I thought she was a problem player but...

[Bjarkmundur]

Playing Waterdeep, tons of fun. Factions start contacting the players, tons of fun. I explain that every player can assist in any faction mission, but you can only gain renown with one faction, so you must choose which faction you want to join. Everyone starts discussing factions, tons of fun. Everyone except THAT player. I ask her, 'Have you given the factions any though?'. She answers, quite matter-of-factly, "No, I'm going to make my own faction".

... tons of fun xD

So, If I make this too easy the players will feel like Waterdeep is more their personal playground than the living breathing thing it is, so I must do this right. I want to maintain the immersion and keep the adventure grounded, at least for the time being.

I told her that she can use the carousing downtime to gain allied contacts and slowly start building a following. She was very excited and gave me her best evil villain face. Tons of fun.

I think I got everything kinda figured out about this. It's all about creating the steps this player can take in order to get what she wants. I thought it might be an interesting point of discussion. So, in a down-to-earth campaign, how do you facilitate your chaotic player's enjoyment? How do you accommodate a chaotic character without breaking the relatively serious atmosphere of the world?

Right now the Steps look like this:
1. Gain 5 allied contacts
2. Call a meeting with your allied contacts.
3. ????
4. Profit

[ad_hoc]

I would just explain to the player that we're all playing together.

This isn't their story, they don't get to be the star of the show.

They need to make a character that fits into the story. If they can't do that then they need to find another game.

"but my character wouldn't do that" isn't a valid justification. If your character wouldn't be part of the story then you need to make a character that will.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Well, assuming that they've kept the tavern you're gifted at the start and put it in working order, that's a great opportunity to start roots for a business.

We started an Adventuring Company through ours (part to excuse players who wanted to try new characters for a time, part to keep retired characters involved as NPC) and we're only just becoming relatively well established in the City at level 15 (our deeds in Undermountain have brought attention to us from all sorts of people, from Zhentarim to Harpers to Nobles from other cities in the North). I don't know what kind of faction the player intends to make, but the reputation of their faction will rise and fall naturally with the success of their group.

Starting the faction could fall flat on its face if the character isn't charismatic (to attract followers) or insightful (to disregard bad actors). The most grounded solution to the problem is to allow the player to start the process and if they can't make it as a faction leader, have it fall flat on their face as a failed attempt. If they manage to sow those seeds and get it started, make sure they understand that it's going to be a very long term payout and you won't likely see lasting benefits from this without time and effort.

If they put in that time and effort (potentially spanning into a follow up campaign if the group does one), try your best to reward them. If they don't and you believe player is doing it just to be difficult and throw extra work at you, talk to them about that. Try to make it work but don't go out of your way to appease them.

[Bjarkmundur]

If they put in that time and effort (potentially spanning into a follow up campaign if the group does one), try your best to reward them. If they don't and you believe player is doing it just to be difficult and throw extra work at you, talk to them about that. Try to make it work but don't go out of your way to appease them.

This is exactly my state of mind. I am more than willing to reward a player for having a long time goal. I just hope I can get that point across during our next session, that it is going to be a marathon, not a sprint.

We have a very enjoyable downtime system going on. I even got the complement last session "You somehow managed to make the time between adventures exciting". Since all downtimes have an opportunity cost (you could be working, gaining 55gp, but instead chose to do something else) I think that's a good place to start.

Downtime 1-5: Gain allied contacts
Downtime 6: Roleplay a bit where you meet with your allied contacts and convince them to become your followers. One contact agrees on it. Each follower costs 6gp per month until you find a way to make profit.
Downtime 7: You can spend your downtime converting a single allied contact into a follower.

Eventually the following will be so expensive she's forced to find a way to get money. This is done to make sure she won't end up with an army right away.

We have a downtime almost every session, and she already has 2 allied contacts (the Cursed Mascot and Jamie the Street rat (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?591816-Are-you-creative)) and is at level 2. This means she'll have her initial group sometime between level 4 and 5, which I find reasonable.

I'm mostly excited about what she's going to do with the group, what are her goals?

[AdAstra]

Big thing, make sure the players know that this probably won't fully materialize by the end of the campaign. Building up a major force in a city is going to be difficult, and if you could do it in a couple months of game time, that would require an extremely unstable status quo, which as far as I'm aware is not the case. Chances are that at best, she'll end up as rising star, a whirlwind success, on her way to great things.

