Shopfinder - Or "how my game session went so very, very, very WRONG."

[Dezea]

Hey guy.

At first - As usual - let me apologize on the account on my poor english. (For I'm French, hrmmm)

So let me introduce the context : We'r a group of 5 buddies, all friend for quite some years already, and most of us had been roleplaying for quite some time too. One of us - Whom we'll call Bob - wanted to GM a Pathfinder scenari of his own as an introduction for two of our friend who were eager to discover what a RPG trully is.

One of them - Whom we'll call Mat - is really, really, really entouthiast. About one thing. One - Little - Fu..; - Thing. Shoping. And Shoping more. And arguing with the shopkeeper for 2 or 3 hour straight, given the opportunities.

Now, I mean, why not ? Having a beginner to get so involved is quite great. But It also get absolutely frustrating, looking at the fact that we are all pretty busy guy, with wife, kids and the pretty lack of "Free time" implied. And most of all, for anything unrelated to business, Mat is just "That guy". You know, that guy, that you can quite compare to a chair, exept that that chair is able to throw some dices, sometimes. He give absolutely no **** about what happends in fight, during important RP with an NPC or whatsoever. Quite frustrating, really.

So, obviously, when last session Mat started to argue for the sake of a piece of bread, we all sighed a bit but said nothing, after all, he's a friend, and if it's his way to have fun, why not. Moreover we were all coming back to town after a 4 session dungeon, and having some nitpicking with a Bartender was actually quite refreshing. But when he decided to go with all the money we made to get some stuff for the team, problem started to arise.

We were absolutely not in a mood to let him go into shopping frenzy for 3+ IRL times. And talking this out is quite impossible, as he is quite the "Don't you dare steal me my right to enjoy myself" type. So we tried to argue for 10 IRL minutes about the fact that this were quite selfish of him to steal our gaming session on shopping purpose. He answered that it was quite selfish of us to not let him have his fun after 4 booooooooring dungeon session. And that if his fun was to shop, it shouldn't be considered "less important" that monster killin', maiden savin' and village pillagin'.

Well. Why not. But to hasten things up, we asked for him to give back our share of the treasure (He convinced us in the first session of our play to let him handle the money - Wich is obviously a mistake looking at it from now, but seemed a good idea at the time, as it was quite appreaciable to see a beginner take responsabilities by himself) so we could buy our own stuff, and let him spend one hour on his on the sake of his fun - And to the GM despair, as he his growing quite tired to impersonnate arguing shopkeeper 90% of his gaming free time.

Exept that he said no.
Reasons being that :

- He his entitled the safety fund, he should also be entitled the responsabilities of using them
- Our share are too hard to divide, since some of us had more contribution that the other
- This is selfish and absurd, as a wizard doesn't need as much as a fighter, and as such we shouldn't split money, but ise it wisely together
- He is quite good at lowering the price, so if we let him do his bargaining, we would have much better price.

Obviously, all of this reasons screamed a big "LET ME HAVE MY FUN, GUY".

Now, we should maybe had let him get his way. After all we had 4 sessions of good ol' dungeoning fun, could have been fair to let him enjoy himself. Moreover even if clearly not the real reasons behind it, all of his arguments were true. And it's a really great IRL friend. But as you can guess, we really weren't ready for another "Watch your buddy play, while you sit and snort" sessions. So we asked the money another time. Then another time, exept with a kinda less friendly voice. Then the threat, and as a sad ending, the wizard using dominate person, getting the money, and telling him to just sit here while we would do the shopping.

Here I know, it was pretty stupid from us to not just take our share, leave him is, and go on our own shopping as we implied first. Mat were obviously absolutely mad of us, screamed quite a bit, and then, throw some big tantrum, packed his affairs and left.

So here is the thing : How would you guys have handled this, knowing that even with his horrible gaming habits this guy if your friend, you don't want to hurts his feeling too hard (Mission failed, obviously), and that talking this out friendly seems actually quite hard ?
Moreover, have you already encounter those type of gamer ? And have you found way to give them what they wanted without alienating the rest of the party ?

Thanks for the read !

[Feint's End]

OK so this is a very odd situation but we can apply some general thoughts on it.

Obviously your friend is enjoying a different kind of game than the rest of the group so maybe find a way to combine the 2 or explain it to him and if he can't live or doesn't enjoy the game then you might think about splitting. The way it is now everybody is pissed.

Basically if he doesn't enjoy the game you are playing then he should probably look into other gaming systems and/or group.

Your way of handling the situation wasn't optimal. Instead of telling him the truth straight up you let him get his will until you yourself got pissed to the degree of incapacitating him in character. That was a bad idea. You should just tell him how you all feel and that if he cannot enjoy the game you all want to play then it would be better for everybody to play with other people.

