[3.5] Help me. Please. Player problems!

[Shadowbane]

I have eight regular players. Seven are great. The eighth? He's great too...except he's a bit of a munchkin. He keeps asking to make guns/explosives/technology that the world doesn't have. He wants to buy land, shops, things like that. And when I tell him no, he gets upset. How do I deal with this? He's my friend, and I don't want to alienate him, but this is driving me nuts. If he buys land he'll spend time with that and there's a reason I've forbidden the leadership feat.

What should I tell him? How would you stop him? I can't seem to get it across to him that this isn't Age of Empires.

[Sliver]

Err.. I don't see it describing him as a munchkin.. Not by how I am used to see the the term used around here anyway..

Go passive aggressive, tell him sure but no one has gunpowder around so he needs to find the secrets and then make hard craft checks to make it..

What is wrong with buying land and shops? He is handing you hooks right there.. There is a price, and a lot of hard work to do if he buys the place, and if he is willing to do it, let him, but make sure he knows you won't be focusing just on him and his business and if he wants his character to focus on it, it either retires or he sits this one out or goes solo without that much of attention from you..

[Godskook]

I have eight regular players. Seven are great. The eighth? He's great too...except he's a bit of a munchkin. He keeps asking to make guns/explosives/technology that the world doesn't have. He wants to buy land, shops, things like that. And when I tell him no, he gets upset. How do I deal with this? He's my friend, and I don't want to alienate him, but this is driving me nuts. If he buys land he'll spend time with that and there's a reason I've forbidden the leadership feat.

Could you be more specific as to what he's actually trying to do, cause while I'm getting the distinct impression that you're having crunch-based issues with him, you're only giving examples that sound more roleplay based. Being the 'only guy who knows the technology' is a common enough trope in movies/books/webcomics that I could picture someone coming to the table with it just as easily as the concept 'I want to be conan'.

Also, given D&D's analogous time periods, I'd expect gunpowder to be available exotically, and perhaps casually. This is due to China having had gunpowder over a millenium ago, during medieval times.

[Draxar]

Tell him that's not the game you want to run, not one about guns, or one where the players are fighting to keep their land, you want to run one where the players are more free agents. Tell him that if he really wants a game with those, then your game isn't the one for him.

Err.. I don't see it describing him as a munchkin.. Not by how I am used to see the the term used around here anyway..

The implication seemed to be that he was after guns in a setting where they're either not invented yet or are hard to get, wanting to either use metagame information to invent something he wouldn't know could exist, or destabilise whatever the current setup is.

What is wrong with buying land and shops? He is handing you hooks right there.. There is a price, and a lot of hard work to do if he buys the place, and if he is willing to do it, let him, but make sure he knows you won't be focusing just on him and his business and if he wants his character to focus on it, it either retires or he sits this one out or goes solo without that much of attention from you..

It's still going to take attention, he'll be calling for attention to go on it, and he may drag the other players along with him. I think it's not unfair for a person running a game to go "I don't want to run a game about that, don't do it", as long as they do so in advance.

Also, given D&D's analogous time periods, I'd expect gunpowder to be available exotically, and perhaps casually. This is due to China having had gunpowder over a millenium ago, during medieval times.

But not using it in rifles. And not keeping on asking for it after the DM has already said no.

[Tinydwarfman]

Inform him that gunpowder hasn't been invented yet, and he has neither the resources nor the skill to invent it. If he rebuilds his character into someone with max ranks in craft (explosives) , tell him he can do it but it will take years of research. As for the land thing, I don't see the problem. Are you afraid he will get too much money from it? As Sliver said, it's a great plot hook. just give the player a bit less loot, and then let him buy what he wants later with the money he gets from his investments.

[Shadowbane]

We don't have gunpowder in our world.

The problem is this: he ignores all role-playing, he ignores everything except "I want my guns" or "I want my land" or "I want my lumber." He gets upset when I tell him gunpowder is a no, or that the nuclear bomb he wanted to make is a flat out no.

The problem is that last time I've given him this stuff, he ended up annoying the rest of the party by constantly refusing (supposedly in character, though it didn't seem that way at all) to adventure so he could stay and luxuriate in his hero's mansion. He wouldn't roll up another character, etc.

He's also totally unwilling to actually run the shops. He expects me to do it. And he wants an army. An army. He declined leadership 'cause he said it was too complicated. He wants me to handle it.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The only thing you really can do here, is just tell it to him straight. Something like, "dude, you're a good friend, and a good player... most of the time. You really need to stop with the trying to buy land or inventing bombs. That technology isn't suitable for the setting, and I'm going to continue refusing you land for the same reasons I banned leadership. I'm sorry if that bites into your fun, but I've got 7 other players to think about here, and I can't have the game devolving into age of empires." Then he either sucks it up, or decides he'd rather not play if he can't have his way.

[Ranos]

Seems to me he's proactive and trying to do interesting stuff. Good for him. There's absolutely no reason to deny him a house and land.
As for the gunpowder thing though, unless he has class features that allow him to do that or there's an alchemical item around I haven't heard of, no go.

[Tinydwarfman]

We don't have gunpowder in our world.

The problem is this: he ignores all role-playing, he ignores everything except "I want my guns" or "I want my land" or "I want my lumber." He gets upset when I tell him gunpowder is a no, or that the nuclear bomb he wanted to make is a flat out no.

The problem is that last time I've given him this stuff, he ended up annoying the rest of the party by constantly refusing (supposedly in character, though it didn't seem that way at all) to adventure so he could stay and luxuriate in his hero's mansion. He wouldn't roll up another character, etc.

He's also totally unwilling to actually run the shops. He expects me to do it. And he wants an army. An army. He declined leadership 'cause he said it was too complicated. He wants me to handle it.