The problem is that in most cases, the prime talent is either going to belong to someone else, or be too independent to keep hold of. You need to wrest away some important names, gain the personal loyalty of the unaffiliated, and take whatever you can get.
The problem with the first is that buying out someone who's working for someone else is going to be expensive/difficult, and will draw their employer's ire. The second is probably the most effective, but also the hardest to actually execute, since usually, if a competent person is staying away from others, they have a pretty good reason, be it staying off the radar, not wanting to be tied down, having scruples, or having a greater calling that doesn't accommodate being on someone's payroll. The third is the easiest, but has the issue that, if this person is looking for employment, but can't get it from anyone else, why is that? Usually, the reason is incompetence, disloyalty, or some other major liability.

With this in mind, the primary way a player's likely to pull this off is to stay low, move fast, but hit hard. Through actual adventuring, help the people you need, people with skills. Save a life/loved one, pay a debt, spur deep personal growth, etc. Get people who will die for you, and preferably kill for you. Secure loyalty, delegate, and make sure to keep their pockets and hands full.

Once you've got this core group working, you can start combing through the dregs. Find the unwanted, and while plenty are unwanted for a reason, many will do well enough for your purposes, and there will be some diamonds in the rough, though obviously exercise caution in your recruiting. The members of your core that have good leadership and people-reading skills will need to find those that can be relied upon, and get rid of the ones who can't. The ones that distinguish themselves should be inducted quick and made happy, and anyone competent enough to be worth keeping should be kept in good shape. The ones that don't make the cut, let them go, but don't be cruel about it. The ones who you can't trust to not lie, cheat, and steal from you, and got past your initial vetting? They're dangerous loose ends, do what you will, dependent on alignment. Hopefully, they'll make for a good example.

This is going to be fraught, and the most likely point at which you're going to draw notice from someone big. Either lay low and tread carefully, or forge some ties early, but not too tightly. After all, you're not looking to be someone's underboss. Make arrangements, try to get some greater access or backing, but always as a partner or contractor. If not, don't do it if you can avoid drawing their ire. Attach, but do not integrate, and try not to be a parasite if you want to live.

Once you've got a real operation, hopefully with some big backing, you're in good place to expand more widely. Hopefully that should give you some ideas, and help you find places to throw a wrench into your players' plans

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Playing Waterdeep, tons of fun. Factions start contacting the players, tons of fun. I explain that every player can assist in any faction mission, but you can only gain renown with one faction, so you must choose which faction you want to join. Everyone starts discussing factions, tons of fun. Everyone except THAT player. I ask her, 'Have you given the factions any though?'. She answers, quite matter-of-factly, "No, I'm going to make my own faction".

... tons of fun xD

So, If I make this too easy the players will feel like Waterdeep is more their personal playground than the living breathing thing it is, so I must do this right. I want to maintain the immersion and keep the adventure grounded, at least for the time being.

I told her that she can use the carousing downtime to gain allied contacts and slowly start building a following. She was very excited and gave me her best evil villain face. Tons of fun.

I think I got everything kinda figured out about this. It's all about creating the steps this player can take in order to get what she wants. I thought it might be an interesting point of discussion. So, in a down-to-earth campaign, how do you facilitate your chaotic player's enjoyment? How do you accommodate a chaotic character without breaking the relatively serious atmosphere of the world?

Right now the Steps look like this:
1. Gain 5 allied contacts
2. Call a meeting with your allied contacts.
3. ????
4. Profit

1: Let her start a faction.

2: She gains 5 allied contacts

3: 5 allied contacts are killed in a room with a message of "Don't screw with us". These 5 were already warned about starting a new faction.

4: If she tries to start another faction, the other factions will mess with her.

5: Have her faction mission be either to appease the factions already in Waterdeep as an apology for trying to come up on their turf... Or find out which faction killed her contacts.

6: You can weave thebothet party members into this as some factions may be ok with new factions and want to know which faction killed off her 5 contacts.

7: Maybe one of the pkayer's factions did kill off her faction and that player is tasked with just bringing her into their faction.

[Chad.e.clark]

With the factions in Waterdeep having already been established, I very much doubt the four of them would appreciate another startup coming along just thinking they would be able to horn in on the Dragon Heist, as it were.

