The Player who is “That Guy” for everyone except me.

[Drache64]

The Player who is “That Guy” for everyone except me.

This seems like a strange post, I am not really asking for advice, because there is no problem for me. But rather, this is a request for input/insight.
I have a player who is a notorious “That Guy”, but not when I DM. When I DM he isn’t too much of a problem, he can get a bit uppity on certain decisions I (The DM) make, or decisions his teammates make, but then quickly falls into line as a good player and core member of the team.

First some context, His Sins:
This player can hog the spot light, he gets anxious when other players derail the plot with what he deems “dumb” decisions, and chooses to corral that by inserting himself into almost every conversation and interaction, when he doesn’t get enough lime light, he starts killing NPCs and getting the party in trouble, or he heads off on his own so the DM will have to address what he is doing. He argues with DMs either to rules lawyer in his favor, usually wrong, or rules lawyer against other players so they can’t feel as powerful as his character. This last one is important, he comes with trigger warnings, if the DM makes him feel stupid or “punishes” him in the slightest, it amplifies his antics, he would rather TPK the party and end the session for everyone over simply letting the game continue.

Note: He does all of this when I am a player with him, or when I am not involved, but he doesn’t really get this way when I DM.

More context, how I handle him:

I don’t let him hog the spot light, when he sets off on his own I give him no more time than any other player who stuck with the group and when he tries to invent situations such as attacking a guard, I have him thrown in prison for the night by a strong NPC guard or other similar solutions that tie up his character, BUT I get him plugged back in as soon as possible, instead of starving him of lime light even more in an attempt to “punish” him, I simply give him no more/no less spot light than any other player. When It comes to his rules-lawyering I handle it quite simply, I am just more knowledgeable than him and quickly handle the ruling by citing book and page number.

Doing this, his regular party admits he is really not a problem, when I introduce him to a new party that he has never played with before, they find him to be a treat to play with and wouldn’t guess he is a problem to other groups.

My prognosis (I am totally open to being wrong):
I think he literally IS “that guy” but I know how to handle him. I love his characters, I love him as a player (when I am the DM), and I love to see him working with others when I am the DM. Some have said he only isn’t a problem because I baby him, but I think I am actually just as tough as any other DM, but in the right way. Other DMs let him run things off its hinges to the parties chagrin, they have NPCs treat his character like he is an idiot, they respond to his rules-lawyering with “I am the DM-god and I don’t care what the rules are” and trigger him beyond his capacity.

Some anticipated responses:
“You are a bad DM” My players would disagree with you, they love my sessions and even enjoy “this guy” in my sessions.

"Sounds like too much work" not really, this is my natural style of DMing and I change nothing for him, I DM him the way I DM any other player.

“You should stop playing with him” Again, this is an attempt to solve a problem I don’t have. He is a great player when I am the DM and the party loves him, I go out of my way to send him an invite when I am the DM.

“You just haven’t played enough with him, he will show his true colors eventually” I have played 5 different campaigns with him that lasted months/years.

“Then why are you even asking for advice if you think you have all the answers” I had a really great session with him recently (Friday) and he was with new players who loved his character and playing with him. One of the old players warned me saying “don’t invite him, you’ll regret it” and I pointed out that he’s only a problem with other DMs. I made this post because I began to ponder why he works so well with me.

Hope that is enough context, I know that is a common request with posts around here.

[AdAstra]

You might just have perfectly compatible playstyles. Or at least playstyles that don’t meaningfully conflict with each other.

If I were to psychoanalyze, I would probably suggest that he worries about being sidelined or otherwise unimportant, and thus acts out, spotlight hogs, and tries to finagle people’s power to ensure that he isn’t, and overcompensates. Of course, when he does that, a lot of DMs will go out of their way to give him the opposite, or let the problem continue without properly addressing it at all. Thus, he either reacts poorly and acts out further in an effort to avoid being sidelined(obviously counterproductive in his instance, and detrimental to the group), or just becomes a constant problem for other players. Your approach obviously avoids that. You prevent the behavior without punishing it, and actively enforce things that ensure his bad behaviors are never necessary, thus giving him no reason to escalate, and keeping it at an entertaining level of antics when it does pop up. I would also presume that he has other behaviors that are enjoyable in their own right, and that without his negative aspects overshadowing them people like playing with him.

