My new player likes to things and ..."date"

[Sariel Vailo]

He chooses bad things to roleplay like peeing his pants in front of the prison guards. as halfling rouge2 ranger 2 enjoys throwing knives, axes,and pebbles lots of pebbles
I even had to change hail of thorns to hail of pebbles.he getting out of hand and i dont know what to do.

[Demonslayer666]

If it's taking away from your fun, and others, you'll have to have the fun talk. Discuss what's fun for you, and what's fun for them and try to come to a compromise on the direction you want to take your game.

Personally, this sounds very interesting, albeit a bit silly. Why do you feel like this is something that needs to be fixed?

[smcmike]

It sounds like you are hoping for a more serious tone, correct? First step is a one on one talk outside of the game, setting forth your expectations. Second step is to stop rewarding him in the game - usually when someone does something silly in the real world, the result is not all that interesting.

DM (as Prison Guard): "Where are you taking this ... thing?"
P1: "Prisoner transfer from cell block 1138."
DM: "I wasn't notified. I'll have to clear it." The head guard motions for this underlings to advance on you.
New Player: Hahaha. I pee my pants hahahahahaha.
DM: The guards don't seem to notice. What do you do?
---
Sometime later....

NP: My character will hit on the barmaid! Hahaha.
DM: She looks at you in disgust, and you overhear her telling the bouncer that you smell like urine. He advances...

[BurgerBeast]

That's good advice from smcmike. Also I highly recommend that you google the Angry GM and "tone policing."

[ZB2017]

what exactly is the deal with the pebbles? :tongue:

[Sariel Vailo]

Roll for backstory.he tries to add things like i had a gnoll friend in the orphannage i grew up in.im fine with his acts of stupid.its his incessant i know more than what my character does.ive played it ok ive had guards deal with the urine soaked menace i just.....im running out of ideas to use against him.people have advantage to find him for he hasnt bathed.and things for him to do ill talk to him about the meta gaming but he needs things for him to do.
More than just scouting

[strangebloke]

He's a troll. Setting the guards on him only incentives him to keep playing in this way.

Have an honest conversation. Tell him to shape up or ship out.

If you can't do that for one reason or another?

Completely ignore everything he does. Have every NPC treat him with thinly veiled contempt. Never have an NPC speak to him directly if they can help it. He hits on a chick at the bar? The chick doesn't reply, but instead walks over to the party leader and complains that their pet halfling is bothering her. He wants to throw a pebble? It's a pebble. It does jack ****.

He's behaving like an incontinent poodle that humps the leg of everyone who enters the room. If this was a real person, how do you think he'd be treated?

[Sariel Vailo]

Thank you.this actually works thinly veiled contempt.

[imanidiot]

Thank you.this actually works thinly veiled contempt.

No, no. Open contempt. Practice rolling your eyes a lot.

[Hooligan]

.ive played it ok ive had guards deal with the urine soaked menace

Urine soaked menace is a tremendous band name.

Can I please sig this ?

[Geodude6]

I think you may need to strike him down with a bolt of divine retribution.

[Sariel Vailo]

Urine soaked menace is a tremendous band name.

Can I please sig this ?

Yes.but its utterance shall bring about terror.for the the urine soaked menace may now become legendary

[JakOfAllTirades]

I think you may need to strike him down with a bolt of divine retribution.


...and when his character is a smoldering corpse, be sure to tell him how much fun everyone else is having now that he's gone.


That'll get the point across.

[Decstarr]

I have a player who does things like that on occasion. Hes a hafling rogue - surprise. He's a good enough player most of the times, but we have the habit of drinking a few glasses of good whisky on our sessions and he usually ends up drunk and start doing stupid things similar to what you mentioned. I haven't had to interfere, yet because, well, the other PCs handle it. At one point he was scouting ahead a red dragons lair and repeatedly stopped to shart. After the third time, the other players told him to get his sh1t together and as soon as their PCs caught up with him, he was target of a lot of sh1t odor jokes. Unlike the odor, the jokes stuck around :) He stopped doing idiotic stuff afterwards. So maybe talk to the other players and have their characters interfere. That way, you won't be the big bad evil DM sucking away all the fun :P

[Sariel Vailo]

Thanks i will.

