Disruptive newbie

[ZenBear]

So I ran into an old high school friend and invited him to join my DnD group. He's stoked but has never played before. I'm stoked to teach him! He decides to play the exact same race/class/archetype as my gf, an elf moon druid (unfortunate but oh well), and then proceeds to never use his wild shape ability. The DM allows him to be mentally linked with another player because of a random joke, and now all he wants to do is mind control everyone into following his every whim. First fight is against giant scorpions terrorizing archeologists, decides his Druid would rather heal the scorpions than help the party. I grapple him to prevent the heals, he grapples my character's junk and gets frustrated that that doesn't automatically free him. He eventually escapes, heals scorpions again and DM has him roll Animal Handling. Nat 20, scorpions run away. Next fight he tries to stab my character in the back. The rest of the party pursuades him not to do that by threatening to kill him. End of the session I'm worried he won't want to come back.

I'm looking for advice on how to teach him that D&D is a cooperative game, but he's a free-spirit/starving artist type who chafes at the slightest resistance to his whims. Everyone likes him and tried to be accommodating but he was too disruptive and started getting on everyone's nerves. Thoughts?

[MaxWilson]

That's a rough situation, not least because a certain amount of outside-the-box thinking is good--but he went over the top, and also started arguing with the DM about a ruling (getting free of the grapple) and also hindered the party instead of helping them.

So, it's basically an issue of social norms, and "we like this guy but right now we don't want him on our team." I guess the next question is for him: does he want to play on a team, or is he more interested in disrupting one? If the latter he might make a good DM someday, maybe, but he's not suited to play at the table you're at. If the former then he'll have to make some adjustments to fit in.

He sounds like a good guy, he just needs to tone it down a little and be more considerate.

Edit: also, it might help if he knew his options a little better. I don't normally write down players' abilities and things for them but in this case that might be helpful. Instead of "I know I'm mentally linked to someone else--what can I do with that?" maybe he'll be like "I know I can turn into any animal I have seen before--what can I do with that?" It might also help for the DM to lay out some specific options when asking him for action declarations. "You can either talk to the bugbear chief and ask him what his hat means, or try to scare him, or start a fight, or do something else. What do you do?"

[Celcey]

I'm looking for advice on how to teach him that D&D is a cooperative game, but he's a free-spirit/starving artist type who chafes at the slightest resistance to his whims. Everyone likes him and tried to be accommodating but he was too disruptive and started getting on everyone's nerves. Thoughts?

Truthfully, I think the best thing to do is just say "hey, D&D is a cooperative game. The goal is to have the party working together, not against each other. If you're into that, let's play, and if not maybe we could do a solo campaign sometime." If he's not mature enough to be able to work within a team, D&D is not his game. Is unfortunate, but true.

[unwise]

If he is a good friend, then tell him he is being a ****wit straight up and that that is not how the game is played.

If he is a less good friend and an artist type, tell him that it is a cooperative story and the you think he may not realise that. Paint the tale, if he reads books or watches movies he has to know how a plot works. Would it make any sense if a character in a book suddenly did that? Would it make a good movie? For that matter, have you ever seen a book or movie where they thought it was a good idea to have two of the exact same character? If so (like LotR) why did it work in that case?

[Armored Walrus]

If those tactics fail, and he's not necessarily going to be around for every single session, maybe the DM can work with him to come in from time to time and roleplay him as a recurring adversary? (I'm not calling him an enemy, because he's not an evil character, just one with whom you have a history, whose goals sometimes run counter to the party's)

Edit: Or a competent DM could probably ensure that the next few sessions only include battles against monsters that are purely evil, so the guy can wait until he has some sessions under his belt before he has to deal with things like moral conflicts based on his character's background and training. (It's not necessarily wrong for a druid character to have sided with the scorpions, or to try to prevent his teammates from outright killing them in my opinion, but being new, he had no idea how to go about convincing the party not to attack without being disruptive about it)

[Carlobrand]

... he's a free-spirit/starving artist type who chafes at the slightest resistance to his whims. ...

He's not really cut out for D&D. If nothing else, the DM will be giving him plenty of resistance to his whims. Okay, he played a druid who sided with the beasties, but that backstabbing bit is worrisome, given that he's supposed to be your friend. It's out of character for a druid and suggests he was venting his own frustrations.

One thought might be to have him play opforce: have the DM let him run the opposing combatants. There's no question about him accommodating others or others accommodating him in that scenario.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm looking for advice on how to teach him that D&D is a cooperative game, If he doesn't fit at your table, he doesn't fit. If he wants to fit at your table, he'll learn to fit in. If cooperative fun isn't something he's into, if he's not willing to be a team member/player/leader, then maybe D&D is the wrong RP game. What about Paranoia or Fate some other RPG? There's hundreds out there.

but he's a free-spirit/starving artist type who chafes at the slightest resistance to his whimsI've dealt with self centered *****'s before. I realize that this is your friend, but some folks' people skills don't mesh with a cooperative game. Why force it?

[Friv]

I'm going to go with the "talk to him".

It might not work, but it's your best bet, especially if you want to keep him as a friend. Just say something along the lines of "Look, man, I like you. We all like you. But what you're doing right now is not unlike joining a baseball team and then tackling your outfielder to keep them from catching a hit."

[Ruslan]

Just tell him a game could be more fun for everyone, himself included, if everyone play together and not against each other.
If he can't get down with that, he will have to find a different game.