I would have it play out as such.
1. Not so friendly request left by villain's faction.
2.Enforcer NPC(s) from villain faction comes to tavern to have a come-to-Helm meeting.
3.Increasing villain faction against *all* player missions.
4.Other player factions are now being targeted by villain favtion for close proximity to new start up faction.
5. Players Tavern gets attacked.
6. Etc etc etc

All of villain's faction are meant to be well established and not above using whatever means necessary to get things done. Insect, meet boot, ya dig?

[Gryndle]

all great points.

One thing I would add, regardless of charisma, reputation or resources, no faction will hold together without some unifying belief or motivation. So what is the character trying to accomplish besides personal power? What is the goal/mission/motivation of the faction they want to start? Does the character actually believe in it, or is it just something they are manipulating to motivate potential followers?

History is full of otherwise uninspiring leaders rallying a power base behind a common cause, and conversely charismatic, ambitious leaders that latch on to an existing ideal (or worse manufacturing a cause or crisis) purely for the purpose of unifying a power base.

Ask the player, where on that spectrum does the character fall? And what cause or ideal are they espousing to bring to people together?

[SirGraystone]

Lots of the options would depend on the player class and the goal of her character. If she's a rogue creating her own thieve guild then others guilds will have a problem with it. If she's a cleric wanting to build her own chuch then Waterdeep would probably be open to it.

If she's building some criminal organization, I would give her five hirelings but make one a spy from the Zentharim or another appropriate faction. The Zentharim could secretly be very helpful to a new group, only to offer to merge them into the larger faction later.

[Bjarkmundur]

So what is the character trying to accomplish besides personal power? What is the goal/mission/motivation of the faction they want to start? Does the character actually believe in it, or is it just something they are manipulating to motivate potential followers?

I don't know, that's why I'm so excited! ^^
She might be pulling a fight club on me, and I can't wait to find out :D

I just have to make the challenge appropriate and process believable, for the lack of a better word. I'm not gonna intentionally screw with the plans of my player, or throw her in a now-win scenario. Put it this way, I might increase the DC, but I'm not gonna deny her the roll.

[Wildarm]

I think I got everything kinda figured out about this. It's all about creating the steps this player can take in order to get what she wants. I thought it might be an interesting point of discussion. So, in a down-to-earth campaign, how do you facilitate your chaotic player's enjoyment? How do you accommodate a chaotic character without breaking the relatively serious atmosphere of the world?

Right now the Steps look like this:
1. Gain 5 allied contacts
2. Call a meeting with your allied contacts.
3. ????
4. Profit

DH is a great campaign to try this with. There are plenty of NPCs the group will meet who are disaffected with their current faction or group for one reason or another. Zhents or Xanathar agents in particular may want to jump ship due to changing political tides or faction leadership issues.

For this player, basically tell them, in Waterdeep money buys power which buys influence and gets followers. As a low level PC, no one gives a damn about her. She needs to accumulate some wealth/power/influence first. Take a look at the various downtime activities in Xanathars. There are plenty of ways for a player to spend time and gold to make contacts. Once she's reached a certain threshold, have one of the NPCs she's met with loyalty issues chat her up in the Yawning Portal about potential shifts in the power groups within the city. With everyone off balance because of recent events, this is a prime opportunity for a new group to rise.

The actual faction reputation points don't do that much in Dragon Heist so I'd suggest telling her to accumulate favor in one of the factions purely to make contacts and gain influence there purely to siphon off members in the future to her own group. If the group managed to get all the gold(or even part) she should be well on her way to forming her own mercenary group or function the start of some other faction.

[Bjarkmundur]

Alright, I talked to her.

Instead of asking her what her plan is I asked what fantasy she was fulfilling. She is playing a blonde always-smiling fairytale type princess, but now she wants her character to be reaallyyy shady behind the scenes, but it is never revealed to the other players. Appearantly she gets a kick out of having a secret. Sure, whatever floats your boat.

She immediately started talking about either a swingers club or an erotic cult. I promptly stopped her and said: "Doesn't deciding the type of your secret following kind of defeat the purpose of having it a secret? Just say that your character dissappear once or twice each tenday, usually in weird costumes". She loved this idea, since it lines up perfectly with the fantasy she's fulfilling, which is leading a second, secretive life.

I continued: "If the nature of your group is to be a secret, wouldn't you need some sort of front? Something to tell the other players you are actually doing? How about a theatre group? That works well with your entertainer background, and accounts for the secret meetings (aka practicing a new play) and weird costumes. "

She, again, absolutely loved this.

