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Trandir
2019-10-27, 07:26 PM
Ok we are in a table of 6, DM, 3 players (A, B, C), me and player (P).
The table wa composed by randos, A is DM' sister, B and C are friends and P and me, just 2 sessions ago so we still have to know each other.
The DM likes to run the games and everyone is having fun but I suffer in seing P playing.
He has done at least once each of the following:
Playing his PC in the same way as he plays OoC, making impossible to tell wheter he is RPing or not;
Makes jokes about what happens, lots of them and sometimes interrups other players;
Rolls dice randomly and ask for a check after asking to use that uncalled roll;
Takes back a dice if the DM hasn't seen it and it was bad (we have 2 "boxes on the table to roll into);


Those are probably universally considered bad but here are some more personal reasons:
I don't like his humor, he makes lot of jokes in quick succession and it's sometimes the same joke is repeated multiple times;
He is quick of tongue and so he gets to do things before the other players and talks fast so the others can't interact with what he is doing;
He took the one magic item from the big pile of dead adventurers without saying a word to the others;
He plays a chaotic neutral/evil ranger that as well as his real self jokes a lot, but his PC also steals, kills as first solution to a problem and lies (I personally do not like any of that and I made a chaotic very good usual adventurer so he doesn't like as well the more "evil" acts or being insulted without provocations).


Any advice about how to play with this guy?

Pex
2019-10-27, 09:48 PM
You can't. He's a "That Guy". There are two types - those who play against their fellow players (steal from the party, hide information from the party, antagonize the party) and those who play despite their fellow players (goes on solo encounters, only cares about his character's story, needs motivation to why he should bother with the adventure and complains about it while doing it). It's a lot worse when "That Guy" is both types. You have the former in your party. "That Guy" gets away with it as long as the DM enables it - lets it happen because the player is "roleplaying".

Talk to the other players. If they agree with you "That Guy" is ruining the fun you have a stronger case to speak with the DM. If not, talk to the DM anyway and hope for the best. Explain why "That Guy" is ruining the fun. If the DM agrees he can deal with "That Guy". Either "That Guy" changes his behavior, he is kicked out, or he quits - win, win, win. If the DM disagrees or doesn't want to do anything about it, you have a choice. Continue playing and accept the annoyance or leave the game.

It sucks, but that's how it is. "That Guy" always ruins the game and someone suffers. Unfortunately sometimes it's the player who objects to the behavior.

MarkVIIIMarc
2019-10-27, 10:27 PM
OP, you could try to talk with That Guy a bit. Compliment him on what he does well, SOME aspect of his character build perhaps. Then ask him about something. Maybe say, let the DM call for a check before you roll. Or let the first dice decide, whatever.

If That Guy blows you off you haven't lost much

Drache64
2019-10-28, 08:43 AM
How does everyone else respond to him?

Trandir
2019-10-28, 08:45 AM
How does everyone else respond to him?

Not sure what you mean. The others wait until he is too tired to continue talking and then they talk

Drache64
2019-10-28, 08:55 AM
Not sure what you mean. The others wait until he is too tired to continue talking and then they talk

I mean we have your perspective, but no one else's.

So here's my advice so far, keep in mind my answers are going to be from the mindset that you asked how YOU play with this person, so I will put a lot of the balls in your court.

If I understand correctly you don't like his jokes/personality, that's more of a you problem since this is a cooperative game.

His player character steals, kills, and lies, but he's chaotic evil (on the low end) so he's playing his character. Your character is chaotic good and so you don't like that, but again it's on you to get along with your party. I have a player in my party who plays a kleptomaniac, when her character tries to steal from the party I roll to catch her, when my character catches her he takes the item back, or simply marks the gold out of her share when it comes time to distribute gold.

The player rolls all the time, takes some back, interrupts players, etc these are all DM problems. The DM should respond "now that you've told me what you want to do, go ahead and roll for it" so there can be no prerolling. He should shut down the player when they interrupt etc.

Essentially you have a great player who is excited to play the game, but he needs a DM to contain his excitement.

I would say he isn't a "that guy" this community accuses more people of being "that guy" than the Spanish Inquisition accused witches.

prabe
2019-10-28, 10:06 AM
He sounds like a guy I used to game with, who frequently came with as disengaged, who was always saying things that were funny-ish and often antagonistic toward characters in-game, who would always say he was talking in character if you asked him (daring the GM to smite the whole party because he was being a dumbass/smartass). Also, he played characters who at least started out as marginal-ish, and frequently seemed miffed or put off if/when his characters didn't work right at the start of the campaign (this was more of a problem in level-based games than in others).

You may have noted I said I used to game with him.

Every single one of those behaviors is, at this point, not one I personally would want at a game table. Depending on the group dynamics (and how easily you could find another game), you may need to talk to your other players (to get a feel for whether any of the other players has a problem with him), then talk to the GM. There's a non-zero chance, if the GM isn't close to this guy outside the game, that he's just as tired of that crap as you are.

