A group situation

[Railak]

So a situation in our group finally built up to us postponing game because of it.

One of our players is very disruptive, always asking completely unrelevant things, speaking over everyone, including me who is the DM, to ask them. We've talked with him about it, he still does it. He's newish, he's been playing off and on for a year or so now. So I understand that he doesn't understand the rules very well. But he seems to completely not care to learn them, cause he still doesn't understand many simple things we've explained countless times to him.
He also seems to think that his actions don't have consequences. He was told to meet with a wizard about something, when he entered the room the wizard was talking with someone, he actually said he barges past the person the wizard was talking to. This was actually the new character that was being introduced, the new character being lawful evil straight up whacks him, then the wizard interveines before it escalates further using a spell to force him to wait in the hall, then he got swindled by a shop keep, I honestly made it very obvious that this guy was selling him a crappy item as a good one. He got pissed at both me, the DM, and the shop keeper. He attacked the shop keeper, by grappling him and punching him. The shopkeeper broke free the next round and bolted out the door screaming for the guards. He then spent the next hour arguing about what his character does for the next two turns, and trying to ask me what would happen if he does certain things. He ended up staying I. The shop and going behind the counter and grabbing the shop keeps coin box. The guards walked in, that was another half hour argument. They saw him with the box of money, and said he's going to prison for assault and attempted robbery. His brother another person in the group tried to tell him to just go peacefully, he yelled at his brother, and after another hour of arguing about how much time had passed, he finally went peacefully. The party then had to pay 2000 (was thinking more cause he was about to take way more than that) gold to get him free. Needless to say no one is happy with him. He also dissed on my campaign because I haven't clearly stated whether they are working on the main story or not. His brother apologized about his behavior profusely and was almost crying. We called game at that point and said well try again tomorrow.

So the problem player and his brother are also my cousins. I've been trying to teach them the game, they both really like the game. The older one, the problem one, wants to be a power player without having to care about rules or anything like that. The younger one, the entire reason I keep doing D&D with them, is genuinely interested in learning EVERYTHING about the game. He without really any of our help has already gotten a better grasp on the game then some of my veteran player friends.

I really don't want to have to kick the older brother from the game, but his actions have done nothing but take the fun away from the rest of the group for some time now. I just don't know what to do anymore, I've tried talking to him peacefully, and I've gotten into arguments with him, like today.

[Palanan]

Unfortunately it seems like the older brother doesn't have the emotional maturity to participate in this sort of game. What you've described is incredibly disruptive and shouldn't be tolerated, neither by yourself as the DM nor the other players.

I recognize this may cause some hurt feelings, to say the least, but the best thing for the game and the other players is to ask the older brother to leave the game. From what you've described he seems to be tremendously immature, and until that changes his presence will continue to be disruptive.

[Quertus]

So, to play devil's advocate…

You tell him to hurry up and wait.

You tell him to do x, then punish him for doing x. (X = talk to Wizard)

3e is a game of finance and balance. You discard that basic premise with faulty merchandise.

When he attempts to clarify just how you run your game… nothing happens. For an hour.

When he attempts to rectify his financial disadvantage, you punish him further, punishing the group, as well.

-----

That's the best I can do for imagining another PoV for the scenes you described.

If you want to avoid kicking him… Maybe less "roleplay", more "plot-relevant killing the bad guys"? Less "swindled by shopkeeps", more "epic good and evil"? Hard to say, without having been there / without knowing him.

[Biggus]

I have to agree, I can't see how you can let somebody stay after that kind of behaviour, it's totally unacceptable. If you really want to try, I can only think of two possibilities:

1) Talk to him alone and calmly ask him why he's acting like this. Is it possible there's something in his personal life which is upsetting him and it's spilling over into your games?

and/or

2) Explain to him what standards of behaviour you expect, and let him know that you won't tolerate him acting this way again. Make it clear that this is not negotiable, if he does it again he's out of the group.

[Railak]

So, to play devil's advocate…

You tell him to hurry up and wait.