So, now the plan is to gain contacts, convert them into followers, and manage a theatre group... And have secret meetings (usually naked) with that group, never telling the other players what's up.

I'm so glad I got to investigate the core of her fantasy, and help her bring that fantasy to life. We all play DnD for different reasons, and this is a part of her catharsis; escaping reality for a little while and living a fantasy of a more exciting life.

This tought me a lot about player fantasies. The sociopathic rogue might just be trying to fulfill a fantasy he doesn't quite understand, for example. Talking to that player and discovering the core of his fantasy might reveal a simple solution, making playing with that player much more enjoyable

Now I just have to find a reasonable way to set up this fantasy. I'm also really glad that it'll mostly revolve around managing a theatre group, rather than a demonic cult or a Waterdeep faction. Bullet dodged there. I was afraid she'd go full vampire on us xD

Tldr I talked a player out of initiating a erotic devil worshipping cult, without compromising the enjoyment of the player, by suggesting a theotre group instead. Hahahaha.

[Maelynn]

Now I just have to find a reasonable way to set up this fantasy. I'm also really glad that it'll mostly revolve around managing a theatre group, rather than a demonic cult or a Waterdeep faction. Bullet dodged there. I was afraid she'd go full vampire on us xD

I think it's hilarious what she's trying to do.

While reading the thread I initially wanted to suggest reading up on some of the existing factions and how they came to be for inspiration on how to get it set up, but now it appears that would be far too big for her actual plans.

Only question I have now: what makes it a faction, instead of just a secret fun sexy club?

[FilthyLucre]

Playing Waterdeep, tons of fun. Factions start contacting the players, tons of fun. I explain that every player can assist in any faction mission, but you can only gain renown with one faction, so you must choose which faction you want to join. Everyone starts discussing factions, tons of fun. Everyone except THAT player. I ask her, 'Have you given the factions any though?'. She answers, quite matter-of-factly, "No, I'm going to make my own faction".

... tons of fun xD

So, If I make this too easy the players will feel like Waterdeep is more their personal playground than the living breathing thing it is, so I must do this right. I want to maintain the immersion and keep the adventure grounded, at least for the time being.

I told her that she can use the carousing downtime to gain allied contacts and slowly start building a following. She was very excited and gave me her best evil villain face. Tons of fun.

I think I got everything kinda figured out about this. It's all about creating the steps this player can take in order to get what she wants. I thought it might be an interesting point of discussion. So, in a down-to-earth campaign, how do you facilitate your chaotic player's enjoyment? How do you accommodate a chaotic character without breaking the relatively serious atmosphere of the world?

Right now the Steps look like this:
1. Gain 5 allied contacts
2. Call a meeting with your allied contacts.
3. ????
4. Profit

So, when I clicked on this thread this is not what I was expecting - at least this is not what I think of when I think "THAT player". Frankly it sounds like she's really engaged and excited to interact with the game world you've created. Why not let her? Granted, it probably would or should take longer than the scope of this one adventure but it sounds like she's role-playing and having a good time. Finding a way to accommodate her while making sure everyone else is having fun is THE hallmark of a good DM.

[FilthyLucre]

Alright, I talked to her.

Instead of asking her what her plan is I asked what fantasy she was fulfilling. She is playing a blonde always-smiling fairytale type princess, but now she wants her character to be reaallyyy shady behind the scenes, but it is never revealed to the other players. Appearantly she gets a kick out of having a secret. Sure, whatever floats your boat.

She immediately started talking about either a swingers club or an erotic cult. I promptly stopped her and said: "Doesn't deciding the type of your secret following kind of defeat the purpose of having it a secret? Just say that your character dissappear once or twice each tenday, usually in weird costumes". She loved this idea, since it lines up perfectly with the fantasy she's fulfilling, which is leading a second, secretive life.

I continued: "If the nature of your group is to be a secret, wouldn't you need some sort of front? Something to tell the other players you are actually doing? How about a theatre group? That works well with your entertainer background, and accounts for the secret meetings (aka practicing a new play) and weird costumes. "

She, again, absolutely loved this.

So, now the plan is to gain contacts, convert them into followers, and manage a theatre group... And have secret meetings (usually naked) with that group, never telling the other players what's up.

I'm so glad I got to investigate the core of her fantasy, and help her bring that fantasy to life. We all play DnD for different reasons, and this is a part of her catharsis; escaping reality for a little while and living a fantasy of a more exciting life.