So basically, good job. Even if he’s never “rehabilitated” from That Guy status, he’s at the very minimum being a friendly player to groups DM’ed by you.

[kyoryu]

Eh, he wants things. Attention, mostly.

You're not rewarding him for bad behavior with attention.

[CombatBunny]

We (my table) have exactly the opposite scenario.

We rotate the GM every 10 sessions and we all behave in a very constructive way, our characters have motivations, we interpret them vividly, we interpret their flaws and we are eager to know what happens next.

Problem is when “This guy” is GMing, then everything turns to mayhem, wackiness, murderhoboing, derailing the adventure and running away from every single adventure hook.

Why? That’s easy, this guy makes us feel unimportant and insignificant, every NPC knows our secrets, every NPC is better than us, we have no input in the adventure as everything happens as “this guy” has pre-written, etc.

We have talked a lot with this guy and gave him feedback to exhaustion, but he simply doesn’t improve.

So, by what you are telling in this post, the problem is that the player you are talking about doesn’t likes at all the way other GMs GM, soy he behaves in a destructive way as a protest. Best you can do is to have some feedback at the end of the sessions, so that YourGuy can express what he doesn’t likes about the other GMs and so that they can improve, other than that, if those GMs aren’t willing to improve, there is nothing that can be done about that.

This guy will only be comfortable in a table where no other GM is GMing but you.

[Pex]

Meta game it's probably because he respects you. He likes you as a person, so if he senses you feel annoyed by something he's doing he stops. He learned the limits of his antics that do not antagonize you.

[False God]

So clearly you just know what to expect with this guy and know how to deal with him. It takes knowledge and experience to learn how to do this without either being a reactionary who tries to shut a player down before they actually cause a problem, or being too slow to respond to them when they do cause a problem.

I'm sure a lot of us are "that guy" for someone.

[Tvtyrant]

Sounds like the issue is trust. He trusts you to treat him fairly, so he acts better. He doesn't trust other GMs, so it creates a negative feedback loop.

Which is great! It is also not particularly useful as advice for others, because by the time someone is asking for help the trust is already broken and is likely not repairable.

[Cynthaer]

Meta game it's probably because he respects you. He likes you as a person, so if he senses you feel annoyed by something he's doing he stops. He learned the limits of his antics that do not antagonize you.
This is my guess as well. It sounds like a combination of (A) things you do, (B) skills you have, and (C) who you are just so happens to fit well with how this player plays. Without all three, I doubt you'd succeed.

Which is fine, as long as he's in your game; there's no moral obligation to be a Good Player in general if you're a Good Player in the games you actually play.

Still needs to sort himself out so he can stop making everybody miserable in all his other games, though.

[Quertus]

Being me, rather than praise you for handling that player well - which you do - my first thought is to blame the other GMs for handling him poorly.

Have any of the other GMs been both players in your games (to see how to correctly GM for him) and not gotten the hint?

Because so many people's "problem player", I look at and say, "problem player? No, he's fine, you've just got to…"

[Faily]

Some player/GM combos just work better than others. Some people are just better as a player, some are better as a GM, and some player/GM combos just don't tend to work.

Someone in our "old" group (calling it the "old" group since they're the ones we've played with the longest and they're also the oldest xD) is somehwat of a powergamer and rules-lawyer as a player. As a GM he has been surprisingly good at adding depths with NPCs and the world, but as a player his characters rarely have depth beyond "what is optimal" most of the time.

Now, I'm GMing this group for the first time (official first time - tried once many years ago to introduce them to another setting than "standard D&D" with no success), and he has been by far my most difficult player to deal with. We made the switch from 3.5 to Pathfinder, and it's very tiresome to deal with very mechanically-oriented questions and some of the attitude he has as a player towards me as a GM.

He's otherwise a pretty ok guy, so I don't think he's trying to be "That Guy". I just think we're a poor combo with me as GM and him as Player.

Sometimes that just happens.