[CaptainSarathai]

ill talk to him about the meta gaming but he needs things for him to do.
More than just scouting

Sounds like the problem is a bored player, not necessarily a bad one.
Sure, sometimes this is the result of D&D just not being the right hobby for a player, but more often it's the result of DMing mistakes. You need to engage the player with things that entertain them and keep them occupied.
Find out what they want to do. You don't even necessarily have to ask them this, just look at their character sheet.
What skills did they take?
More than anything, more than any background, I have found that this is what usually gives you the best idea of how to engage their character.
If they took Animal Handling for example, that probably signals that they want to have an outdoorsy character who interacts with beasts rather frequently. If you have them trapped in a urban-setting, with no wildlife at all, and only people to talk to; they're gonna be bored.
If they took Persuasion, then they want to be talkers and negotiators. If your campaign is just "kick in door, kill badguy" play, or if all your NPC conversations are one-sided railroads; bored player.

Bored players push back. They try to find fun, and they try to create their own fun. They have utterly lost respect for the DM because the DM has failed them. At this point, they don't even care what the DM wants, because the player has probably sat through several hours of the DM's idea of "fun," and now they feel like it's time to get even.

I would bet you, dollars-to-donuts, that if you ask what the problem is, or ask another player to ask him away from you - he'll say that he's bored and only plays because his friends are there.

[Toofey]

You should try talking to the player. If you're going for a gritty tone the intentionally wildly unpredictable guy who's ridiculous is actually a trope that exists in that type of story (best I'm coming up with right now is Caleb from "Turn: Washington's first spies" but I'm sure there's others. )

And honestly if he's looking for a sillier game and not just trying to be disruptive, you should be somewhat open and flexible on this point. There's more room for letting one character have a slightly different overall tone than you would think.

If he's trying to disrupt the game that's an out of character problem and should probably be dealt with that way. Dealing with it in game by making all NPCs default hostile to him etc... is probably disrupting the game as much or more than the player is. The answer to this situation is certainly in the player's motivation.

[Sariel Vailo]

Sounds like the problem is a bored player, not necessarily a bad one.
Sure, sometimes this is the result of D&D just not being the right hobby for a player, but more often it's the result of DMing mistakes. You need to engage the player with things that entertain them and keep them occupied.
Find out what they want to do. You don't even necessarily have to ask them this, just look at their character sheet.
What skills did they take?
More than anything, more than any background, I have found that this is what usually gives you the best idea of how to engage their character.
If they took Animal Handling for example, that probably signals that they want to have an outdoorsy character who interacts with beasts rather frequently. If you have them trapped in a urban-setting, with no wildlife at all, and only people to talk to; they're gonna be bored.
If they took Persuasion, then they want to be talkers and negotiators. If your campaign is just "kick in door, kill badguy" play, or if all your NPC conversations are one-sided railroads; bored player.

Bored players push back. They try to find fun, and they try to create their own fun. They have utterly lost respect for the DM because the DM has failed them. At this point, they don't even care what the DM wants, because the player has probably sat through several hours of the DM's idea of "fun," and now they feel like it's time to get even.

I would bet you, dollars-to-donuts, that if you ask what the problem is, or ask another player to ask him away from you - he'll say that he's bored and only plays because his friends are there.

They invested in stealth pickpocket deception and performance.

[GlenSmash!]

I have a player who does things like that on occasion. Hes a hafling rogue - surprise. He's a good enough player most of the times, but we have the habit of drinking a few glasses of good whisky on our sessions and he usually ends up drunk and start doing stupid things similar to what you mentioned. I haven't had to interfere, yet because, well, the other PCs handle it. At one point he was scouting ahead a red dragons lair and repeatedly stopped to shart. After the third time, the other players told him to get his sh1t together and as soon as their PCs caught up with him, he was target of a lot of sh1t odor jokes. Unlike the odor, the jokes stuck around :) He stopped doing idiotic stuff afterwards. So maybe talk to the other players and have their characters interfere. That way, you won't be the big bad evil DM sucking away all the fun :P

I've got a halfling rogue like this too, we had a talk about table expectations, including what alcohol to have. I'm not sure if he decided to change his behavior, or if switching to drinks that take a little more time to down like stouts did the trick.

[Hrugner]

Bored players push back. They try to find fun, and they try to create their own fun. They have utterly lost respect for the DM because the DM has failed them. At this point, they don't even care what the DM wants, because the player has probably sat through several hours of the DM's idea of "fun," and now they feel like it's time to get even.


I've personally played this character for this reason. Once you get to the point where it seems nothing your character does matters in the game, you start to kick at the game to see if anything rattles. It's similar to the door kicker player who is certain the DM will throw soft balls so he never bothers with stealth, plans, diplomacy, and so on.

[Sariel Vailo]

Im not sure why he is doing what he is doing he isnt serious to begin with. he is trying to be a mix of bad ass and clown.how ever he is doing better less stupid but he takes his moment.