Penny for your thoughts: how to defuse gamer drama.

[Odessa333]

As the topic says, I'd like to hear your experiences in defusing gamer drama. Because nothing I've tried works.


My own tale: I've been in a solid group on roll20 for several months now. Myself and three other players and a highly promising DM on his first game. Enter the new guy. I don't have a problem with him, personally. But he has an issue with me not being the most 'tactically sound' character (I play a Bard). We've had disagreements in the past, him getting upset over what I'm doing is a 'waste of party resources' when I'm just trying to have FUN. It's been slowly getting worse with the not-so-veiled insults, and worse, the rest of the party seems to be taking his side.

For example? The so called last straw: I've been told I'm 'hogging the spotlight.' In a recent encounter, we snuck on up a clearly evil dude that my backstory has me sworn to take down (confirmed to be evil by several sources, including another player's magic) and I want to kill the dude. We discuss our tactics, and the party decides it's not worth taking this guy out as it could be dangerous, he might not be 100% evil, and we could TPK. Being the not tactically sound bard that I am, I state I'm going to go for it, give it my best shot alone if I must. I beg for their aid... and get an out of character screaming match for wanting to do things solo. End session.

I tried to explain things on our forum per the DM's request. Not pulling punches, but trying to be constructive and end on a positive note of how we can work together. That goes poorly, of course. I've tried apologizing for things going poorly. I'm told I'm not sincere. I offer to quit the group so the others will be happy, and DM says he'll stop running it if I do. I write a longer, more sincere apology to post on the forums, and ask DM to approve it first to make no mistakes. I'm told not to post it as saying anything will make things worse.


Frankly, I don't think the group is going to last at this point. It's been a blast to play in, and one of my favorite groups in 20 years, but the drama is going to kill it. I feel responsible, that if I have worded things better I could have smoothed things over. If one of my persuasion/diplomacy checks hadn't fumbled, we wouldn't be in this mess. I don't know. I mean, what do you do when talking and blanket apologies don't work? I don't think I can save this group, but I don't want to be stuck in this problems again. Has anyone found a way to slay the dreaded drama beast?

[kyoryu]

Words are cheap.

First, make sure your apology is clear. And sincere. And to do that, you have to get to the point where you understand what you did that was wrong. If you don't think you did anything wrong, or that your mistake was "communicating poorly" or the like, then you're not going to come off as very sincere. "I screwed up, I did this stupid thing, I'm sorry" goes a lot further than "I'm sorry you were offended."

Secondly, come up with some *actual changes* that you will implement to prevent the problems in the future. If you're "spotlight hogging", then maybe something like an agreement that if someone says "Hey, Odessa, spotlight" you'll back off

[Christopher K.]

Honestly, without more context, it doesn't sound like you've got much to apologize for - in a game I ran, I'd take suboptimal risk-taking over sterile tactical roleplay. I'd sincerely ask the other players what they want you to do differently(and why) and try to have a discussion from there, because it sounds like your playstyle simply differs from theirs.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Stale comfort based on the fact that you're having a lot of fun with it, but **** those guys. They're not worth it. Find a new group that aren't jackasses.

That being said, D&D IS sort of a game about efficiently killing things. Have you considered playing a different game with less of focus on that? You're much less likely to ruffle feathers if you can assume that everyone is on the same page with what they want out of the game.

[nedz]

It could be a playstyle thing, and since there's no right or wrong playstyle you would have done nothing wrong. All groups contain players of different playstyles.

I am curious why you like this group ?

Is it just one player you are having problems with - in which case it could be a personality clash. I suspect that this is likely given your DMs comments. I don't know what to suggest if this is the case since I don't have the full picture. There are several things you could do but as to which is right I can't tell with the information we have.

[cobaltstarfire]

Based on the information I have, were I in your place I wouldn't be trying to defuse the drama, I'd be walking away from the group.


Have they elaborated to you what they mean when they say you're stealing the spotlight? Is the time with the big bad who is specifically your big bad the only instance, or do you constantly "steal the spotlight"

What do they mean by "strategically unsound" do you rush face first into every combat and refuse to try to work with them? Or are you just not playing perfectly optimized?


I could see there being cause for irritation depending on what exactly you're doing to draw those comments, but even then it doesn't justify them insulting you or being rude/aggressive in general.

What is the GM's opinion on all of this?

