Social Domineering

[ZenBear]

So I’m having some trouble with one of my players. In the last session the party was making their way through Thundertree from the Phandelver module and at first everything was going fine. The party was engaged and entertained by the combat, the run in with the Druid went hilariously wrong, and I even got to start seeding some homebrew lore into the encounters. The problem started when we ran into the cultists. In my setting dragons don’t live in the region where the players are currently adventuring, so instead of dragon cultists petitioning a green dragon they are tribal warriors and a Druid herding a Shambling Mound toward an as yet undisclosed location. Their first encounter with the tribesmen went hilariously well as our Luchador Rogue threw the friendly Druid they Shanghai’d Into tagging along through the door. Our Oath of the Waifu Paladin ran up to heal him and was stopped by crossed spears at her throat, but through her Channel Deredere power she Charmed them into being her bestest pals. After a short conversation where they explained that they were “following the voice of the forest” our party convinced them to go find decorations for a tea party, so off they ran deeper into town. The party moved on to where they had been told the Druid was, and our Kenku Warlock cast Disguise Self to appear as one of the tribesmen.

I took the opportunity to seed this encounter with elements of this player’s backstory, as his character was formerly human and was transformed first into a raven to escape his dire circumstances in childhood, then a blackclad Druid just like the one he was meeting now attempted to return him to human form, but through warped magic left him as a Kenku. The player took this to mean it was exactly the same Druid, and concocted an elaborate story about how he (as the tribesman) had a vision about being a raven, asking the Druid what this vision might mean. This was not, in fact, the exact same Druid, so it didn’t know what to make of the story and dismissed him with platitudes. This seemed to irritate my player, as he didn’t get quite the revelation he was hoping for. After that, the party decided to ambush the Druid and two other tribesman guards by leading them outside and attacking. As soon as combat began, the Druid cast Fog Cloud to protect itself. In response, the Kenku player cast Minor Illusion to project a booming voice to say something along the lines of, “This is the Voice of the Forest! Kill the Druid!”

The problem here is; the “voice of the forest” isn’t an audible voice speaking directly to them. It’s a metaphorical “voice” guiding the Druid specifically, so obviously this gambit won’t work. The player didn’t understand that fact, so when his high Deception check, which I asked him to roll with disadvantage, failed to convince the tribesmen to turn on their leader, he got visibly upset. He argued against the disadvantage roll, and passive aggressively complained about his plan not working the way he wanted. His frustration and arguing ground the session to a halt, and I really wasn’t feeling my best that day so the disruption upset me and brought the mood of the entire group crashing down. I did what I could to salvage the situation, but eventually I called the game early and everyone went home.

So the question I’m trying to ask is how to deal with this situation. The player in question has built his character to be primarily social, heavy on illusion and enchantment spells and very light on combat mechanics. He’s also the most active player, having the most experience in D&D and a more detailed character than any other. He tends to take control of most encounters and is rather long winded in his descriptions of his actions. From the moment we ran into the first tribesmen he took over the social encounter and spent a solid 2.5 hours detailing his conversations and the story about the vision. My brother on the other hand has a pure combat character, and he was so bored during this 2.5 hours that he eventually got up from the table and went to lay down on the bed. I did my best to dish opportunities to interact for him, but the Kenku player would constantly interject and got annoyed that I was trying to bring my brother in despite all of the lore directly relating to his character, which one of my other players commented on. He seemed completely oblivious or just unconcerned with my brother’s boredom.

How would you guys handle this?

[Tiadoppler]

Okay, so your group has a single experienced, long-winded and bossy player with a high-Charisma PC and a possible plot connection to an NPC you just met.

Advice:
Work with your other players to introduce plot elements that connect with their PCs' backstories, so they have more to talk about and more incentive to be a part of the conversation.
Emphasize to the Warlock player that this druid is not the same one he met before, but might be in the same organization (or something. Why specify that they look alike if they're not connected?)
Talk to the Warlock player about giving others the chance to talk and be a part of the game. See if that improves things.
See if the Warlock would be willing to switch characters to a non-Charisma class. If he's an experienced player, he should understand why it's important for new players to be given the role of party face: so they learn faster.
If all else fails, kick him out of the group. It sounds cold, and it is, but it might be worth it to save the game for the other players.

[ad_hoc]

He argued against the disadvantage roll, and passive aggressively complained about his plan not working the way he wanted. His frustration and arguing ground the session to a halt, and I really wasn’t feeling my best that day so the disruption upset me and brought the mood of the entire group crashing down. I did what I could to salvage the situation, but eventually I called the game early and everyone went home.

1. I just tell the players that there are things they don't know. Adv/Dis happens a lot in social situations I find because what the characters say has a big impact. How they say it is character skill, but what they have learned in order to approach the situation properly is about building knowledge on the adventure.

2. This is an out of game problem. It's for having fun and no one needs to deal with that. It's not work. Definitely need to talk about social norms outside of the game.



