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Dart
2019-12-09, 12:00 AM
To clarify, this is a campaign in my high school RPG club and I don't know anyone in my party but the Tiefling outside of club. I don't know the Tiefling very well.

The scenario: We are currently trapped in a mansion. No one knows anyone, we were all kind of thrown together. Characters all got invites saying different things. There are 3 separate parties and 3 DMs at separate tables that all come together at key plot points. This campaign is mostly geared toward puzzle solving rather than actual combat.

I'm playing a neutral good Cleric for a change, the token good boy who heals people if they get injured and wants everyone to get out alive. Our party is made up of:
A rogue who doesn't pay attention/never utilizes his abilities outside of combat. To the point that I asked if we had a Rogue to trap check a chest, got no reply, and had to do it as the cleric. Only to find out we had a rogue later who never did his character creation properly and had to do equipment and AC literally in the middle of combat.
A bard who is very meek out of character and doesn't do much unless prompted
A monk who doesn't know what he's doing
A tiefling sorcerer. Who very quickly does stupid stuff in character, but surprisingly isn't who I'm talking about. The person playing the tiefling is the kind of player that once intentionally used charisma as a dump stat(While he was a Paladin) to "make his character interesting". And tries play very in character by having his character be an idiot and getting frustrated when people didn't care to tell his character that the mansion wasn't a joke or playhouse when he said "My character thinks this is all something set up just for him"
And the final player, the chaotic neutral fighter.
If this seems like a haphazard description, that's because I actually don't know their characters very well since we meet every other week and the players are relatively new to the game, as is our DM to actually DMing.

In any case, the fighter has been frustrating to play with. He's good in combat and would cause chaos by being chaotic neutral anyway, but it goes beyond that. At one point in the campaign we were meant to solve a puzzle, our DM actually gave us a physical paper puzzle to solve, it was really cool. The puzzle was in the shape of a robot, whom we dubbed "Lil Baby". Lil Baby is the only nice non thing we've encountered so far and offers hints. The fighter's immediate reaction is to kill it just because. The monk for some reason wants to poke it. Of course as it's a conduit for the DM to offer hints, their attempts were foiled.

Then came the second puzzle room. Split party, one way mirror, and a slot to put things through. One half had directions and buttons, the other had a set of 3 flowers and 1 leaf. Once 1 step was completed the other steps would show up as pieces of paper dropping from the ceiling, 3 total with obvious rips. Things had to be shoved through in a certain order and buttons had to be pushed in a certain order indicated by the paper. The fighter presses a button as soon as he walks in, a skeleton drops down on my half of the party's side. We of course kill it. The other half sees that we did that and the wrong button caused it. Eventually we solve the puzzle after some chaos involving the robot coming to deliver a hint and the fighter throwing a handaxe at it for no reason. After the order of buttons was clear, the fighter wanted to intentionally press them in the wrong order. Again, no reason. The monk held him back from doing so and everyone was talking over each other. The fighter broke free from the monk's grapple, I had to step in out of character and tell the aforementioned meek bard to press the right buttons, which she did. At the end of the session the DM dropped a rock on the fighter to knock him out.

We told the supervising teacher(another DM) what had happened, she told him to stop working against the party and how it's a bad move. I told him in the hallway to quit it and he said he had no intention of doing so. I'm actually considering quitting the club if he continues to do this and doesn't get kicked out. The DM is also pissed so I hope he doesn't stay or at best reigns it in.

Any advice on how to deal with this in character, talk to the guy out of character to convince him to stop, or for me to give to the new DM?

False God
2019-12-09, 12:48 AM
Since this is a school-based game with teacher supervision, tell the teacher to politely kick the fighter from the game as he's made it clear to you his only intention is to cause trouble.

If they're not willing to do anything more than meekly tell them to "quit it", walk from the game.

DMs (be they adults, friends, kids, teachers) need to be able to put their foot down. If they're not willing to do so, your only real option is to leave.