[Odessa333]

Honestly, I don't think this particular group can withstand this level of drama. I hope it does, and yet I don't think it can. I could give more examples, talk to I'm blue in the face, but really, when even saying 'I'm sorry' is taken to be offensive, I think we're past the point of no return. I don't want to dwell on the negative, as this group was a lot of fun for me. When talking of drama, giving an example seems fair, but dragging their names through the mud isn't my goal here.

If anything, I'm curious to how others gamers have resolved issues of drama. While I don't think it's all my fault, my actions contributed. Mistakes have been made, and I want to learn from said mistakes to avoid such a messy blow up in the future. When faced with drama, what have you seen helps to ease tensions? If a player is gunning for you time and again, how do you keep things civil?

[cobaltstarfire]

How is elaborating on what you've done that has apparently caused problems in their opinion dragging their names through the mud. You haven't even named them.

It sounds like you should just walk away, because it doesn't appear that you are all that interested in figuring out what the problem may be (if there is one) or actually rectifying it.

[MrStabby]

Not a D&D thing, but as kind of suggested at the start - begin by assuming you are wrong.

You have some things that are complained about; taking too much of the spotlight, not putting a lot of emphasis on the tactical side of the game. You might not really agree but it has been enough of an issue for people to raise it.

The other thing that you mentioned might not be an issue at all, depending on the discussion that occurred OOC. If you unilaterally went against a party consensus to not attack a guy then you were dictating what story the other characters would be following. It is a great piece of roleplaying if you raise it before hand and the other players consent to it (even if IC it is unexpected to the characters). If you just decided yourself that you were going to put your own personal storyline above the fun of the group, didn't discuss it with anyone before hand and then behaved as if you just had the privilege to do that and everyone else should just go along with it then it might be a little bit annoying to a couple of the other players.

At the end of the day it is everyone's responsibility to make things work. You taking steps to help the game absolves no other players of their responsibility to help the game. You don't have to believe that other players' concerns are rational or reasonable to accept that they reflect something that is diminishing the fun they are having and that by removing these concerns you can enhance the fun at the table.

It sounds like you are keen to make it work which is a great start.

[kyoryu]

Agreed.

Besides, there's a difference between "Will bring this guy down" and "MUST BRING HIM DOWN RIGHT NOW." Sometimes, you have to let the bad guys get away... for now.

There's also a difference between "bad tactically" and "suicidal". If attacking this guy would be a possible TPK, then it's pretty certainly suicide for one person. This can easily come across as "I'm going to attack him, because I know the party won't leave me to die alone!" which can definitely be interpreted as kind of a jerk move.

[Kol Korran]

My group also had some conflict between players. The main problem was to actually understand where thwar kind of issues stemfrom... Then, I found some articles about "The 8 aesthetics of play" (I suggest looking for the subject on The Angry DM's site) which helped y's understand a lot better where people come from, and the core difference of approach.

From the OP it sounds like a conflict between the Challenge & Expression aesthetics.

But, realizing through different play styles is but the first part of the solution. The second one is willingness to work things out, to find a way where all could have their version of "fun", and many times- compromise, and make some sort of a group agreement about what the game will be about, expectations, desires and limits.

Any RPG that invokves actual peopke is First and foremost a social game, and dealing with the others is essential.

Good luck!

[mikeejimbo]

I was going to say that the problem is just different playstyles but then I saw this...

I offer to quit the group so the others will be happy, and DM says he'll stop running it if I do

That's awful - it's like emotional hostage-taking.

I'd run to a different group. In my group, our Tactics checks are made by a leader with Delusion (Major).

[Aedilred]

As far as this particular situation goes, it's not entirely clear from your posts, but it's worth working out where the "problem" actually lies. That's not to say "who's right" but who's the one actually causing problems for the group.

Is your GM saying he'll stop the game if you leave because he's trying to guilt you into accepting a position of subservience, or because he's enjoying GMing for you and can't face continuing with this other guy/these other guys in your absence? Is he advising you against continuing the discussion because he wants you to pipe down and get on with things, or because he knows everyone already agrees with you apart from the one guy you'll never convince?

When you talk about shouting matches and drama, is that you vs one other player, with everyone else either staying out of it or actively/passively supporting you, or is that you vs the whole of the rest of the group? Or is the group split into factions?