You tell him to do x, then punish him for doing x. (X = talk to Wizard)

3e is a game of finance and balance. You discard that basic premise with faulty merchandise.

When he attempts to clarify just how you run your game… nothing happens. For an hour.

When he attempts to rectify his financial disadvantage, you punish him further, punishing the group, as well.

-----

That's the best I can do for imagining another PoV for the scenes you described.

If you want to avoid kicking him… Maybe less "roleplay", more "plot-relevant killing the bad guys"? Less "swindled by shopkeeps", more "epic good and evil"? Hard to say, without having been there / without knowing him.

Now I like that you played devils advocate, but it just means I have to explain more.. according to my friend, the only thing I didn't quite do right was I was a little harsher than I probably should have been. But at the same time my friend said that he probably would have been worse because my cousin had been disrespectful pretty much the whole time according to him.

So.. the part with the wizard he actually stated that he pushes past the person the wizard was talking to. He played very ride, now while that is role-playing, it's still rude and NPCs should react accordingly.. if the other player hadn't decided to whack him in the head, the wizard would have only been a bit annoyed, but he had to step in because there was about to be a full blown fight in his office. Also the whole thing was done in very little time actually, he barged in, got whacked told to roll a will save, failed, his character moved outside the room, then I said 20 minutes later the wizard opens the door, and they begin talking. So not exactly hurry up and wait.

The swindler thing I did my best to make it completely obvious.. hell I even had the swindler show him a whole manner of items that he even said wasn't entirely sure which ones do what. I was planning on just a standard belt non magical, but decided that it should have at least a bit of magic. +1 dodge bonus to AC. Every other person at the table kept telling him not to buy it too. So the fact he got swindled out of his money isn't my fault. Now when he confronted the swindler about the fact that it didn't do what he thought it was supposed to he got mad, tried to give it back for the money he spent on it, the swindler said that he'd buy it back for way less. He tried to intimidate the swindler, when that failed he attacked him.. no negotiation, no getting anyone to help, he flat out attacked him. He was originally going to draw his weapon and attack, but when I asked if he's sure he wants to do that he changed to grappling and punching him.

Most of our "argument" was him thinking it's unfair that he'd be getting in trouble for attacking the swindler, me trying to get him to actually do something to continue the game. Instead he asks me a million different things about "what would happen if I...?" with me saying "I'm not going to answer that unless you actually do it". And then he gets annoyed because I won't tell him what the outcomes of each of his ideas would be, and trust me it wasn't like 3-5, it was like 20 of them. The two things he "did" in the entire time were decided to stay inside the shop, and get behind the counter to take the guy's money. When I had the guards show up he argued with me about how much in game time had passed, I told him since he was taking so long that I decided time was passing and the guards were in the entrance now.

Now I have a lot of patience, hell I've been playing with my cousins in every single session they've ever been in. Not because I monopolize game with them, they just don't seem to even want to find anyone else. But as I was saying about patience, it takes a lot for me to lose mine, holding up game for an unreasonable amount of time, so much so that even his brother was fed up with it.

I am in no way trying to sound like a hero, or that I'm never at fault for things, trust me I know I mess up on a crap ton of things. This was purely to give you an idea what was going on so I can get decent advice on how to approach this.

And part of the thing with him saying there's no story, the party has spent basically all the time til now doing nothing but hunting monsters (actually part of the story) then the problem player wanted more money so he learned about a fighting arena they can earn money at, he dragged the party to that, and when they couldn't go any further they went to the capitol which is where they are now. This campaign has not been going long at all.

When we sit down for game tomorrow we're all going to have a talk.

[Zanos]

The Geek Social Fallacies are a good read for these kind of situations: http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html

I'd definitely start with a 'hey bud whats going on?' before kicking him from the game, but I think it's important to remember that you aren't obligated to play with people just because they are interested, especially if they make the experience worse for everyone else.