[King of Nowhere]

from my experience teaching in school, I can say that it happens. i had students who behaved with everyone but me, and students that everyone complained about but never gave me any problem. and if we look at the specific instance, we can always find some reason for why someone's specific way to behave specifically rubs with someone else's idiosyncrasies. But there's no guaranteed way to make it happen intentionally. some people just mix well with each other, and some people just don't.


Being me, rather than praise you for handling that player well - which you do - my first thought is to blame the other GMs for handling him poorly.

Have any of the other GMs been both players in your games (to see how to correctly GM for him) and not gotten the hint?

Because so many people's "problem player", I look at and say, "problem player? No, he's fine, you've just got to…"

I disagree with this attitude. If you have to "handle" someone (besides showing them some basic respect, fairness and decency), then that guy is a problem. mature, non-toxic people handle themselves, they don't need others to do something specific to keep them appeased. I also don't like the unfair extra burden it puts on the DM; everyone should handle their own emotional baggage, forcing the dm to deal with the players' emotional baggage too is unfair. I could understand it with one of those DM-for-hire, because when you pay someone to do a job you can expect him to cater to you. but not in a group of friends where the DM is everyone's equal.
It's like that hole-in-the-floor fallacy that said "there is a hole in the floot but it's not a problem, all you have to do is not step in it", hell no, even if you can step aside it's still a problem.

[Quertus]

I disagree with this attitude. If you have to "handle" someone (besides showing them some basic respect, fairness and decency),

What one person considers "basic respect" is often a completely foreign concept to a second person. What one person considers "fairness" often does not match with that definition from a second person.

So, we're saying the same things - you just need to treat them with fairness and respect - but for the things that matter to them, not just the way you define those terms.

Now, sure, some people are "super reasonable", and can adapt to accepting a completely foreign concept of fairness (everyone gets an equal amount of food, everyone gets an amount of food proportional to their height/weight/age/whatever, everyone gets as much as they can eat until the food is gone, etc). So, if you explain to them how your way is "fair", they'll be fine. Others are less flexible in their definition of respect.

Take, for instance, the need of a healer, and forcing people into that role. Is "first come, first serve, sorry, you have to play the healer" fair? Or what if the PCs don't work together - is it fair to force just certain players to rebuild their characters, or is it fair to force everyone to make new characters? Or magic item distribution from random drops - what counts as "fair" there?

One could easily do what they thought was "fair" in these scenarios, and still tick someone off for being "unfair", if their definitions of and assumptions regarding "fairness" don't match.


I also don't like the unfair extra burden it puts on the DM

1) Tough. You want to sit in the big chair, you need to put on your big boy pants.

2) everyone at the table should pass this minimal bar for maturity. Really. I think any player who cannot do this should be kicked - and that goes double for the GM. Anyone who lacks the capacity or desire to make reasonable compromises (let alone have conversations about such topics, which is often all that is necessary) has no place in a social setting.

[Scripten]

1) Tough. You want to sit in the big chair, you need to put on your big boy pants.

Err... a lot of us GM because we have the skills sets that match up with GMing well. This reads like you think that being GM confers some sort of godly power. Anyone who comes to my table is expected to "put on the big boy pants" precisely because I don't have any desire to play therapist at the table while also juggling my other GM responsibilities.

[Faily]

Err... a lot of us GM because we have the skills sets that match up with GMing well. This reads like you think that being GM confers some sort of godly power. Anyone who comes to my table is expected to "put on the big boy pants" precisely because I don't have any desire to play therapist at the table while also juggling my other GM responsibilities.

This. So much this.

While it's not been a problem for me in tabletop games, play-by-post games have more often than not had "problem players" that just sap the joy out of GMing for me.

I'm sorry, but as a GM I too need to have fun and enjoy myself, and having to cater to high demands and difficult behaviour is a sure way to kill that. It's gotten to the point for me that I will only GM play-by-post for players that I have faith in to be respectful and considerate to me as well, so that it can go both ways, rather than me running myself ragged to try to satisfy high-maintance players.