From what you say, everything seems to have been going fine before this new guy appeared. But then you're quite close to this and might not be able to tell whether that's actually the case. It might be worth asking the GM his opinion on this outright, as he's probably the best-positioned to judge what's really going on. Tell him not to pull his punches. Is it the introduction of this new guy that's causing the problem, or is it that your play style always antagonised the group a bit and he's the first one to challenge you on it?

If you're the "problem player" then it's time to change your behaviour, or to leave the group. If it's him, then push the GM to give him the same ultimatum. If youre both at fault then find a way to reach a vaguely mutually acceptable compromise.

That's really how one deals with drama in this situation - by having a reasonably open and frank discussion, working out what's causing the problem and finding some way to remove or mitigate it.

[CharonsHelper]

D&D is a tactical group game where you should make (at least tactical/OOC) decisions as a group. It sounds like you'd be happier in a lighter more abstract system.

(Also of note - while I can't weigh in on specifics - blanket apologies suck. They virtually always come across as insincere whether or not they actually are.)

[Morbis Meh]

This is a situation where I would like to here more than one side of the argument, ie the other player's examples (in their words) at why you are tactically unsound and are hogging the spotlight. Not because you are any of those things but it gives more context to what's happening, now if I may ask: Have you encountered a problem like this before? Have you been in groups that have accused you of similar offences? If so you may want try to sit through a game and attempt to be conscious of your behavior for the whole session. I say this because I personally know that I can hog spot light because I like to speak thus I have made a conscious effort to moderate myself and encourage others to speak up or give their opinion (I am currently playing with a group of new players who try to let me do all the talking which I will not allow). As for leaving and the DM saying they will end the game if they leave, fine that is not your problem nor your fault it is theirs. They are the one ending the game not you and if they try to pin it on you then they are not worth playing to begin with.

[SirBellias]

I don't feel like I can give any sound advice on your situation, as there is only one viewpoint available to interpret.

My groups seem to have very little drama at all. Some people do get grumpy when they get talked over too much, but that can be remedied by not having the loud assertive people and the introverted people mix. Most people get along, but the only real issue I've had is when people bring homework to do while playing. Or cancel on me 20 minutes before game time. Everyone else seems fine with it though, and they still pay attention when they're relevant, I just think they are missing out on what I think is the cool bit.

[Odessa333]

TC here, and the game I mentioned is officially no more. No shock on my part, but there it is.

I hadn't intended to go into it, but if the board insists, I'll give more examples. This is for 5E as I said, a game of the LMoP module.



One scene that I was given a lot of grief for was the encounter with the banshee. If you don't know, the banshee in this module is a skilled diviner and can answer a lot of different questions, or use her wail to seriously hurt a low level party. This particular quest was given to our party's Warlock and Cleric, and not my bard, and the Warlock had a plot item to help negotiate with the creature. So we get there, we discuss the dangers, and the cleric and warlock go in while the rest of us wait outside. I cast my buff of 'enhance ability' on the warlock's charisma to help out. They give up their plot item, and get their plot question answered. Simple. Having told us this banshee can answer questions, I decide my bard would like a chance to get a question on her mind answered. The party goes nuts, trying to dissuade me for a good 45 minutes as they don't want to fight her. I beg with them to go on without me, and if I live I'll catch up with my longstrider spell; they don't have to fight, and I get my chance for some RP. I'm not trying to control anyone, and ask for them not to control me. Eventually I'm allowed to go in, and have my five minute scene: cast enhance ability again, make a performance check to impress the creature, ask my fluff question. I get my answer and get out safe. Still, everyone's upset that I wanted my five minutes.

Another scene of my 'scene stealing' was in town. With a victory under our belts and gold in our pockets, we stocked up in town, with the majority of the party ordering new armor, my bard being one of the few not doing so. As part of this, everyone sold off their old armor, so we had a brief window where our fighter, cleric, and Paladin had no armor. Cue the ambush where our Paladin is captured by goblins. We're given a choice: rush off to save her without half the party having armor, or wait for the armor and the Paladin would be likely killed. I come up option three: I ask the rest of the party to go on ahead, and I'll wait for the armor. They head out, and I get the armor. I then 'borrow' a horse, and use nearly every spell slot I have on using longstrider to make this horse go faster, pushing it to the limit. The DM had given us times/measurements earlier, and with the faster horse I'm able to catch up to the party a little before where we are to go for the rescue operation, getting the armor in time for everyone. Help the party out, and so of course there were complaints. It didn't matter that I didn't have enough spell slots and/or horses for the whole party to be there.