[Angelmaker]

Most of our "argument" was him thinking it's unfair that he'd be getting in trouble for attacking the swindler, me trying to get him to actually do something to continue the game. Instead he asks me a million different things about "what would happen if I...?" with me saying "I'm not going to answer that unless you actually do it". And then he gets annoyed because I won't tell him what the outcomes of each of his ideas would be, and trust me it wasn't like 3-5, it was like 20 of them. The two things he "did" in the entire time were decided to stay inside the shop, and get behind the counter to take the guy's money. When I had the guards show up he argued with me about how much in game time had passed, I told him since he was taking so long that I decided time was passing and the guards were in the entrance now.


Now I haven´t much input on handling such a disruptive player, however this one can be handled better.

If a player has no idea what to do, he/she needs a bit of guidance.

What is your intention?

Is the question you should ask. Ask them flat out, what their character intends to do.

His answer should probably be something like "I want to get out of this situation without too much harm to myself." at which point you could give a sensible course of action for his character. It´s not playing their character for them, if you simply infuse their lack of understanding of how the world works with the much sought after common sense you should be able to provide.

So your Character does...?

So now give him a suggestion and ask him/her if that sounds like something the character would do. Upon confirmation the situation is resolved usually quite quickly.

Hope this little bit of insight that I learned from my DMing is useful to you. Cheers.

[KillianHawkeye]

I'm just going to say that having the guards show up after like 10 seconds of in-game time is BS and was a bad move on your part unless they were literally standing outside the shop. Player indecision is not the same as character indecision, and you shouldn't punish people of being indecisive.

Other than this nitpick, it sounds like you did your best and your cousin was mostly in the wrong. Then again, some people treat D&D like a video game and it's very hard to break them out of that mindset. The best thing to do is to be aware of it and plan for it rather than expecting them to suddenly start acting differently.

[Zarrgon]

Ok, he is a classic example of what I call a Problem Player. He IS playing the game to be disruptive. Do you get that? He IS NOT in any way shape or form playing any normal version of the game. His idea of FUN is to disrupt other peoples fun. You get this type of person in any social activity.

Of course, it's best to just get rid of the guy....but that is not always possible. But don't despair, there is a GREAT way to handle this.

Just one more thing to point out though: he disrupts the game because YOU let him do it. You are the DM, and that means it's all on YOU.

Ok, now for the great way to handle this? It's easy: Don't let him disrupt the game at all, ever. Take:


it's still rude and NPCs should react accordingly

So your saying that when this player disrupts the game your hands are "tied" and you HAVE to play along with them and let them disrupt the game, and disrupt the game yourself.

Well, guess what? That is not true. As a person and the DM you can do ANYTHING. See the part of the quote that says "NPC should react accordingly"? Well, guess what? As DM YOU control that NPC, and the whole Universe. So maybe the NPC just laughs it off "oh silly". Maybe the NPC ignores it. Or really anything: anything that does not disrupt the game.

And there is one step more...the step of pure awesomeness: Twist reality around. Oh, this is so much fun!

When he tries to attack a shopkeeper, have him go right through the guy like he's a ghost...and have him slam into the wall and take a point of damage. The look on the players face when their character falls through a 'ghost' shopkeeper is priceless. His face will contort into all sorts of crazy expressions and you will blow his mind. then when he has his character attack again...make the shopkeeper ghostly. The player will go nuts that they "can't attack a shopkeeper". And when he goes to steal money from the cash box....have it grow a mouth and bite his character.


Ok, but, now all that being said.....reading over your other posts....you are creating the problems. To start with, as a general rule, just don't swindle or trick the players with silly stuff. It might sound fun to get a player to ''buy a bag of beans for 1000 gold", but it's just not worth it in the game. Worse, it can cause lots of problems. So just don't do it.

Second...so this player "wanted money" so YOU let the game stall and have nothing happen? Note this is all ON YOU. You could have avoided all that wasted time, with something as simple as a treasure map. Give the characters a treasure map and...zoom...you will find a (fairly) focused group of players, all trying to get to that 'X' on the map.