Wraith
2019-12-09, 04:52 AM
Alternatively, tough it out until your group next meets up with one of the others - you said there were 3 in total, right? - and then volunteer to join one of the other groups. Similarly, you can talk to the other DMs outside of the game and ask if they're okay if you just wander away from your own group and "accidentally" stumble across theirs at some convenient point.

The other players would be crazy not to start bidding outrageously for the support of a good-natured healing machine (unless they too are Chaotic murderhobos), and there's nothing about being Good that says you must stay with the murderhobo lunatics that you have encountered, especially since they're all strangers to you.

If they won't accept cooperation then you're entitled to leave them to their own self-destructive devices while you and a better organised/more sensible group try to solve the mystery of the mansion. Say that, once you know how to escape then you'll come back and help everyone else get out, if your conscience is prickling and you're worried that it might look like you're abandoning the group to die.

You can only be responsible for your own fun - if the other players can't or won't work towards a mutually acceptable compromise, it's worth remembering that there are steps between "stay and be miserable" and "leave forever". :smallsmile:

Phhase
2019-12-10, 02:10 AM
I told him in the hallway to quit it and he said he had no intention of doing so.

Slap him. (No, don't actually.)

I mean, you're got a few avenues.

Lawful neutral, you talk with a party and try to work together to keep him in line without being too overt. If there are in-universe authority figures or law enforcement, sic those on him if he deserves it.

Lawful good, get an arbitrating authority figure to take care of it.

Lawful evil, talk with the DM and craft a scenario specifically to cause him to do something stupid and get killed, knowing what he is like, but not targeting him specifically. Set up schmuck bait, effectively. Such that it's unequivocally his fault he got killed.

Chaotic Good, be nice, try and be sensible with him and talk him out of being an ass. Be friendly.

Neutral good, just take it and try to hold everything together.

Chaotic evil, stab him in the f^&$# back when the opportunity presents itself. Usually not recommended, but hey.

Chaotic neutral, work at exact cross-purposes to everything he does in a humorous way. Make it eminently clear he is not being taken at all seriously.

Take your pick. Personally, I trend toward Lawful neutral or general good, though Lawful Evil is tempting.



A rogue who doesn't pay attention/never utilizes his abilities outside of combat. To the point that I asked if we had a Rogue to trap check a chest, got no reply, and had to do it as the cleric.

Looks like someone read the Vacuous Grimoire instead of the Player's Handbook. :smalltongue:

CombatBunny
2019-12-10, 09:42 AM
Okay, here it goes the mature and adult solution (at least is what I would do).

If the DM is pissed off as well, is no longer your problem. I would stop trying to complete the adventure or make any progress and just enjoy whatever direction the rest of the table is driving the game.

If its fun for you, you can even join the fighter’s mayhem a little bit, but not that much that you overshadow him as the problematic player, so that if problems escalate, he will be the first one to be pointed out and that will give you time to correct your own behavior.

If you feel that playing with this guy is a burden, that same burden is multiplied for the DM, so wait for him to naturally break down and take actions, it might be interesting to see what happens.

Guizonde
2019-12-11, 11:52 AM
i'm often accused of being a wild card in parties. either i go against the grain or blend in, depending on my mood and my pc. if i play a joker character, expect me to cause mayhem when it doesn't hinder the party too much (but still, expect chaos, explosions, and chase sequences). if i play seriously, expect me to excel in whatever role i play.

as new players found out, i warn the dm beforehand. if my party is bothered by it, i reign it back, since it's no fun to do shenanigans to a poorly amused audience. if i overshadow teammates, i reign it back so everyone has fun.

notice how i'm receptive to what the group thinks? without tooting my own horn, people like playing with me because of that, even when i go against the grain. tell him that: either we all have fun or nobody does. warn him if he keeps playing for himself he will get ostracized and never play again.