There was a third incident too, not of my choosing. My perception let me see something we were looking for and I had yelled out 'hey guys, look over here!' and went to investigate. No one followed. I was hit by the trap, and the party came to my rescue, asking why I ran off on my own ('I thought you were behind me' wasn't good enough of a reason).


And as confirmed in my conversation with the DM, these are the only moments either of us can recall where I was solo from the party in the months we played. Anywho, The Paladin liked to go off to silently brood (she was alone by herself when captured), the Fighter and Cleric liked to go off on dates together, go foraging together, and kept ditching us to have 'private moments.' In town scenes, the other four members had secret stuff to do in town for their organizations, and my bard wasn't in any organizations. she had 'solo' time as everyone else needed to be private, but only one scene went over 5 minutes (at the DM's insistence, as I was having to roll con saves to prevent myself from falling asleep during a woman's long and boring lecture, and kept saving). We were JUST getting into some of my character's story, having just learned the session before new details of her father's murder and were going to fight a minor villain she had sworn to take down, and then nothing.

The DM has apologized to me, saying that a majority of the players complained about me behind my back. And while he didn't go into details, he said that what they said violated the 'safe space' rules we had all agreed to at the start. And being openly transgender and a lesbian, well, it's not too hard to imagine what was said. That was the DM's last straw, and he shut it down.

Not sure if that clears anything up, but some examples of my 'bad moments.'

[MrStabby]

If, as you say, the majority of players complained about you then it is an indication that you may have done something wrong - probably without realising.

Take your first example to ask for 5 min of role play. Given the circumstances it is not reasonable to have a 45 min debate about stopping 5 min of role play therefore I think we have to ask why the other players expected this to take more than 5 min. For example, when you have conversations with NPCs do you tend to go off on lots of tangents? Do your conversations tend to be longer than for other people? Do you (or your character) have a speaking style that is inefficient? When you say everyone is upset you got your 5 minutes, was it really only 5 minutes you were asking for? Or could they imply that the question was a request for 10 minutes of time, possibly followed by your own personal storyline, quests, other conversations etc....

The second example seems reasonable behaviour to me. You had a plan as a group, you executed the plan and it all seemed to work. What exactly was the complaint here? Did you demand this plan when others didn't want it? Was there any other plan preferred by other players? It is bad news if you just refuse to go with others because you can, even if you think it is a good plan; it can come across as needlessly antagonistic to go against consensus, especially if you have done it before but by the sound of things there is nothing you did wrong here.

The third incident - you ran off on your own without the party. To a certain extent a matter of style but some parties don't like to split and they prefer to make decisions like that together.

Regarding the other players side time - how much game time did they take and how many players were there? If the Paladin goes off brooding for 5 hours but only takes 30 seconds to say so then it is character without any game-time cost. If they brood whilst having extensive conversations with every PC along the way about how they are so morose and angry, then it may be a bit more antisocial in a bigger group game. Also some of this may depend on who is there - as a DM I find it much easier to give time to side quests and personal character development if a player or two are missing and no big scenes are due to happen that session. If on the other hand some parts of the plot/action really need everyone there and someone wants to do something off the main quest line and if it is hard to get sessions with everyone there then I would be pretty annoyed at someone who wanted the focus on their own activities.

Finally, and again associated with timing, is the question of what others want to do. If someone was pursuing their own character development or playing their character and that was the time you wanted to follow your own path it could seem like you were pushing them out of the way. Say for example with the banshee you have an impatient or impetuous character who has a plot reason for extreme urgency to rush on or an fear of undead etc..

I am not saying you did anything wrong, but if you are looking for reasons why "a majority of players" complained about you these are the areas where I would start. If nothing else I commend you for keeping an open mind on where the problems may be.

[comicshorse]

If anything, I'm curious to how others gamers have resolved issues of drama.

