Dealing with a not-quite-a-problem-yet player

[Squatting_Monk]

A friend and I are trying to start a Neverwinter Nights server. Despite his talents, though, I'm worried that his playing style may drive prospective players away. He's had strained relations with a lot of players on another server I play on, and I don't want the same conflict to creep in to what we're doing (especially if I want my friends from our old server to play with us).

Joe, we'll call him, likes to push the envelope. He despises many of the rules and suppositions of the D&D cosmos (necromancy is evil, paladins are holy knights, etc.) and routinely plays characters that break these stereotypes. But his character's personalities also tend to annoy other players. One continually picks on another player's character because he's an uptight knight, and this (quite unintentionally) causes tension with the other player out of character to the point where he sometimes even drops out of the adventure or role-play if Joe shows up. Another of Joe's characters is a lesbian, and her constant harrassment of the other female characters strikes many of the other players as crude. (Joe isn't one of those "I wanna play a lesbian because they're hot! Whee!" kind of players. He just likes to make people uncomfortable to create an interesting character that people will react to.)

Now here lies the problem: Joe is an excellent role-player, very easy-going, and wants himself and others to have fun while not being constrained with rules. He hasn't had any outright fights with people (though a few of them take out their frustations over his characters by trying to shoot down any suggestion he makes for improving the server), but I think that he eventually will. How can I, as a friend, correct the problem without trying to constrain him with rules? Personally, I don't mind the way he plays or the characters he makes; I just want to minimize conflict.

Thanks for the advice, guys. :smallsmile:

[Kagan]

...his character's personalities also tend to annoy other players.


...picks on another player's character


...constant harrassment of the other female characters


He just likes to make people uncomfortable


How can I correct the problem


Edited your post down to the important bits.

"Role-playing" is neither an excuse, nor a free pass, to spoil another individual's enjoyment of the game. It is neither an excuse, nor a free pass, to harass other players. It is neither an excuse, nor a free pass, to 'pick on' other players. Ever. There is no exception. There is no justification. This a game, and a game is supposed to be fun for everyone who plays it. If one of the players is being abrasive, and making the game less fun for anyone else, he needs to stop - there is no room for any discussion beyond this extremely basic assumption.

If you want him playing, he either needs to stop what he's doing, or you shouldn't recruit players who dislike his antics. That's all there is to it.

[Nero24200]

Theres a word for players who create characters purley to be antagonistic, but I won't say it since children read this forum.

I'd simply take him aside and let him know how you feel, and if others feel the same way, have them join in. If he continues aftewards, then quite frankly he ain't worth the time, ditch him. If he really considers himself a good RP'er however, he'll listen.

[Triaxx]

Just call him on inappropriate behaviour. Don't just wait for him to ruin the game.

[Yami]

Note to OP: Even if someone isn't rude normally, playing a character who is is disrupting. The only time I've ever managed a rude character that worked well with the party was when he needed the party. He always scoffed at the cleric, and charged into combat using his 50 ft base move speed to show up the cleric who was horribly slow. And then next round he'd come screaming back begging for a heal before getting all high and mighty.

Heavy doses of irony and a lot of getting what's coming to you can make such a character viable. It seems you friend has forgotten this part of the equation, and you should point it out.

[Squatting_Monk]

Heavy doses of irony and a lot of getting what's coming to you can make such a character viable. It seems you friend has forgotten this part of the equation, and you should point it out.

Ahh... great point, and one I'd plum forgotten about. That irony ensures that the other players see it as something that's in character, and not that the player is consistently rude.

I played with two fellows once whose characters were childhood friends. The one was evil to the core, hot-headed, and abrasive. His friend was an LG dwarf who was always quiet and patient and apologizing up and down for everything the first character did. The former always took the latter for granted which, while sad in some sense, also made you appreciate that the dwarf was constantly getting his buddy out of trouble.

So that's a way I can suggest he change his characters without abandoning entire personalities. Thanks, and keep them coming. :smallsmile:

In response to some of the earlier advice, the one problem I keep running into is that he's not trying to antagonize players. It's the characters. My characters are the object of his fun as much as everyone else's, but I always found it entertaining since I, like him, am an easygoing guy; I understand his play style. Others, however, are not so acclimated and he comes across as being an extremely rude player. I'll let him know that. He doesn't want to spoil anyone else's fun, but when people complain, he wonders why they take things personally and tends to think the problem lies with them rather than him.

[hamstard4ever]

In response to some of the earlier advice, the one problem I keep running into is that he's not trying to antagonize players. It's the characters.[/FONT]

This is generally a very fine distinction when it comes to roleplaying games, and one many players are not really equipped to make. I am a strategy game aficionado (probably a larger one than I am of roleplaying games, even) and I know that no matter how courteous and polite I am to opponents, many people will still take some measure of personal offense if I'm making things rough for their positions in the game. That's with strategy games and boardgames where things are already several orders of magnitude more abstracted and more detached than they are in a roleplaying game where players strongly identify with their characters.

I would recommend talking not only to "Joe" but to the other players as well. Explain to them that he sees things a bit differently than they do, although take care not to position yourself as a Joe apologist--let them know you're talking to him about adjusting his in-game behavior.

[Titanium Dragon]

The reality is that it depends on the sort of experience you're going for. I played on Avlis and Abyss 404, and my characters did not get along with everyone else's. One of my characters had an IC ban on him, established by other players, from entering an elven city. I COULD do it (the game wouldn't stop me) but if they caught me, they'd kill me. I had no problem with it and everyone enjoyed it.

Thing is, though, that's rather different from an adventuring party. Its okay for people in an adventuring party to not get along, so long as they stick together, but not getting along should not lead to the party fractioning.

If this is a server like Avlis and not something that's like a campaign, people not getting along is fine; the server is plenty big (or at least it should be) for people to avoid each other. But a campaign, they need to be able to at least semi-get along.

However, this problem is NOT isolated to the "problem player"; if the player is FINE with the other people out of character, then he is PART of the problem, but not the whole problem. Role playing is different from real life; just because my elvish necromancer ripped out the heart of the high priest of the elven faith and fashioned it into a gem that he wears around his neck does NOT mean that OOC the elven army's players and myself are antagonistic; we actually got along fairly well and we enjoyed roleplaying the IC antagonism.

I'd say you should talk to your friend, but you should also talk to the other people, and have THEM talk to your friend, and your friend talk to THEM. Your friend needs to not upset people for the sake of upsetting them, but likewise he should roleplay and if the character he's playing would do something that is not game-breaking, that's okay. But making lots of characters JUST to make other people uncomfortable is an attempt to annoy the other people OOC, and that is bad - the game needs to stay in the box, so to speak. Likewise, the person playing the other characters who dislike the person OOC need to remember that roleplaying is not reality; the two are seperate and you shouldn't hate the player of a character you hate IC.