And finally....the dreaded what if questions. Some players are like Ipods stuck on replay: they will just ask "what if" endlessly. The best to do is just give a simple non answer, or even better a "what if" answer. You might be able to get them to accept the simple "I don't know" answer. Explain to the player that you can't see the future and have no idea what "might" happen.

[Quertus]

Well, I'm switching from "devil's advocate" mode to my default "the GM is always wrong" mode.

What we have here is an example of a good player with a bad GM. How can I possibly think that? Well, Let's focus on this bit:



The two things he "did" in the entire time were decided to stay inside the shop, and get behind the counter to take the guy's money. When I had the guards show up he argued with me about how much in game time had passed, I told him since he was taking so long that I decided time was passing and the guards were in the entrance now.


I'm just going to say that having the guards show up after like 10 seconds of in-game time is BS and was a bad move on your part unless they were literally standing outside the shop. Player indecision is not the same as character indecision, and you shouldn't punish people of being indecisive.

some people treat D&D like a video game and it's very hard to break them out of that mindset.


So, how is he a good player? Well…



Now when he confronted the swindler about the fact that it didn't do what he thought it was supposed to he got mad, tried to give it back for the money he spent on it, the swindler said that he'd buy it back for way less.


He tried to intimidate the swindler, when that failed he attacked him.. but when I asked if he's sure he wants to do that he changed to grappling and punching him.
he asks me a million different things about "what would happen if I...?", and trust me it wasn't like 3-5, it was like 20 of them.

The player has shown time and again that he is willing to change his tact, that he is willing to play the game "right", if only the GM will tell him what "right" is. And how has the GM responded?



the swindler said that he'd buy it back for way less.
"what would happen if I...?" with me saying "I'm not going to answer that unless you actually do it". And then he gets annoyed because I won't tell him what the outcomes of each of his ideas would be,
The two things he "did" in the entire time were decided to stay inside the shop, and get behind the counter to take the guy's money. When I had the guards show up he argued with me about how much in game time had passed, I told him since he was taking so long that I decided time was passing and the guards were in the entrance now.

He gets beaten down at every turn by a GM who will even go against all reason just to punish him - and, at the end, to punish the entire party (with loss of group funds bailing him out) to bring them into this, make the other players accomplices in this cycle of abuse.

Worst thing is,



isn't my fault.

The GM tries to deny culpability for their actions.

-----

OP, hopefully you don't deserve the critique I've given of your GMing, but I think you need to hear it. That is, I think you need to see how, from your descriptions, someone could see something else entirely from what you intended / expected / saw. I think it will help your handling of this situation immensely if you understand the difference between a "bad player" and a "style mismatch" - and, when one occurs, you get down off your high horse and stand beside the player to *help* them, rather than abuse your position of power to punish them for not reading your mind.

Was this player's behavior problematic? Of course. Would I have been annoyed with them had I been at the table? Probably so. But they were clearly *trying*. And, of all things, you lost patience with them trying to be a good player.

Be better than that. Be their role-playing hero, rather than their role-playing horror story.

[KillianHawkeye]

some people treat D&D like a video game and it's very hard to break them out of that mindset

And to clarify this statement I made, when I say "it's very hard" what I mean is "it takes YEARS". It changes very slowly because you have to let them play it out until they get it out of their system.

[Quertus]

And to clarify this statement I made, when I say "it's very hard" what I mean is "it takes YEARS". It changes very slowly because you have to let them play it out until they get it out of their system.

It can. Or it can happen instantly, if they can relate it to something else.

-----

This makes twice now I haven't this idea the attention it deserves. Let me try again.

-----

So, *most* people have more than one "mode", more than one way of approaching any given situation / scenario / problem, more than one way of approaching the world. The phrase, "you kiss your mother with that mouth?" makes reference to that fact - and is an appeal for the listener to change mode.