A friend ran a 'Fading Suns' game where two of the players just did not get along. Separately they're both reasonable human beings and fine with each other OOC but their PC.s are a screaming argument waiting to happen. So after the first blazing row he watched them. When he recognized the signs that the their P.C.s were on the gentle slope to a row he declared aloud 'Vau Star fighters attack !"
Its not a permanent solution and we learnt to never allow those two to game together but the game lasted another year by the simple expedient of whenever they were building up to a row Vau star fighters attacked, or the Decados noble they were hunting was spotted or the Inquistor that was after them turned up or something happened to de-rail the argument before it got nasty.
To the extent that 'Vau Star fighters attack' has now entered our gaming vocuabulary

[goto124]

The party goes nuts, trying to dissuade me for a good 45 minutes as they don't want to fight her... Still, everyone's upset that I wanted my five minutes.

Help the party out, and so of course there were complaints.

What exactly did the party complain about? What were they upset about?

I had yelled out 'hey guys, look over here!' and went to investigate. No one followed. I was hit by the trap, and the party came to my rescue, asking why I ran off on my own ('I thought you were behind me' wasn't good enough of a reason).

You yelled out at your party members but they didn't follow? Why did they not follow? Did the players (not characters) fail to hear you the player? Were the players (not characters) distracted? Why didn't the GM tell the players (not characters) that your character had shouted out to the rest of the party? Or did the players (not characters) deliberately decide not to follow you? Weird that they later on asked why "you ran off on your own".

Unlike what MrStabby suggested, you didn't intend to split yourself from the party. You tried to communicate with them and assumed they would do what you felt was common sense (aka follow you). The GM didn't let you take back your actions once you realized your party wasn't actually following you? After all, IRL if you're checking if people are following you (the case here), you'll quickly notice when there isn't anyone following.

[Odessa333]

Well, the main complaints against me were along the lines of 'you shouldn't have done that' and 'that wasn't tactically sound.' My bard was the group's only support/utility character with everyone else attacking every round, and I was often told me taking any risks was a 'waste of party resources.' Essentially, they wanted a heal-bot who didn't take risks (ironically, our cleric was the ringleader of the complaints, as he didn't want that role). Towards the end of the campaign where I offered to go after the wizard alone, the 'hogging the spotlight' complaint came up. The DM has flat up said he never felt I was hogging the spotlight, and thought it was another way of trying to control my character to stay in the back and not do anything the party didn't like. The DM tried to stick up for me, and three of the players dropped the game with parting insults at the DM for being too weak to enforce proper roleplaying. Which was low, as this was the DM's first game, and he's lost confidence in himself. Having been in this hobby for 20 years, I can say with some credibility that he's one of the most promising DM's I've seen in years, and he doesn't deserve that kind of criticism.

So yea. To answer some of the questions, no I don't ramble for an hour when talking, the complaint with the banshee was it was too dangerous for the group's healer to take a risk. With the horse/armor, it was a general 'you shouldn't have done that.' With me calling out, the complaint was it was too dangerous to go alone, even though I thought they were coming with me (why they didn't I still don't know).

Bottom line, I think it was a matter of control. They wanted to control my actions to be a heal bot, and I wanted more than that.

[Lord Torath]

Having been in this hobby for 20 years, I can say with some credibility that he's one of the most promising DM's I've seen in years, and he doesn't deserve that kind of criticism.

I really hope you let him know this.

Yeah, from what you've said, I really can't see anything you did that would merit their response.

[kraftcheese]

From everything you've said, it sounds like you did anything "wrong" it was relatively minor; I reckon your group sound like gits.

[CharonsHelper]

From everything you've said, it sounds like you did anything "wrong" it was relatively minor; I reckon your group sound like gits.

Of course, we're only getting one side of things. I'm not going to weigh in either way, but I do think that it's only reasonable to take any situation where you only hear the complaints of one party with a giant grain of salt.

[NichG]

To the broader point of defusing drama in the future, it depends on whether the people involved are normally reasonable or not. For normally reasonable people, being close to the issue makes it worse. Time and distance help. It might be tempting to discuss things when they're fresh in your mind, or work out the issue before ending the session, but that tends to create escalation. Better to say 'let's stop here for now and take a week to cool down'. Then people can sort through their emotions about the issue and be more clear about what the actual reasons they got mad were. Don't try to fix things in the moment - even if you give a reasonable apology or an attempt to mend things or whatever, until everyone else has had time to sort themselves out they won't be ready to accept it because they don't actually know what they think yet, it's still feelings.

But sometimes there are people who just constantly have to be making drama about something. In that case, ignore if you can stand it, leave if you can't, because it's unlikely to be something you can change.