Trandir
2019-10-28, 10:47 AM
I mean we have your perspective, but no one else's.



Ooooooh I see. I do not know their opinion about him.

False God
2019-10-28, 03:45 PM
So he's playing s self-insert and the only problem with that is it blurs the character/player dichotomy.

Not liking him as a person.
and
Your character not liking his character.

Are two separate and related problems.

The first is obviously: talk to the other players, talk to the DM, see how they feel about The Player, see why the DM isn't doing more to reign in The Player. Maybe they're just not the confrontational types. Maybe they don't know how to go about it. Maybe they're friends and they're ok with it.

The second can be resolved within the rules: Does Your Character know he's stealing? Does Your Character know he's lying? Is the DM having His Character make appropriate checks when lying to the party? Is the DM having Your Character make opposed checks? Has Your Character or Other Characters caught him stealing/lying?
-Or if Your Character only aware he's stealing and lying on a meta level? If this is the case, Your Character has at best, a gut feeling that something isn't right and that might be enough for them, but it's not really in-character actionable (unless your character is a rather judgmental sort). And you should mind on keeping what your character knows and what you know as separate as possible.

Which is course is hard when he's not keeping his character and himself separate. Objecting to his character is objecting to him, and objecting to him is objecting to his character.

Since the latter part is complicated and confusing, my advice is to address the former. Discuss what The Player is doing and how they are behaving with the rest of the group. If the group chooses to kick this guy, the latter issue is resolved anyway. If the group decided not to kick this guy, then it's down to you making a call on if you are going to learn to deal, or not. But first you need to address the in-person IRL problem.

denthor
2019-10-28, 10:46 PM
Here is the real question.



Does he think his character is evil?

Most of the time it is I left the children alive I not evil I am neutral. Have the DM enforce that is evil that is good that is neutral with each complete action sequence.

He will quit if he thinks that alignment chart is wrong.

Jay R
2019-10-28, 10:56 PM
Playing a role-playing game is dealing with a long sequence of obstacles, enemies, and difficulties. You have one that wasn't created by the DM. OK, fine.

Deal with it and play the game. Or if it isn't worth it, leave the game.

In either case, accept the conditions and make your decision.

Bohandas
2019-10-29, 12:02 AM
You can't. He's a "That Guy". There are two types - those who play against their fellow players (steal from the party, hide information from the party, antagonize the party) and those who play despite their fellow players (goes on solo encounters, only cares about his character's story, needs motivation to why he should bother with the adventure and complains about it while doing it). It's a lot worse when "That Guy" is both types. You have the former in your party. "That Guy" gets away with it as long as the DM enables it - lets it happen because the player is "roleplaying".

Maybe play Paranoia?

Studoku
2019-10-30, 06:33 AM
Ooooooh I see. I do not know their opinion about him.
In which case you need to talk to the other players and especially the GM. If they enjoy his antics and you're the only one that doesn't, this is a very different situation.

Spo
2019-10-30, 02:51 PM
At the table, in front of everyone, ask if you can do the same things this player does:

“Hey dm, can I reroll my low dice like Player?”

“Hey dm, can I roll a d20 throughout the game and when I roll high can I use that for my next roll like Player?”

Cynthaer
2019-10-30, 05:10 PM
I'm seeing a lot of "try being really passive aggressive until the player and/or DM get the hint", and I gotta say that's pretty bad advice.

OOC problems require OOC discussions, and nobody wins if you can't discuss the actual problems directly. That doesn't mean you can't be kind or tactful, but you can't solve A by talking about B and hoping A gets fixed automatically.

Problem 1: Interrupting others, filibustering with jokes

Guy needs to tone down the interruptions and give others space to contribute. You can bring this up yourself in-session — it doesn't have to be you taking a huge stand.

It can be as simple as, "hey, you're kind of interrupting a lot and it's making it a little hard for me to follow what's going on". Or if he steps on someone else's line and starts on a string of jokes, you can cut him off with, "hold on a sec, I wanna hear what she was saying". (Saying this while looking at the person he interrupted can help keep the focus on them.)

If that doesn't work, feel free to bring it up with the DM and see what they think.

Problem 2: Fishing for good rolls before calling checks

In general, "it's distracting and/or confusing for me personally" is a pretty safe reason to put forth when chiding someone for flouting table rules, even though the real reason is that they're clearly cheating.

If he rolls a die without calling a check first? "Sorry, would you mind only rolling if you're actually making a skill check? It's really distracting for me."

If he rolls outside the designated boxes? "Sorry, could you roll in the box? It just makes it a lot clearer what's going on."

It's a perfectly reasonable request, it's true (even if it's not why you're requesting it), and it doesn't make you look like you're being uptight.

Problem 3: Jumps in before anyone else can speak

Sometimes you just interrupt him and ask to hold on a second so everyone else can think and contribute.