i've known people who got shunned out of rpg's because of their poor "team player" mentality. they end up bitter and annoyingly self-aggrandizing, but at least they're not in our hair anymore. this included them playing:
1:(dnd 3.5) a CN racist dwarf in a majority elven team,
2:(whfrp2e): a racist halfling witch-hunter in a team with an ogre, a lizardman, a wood elf, and a wizard,
3:(conan): a mongol chieftain who did not speak common but considered the party his slaves,
4:(pf): a chaotic stupid halfling bard played like a bad cross between a kender and a court jester, and finally,
5:(dnd 3.5): a CN lecherous halfling rogue hitting on the only female player (and her pc) in the game relentlessly.

guess what happened? they got thrown out of the games, gaming circles, and social circles with their reputations destroyed by their obnoxious behavior. as for their characters:

1: pc got teamkilled repeatedly without his pc knowing, since "knife-ears are too weak to kill a proper dwarf!". the guy left.
2: the dm evicted him forcefully from the game, the ogre ate his character.
3: the party abandoned the pc in the night in hostile territory, the dm gave him the choice to either leave the table or try and survive the night. he left.
4: dm warned that the guards were looking for a thief. the party ratted on him, since it was either him or them. he left in a huff blaming everyone of cheating.
5: said female player was the dm's girlfriend, he knew that, still went ahead with it. the girl warned every other female player she knew about the incident, destroying the person's credibility.

just tell him those stories. it should either convince him to tow the party line or to leave before things get ugly. i was personally present for 2 and 5, since it was the same guy and both sessions happened within days of one another in games we both shared. it nearly came to blows and he disappeared until the next university year to try and con new players into playing with him. we warned them, they didn't listen, he got shunned again thanks to his predictably poor behavior. if your guy is like my guy, he'll be unrepentant and blame others for his shorcomings.

as a rule, be wary of the following (and that's from what i take from the playground's horror stories):

-halflings being played like kender. magpies are annoying.
-kender. lore-friendly magpies are worse.
-chaotic neutral. it's extremely rare that it's played correctly and not "duuuh, i'm so random! lolz!"
-anybody trying to "win" at d&d. by the way, call me if anyone figures out what that means.
-"it's what my character would do!". if you have to say it, then the party clearly doesn't think so.
-anybody so obtuse as to not see the problem of "playing solo" in what is basically a giant team problem solving exercice.

TKTank
2019-12-11, 07:34 PM
To clarify, this is a campaign in my high school RPG club and I don't know anyone in my party but the Tiefling outside of club. I don't know the Tiefling very well.

The scenario: We are currently trapped in a mansion. No one knows anyone, we were all kind of thrown together. Characters all got invites saying different things. There are 3 separate parties and 3 DMs at separate tables that all come together at key plot points. This campaign is mostly geared toward puzzle solving rather than actual combat.

I'm playing a neutral good Cleric for a change, the token good boy who heals people if they get injured and wants everyone to get out alive. Our party is made up of:
A rogue who doesn't pay attention/never utilizes his abilities outside of combat. To the point that I asked if we had a Rogue to trap check a chest, got no reply, and had to do it as the cleric. Only to find out we had a rogue later who never did his character creation properly and had to do equipment and AC literally in the middle of combat.
A bard who is very meek out of character and doesn't do much unless prompted
A monk who doesn't know what he's doing
A tiefling sorcerer. Who very quickly does stupid stuff in character, but surprisingly isn't who I'm talking about. The person playing the tiefling is the kind of player that once intentionally used charisma as a dump stat(While he was a Paladin) to "make his character interesting". And tries play very in character by having his character be an idiot and getting frustrated when people didn't care to tell his character that the mansion wasn't a joke or playhouse when he said "My character thinks this is all something set up just for him"
And the final player, the chaotic neutral fighter.
If this seems like a haphazard description, that's because I actually don't know their characters very well since we meet every other week and the players are relatively new to the game, as is our DM to actually DMing.