[kyoryu]

Bottom line, I think it was a matter of control. They wanted to control my actions to be a heal bot, and I wanted more than that.

I don't think that's the case. And I don't think that dismissing peoples' issues so lightly is generally helpful, no matter the scenario, or how at fault you were or were not.

I think the real issue is that they (or at least some of them) were playing a different game than you. They were effectively playing "let's go through the published adventure and do all the cool fights" and you were playing "world sim drama and my story in addition to the sketch of the preplanned plot." What you were doing was taking time away from "the main game", which is what they were there for.

Different game expectations result in different expectations of behavior. Neither is wrong or right, but understanding where the expectations differ and resolving them is key to having a functioning group.

There was a gazillion page long thread about whether it's safe to presume that people using the system are playing the same game, and this is a fantastic argument for the idea that it's *not*.

[Draconi Redfir]

In my own experience, once Drama starts in a game, it never goes away. It may settle down for a bit, but eventually someone is going to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, or not say the right thing at the right time. Mistakes people made ages ago will be held over their heads and constantly referenced too every time something goes wrong.

Honestly the only options i can think of are either trying to talk to the DM and the other players minus the new guy and trying to get new guy removed from the game, or just leaving before you form any more attachment or invest too much in the game. Once you invest a lot into a game and you need to leave, for feel nothing but regret and guilt, even if you did everything right.

[denthor]

Cannot tell from your profile if your man or woman but you sound like a woman apologizing.

If your group does not want you to do a solo Guess what tell him to get on board and help you or that's what you're going to do.

Your character is written that you must attempt to Vanquish this foe.

Your DM I said if you quit games over so he wants it To happen .

As for the new player that has a problem with it he can sit out the session and watch.

This of course is just one man's perspective on how the game should be played if you enjoy it play it if not Quit.

Not to mention you have the backing and blessing of the man who is actually running the game.

[ILM]

For example? The so called last straw: I've been told I'm 'hogging the spotlight.' In a recent encounter, we snuck on up a clearly evil dude that my backstory has me sworn to take down (confirmed to be evil by several sources, including another player's magic) and I want to kill the dude. We discuss our tactics, and the party decides it's not worth taking this guy out as it could be dangerous, he might not be 100% evil, and we could TPK. Being the not tactically sound bard that I am, I state I'm going to go for it, give it my best shot alone if I must. I beg for their aid... and get an out of character screaming match for wanting to do things solo. End session.

Here's how this sounded to me: there's a guy who registers as evil but the rest of the party a) doesn't seem convinced, and b) wants to find an alternative. You want to fight him because you have a bone to pick, but concensus falls against it. You then decide to go in anyway because RP, even if it means risking a TPK for everyone. You ask for their aid, which sounds rethorical since I don't see how they'd sit out the fight considering they're right there next to you.

Personally, I'd also have bad things to say about a party member who Leroys out and risks my skin on a fight we didn't want to have, especially if it was backed by the trite cliché of "but it's in my backstory" (extra points if you used a chaotic alignment as an argument). It's a group game, so what the group wants is relevant. If you can't get along with the group, it's an OOC problem and walking away is absolutely an acceptable response if you can't reconcile your views, but from your opening post I at least understand their frustration with that situation.

[AuthorGirl]

Honestly, I don't think this particular group can withstand this level of drama. I hope it does, and yet I don't think it can. I could give more examples, talk to I'm blue in the face, but really, when even saying 'I'm sorry' is taken to be offensive, I think we're past the point of no return. I don't want to dwell on the negative, as this group was a lot of fun for me. When talking of drama, giving an example seems fair, but dragging their names through the mud isn't my goal here.

If anything, I'm curious to how others gamers have resolved issues of drama. While I don't think it's all my fault, my actions contributed. Mistakes have been made, and I want to learn from said mistakes to avoid such a messy blow up in the future. When faced with drama, what have you seen helps to ease tensions? If a player is gunning for you time and again, how do you keep things civil?

Start a discussion! PM might be best, to avoid public arguments and segues. It's working well for me in a disagreement over a roll20 game.

Be as Canadian as possible: polite at all times, apologetic, sincere, gracious to a fault, and always willing to compromise. Explain what you want from the game, with large disclaimers pasted all over it so that no one thinks you're giving ultimatums, and see if people will respond with at least grudging civility. If not, call irreconcilable differences and find a new game.