In an RPG, there are effective and ineffective ways to get someone to change modes. The details given in this thread constitute a great example of a highly ineffective style. Any experience of "it takes years" is either likewise indicative of a similarly ineffective style, or indicative of the efforts required to rewrite / rewire an ingrained habit.

Getting someone to view this particular game of Chess not as a tactical competition to win, but as an opportunity to try new foods, is as simple as replacing the pieces with food, and telling them that, as they lose pieces, they eat the pieces they've lost. If they want to try the chocolate raspberry mousse Knight, they might move it into a threat that they never would have in a normal game of Chess.

But getting them to go from "Chess Magic the Gathering is a competition" to "Chess Magic the Gathering is an opportunity for expression, and learning about other people" as their default perspective on the world is hard.

Same thing here.

It's easy to reframe a game as something that the player can understand, if you do it right. It's harder to imprint a foreign pattern permanently.

-----

This is yet another reason why I advocate playing a series of one-shots, encouraging everyone to showcase their range. You can use this to see which approaches are compatible. As an added bonus, you get to couch it in terms of the characters, rather than the toxic mindset of "the player is bad".

[Zanos]

-snip-
It isn't a DM's job to perform psychotherapy on their players until they can function in a way that's appropriate to their table. If it takes more than like an hour for someone to 'get' that a table is a certain way and they're just making the game unfun for everyone else, it's time for them to go. Especially if they just behave combatively when explicitly told they need to change what they're doing.

Kinda surprised you're taking the players side by default here. Normally I'm a little hesitant because the OPs account is usually biased in their favor and the other party can't defend themselves, but I've seen this particular pattern of behavior(i punch a guard in the face, what do you mean i'm going to jail) so many times from the point of view at both sides of the table.

[Quertus]

It isn't a DM's job to perform psychotherapy on their players until they can function in a way that's appropriate to their table. If it takes more than like an hour for someone to 'get' that a table is a certain way and they're just making the game unfun for everyone else, it's time for them to go. Especially if they just behave combatively when explicitly told they need to change what they're doing.

Kinda surprised you're taking the players side by default here. Normally I'm a little hesitant because the OPs account is usually biased in their favor and the other party can't defend themselves, but I've seen this particular pattern of behavior(i punch a guard in the face, what do you mean i'm going to jail) so many times from the point of view at both sides of the table.

I take the player's side by default, period. 'Cause that's how I role. Case like this, where the player is terrible, I switch mode, to "devil's advocate", or some other mode.

So, here's my question for you: if there's a style mismatch, if it's not the GM's job to "perform psychotherapy on their players", then whose job is it to fix the problem? Because, speaking from a great deal of experience in the matter, the GM is certainly (as we can see from this thread) in the position to cause the most damage when dealing with it incorrectly. However, as a player, I will personally happily wield a clue-by-four on players and GMs alike until they learn the true meaning of "you kiss your mom with that mouth?", and choose less obviously incompatible styles.

So, you ask me, and I will tell you that "making the game fun" is *everyone's* responsibility - where "everyone" includes the GM. I'll further tell you that a) the GM is in the position to do the most harm, and b) in this particular case, the GM is the one we're talking to, the one our words can reach, the only one we can directly tell to choose differently.

So, now I ask you: whose responsibility do *you* think it is?

-----

Do note that, "when explicitly told they need to change what they're doing", this player responded by trying to change what they were doing and by implicitly asking for direction. You can't get a better response than that (outside them reading the GM's mind, and happening to choose correctly).

For their part, the GM provided no direction regarding what a good game looks like. When "it takes more than like an hour for" the GM to communicate "that a table is a certain way and they're just making the game unfun for" the player(s), isn't it time to kick the GM? Especially if they just railroad punishment on the player?

[Zarrgon]

It isn't a DM's job to perform psychotherapy on their players until they can function in a way that's appropriate to their table.

Except it is. This is yet another thing that makes it hard to be a DM. Being a DM is a lot more then just tossing monsters at the characters and rolling dice.