In any case, the fighter has been frustrating to play with. He's good in combat and would cause chaos by being chaotic neutral anyway, but it goes beyond that. At one point in the campaign we were meant to solve a puzzle, our DM actually gave us a physical paper puzzle to solve, it was really cool. The puzzle was in the shape of a robot, whom we dubbed "Lil Baby". Lil Baby is the only nice non thing we've encountered so far and offers hints. The fighter's immediate reaction is to kill it just because. The monk for some reason wants to poke it. Of course as it's a conduit for the DM to offer hints, their attempts were foiled.

Then came the second puzzle room. Split party, one way mirror, and a slot to put things through. One half had directions and buttons, the other had a set of 3 flowers and 1 leaf. Once 1 step was completed the other steps would show up as pieces of paper dropping from the ceiling, 3 total with obvious rips. Things had to be shoved through in a certain order and buttons had to be pushed in a certain order indicated by the paper. The fighter presses a button as soon as he walks in, a skeleton drops down on my half of the party's side. We of course kill it. The other half sees that we did that and the wrong button caused it. Eventually we solve the puzzle after some chaos involving the robot coming to deliver a hint and the fighter throwing a handaxe at it for no reason. After the order of buttons was clear, the fighter wanted to intentionally press them in the wrong order. Again, no reason. The monk held him back from doing so and everyone was talking over each other. The fighter broke free from the monk's grapple, I had to step in out of character and tell the aforementioned meek bard to press the right buttons, which she did. At the end of the session the DM dropped a rock on the fighter to knock him out.

We told the supervising teacher(another DM) what had happened, she told him to stop working against the party and how it's a bad move. I told him in the hallway to quit it and he said he had no intention of doing so. I'm actually considering quitting the club if he continues to do this and doesn't get kicked out. The DM is also pissed so I hope he doesn't stay or at best reigns it in.

Any advice on how to deal with this in character, talk to the guy out of character to convince him to stop, or for me to give to the new DM?

uuuhhh...The structure chosen by your group is extremely detrimental for a novice group (specially with both GMs and players being new).

Running different groups with different DMs seems an easy task at first glance, but get's harder and harder to keep it concise, over time.

On top of that, you clearly have players that have no sense of group play yet, and have a hazardous nature.

IMO, with this playgroup and DMs, I believe a rather linear and streamlined story with heavy railroading would be a better choice.
What I mean with this is the very old school basics: All characters are good aligned AND already know each other (DM force them to describe each one and their reasoning for adventure) and get called by some high power character (a king, a wizard, a lord...anything that ALL of the characters abide by), to do some driving quest with something for everyone (money, knowledge, power, magical items...).

That will already help miles to enforce and require gameplay and cooperation between everyone.

Moreso, enforce roles for everyone. During the encounters, obstacles, puzzles, fights and whatever else the party might encounter, let everyone know they contributed to advance AND let them know when they're a hindrance (due to bad behaviour, not due to unluckyness or anything on character), for example, when the fighter attacks, out of nowhere, a npc that was supposed to help the group or clearly an ally, verbally state he lost the encounter XP that was awarded to everyone else or even penalize him with like 10% of the required XP to next level, so they understand easily and clearly that's a bad game behavior.

For shy players, the DM needs to be active in bringing that player to the spotlight, probing the player to act or at least asking him about his actions when something comes up that that player should be involved, like: party goes inside a big wizard laboratory, DM should go like "Hey, anyone with Arcana prof could extract some knowledge analyzing the place and components... also, if anyone wanna try, maybe with a Investigation roll you could find some hidden stuff, but there's the chance for hidden traps or defenses still in place..."
That way they'll understand and see what they should/could be doing with their skills and characters.

All in All, I don't usually like to DM like this, but some groups need to pass this "streamlining learning period" to get used to good playing etiquette and dynamics.

Maybe talk with the DMs running the game about these points!

