feel like I'll be a much better DM for it. It does sadden me a bit because since he quit the campaign, this friend has outright refused to talk to me.

And just to satisfy curiosity, the feat gave his character a small number of spell-like abilities that ran off of his ninja Ki pool. I purposefully cut each spell's ability in half to begin with. For example, one was Detect Thoughts. I cut it's duration and range in half and made each use cost 2 points of Ki. In all, he had four of these toned down abilities, each of which cost at least 2 Ki. It seemed balanced enough in my opinion, but he ended up using it to great effect even with the limitations.

Alaris
2013-03-05, 06:59 PM
Well, thank you all so much for the advice. After a lot of thought, I made the decision to confront the player about his actions. He responded much in the way I assumed that he would, saying that it was my fault that he cheated because I used the puzzles from the book. I told him that I felt that some form of punishment was necessary, and he told me just to take him out of the campaign.

This whole adventure has been a learning experience for me, and I feel like I'll be a much better DM for it. It does sadden me a bit because since he quit the campaign, this friend has outright refused to talk to me.

And just to satisfy curiosity, the feat gave his character a small number of spell-like abilities that ran off of his ninja Ki pool. I purposefully cut each spell's ability in half to begin with. For example, one was Detect Thoughts. I cut it's duration and range in half and made each use cost 2 points of Ki. In all, he had four of these toned down abilities, each of which cost at least 2 Ki. It seemed balanced enough in my opinion, but he ended up using it to great effect even with the limitations.

Urk... so he quit... won't talk to you, and he was the ride for a lot of the players to your game. That is about the worst outcome that could have happened. That... really sucks...

For the record, it is NOT your fault for him cheating. It is HIS. He chose to look up the puzzle. He should not have. If I found out that a player had done this, the minimum penalty would be "Lose a Level." That is if I chose to not simply revoke his character immediately.

Honestly, and I hate to say so, but he seems like a very self-centered player, focused on himself and his fun over the rest of the players and the Dungeon Master.

I hope your game can continue on in some manner at the end of the day, and I hope that you and your friend can repair your friendship. I would recommend giving him some time to cool down, and then talk to him about it.

>.<