quinron
2021-03-14, 08:02 PM
I'm currently running Pathfinder 2e's Age of Ashes: Hellknight Hill module. I wanted to try out this system, and I figured the first adventure they printed for it would be a decent start, at least mechanics-wise. I tend to think of myself as a good "teaching GM" and am thus prone to starting with a mix of new and experienced players in my group, but since this is basically my playtest of the system, I wanted to have a group that was familiar with RPGs to some degree. I pulled in my brother and 3 friends who I've run games for in the past; for my brother and one of these friends, I'm the only GM they've ever played with, and I think that might be the case for one of the other friends.
This group is spread out across about half a state, so we've been playing over Discord. Everyone except me has been using a bot for dice rolls. The past few sessions, my brother has started out the game in a bit of a funk from his day, and that combined with some frankly unbelievably bad luck has made him incredibly angry at every failed roll the past few sessions. He asked me to start rolling for him, but that didn't improve his luck very much; eventually I caught myself trying to convince myself that I'd rolled a die badly as an excuse to reroll it because I didn't want to have to deal with him getting pissed off again. It's getting to the point where I don't want to keep playing this game; I haven't heard anything from the other players, but I'm sure it can't be fun for them.
This is the first non-D&D 5e game that I've played with my brother, so it's the first non-D&D 5e game he's played. He really gravitates toward rogues (including the one he's playing now), mostly, it seems, because sneaking and getting advantage in 5e means he hits for big damage on almost every attack. I think part of the problem is that when he can't make every roll with advantage, he has a much higher chance of failure and thus a greater percentage of his rolls are failures. If he were more of a nerd and cared as much about being powerful as he does about looking powerful, I think he'd be a pretty awful munchkin. I think he's also misunderstanding how rogues work in this game - he likes sneaking ahead and landing single-strike takedowns in 5e, and he's playing his character like that, but the more skills-and-teamwork-oriented rogue of PF2e means he's getting into a lot of situations where he's just kind of useless because he's trying to go solo. At least a couple times it's resulted in him getting mad at one of the other players (the one he's least familiar with, therefore the one he's least concerned about alienating) when that player does something that annoys him or could be construed as messing up his plan.
I know the "correct" answer here: talk to him about his anger, and if he can't get it under control, cut him from the group. But I know from past experiences (including some pretty recent ones) that broaching this subject is just going to make him mad at me instead of at the game, and even if I could get him to tone it down a bit, I know that won't last indefinitely. That's why this is mostly just a rant. But if anyone has any relevant experience, either in terms of table problems with family members or dealing with players' anger issues, I'd really appreciate them.
This group is spread out across about half a state, so we've been playing over Discord. Everyone except me has been using a bot for dice rolls. The past few sessions, my brother has started out the game in a bit of a funk from his day, and that combined with some frankly unbelievably bad luck has made him incredibly angry at every failed roll the past few sessions. He asked me to start rolling for him, but that didn't improve his luck very much; eventually I caught myself trying to convince myself that I'd rolled a die badly as an excuse to reroll it because I didn't want to have to deal with him getting pissed off again. It's getting to the point where I don't want to keep playing this game; I haven't heard anything from the other players, but I'm sure it can't be fun for them.
This is the first non-D&D 5e game that I've played with my brother, so it's the first non-D&D 5e game he's played. He really gravitates toward rogues (including the one he's playing now), mostly, it seems, because sneaking and getting advantage in 5e means he hits for big damage on almost every attack. I think part of the problem is that when he can't make every roll with advantage, he has a much higher chance of failure and thus a greater percentage of his rolls are failures. If he were more of a nerd and cared as much about being powerful as he does about looking powerful, I think he'd be a pretty awful munchkin. I think he's also misunderstanding how rogues work in this game - he likes sneaking ahead and landing single-strike takedowns in 5e, and he's playing his character like that, but the more skills-and-teamwork-oriented rogue of PF2e means he's getting into a lot of situations where he's just kind of useless because he's trying to go solo. At least a couple times it's resulted in him getting mad at one of the other players (the one he's least familiar with, therefore the one he's least concerned about alienating) when that player does something that annoys him or could be construed as messing up his plan.
I know the "correct" answer here: talk to him about his anger, and if he can't get it under control, cut him from the group. But I know from past experiences (including some pretty recent ones) that broaching this subject is just going to make him mad at me instead of at the game, and even if I could get him to tone it down a bit, I know that won't last indefinitely. That's why this is mostly just a rant. But if anyone has any relevant experience, either in terms of table problems with family members or dealing with players' anger issues, I'd really appreciate them.