Guizonde
2019-12-12, 05:50 AM
uuuhhh...The structure chosen by your group is extremely detrimental for a novice group (specially with both GMs and players being new).

Running different groups with different DMs seems an easy task at first glance, but get's harder and harder to keep it concise, over time.

On top of that, you clearly have players that have no sense of group play yet, and have a hazardous nature.

IMO, with this playgroup and DMs, I believe a rather linear and streamlined story with heavy railroading would be a better choice.
What I mean with this is the very old school basics: All characters are good aligned AND already know each other (DM force them to describe each one and their reasoning for adventure) and get called by some high power character (a king, a wizard, a lord...anything that ALL of the characters abide by), to do some driving quest with something for everyone (money, knowledge, power, magical items...).

That will already help miles to enforce and require gameplay and cooperation between everyone.



i did that with my first campaign ever dm'd. it was more for me, since only one of the players was a total newbie, but it gave me the confidence to really get into worldbuilding without having to worry about characters knowing things others did not. it worked like a charm and the guild they all started in is still a mainstay.

this makes me think of pathfinder. iirc, the pathfinders are a guild of adventurers that serve the same adventuring guild function i described above. could it be the reason behind naming the rpg that?

TKTank, that's a very solid suggestion, hopefully it's not too late for the op to suggest that to their club.

ExLibrisMortis
2019-12-12, 07:08 AM
reigns it in

reign it back
There is no "g" in "rein it in". The expression refers to a horse's reins, not to the reigning of a kingdom. Yes, you can't hear the difference, but please don't write that g, it hurts my delicate sense of etymology :(.

Your spelling news flash is now over, returning to the usual programming...

Talk to the teacher. Tell them this bit:

I told him in the hallway to quit it and he said he had no intention of doing so. I'm actually considering quitting the club if he continues to do this and doesn't get kicked out. The DM is also pissed so I hope he doesn't stay or at best reigns it in. (Minus that g, of course.)

The teacher doesn't need to act immediately. You're just keeping them in the loop (they can't supervise what they don't see, and all that). If this problem player causes trouble again at the next session, the teacher will know it's a repeat offence. That should, in theory, make them act. If it's an official club with a teacher attending (as DM and supervisor, no less), that teacher has a responsibility to do so.

I think there's a chance that the problem player wanted to look tough. They don't want to look like the teacher (or you) can tell them off, so they told you they're not stopping. They might still do so (a little), just without admitting it. Let's hope it's that, and no bans are necessary.

Guizonde
2019-12-12, 03:19 PM
There is no "g" in "rein it in". The expression refers to a horse's reins, not to the reigning of a kingdom. Yes, you can't hear the difference, but please don't write that g, it hurts my delicate sense of etymology :(.

Your spelling news flash is now over, returning to the usual programming...

Talk to the teacher. Tell them this bit:
(Minus that g, of course.)

The teacher doesn't need to act immediately. You're just keeping them in the loop (they can't supervise what they don't see, and all that). If this problem player causes trouble again at the next session, the teacher will know it's a repeat offence. That should, in theory, make them act. If it's an official club with a teacher attending (as DM and supervisor, no less), that teacher has a responsibility to do so.

I think there's a chance that the problem player wanted to look tough. They don't want to look like the teacher (or you) can tell them off, so they told you they're not stopping. They might still do so (a little), just without admitting it. Let's hope it's that, and no bans are necessary.

darn it, i should know better. it's the same etymology in my native language. also, easy mnemonic: reindeer -> rudolph. reign deer: -> when rudolph is crowned king.

i hope that what you suggest is going to happen to dart. call me a misanthropist, but i doubt it. said problem player looks like a "that guy" in the making. if nothing gets done by authority figures (which you yourself pointed out might be a figure of opposition to him),shunning and destroying their social circles usually is how lessons are learned in high school or university.

... i really didn't want to sound that callous.

Man_Over_Game
2019-12-12, 04:44 PM
Sounds like you got two different kinds of problems:


Players that are new, in roles that require experience.
Players with conflicting goals.