Though doing psychotherapy on people is needed in any social group too. Any type of social group takes work.




So, now I ask you: whose responsibility do *you* think it is?

Good question, wonder what the answer is?

[Quertus]

Being a DM is a lot more then just tossing monsters at the characters and rolling dice.

+1 this


Any type of social group takes work.

And +1 this.

Honestly, I doubt that there's two more fundamentally true things to say about the broader topic. Kudos!

[RNightstalker]

Some people you can't play with. There are many different reasons. It could be style mismatch, power-gamer, rule-slayer, whatever. There's also real life, and there seems to be a mismatch of social skills. The behavior described is inappropriate in any social setting. If an argument goes long enough, both sides will eventually contribute to making it worse. Rule #1 is have fun, and based on what was described, it won't happen while that cousin is at the table.

[Kesnit]

So.. the part with the wizard he actually stated that he pushes past the person the wizard was talking to. He played very ride, now while that is role-playing, it's still rude and NPCs should react accordingly.. if the other player hadn't decided to whack him in the head, the wizard would have only been a bit annoyed, but he had to step in because there was about to be a full blown fight in his office.

So the other player (the new PC) started the actual physical altercation? Yes, the player in question was rude. PvP is allowed, and it looks like it was about to start - by someone else. There are a lot of ways the other PC could have handled that, but they went straight to physical violence. And then your blame the player for the fight another player started?


The swindler thing I did my best to make it completely obvious.. hell I even had the swindler show him a whole manner of items that he even said wasn't entirely sure which ones do what. I was planning on just a standard belt non magical, but decided that it should have at least a bit of magic. +1 dodge bonus to AC. Every other person at the table kept telling him not to buy it too. So the fact he got swindled out of his money isn't my fault.

Did you give him a chance to roll to see if his character was smart/savvy enough to see through the swindle?


Now when he confronted the swindler about the fact that it didn't do what he thought it was supposed to heot mad, tried to give it back for the money he spent on it, the swindler said that he'd buy it back for way less. He tried to intimidate the swindler, when that failed he attacked him.. no negotiation, no getting anyone to help, he flat out attacked him. He was originally going to draw his weapon and attack, but when I asked if he's sure he wants to do that he changed to grappling and punching him.

Sounds like a perfectly reasonable response to being swindled by the shopkeeper. Maybe not the best, but not the worst, either.


Most of our "argument" was him thinking it's unfair that he'd be getting in trouble for attacking the swindler,

You did set it up...

Yes, there should be consequences for IC behavior. However...


me trying to get him to actually do something to continue the game. Instead he asks me a million different things about "what would happen if I...?" with me saying "I'm not going to answer that unless you actually do it". And then he gets annoyed because I won't tell him what the outcomes of each of his ideas would be,

The PC lives in the world. They would have some idea of how the world works. If you did not want to tell him outright, why not have him roll to see if his PC would know the answer? At least that way, you have a justification to get him to actually act.


When I had the guards show up he argued with me about how much in game time had passed,

Not an unreasonable complaint. Asking questions and not getting answers takes a lot longer than standing in the middle of the store. (Rounds take more than 6 seconds in reality, but we all pretend.)



holding up game for an unreasonable amount of time,

It wasn't unreasonable. The other player started the fight with the wizard. You handled the interaction with the shopkeeper poorly by not just answering his questions or having him roll.


And part of the thing with him saying there's no story, the party has spent basically all the time til now doing nothing but hunting monsters (actually part of the story) then the problem player wanted more money so he learned about a fighting arena they can earn money at, he dragged the party to that, and when they couldn't go any further they went to the capitol which is where they are now. This campaign has not been going long at all.

Being a DM (as was pointed out) is more than throwing monsters and rolling dice. You have to be able to roll with what your players do, and it doesn't seem like you can do that. "No plan survives encounter with the players" is a well-known saying. This sounds to me like you have your story planned out, but when this player went a different route, you did not know what to do.

Sounds like he has set up some good plot hooks for the party. Why not run with them?