[Spore]

My DM is pretty straight with guys like this:

1) Tell me a reason why this should be cheaper.
2) Roll on Appraise (bonus or penalty regarding the reasoning).
3) DM offers a price regarding the rolls with modifiers.

If the player doesn't take the item the shop keep stays at his offer or tells the player to be gone. Four sessions of dungeons and possibly no social play at all are tiresome that I can agree on. But try to make social play about the WHOLE group not just the shopper.

And speaking as someone who works in retail: You can't haggle several minutes with only one customer unless you sell jewelry or cars or anything with similar value. There are other - possibly easier - customers that also need attention. I would even say that after several minutes your standing with the shopkeeper decreases to unfriendly. And if the shop has valuable stuff, the merchant probably has guards that kick you out.

Remember your DM that shopkeepers are not silent NPCs but characters with own motivations opinions and time schedules. You can't haggle for three hours straight.

I think your DM should introduce more possibilities for social roleplaying but buying a set of boots for half an hour is not fun.

[Red Fel]

So here is the thing : How would you guys have handled this, knowing that even with his horrible gaming habits this guy if your friend, you don't want to hurts his feeling too hard (Mission failed, obviously), and that talking this out friendly seems actually quite hard ?
Moreover, have you already encounter those type of gamer ? And have you found way to give them what they wanted without alienating the rest of the party ?

Short version? There are limits to what a party should be expected to permit in the name of "fun."

Long version? I have several points.

First: One person in the party cannot demand control of the party funds. If the rest of the party wants to be able to spend their share, one person in the party cannot prevent them from doing so, and cannot keep the money for himself. Full stop. He was in the wrong to do that.

Second: On a related point, I strongly dislike the mentality of "loot should be awarded based upon what you did for the party," or "fighters need money more than wizards," or similar such ideas. They create conflict and competition within the party, where there should be cooperation. It's unhealthy.

Third: This is the major point. It seems that he and the rest of the players are playing two different games. From your description, it seems that the party wants to play Pathfinder, and this player wants to play - as you describe it - Shopfinder. He doesn't care about the rest of the game, he wants to buy the items. And that's certainly one definition of fun, I won't disregard that it's valid. The problem is that, when the party wants to play one game, and one player wants to play a different game, there will be conflict. It is inevitable.

So how do you deal with these points?

The first and best option, as always, is to talk to the player. Not to the character, and not in-character. I'm going to fault your party here - you tried to find an in-character solution (arguing and using Dominate) to an out-of-character problem, and that's going to hurt down the road. You need to talk to the player, away from the game, and explain to him that while you appreciate that what he's doing is fun for him, it is not fun for the rest of you. Be polite, but firm.

If he refuses to acknowledge your feelings, and shows an unwillingness to compromise - which is possible, at this point, given what you've said - then your only two options are to let things continue as they are, which seems like a bad choice for the party, or to politely ask the offending player to leave.

Remember one additional point: Asking a player to leave your gaming group does not mean that you can't be friends anymore. There is a common misconception of "I can't kick him out, he's my friend," or "I can't do that, he's a good guy," or other such ideas. Nonsense. You can still spend time with a friend outside of the gaming group. But when a person is toxic to the gaming environment, when they take away the joy, you have to think of the whole table, not just a single person.

Best of luck.

[Shining Wrath]

Bonne matin, Dezea. :smallcool:

This solution seems obvious, if your DM is up to it.

All of you get together for dungeon delving. That is a team exercise.

Then the DM and 'Mat' have a side-session, just the two of them (possibly conducted electronically), where Mat haggles over prices to his little heart's content. I actually DO see Mat's point; if this is the part of the game he enjoys most, he should get to play it. He's weird, but if we start banning strange people from D&D tables we're not going to have many gamers left.

Unless Mat needs an audience. In which case you do have a problem.

As others said, talk to Mat as a human being and see what sort of solution you can work out. But I don't see why Mat must have the rest of you watch him haggle, whereas the rest of you DO need Mat's character for combat.

[prufock]

1. DM Perspective


We were absolutely not in a mood to let him go into shopping frenzy for 3+ IRL times. And talking this out is quite impossible, as he is quite the "Don't you dare steal me my right to enjoy myself" type. So we tried to argue for 10 IRL minutes about the fact that this were quite selfish of him to steal our gaming session on shopping purpose. He answered that it was quite selfish of us to not let him have his fun after 4 booooooooring dungeon session. And that if his fun was to shop, it shouldn't be considered "less important" that monster killin', maiden savin' and village pillagin'.