[Themrys]

Err... a lot of us GM because we have the skills sets that match up with GMing well. This reads like you think that being GM confers some sort of godly power. Anyone who comes to my table is expected to "put on the big boy pants" precisely because I don't have any desire to play therapist at the table while also juggling my other GM responsibilities.

This.

Parents can get away with offloading the responsibility of teaching their children basic manners to teachers because teachers are paid and need the money. (And I have often complained about the fact that lots of theoretically great teachers don't get around to teaching because they aren't good at handling problem children.)

GMs aren't paid. There's no obligation to handle and integrate "That Guy" into the group instead of just kicking him out until he learns to behave in a socially acceptable way.

I'm sure there is a potential market for pen&paper roleplay games as therapy, but you can't demand that every GM also acts as a therapist.

Sure, I, too, expect the GM to be the first to do something about a problem player, since the group dynamics more often than not make everyone else ignore the problem because they perceive the GM to be the responsible authority - but I don't expect a GM to do more about a problem player than simply kick him out of the group.

[patchyman]

What one person considers "basic respect" is often a completely foreign concept to a second person. What one person considers "fairness" often does not match with that definition from a second person.

If a person is a jerk across multiple games (which is what the OP stated), then the problem is the jerk, not the people who refuse to accommodate them.

The “Missing Stair” social fallacy is very relevant to this thread.

[Rhedyn]

He's a bad player, but not for you. You are assertive where you need to be for him and bend where you need to for him.

Any GM trying to "punish" him for bad behavior is just going to waste everyone's time. My guess is most the of the other GMs practice conflict avoidance and this player needs to be told firmly no. A GM that tries to avoid interpersonal conflict will take this firm no as conflict and then try to avoid the player throughout the night. They don't want to argue the rules and say "because I am the GM" because they want to avoid conflict.

Through that lens, the discrepancy makes sense. You clearly don't have a problem with conflict because you made this thread begging for it. This player has no problem with GMs that can handle interpersonal conflict. Buuut, GMs shouldn't have to do that to play with him. He should behave and not be personally insulted whenever he is told no. It doesn't matter if he gets over it quickly. A conflict avoiding GM hates creating that interpersonal conflict just to play a game.

[CombatBunny]

He's a bad player, but not for you. You are assertive where you need to be for him and bend where you need to for him.

Any GM trying to "punish" him for bad behavior is just going to waste everyone's time. My guess is most the of the other GMs practice conflict avoidance and this player needs to be told firmly no. A GM that tries to avoid interpersonal conflict will take this firm no as conflict and then try to avoid the player throughout the night. They don't want to argue the rules and say "because I am the GM" because they want to avoid conflict.

Through that lens, the discrepancy makes sense. You clearly don't have a problem with conflict because you made this thread begging for it. This player has no problem with GMs that can handle interpersonal conflict. Buuut, GMs shouldn't have to do that to play with him. He should behave and not be personally insulted whenever he is told no. It doesn't matter if he gets over it quickly. A conflict avoiding GM hates creating that interpersonal conflict just to play a game.

Agree with all of this, except for one thing. I think TheGuy deserves at least to be asked "what is the matter?" before going through all of this.

[King of Nowhere]

1) Tough. You want to sit in the big chair, you need to put on your big boy pants.


most times, the dm doesn't want to sit in the big chair, it's just that someone has to, and this guy may be the only one with the required skills (or the only one coming close to it; perhaps he's only a mediocre gm, but everyone else would be an utter disaster), or the only one who is willing to put in the extra time and effort.
which is also why, as a rule of thumb, I'm much more forgiving for DM failings than for player failing. Being a good player is easy. All you have to do is be nice to people and learn the basics of the game. Being a good dm requires a lot of social and gaming skills, and often enough the guy doing it has been chosen as the least incompetent at the position.
In fact, if nothing else, I'd say gming is a burden and should be entitled some extra perks. I try to be nice to everyone, but I try to be extra nice to the dm, because the dm puts in extra time.

The way you phrase it (and the way you expressed similar opinions in other threads) makes it look like in your group the dm is a highly sought position or prestige and power, with everyone contending for it. which may be the case for your group, but it's generally the opposite.