Problem 4: Character is a lying, thieving, murderous *******

Gotta talk about it with the player(s) and DM OOC, maybe after a session.

At the end of the day, the problem isn't whether he's playing his character-as-written "badly" or not. The problem is that one way or another, his character's behavior clashes with some or all of the following, and it's making the game unfun:

The rest of the party's in-character views and motivations
The tone and/or genre of game/story the other players want to play
The aspects of the game that the other players find interesting (e.g., I find nothing more tedious than precisely calculating gold distribution within the party)

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with a game where the PCs are evil bastards, but if everyone else wants to play a game about (perhaps morally grey) heroes going on adventures and one player turns every session into a game about the consequences of traveling with a murdering sociopath, that's a problem.

Now, I'm assuming here that the rest of the party is generally "good" here, since you didn't mention being the only CG character in a party of murderhobos. But as @Studoku notes, if the rest of the party likes these antics, then you are the one who has failed to match the tone of the game, and you should consider playing an evil character or finding a new group.

(I consider that fairly unlikely, though.)

The point is, you and this player clearly have different expectations for what kind of game this is and what you want out of it. So let's get that out in the open and amicably resolve it one way or the other: If it's a game about heroes, let's play that; if it's a game about amoral villains, let's play that. But you can't be playing two different games at the same table.

Note 1: These tips are not euphemisms or ways to dodge the "real problem". They are just ways to be tactful about it. You don't have to say "stop doing X because you are a bad player", but you do have to say "stop doing X" if you want X to stop.

Note 2: You don't need perfection here, just a group that works well enough for your game to be enjoyable. Maybe he keeps trying to cheat on dice rolls every single time unless you call him on it, until the end of time. That's not ideal, but it might be tolerable and let you have fun playing the game. If you can't create an environment where you can have fun, that's ultimately the point where you'll have to leave.

JakOfAllTirades
2019-11-04, 07:15 AM
"That guy" is far from the only problem at this table. The DM and the other players are enabling him. It sounds like nobody there really cares if the game is any fun, and that's a very bad sign. I'd walk away from that debacle and find another game in a heartbeat. And if I knew of another game that had multiple openings, I'd privately invite the best players at the table to come with me.

Lousy DM's who can't run a civilized table tend to shape up fast when they see their best players leaving without saying goodbye.

Trandir
2019-11-04, 07:56 AM
"That guy" is far from the only problem at this table. The DM and the other players are enabling him. It sounds like nobody there really cares if the game is any fun, and that's a very bad sign. I'd walk away from that debacle and find another game in a heartbeat. And if I knew of another game that had multiple openings, I'd privately invite the best players at the table to come with me.

Lousy DM's who can't run a civilized table tend to shape up fast when they see their best players leaving without saying goodbye.


To be fair everyone is having fun so far, I have some problems playing with this individual but the DM would probably kick him out if everyone had complains out him.

Also I'd like to play with others without using roll20 or similar sites, and in my local area there aren't many DMs/Party looking for players. This is the 4th table I go in 6 months (one had 0 RP, the other had the DM that played by his own rules with no consistency, the third I was misfit with the others and this one) . I porbably won't find another one for a while. And again we are having fun, so the first and most important part of D&D is there.

weckar
2019-11-05, 04:00 AM
"That guy" is far from the only problem at this table. The DM and the other players are enabling him. It sounds like nobody there really cares if the game is any fun, and that's a very bad sign. I'd walk away from that debacle and find another game in a heartbeat. And if I knew of another game that had multiple openings, I'd privately invite the best players at the table to come with me. Sounds to me they are just having a different kind of fun.



in my local area there aren't many DMs/Party looking for players. This is the 4th table I go in 6 months Those seem highly contradictory. Around here you'd be lucky to find a table in a year.

Psyren
2019-11-06, 12:37 PM
At the table, in front of everyone, ask if you can do the same things this player does:

“Hey dm, can I reroll my low dice like Player?”

“Hey dm, can I roll a d20 throughout the game and when I roll high can I use that for my next roll like Player?”

Yeah, I'd call him out. To the extent that you can, try to validate that his antics are not already known/accepted by the group though.

Lord Torath
2019-11-06, 12:43 PM
Yeah, I'd call him out. To the extent that you can, try to validate that his antics are not already known/accepted by the group though.But do it directly.

"Dude, not cool."
"What? I didn't-"
"Dude, you know what you're doing. And it's not cool. Cut it out."

Don't dance around things, or play passive-aggressive "DM can I cheat like Player X does" games. Be direct.

Cynthaer
2019-11-06, 12:56 PM
To be fair everyone is having fun so far, I have some problems playing with this individual but the DM would probably kick him out if everyone had complains out him.

[...] And again we are having fun, so the first and most important part of D&D is there.
If you're at least having fun (i.e., the game isn't "ruined"), that's good.

My earlier advice still stands on how to address the specific annoying behaviors without pounding the table and issuing ultimatums.