Both of those are things that need to be addressed at every. single. table.


Problem 1: Player roles/classes
The number 1 problem I see at tables when it comes to noncontributing members isn't a sign of laziness or vindictiveness, but just a mismatch between the player and the class.
And that usually just boils down to difficulty.

The number 1 priority that people need to consider when picking a class is determining what kind of difficulty best suits them.

I'm gonna wager a guess and assume your team is using DnD 5th Edition. Consider suggesting your team chooses classes that better suit their difficulty levels.

Below is a personality quiz that determines your perfect class/race/subclass that I made a while back. People seemed to like it, and I'd dare say it is really damn accurate.

GitP post: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?579402-I-ve-UPLOADED-a-personality-quiz-that-gives-you-your-best-build-Wanna-try

Quiz download link (Excel document): https://www.enworld.org/threads/personality-quiz-to-determine-your-favorite-class-race-subclass.657399/#post-7568062

Or, for just a list of Simple vs. Complexity:


Barbarian
Fighter
Monk
Rogue
Ranger
Paladin
Warlock
Cleric
Bard
Sorcerer
Wizard
Druid


If they aren't planning on playing their Rogue like a Rogue, maybe a Dexterity Fighter would do just as well. Bard into Celestial Warlock is a small change that reduces a lot of the overhead that Bards have to worry about.

Otherwise, if they aren't interested in changing classes, consider suggesting a dedicated 10 minutes of discussing educational topics on DnD after each session, whether that be about mistakes that were made, ways to roleplay effectively, or how to manage spells/abilities appropriately.

Problem 2: Player goals
This is a problem only because the table doesn't actively communicate. Communication is key to a lot of things, and it's especially so here. The fact is, it's not the Fighter clashing with the Party, it's the Fighter clashing against you. Had the Fighter understood that his actions are inappropriate at this table, he wouldn't feel justified in doing them. That's not to say that these actions are inappropriate in DnD, as they certainly can be, they just aren't when considering the table's goals.

Simply put, have a discussion about what the table wants out of the game, and get into details. The best way to do this is to come up with a list of priorities, and have the group talk about each individual one.

For example:

• There are those that prefer combat vs. those that prefer roleplaying.
• There are those that want to always feel like heroes and those that like a gritty challenge.
• There are those who want complexity and those that want their games to be relaxing.
• There are those who want to do crazy stuff and those who want to keep things down-to-earth.
• There are those with experience (and like higher level stuff) and there are those without.
• There are those who are strongly attached to their characters and those that are comfortable rolling new ones.
• There are those who are only interested in working as a team, and there are those who consider another player the ultimate challenge.

You could write that up as a questionaire, each question being marked 1-4 (2 for Slightly Left, 4 for Extreme Right), and only talk about the parts where your party disagrees.

Or you could just talk about each one down the line. As long as everyone's on the same page, they will understand what the expectations are and what they aren't.

JakOfAllTirades
2019-12-14, 04:14 AM
One: This game is supposed to be fun.

Two: None of these people sound like they're fun to game with.

Three: Do you really need a third point? Okay fine. See if you can find another D&D game with mature players who actually GAF about other people at the table and know how to play the game. Then you'll have fun.

Traab
2019-12-14, 09:48 AM
There is a pvp solution. Kill the idiot fighter, then get the dm to shrug and say he is out of the campaign. Toxic players whose only purpose is to intentionally cause trouble need to be removed. If your party AND the dm are behind it, and the teacher cant get him to behave, remove him from the group, piece by piece. Or have the dm trigger a single target lethal trap the next time the fighter insists on being disruptive. "Oh what does THIS button marked "do not touch, great danger" do?" /touches it, is instantly decapitated, no save. If the teacher wont let you kill him off, have the dm stick to "rocks fall, fighter is knocked out for the next half hour" every time he is an idiot.