Wow, ok... That's just weird.
If he wants to sit in his mansion while the party goes on adventures, fine. Let him go watch TV. He isn't with the party, so he can't contribute.

If he wants an army, tell him to learn the goddamn system or buy one himself. 500 lvl 1 mooks won't help him defeat the dragon (unless he uses the commoner railgun, and then he IS a munchkin.)

[Shadowbane]

I'll let him be proactive...but if he does his house/land stuff, I'm going to end up being the one to handle it. And I really, really don't want to.

[Sliver]

So tell him your running a game not for him.

If his character refuses to go out then.. Does he still demand attention? If not, just tell him he is a rich noble with many merchants and generals that run the business for him while he f***s around and ignore him for the rest of the game.

He isn't playing your game, he doesn't care. He is a friend, not a player. Those things don't have to always be together.

[Shadowbane]

It's only this time he's been like this. He was the person that actually first introduced me to DnD, so I really want to make this work somehow. I'm gonna try talking to him, and if that still doesn't work, a rich noble who watches TV while we play he shall be.

[pffh]

I'll let him be proactive...but if he does his house/land stuff, I'm going to end up being the one to handle it. And I really, really don't want to.

Then don't handle it and tell him if he doesn't handle it the it'll go out of business or the fields wither etc

Or let him buy it and then let it happen in the background (ignore it and use it for plot hooks later) so no one has to handle anything.

[Shadowbane]

I suppose I could do that. I guess that'll be my second last resort!

[Brendan]

what you need to do is either make him see it would be inefficient or impossible to do or add in a plot hook the whole party can enjoy. if they all are happy, you are fine.
if he wants to buy a store, make a shady group be taking control of all stores in the city, so the party needs to take them down. after that, have them be hired by the city and make the mayor say "if you do this, we will give you either a plot of land and 500 gp, or 1200 gp. Then, he will have his store, but he has to go through quests with the whole party to get it. as for the army, just tell him that if someone of his level started an army, it would be crushed by a big evil nation that doesn't want competitors. or even better, have it demonstrated in game by hearing rumors of the nation. if he wants gunpowder, make it so that the gun has to be an epic weapon he can't afford, as it must be blessed by mechanus or some sort of dwarven god to work. this is the easier way, which I suggest.
anything he tries to get that you don't want him to have, make it have a plot hook that will be fun for the whole party. if it is really bad, like the guns, just show how it is in game impossible.
If he really gets on your nerves, let him try to do one of those and have him get killed by competitors or just people who don't like his idea. if he tries again, kill again. that is the hard way.
what level is it?

[mucat]

When you say he didn't used to be this way -- does that mean that he does actually grasp the concept of roleplaying, and of separating IC and OOC knowledge? If so, then it should be easy to tell him why his character can't make explosives in a world where no one knows how. If he really doesn't grasp the concept at all, explain it to him on his own time, not the group's. Reinforce it by running some situations where the character's knowledge and/or goals are clearly different from the players', and devising a much more interesting and satisfying outcome if the characters react properly IC.

The land thing you might try handling differently. It sounds like he either doesn't want to play at all, or wants far more than one eighth of the spotlight time. If it's the former, let him go. Keep his character alive in the campaign world as a merchant/landowner, and when he wants to sit in on a session and actually join the action, he can. When he wants to have his character stay home while in real life he reads a novel or something, that's fine too, as long as he doesn't disrupt the game for everyone else.

If what he really wants is for you to ignore the other players and put the spotlight on his stay-at-home rich guy, then there is no in-game solution. You need to talk to him out-of-game and convince him that all nine people present have an equal right to enjoy the game. If he does not change his ways, stop inviting him. Perhaps you can devote a little spare time to running a solo game with him, but only if it's fun for you both.

By the way, the fact that he expects you to run his shops and armies might not be a bad thing in itself. Just leave them churning away in the background -- "Your ranch has been doing fairly well lately, though most of the profits are channeled into upgrading the old equipment and repairing the silo that the angry elf fireballed last spring" -- until you need it for a plot hook (one that will soon grow to interest the whole group, of course.) Toss him a decent profit now and then, make him spend resources to solve problems other times, and generally leave him happy that he bought the land, but not game-breakingly rich relative to the other characters. (If he wants to be game-breakingly rich and throws fits when he's not, then it sounds like he's backsliding into the whole center-of-attention pattern, which again needs to be dealt with out of game.)

[Savannah]

The problem is that last time I've given him this stuff, he ended up annoying the rest of the party by constantly refusing (supposedly in character, though it didn't seem that way at all) to adventure so he could stay and luxuriate in his hero's mansion. He wouldn't roll up another character, etc.

One thing that was suggested to me when I was having problems with one PC consistently being away from the group is to split time evenly between the players. So, if he insists on sitting in his house, stick him in another room and give him approximately 7.5 minutes (1 hour divided in 8) per hour of play time. The remaining players, who are all together, get their time lumped into (approximately) 52.5 minutes of play per hour. When he gets bored, tell him he's welcome to adventure with the group. (I would not give him TV access, as the point is for him to join the group.)

Have you sat down with him without the other players around and asked him why he wants to own shops but doesn't want to run them? You might point out that the point of D&D is for everyone to have fun and his behavior is making it less than fun for everyone, including you. Tell him you really like him as a friend and you appreciate him getting you into D&D, but you can't let your game go on like this because it isn't fun. Also, you might tell him that if he wants to withdraw from the game, either for a short while or indefinitely, it won't hurt your feelings (I agree mucat, it sounds like he might want out of the game). Do this before you use my first suggestion (or any other strong measures).