This tought me a lot about player fantasies. The sociopathic rogue might just be trying to fulfill a fantasy he doesn't quite understand, for example. Talking to that player and discovering the core of his fantasy might reveal a simple solution, making playing with that player much more enjoyable

Now I just have to find a reasonable way to set up this fantasy. I'm also really glad that it'll mostly revolve around managing a theatre group, rather than a demonic cult or a Waterdeep faction. Bullet dodged there. I was afraid she'd go full vampire on us xD

Tldr I talked a player out of initiating a erotic devil worshipping cult, without compromising the enjoyment of the player, by suggesting a theotre group instead. Hahahaha.

I rescind my earlier statement - this DOES appear to be a "THAT" type of player.

[Contrast]

Instead of asking her what her plan is I asked what fantasy she was fulfilling. She is playing a blonde always-smiling fairytale type princess, but now she wants her character to be reaallyyy shady behind the scenes, but it is never revealed to the other players. Appearantly she gets a kick out of having a secret. Sure, whatever floats your boat.

She immediately started talking about either a swingers club or an erotic cult. I promptly stopped her and said: "Doesn't deciding the type of your secret following kind of defeat the purpose of having it a secret? Just say that your character dissappear once or twice each tenday, usually in weird costumes". She loved this idea, since it lines up perfectly with the fantasy she's fulfilling, which is leading a second, secretive life.

In future you may want to ask people what kind of story they're trying to tell. People may misinterpret being asked about their fantasies :smalltongue:

I'm a little confused though - you've decided to keep the activities of her group secret...from the DM and player? I get wanting to fade to black for sexy shenanigans but the both of you do very definitely need to decide the type of secret if either of you expect it to have any actual relevance to the game (which in fairness, it doesn't have to - I have lots of mental backstory for characters which I've never shared because its a minor issue that isn't going to have an impact on the game).

If its just a sex club, no worries. If its a sex club which intends to get blackmail material on wealthy/powerful individuals and accrue behind the scene political power that is going to need some DM involvement...

[darknite]

When the player says they want to make their own faction in Waterdeep, what they're really saying they want to be a power in Waterdeep. Not an easy thing to do, especially since all the other power blocs in Waterdeep will notice eventually.

I'd let them start with their plan but throw some inter-factional conflict into the mix - probably with an angle of having the player given the option to become leader of another, competing faction. How this happens will become apparent as you enter the conflict stage and will certainly take time. Perhaps it's a brute force method, or some form of extortion or even an invite from a factional higher-up to do something for them in exchange for a leadership role in Waterdeep.

[SirGraystone]

Another question would be how big does the player want his faction zone of influence to be. Will it be a power know over the Sword Coast? All over Waterdeep? Only in the North Ward? Or simply taking over the blocks between Shark Street and Grimwald's Way?

[sithlordnergal]

This actually could lead to a lot of plot hook potential. Especially since Dragon Heist has time between the very beginning and the meat of the story. I would do the following:

1) Let her get started with a faction group, let her gather some followers

2) During the jump between seasons, allow her faction to grow and gain some influence

3) At the start of whatever season of Dragon Heist you're running, have her be contacted by two factions. One should be an evil faction who kills one or two of her members, the other should be a good faction offering her some assistance if she is willing to work with/for them.

4) Depending on the players reactions, continue with Dragon Heist, but cause different factions to butt in. If she snubbed the offer from the good faction, have them send in a few people to cause trouble for them. If she accepted their offer, have the party receive extra help but force them to follow their oath to serve with some difficult choices

[ProsecutorGodot]

This actually could lead to a lot of plot hook potential. Especially since Dragon Heist has time between the very beginning and the meat of the story. I would do the following:

1) Let her get started with a faction group, let her gather some followers

2) During the jump between seasons, allow her faction to grow and gain some influence

3) At the start of whatever season of Dragon Heist you're running, have her be contacted by two factions. One should be an evil faction who kills one or two of her members, the other should be a good faction offering her some assistance if she is willing to work with/for them.

4) Depending on the players reactions, continue with Dragon Heist, but cause different factions to butt in. If she snubbed the offer from the good faction, have them send in a few people to cause trouble for them. If she accepted their offer, have the party receive extra help but force them to follow their oath to serve with some difficult choices

This is a pretty good approach, many of the factions present in Waterdeep (not all mind you) would rather assimilate a budding faction into their own than dismantle it completely. The most difficult part if she reaches a stage where it's a large group would be maintaining their autonomy instead of becoming a branch of an existing faction regardless.

