So You Have a Problem with a Player / DM: A Potentially Helpful Guide (In Progress)

[DabblerWizard]

On a fairly regular basis this sub forum receives questions concerned with problematic players and problematic DMs.

New forum-goers or even forum veterans can find themselves in a situation where they want advice from others in dealing with the social concerns that can come up in gaming.

Maybe someone wants to create a helpful guide. Or perhaps someone could at least post links to related topics that have come up in the past? (I myself am not worthy of such a task).

I think this thread, if it grows, deserves a place among the stickied threads.

What say you, forum-goers?

[Tyndmyr]

Fire. Set them on fire.

Guide is now complete.

[Indon]

Roleplaying is a social activity.

A guide to effective social interaction when roleplaying, as the role of DM, would be a guide to:

-Basic social interaction, to include tools on identifying and correcting social problems.
-Basic management with an emphasis on promoting goal-oriented behavior.

And I'm sure there's other pertinent stuff I'm missing.

That is to say, such a guide would be of inestimable value to way more than the RP community.

*contemplates writing a self-help book: Everything I Need To Know In Life, I Learned From D&D*

[AtwasAwamps]

Fire. Set them on fire.

Guide is now complete.

SOMEONE HAS FINALLY TAKEN MY ADVICE.

Oh god I think I'm going to cry.

[DabblerWizard]

SOMEONE HAS FINALLY TAKEN MY ADVICE.

Oh god I think I'm going to cry.

Catharsis!! (I.e. : the release of pent up emotion) Excellent!

[DabblerWizard]

Roleplaying is a social activity.

A guide to effective social interaction when roleplaying, as the role of DM, would be a guide to:

-Basic social interaction, to include tools on identifying and correcting social problems.
-Basic management with an emphasis on promoting goal-oriented behavior.

And I'm sure there's other pertinent stuff I'm missing.

That is to say, such a guide would be of inestimable value to way more than the RP community.

*contemplates writing a self-help book: Everything I Need To Know In Life, I Learned From D&D*

I agree with your perspective wholeheartedly. - In fact, I took a few minutes and searched through my local library's psychology journal article database to see if there have been any studies done on the usefulness of roleplaying games in therapy.

I couldn't find anything, but if you're familiar with psychodrama, you know that the technique mixes acting and imagination and personification to bring out emotion, among other things.

[JeenLeen]

The most helpful thing I have found is for the DM and players to feel they can freely speak of things they are having problems with or disliking. My group has had not a large number but a significant number of problems -- including differences of roleplaying style, upset over houserules, blaming another player for failure in a quest, etc, etc -- but it's always helped when we could talk it over and figure out how to work so that everyone is happy.

[DragonBaneDM]

At the end of every session I ask my players, "Okay, what can I do better next time?"

This helps us deal with stuff like how other players are acting to each other, and what I can do, since I'm still more or less learning how to DM totally effectively.

I pride myself on not getting the same complaint twice in a row.