The DM's ultimate goal is to ensure everyone (including himself) has fun. As such, each session should strive to include things that each player will enjoy. One player likes in-character roleplaying? Yes, include that. Another player likes combat? Include that as well. Another player likes inventing and crafting custom magic items. Ditto. Another player likes exploration. Include it.

Now obviously, not ALL things will be possible every session, but it's important to achieve a balance. Having sessions full of nothing but dungeon crawls is not fun for Mat. He'd rather roleplay, haggling with shopkeepers, arguing with bartenders, whatever. Having sessions full of this is not fun for you guys.

So it's the DM's responsibility to balance these things. What are the rest of you doing while he's off negotiating? You might not be as deeply involved in roleplaying, but the DM should at least provide you with interesting hooks, events, characters, and so on. YOU NEED THINGS TO DO WHILE HE'S SHOPPING. Explain this to the DM, or be proactive about it and explore things to do on your own. There is no excuse for allowing one player to hog the session.

2. Character Perspective


Well. Why not. But to hasten things up, we asked for him to give back our share of the treasure (He convinced us in the first session of our play to let him handle the money - Wich is obviously a mistake looking at it from now, but seemed a good idea at the time, as it was quite appreaciable to see a beginner take responsabilities by himself) so we could buy our own stuff, and let him spend one hour on his on the sake of his fun - And to the GM despair, as he his growing quite tired to impersonnate arguing shopkeeper 90% of his gaming free time.

Exept that he said no.
Reasons being that :

- He his entitled the safety fund, he should also be entitled the responsabilities of using them
- Our share are too hard to divide, since some of us had more contribution that the other
- This is selfish and absurd, as a wizard doesn't need as much as a fighter, and as such we shouldn't split money, but ise it wisely together
- He is quite good at lowering the price, so if we let him do his bargaining, we would have much better price.

His character volunteered to be the team accountant, but the money still belongs to all of you, and he should not dictate what you do with it. Secondly, if he volunteered for this duty, dividing the shares is ALSO his responsibility. If he says it is "too hard," he isn't doing his job as party accountant. If your accountant isn't doing his job, you fire him. If he refuses to give you back your share, he is essentially stealing, and you are well within your rights to take it back by legal course of action or by force if necessary. Just make sure you also leave him his share.

3. Player Perspective

While it is fair for Mat to want his fun too, he's being kind of a jerk about it. I'd mostly echo Red Fel's advice here.

[Dezea]

Well, thanks guy, some very interesting answer here.

I really like Sporeeg view on shopping. True that too often we oversee that NPC too have desire, and that they don't considers themselve as tools for a PC in need of bargaining. And it's a good and logical ways to solve a good part of the problem, too.

Furthermore, I do really agree too on Red Fel view on "Problem solving". Tho, to be fair with "Mat", he isn't really saying that ""loot should be awarded based upon what you did for the party," or "fighters need money more than wizards,". His point is mainly that the stuff should be bought with the interest of the group before the interest of one - Wich is something absolutely debatable, too - and thus that it could lead to poor item choice to simply split the loot equally.

As for your solution Shining Wrath, even if I do really agree that it would make things way easier for us player, i'm not sure that our DM is really kind to the idea that he will engage in this, and I'm pretty sure he does really want an Audience. It's his big show time, after all ; <

Anyway, thanks a lot for all those answer !

[WarKitty]

What sort of things does he like, beyond just shopping? What is it about shopping that he likes? Do you necessarily need him as a player rather than someone else in the game? Perhaps he could leave the party to start his own in-world magic mart, serving as a dealer for the other players. They find stuff for him to sell and in return he helps them find the magic items they want.

[pyrese]

A game I used to play has a pretty good way of handling this. The game is called Dark Tower and in the game there are bazaars. At each of the bazaars you can browse items and choose to purchase them at the listed price or attempt to haggle. Every time you haggle though, the shop keep gets a little more irked and a little more irked. Eventually, the shop keep closes the bazaar and you lose your turn.

Frankly, it sounds like Mat needs to find a different group. The more cynical side of me thinks that Mat needs to stop being a selfish troll and that he's going to have a hard time finding any group that will suffer his selfish style of play. You (the group) attempted to address the issue out of character and he continued to be obstinate which led to the issue being addressed in character. With him rage quitting, it sounds to me like he can't handle multiplayer games.

[John Longarrow]

Dezea,

I would ask that your DM post on this board for help. It sounds like your DM needs help, and at most tables the DM is the one most equipt to handle a player that is being a problem.

As a player, you and the rest of your group can talk to Mat and explain what you like in the game. If he does not like the same, he may need to find a group that likes the same things.