The Zhentarim and Harper's would be most likely to push a newer faction to join arms with them. Something worth noting, regardless of which season you end up playing, The Xanathar Guild will likely be out to completely obliterate your new faction.

[Bjarkmundur]

I asked her about the power she wants her following to hold.

She replied 'none, I just want them to adore me and do things for me sometimes, like favors and such.'

So basically just allied contacts and the occasional sex rave.

This all went really well compared to her initial request of wanting to 'make a faction' based around a devil cult...

[SirGraystone]

If she has a good charisma and is a redhead, I would suggest starting a shrine of Sune.

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Sune

[Bjarkmundur]

I could also just guide her to the Cassalanters :P

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I asked her about the power she wants her following to hold.

She replied 'none, I just want them to adore me and do things for me sometimes, like favors and such.'

So basically just allied contacts and the occasional sex rave.

This all went really well compared to her initial request of wanting to 'make a faction' based around a devil cult...

Devil Cult Faction is a lot less cringey though.

[Zhorn]

Devil Cult Faction is a lot less cringey though.
Maybe, but this version would probably be easier to get members for.
"Hey, do you want to join or shady organisation who's figurehead we worship might potentially destroy your home dimension and devour your soul if they get powerful enough? Membership is a blood oath and likely eternal damnation"
vs
"Hey, do you want to join our secret club where we build pillow forts and everyone jumps in a huge snuggle pile each weekend? You just have to run a small errand for the founder once in a while to secure membership"

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Maybe, but this version would probably be easier to get members for.
"Hey, do you want to join or shady organisation who's figurehead we worship might potentially destroy your home dimension and devour your soul if they get powerful enough? Membership is a blood oath and likely eternal damnation"
vs
"Hey, do you want to join our secret club where we build pillow forts and everyone jumps in a huge snuggle pile each weekend? You just have to run a small errand for the founder once in a while to secure membership"

In the D&D world an evil cult isn't hard to recruit for, plus, depending on the devil/demon you cult for you get the sex parties too.

Evil cults are so easy to recruit because people know the gods exist and yet they don't do a whole lot to help the common people.

[Magicspook]

I really wonder what kind of group of people results in a (female) player asking their DM if it's okay if they start a sex cult...

I like the fact that you're actually goig through with it though xD.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I really wonder what kind of group of people results in a (female) player asking their DM if it's okay if they start a sex cult...

I like the fact that you're actually goig through with it though xD.

If it was a spell, it would be a level 10 spell called "Cringetastic".

The gender of the player doesn't matter.

[Gryndle]

I really wonder what kind of group of people results in a (female) player asking their DM if it's okay if they start a sex cult...

I like the fact that you're actually goig through with it though xD.

I'm not sure that says anything about the group at all. In fact that's about average from my experience.

Even taking into consideration that my current group's humor can be rather "blue" the most sexually explicit gaming scenarios I've ever witnessed were driven by female players. Only in two cases I can think of right now was that any indication of the player's actual personality. One complied when asked to dial it back a bit, and gamed with us for years. We all knew she was a wild one, but she respected our boundaries. The other had ulterior motivations and was ultimately booted from the gaming group and our social circle for trying to hook up with the married men in the group.

The fact that the op DM has dealt with his player in a way that allows her to have her sex club behind the scenes with out exposing the rest of the group to any kind of creepiness is kind of a master stroke of DMing if you ask me.

Slightly off topic, I do have to wonder at the fact that, as it relates to the game, we can get used to ideas of beheading, explicit cruelty, sacrificing to dark powers, murder, and all sorts of rampant violence and just consider that part of the game. But if sex enters the game world the initial reaction is to label it as ick-creepiness. If that's simply because of the inclusion of younger gamers, I guess I can see it. If its societal, I have to wonder at the logic. <insert shrug here>.

[Tetrasodium]

1: Let her start a faction.

2: She gains 5 allied contacts

3: 5 allied contacts are killed in a room with a message of "Don't screw with us". These 5 were already warned about starting a new faction.

4: If she tries to start another faction, the other factions will mess with her.

5: Have her faction mission be either to appease the factions already in Waterdeep as an apology for trying to come up on their turf... Or find out which faction killed her contacts.