Parents can get away with offloading the responsibility of teaching their children basic manners to teachers because teachers are paid and need the money.

Actuallty, they can't, and many parents believing they can is one of the reasons the school system is going down the drain (at least in italy, not sure everywhere else). the teacher can say whatever they want, but if the parents don't support the teacher, the kid isn't going to listen. and the teacher has no power to punish the child. the teacher can give notifications of bad behaviour to the family, which are only effective if the family does act on them, or they can give the kid a rejection, which doesn't scare at all a kid that doesn't care about trying to learn in the first place.

Just had to do this offtopic because that kind of opinion makes my life miserable on a regular base. And a teacher's salary is crappy enough, especially considering the qualifications required for the job, that the "they get paid for it" argument doesn't hold much weight.

[Tvtyrant]

If a person is a jerk across multiple games (which is what the OP stated), then the problem is the jerk, not the people who refuse to accommodate them.

The “Missing Stair” social fallacy is very relevant to this thread.

Thank you for that term. I have not run into it before but the value of it is inmediately clear.

[Themrys]

Actuallty, they can't, and many parents believing they can is one of the reasons the school system is going down the drain (at least in italy, not sure everywhere else). t

Parents aren't being punished for not teaching their children to behave, though, are they? So they are getting away with it. Doesn't mean it's a good thing, I wasn't saying that. But as long as the school system going down the drain doesn't personally affect the parents responsible, and their children still learn stuff because teachers don't just walk out of the classroom taking the well behaved students with them (which a GM would totally do), they won't change.

I'm from Germany, and I hated having to go to school with people who required handling. University was so much nicer. It's not just Italy.

And yeah, I get that the salary is bad, etc, but if there wasn't any payment whatsoever ... I don't think anyone would put up with it. Being paid is not an adequate compensation, but it is an incentive.

@CombatBunny: Well, most people don't get what they deserve. I am more worried about the other players than about the That Guy in this scenario, to be honest.

[Onos]

Out of curiosity, what's the sobriety standard at the various tables That Guy games at? If the "wild and crazy" games have involved lots of booze or a smoke he may just go of the rails. Used to have a player who was razor sharp most of the time but would uh...cut loose under a certain GM and become a huge problem.

[Drache64]

Being me, rather than praise you for handling that player well - which you do - my first thought is to blame the other GMs for handling him poorly.

Have any of the other GMs been both players in your games (to see how to correctly GM for him) and not gotten the hint?

Because so many people's "problem player", I look at and say, "problem player? No, he's fine, you've just got to…"

Most of them are people I taught how to play and eventually wanted to take the chair, I am about 6-8 years older than all of them because I was their Youth Leader when they were in High School. IMHO the DM's do well enough but they just aren't up to handling certain situations.


You clearly don't have a problem with conflict because you made this thread begging for it.
Agree with everything you said but had to LOL at this really quick. You are right, I am not afraid of conflict, but mostly I am not afraid of discussion and I just wanted to get an outsiders perspective on my take which I have been rewarded with greatly.


Out of curiosity, what's the sobriety standard at the various tables That Guy games at? If the "wild and crazy" games have involved lots of booze or a smoke he may just go of the rails. Used to have a player who was razor sharp most of the time but would uh...cut loose under a certain GM and become a huge problem.

Everyone does not smoke or drink, but it was a teenage group when we started and now are all young adults.

[ezekielraiden]

Given this person is a good player whenever you, and *only* you, are the DM...have you ever had a conversation with them about it? You are uniquely suited to talking it out with them, because you DO know they can be a great player...and a really really terrible one. You (presumably) have their respect, so they are more likely to listen to you rather than just blow you off or get angry.

More or less, I'm asking if you've ever considered trying to help them figure out what's going wrong. Because it sounds like IF they could just crack the nut of "what is it I want that I'm not getting from any other DM?" they could address it and have significantly more game opportunities. Plus, y'know, not pissing off other players so badly that those players actively seek to avoid gaming with Problem Player, even to the point of "private DM chat to suggest booting Problem Player before a game even begins." Because that? That's a REALLY bad sign. That's a sign that they're enough of a problem to be borderline *hated,* not just annoying.