Angry online players

[Brawldennis]

Hey playground,
I'm looking for some opinions on a matter. Some time ago I started recruiting a player for a 1 on 1 campaign on roll20, I wanted to do something unique, so I was looking for someone to play the villain for my campaign at home. During recruitment I talked with a lot of people, having them really flesh out an idea so I could find the best match in a player with whom I'd have fun playing with too (and mostly to prevent playing with something like Killy Mcevilguy). Some of the people wrote whole paragraphs of background, which really helped me get an idea as to who would be a best fit. Now my problem comes right after the moment that I had decided on a player.

I thought it would be common courtesy to send the ones I didn't decide on a message, thanking them for their time and effort, but that I'd chosen for another player. Some of them just lost it. I got accused of stealing someone's ideas, to use with the others player. Another accused me of just making the game up to waste his time and yet another just starting swearing at me. In hindsight I really am glad that I didn't go for those players as they're not the type of people I'd like to associate with, but it made me wonder. Is this something that happens a lot?

This isn't my first campaign I run online, but I've never had this type of behavior from potential players before so I was kinda shocked about it. Or do you think it was because of me asking questions about what they had in mind and how they see the character in their eyes? It's just that for something so personal as a 1 on 1 game I'd like to know more about a character then "He's a wizard necromancer that wants to become a lich."

[Takewo]

I think they might have understood that they were already in when you asked them to flesh out their character concept. I don't know how you handled it, but it looks like they were pretty sure you had chosen them.

[Ninja_Prawn]

My guess is that Takewo's right. They must have felt they were being led on. Some people are just angry by nature, but it seems unlikely that a lot of people would be at the same time... unless there's something about the sort of people who want to play villains in a 1-on-1 game. Maybe you've stumbled upon the ultimate screening question!

[Yael]

"He's the angriest gamer you've ever heard!"
I strongly agree with fellow playgrounders; I think that the people you were messaging with just minunderstood what the purpose of the "recruitment" was, so it is just understandable why they got mad at you. In the end, it's no one's fault, don't get too carried away with it, it just happens with the internet (or even at local gaming, it just... Happens.)

Purple stands for an old school reference, for this post at least.

[Fri]

Random people you game with online can have the weirdest misconceptions and/or tantrum, and sometimes it's not entirely their fault.

Like one time I was dming a pbp MnM game. One of the character got sneak-sniped by what's supposed to be a recurring sniper villain, and got completely downed in one hit, in their first outing. I actually kinda meant this to happen (didn't plan the specific thing to happen, but I do plan that a strong sniper villain will shoot at one of the player characters randomly, and this sniper guy is supposed to be quite strong since he's supposed to be a recurring villain. To be fair, he could've dodged it if he used a hero point, but he just squandered his hero point to attack some "bait" villains. But to keep things short, the villain rolled a critical, and he got downed in one hit.

This is an MnM game, and by default, it's not lethal. If you get downed, you're not dead. You'll be back up and fighting fully in the next session. But for some reason this player got angry (I think? I don't remember the exact emotional response), and he just deleted his character sheet and never reply anymore. Yes, he didn't simply resign from the game, or not posting anymore, he deleted his character sheet.

That's really the strangest thing I ever had with playing with random people online.

[Brawldennis]

I think they might have understood that they were already in when you asked them to flesh out their character concept. I don't know how you handled it, but it looks like they were pretty sure you had chosen them.

I don't believe that was the case, for one of them I had only asked if he could give me a broader idea for the character he'd wanted to play as all he'd given me was a race/class combo. I had especially tried to not show too much interest to prevent bringing someone's hopes up too much.


Maybe you've stumbled upon the ultimate screening question!

I've actually had quite a few good candidates too, which made it pretty hard to pick player so it won't be that easy. I usually like to ask for a previous character someone had fun playing as, there's a whole lot you can learn from the answer they give you.

[Ninja_Prawn]

I had especially tried to not show too much interest

When it comes to talking to players, you need to throw 'show, don't tell' out the window. Tell them: "I am auditioning several people for this and my asking for more details does not indicate that I have chosen you."


I've actually had quite a few good candidates too, which made it pretty hard to pick player so it won't be that easy. I usually like to ask for a previous character someone had fun playing as, there's a whole lot you can learn from the answer they give you.

What I meant by screening was:
Question: "do you want to play a villain in a 1-on-1 game?"
Response: "yes"
Conclusion: This person has anger management issues and I do not want to play with them.

[Takewo]

When it comes to talking to players, you need to throw 'show, don't tell' out the window. Tell them: "I am auditioning several people for this and my asking for more details does not indicate that I have chosen you."

Yup, that's right. Most of the people have kind of assumed that

No answer = No
Tell me more = Yes

Again, I don't know how you wrote the announcement or how you kept in touch with them, but people are like that, we tend to understand quite different things from the same words. So if you didn't clearly state that your asking more information didn't mean any kind of commitment on your part to playing with them (or even if you did) it's not odd that they would understand they were in.

Or maybe you just happened to meet the odd people.