6: You can weave thebothet party members into this as some factions may be ok with new factions and want to know which faction killed off her 5 contacts.

7: Maybe one of the pkayer's factions did kill off her faction and that player is tasked with just bringing her into their faction.

I'm going to agree with this & suggest this (https://anchor.fm/investigationcheck/episodes/Thats-Just-What-My-Character-Would-Do-e4o1fu) podcast about problem players for both DM & player. Key take away is that d&d is a team game where the players actually need to work together as a team. It sounds like this player is going to be a massive disturbance even if they join one of the existing factions. In my experience, nearly every one of these types of player I've ever had expects the game world campaign & group to be built to fit their broken & ill fitting square peg of a character made in isolation with little or no collaboration between the rest of the group rather than having their character grow to fit the events of the campaign. If the player doesn't get it, don't hesitate to smite the character with lightning/falling rocks/lava or even boot the player.

[Hail Tempus]

Slightly off topic, I do have to wonder at the fact that, as it relates to the game, we can get used to ideas of beheading, explicit cruelty, sacrificing to dark powers, murder, and all sorts of rampant violence and just consider that part of the game. But if sex enters the game world the initial reaction is to label it as ick-creepiness. If that's simply because of the inclusion of younger gamers, I guess I can see it. If its societal, I have to wonder at the logic. <insert shrug here>. It's been my experience that players and DMs don't typically go into graphic detail about the violence that occurs in the game. When an orc gets dropped to 0 hp, neither the player nor the DM talk about how he gorily bleeds out on the ground. I'd be kind of put off by a player or DM who wants to talk explicitly about violence in the game.

Similarly, unless it's something that's been agreed to by the table ahead of time, the type of person who wants to go into graphic detail about their PC's sexual exploits is, at best, going to get eye rolls from the rest of the table.

Some people are attention whores, who don't care about other peoples' boundaries.

[ProsecutorGodot]

It's been my experience that players and DMs don't typically go into graphic detail about the violence that occurs in the game. When an orc gets dropped to 0 hp, neither the player nor the DM talk about how he gorily bleeds out on the ground. I'd be kind of put off by a player or DM who wants to talk explicitly about violence in the game.

Similarly, unless it's something that's been agreed to by the table ahead of time, the type of person who wants to go into graphic detail about their PC's sexual exploits is, at best, going to get eye rolls from the rest of the table.

Some people are attention whores, who don't care about other peoples' boundaries.

On the sexual exploits front I agree, group buy in is essential. Some people keep that part of their lives private and it's not something talked about (that I'm aware of) in the rules.

On the gory violence part, I don't share that experience. My experience watching and playing DND is that when an Orc is shot in the neck by the Rogue his vertebrae shoots out the opposite hole and the party shouts "Jenga!" while the Barbarian brutally decapitates another Orc, proclaiming that this will make a fine addition to his belt loop of decaying monster heads. That, and the collection of body parts you had intended to use as bounty turn ins becomes long forgotten in the bag of holding. Months later when you go back to clean out its contents you find much of the bag has begun to smell and there's a slimy goop rolling around where you're sure those goblin and gnoll ears used to sit.

It's an inherently violent game*, your job is usually to slay things and the fact that they're trying to kill you back doesn't leave room to imagine it as a non bloody encounter. The rules go over your methods of killing and inflicting harm extensively.
*Most of the time, published adventure modules have their fair share of violence. Obviously this varies in a home campaign or setting.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Key take away is that d&d is a team game where the players actually need to work together as a team.

Way too many people make some pretty big problems because they don't think of this.

I think people are used to being "player 1" in videogames and so they want to be the star of the show... The group is the star, not one character.

[Mordaedil]

Bjarkmundur, it looks like you have some fantastic ideas for making the downtime fun for your players, for some reason I see a bunch of people responding to this assuming your player is being a problem player, when I don't see that at all in what you've written.

I suggest not taking the advice that actively punishes her, instead drop very subtle hints in the game normally, which ties some of her political opponents into the plot proper. That way, when you need to give her extra motivation, you have a pretty good way of urging her to deal with the encounter in a very specific way. Maybe she needs information, so she wants them taken alive, or maybe they are too big of a threat, so she prioritizes assassinating someone over capture.

Just be careful to not design it to the point where it directly clashes with the party's goals, but just seems a little excessive or unnecessary.

This can be a fine balance, but very fun if you can pull it off.