So the question I’m trying to ask is how to deal with this situation. The player in question has built his character to be primarily social, heavy on illusion and enchantment spells and very light on combat mechanics.

Offer to make a new character.

D&D is designed to have an ensemble of characters delve into dungeons.

This kind of character concept is fine, but it won't come up all the time.

This is also indicative of being a problem player. Wanting to be the protagonist and hogging the spotlight. Wanting every encounter to be about him running the show.

If you have a niche character expect that niche to not come up often. When it does the spotlight is on you, but it is only now and then.

[ZenBear]

@Tiadoppler thanks for the feedback. The Druid is from the same organization, just not the same person so it didn’t have direct knowledge of the character. I was banking on him asking more probing questions about the organization, but he didn’t take that route. I’ll be talking to him next session to explain my concerns, but I won’t be resorting to booting him out. He’s a friend of two other players, and we’re becoming friends as well, this is just a bit of growing pain as we learn how to play together.

@ad_hoc I’m reticent to ask him to change his character because of how much work he put into the backstory and the work everyone did to tie their backstories together in session 0. I may ask him to tweak it to be less narrowly focused on social though. I’m new to DMing and it’s really hard to predict how my players will act, so sticking to the combat pillar is easier for me.

[Man_Over_Game]

He should be asking you what his character thinks what works/applies.

He didn't. He made an assumption. He can't just say "I open the chest" and then be surprised that there's something wrong if he didn't ask anything about it.

It's important that players do feel validated for their choices, but that doesn't mean they're always right just because they want to do something stupid. I see this come up a lot, and it's fixed by the player simply asking the DM what the character would think at the time. Maybe it requires a check. Maybe the character has no idea. But he could have at least tried to get more information first.

My course of action would be to mention all of this to him.

[Keravath]

A couple of points ...

As soon as you realized that the player was making decisions under false or incorrect assumptions that the character should have known, you could have stepped in and made it explicitly clear what the mistakes were and corrected them.

1) This is NOT the same druid as you met previously. They ARE wearing a similar black robe.
2) It would not have broken immersion to tell the player that his "voice of the forest" idea wasn't working because the "voice of the forest" is something they hear in their heads or hearts ... it isn't an actual voice. You could also have said there is something you don't know so disadvantage applies but this has two problems ... (a) they don't have any chance to mitigate the disadvantage because they don't know what is going on ... maybe they could do something that you (the DM) has not considered and (b) in the present case there was actually no chance for the deception roll to succeed since actually saying "the voice of the forest says kill the druid" is comical and not convincing. In this case, I would have simply said to the player ... "great try" but it doesn't work for the following reason ... and then give him inspiration for coming up with a good idea.

Doing both of these would have helped with some of the aspects of the situation.

In terms of participation, this is also your responsibility since you are running the game. If one player talks for 2.5 hours it is because you let them. One way around this is the enforced turn approach. You constantly loop through each player, engaging with them, asking if they want to take an action or say something and do NOT allow the one player to dominate. Everyone should have input and if the dominant player hasn't learned to ask for the input from everyone in the party before making party decisions then you need to force that on them by specifically engaging all of the other players and the party as a whole.

Just because a character is combat focused doesn't mean they are incapable of talking, exploring, asking questions or having good ideas. It is a role playing game so you also might want to try encouraging the players that are more combat focused what their character might choose to do if the CHARACTER isn't interested in the current social interaction. As an example, a less wise fighter might find themselves very bored with a long winded character having long and involved and boring conversations with NPCs and might decide to stir up a little excitement on their own just for fun. Done too much it can be just as bothersome as the dominant social player but when done in character and for the right reasons it can be an effective tool.

Finally, out of character, you'd probably want to have a chat with the warlock player so that they understand that if you impose conditions like disadvantage on checks it is for a good reason and probably something of which they are completely unaware. Since you can't stop and explain the plot then they need to accept that there are modifiers to their rolls that they might not see and occasions when you have them roll when there may be no chance of success. Its part of the game. The characters (and players) are not omniscient ... and although the DM is supposed to be they often aren't either :)

Anyway, depending on personalities, the situation could be fairly easily resolved but YOU may need to pick up the pace on encounters and cut back on the socializing NPCs to keep all of the players engaged.

[ZenBear]

@Keravath thanks for the input, and you @Man_Over_Game!

1. His character’s memories are very fuzzy for his earliest days. I informed him that the black robe triggered a flashback to that day of a similar blackclad figure. When he made his play I told him that it seems like the Druid doesn’t recognize him, so it must not be the same person.

2. I’m not sure how they would know what the voice of the forest is without asking, but I suppose I should have been more forthcoming with an alternative suggestion. I had just recently started a new diet and was feeling really ****ty, so I was definitely not handling the situation with the greatest aplomb. In that circumstance he could not have succeeded, but I try to take inspiration from the FATE system and allow for “failing with style” in which case had he succeeded on the roll they would not be convinced to turn on their leader, but would have been sufficiently confused to waste a turn.