Spite in gaming

[HumanFighter]

Friends and fellow gamers, have u ever had a session or campaign that just went plain bad? As an isolated incident, one that does not bleed (or explode) over to other things in the group, it is still bad but it stays in its proper place, usually.
Still, sometimes, things go so personally bad for everyone that sides are taken, lines are drawn, wars are declared, and this can echo into other campaigns within that group forevermore

The bitter GM, feeling spiteful from what had happened in previous sessions in other campaigns, he decides to pick on and be unfair to one or two players in particular to get back at them for whatever imaginary slight he concocted, and so the campaign becomes lop-sided and skewed, making one half of the players positively blessed while the other half suffers at all turns.
This is not what I want to happen in my games or at my table, but nevertheless it does happen, unfortunately, because life is stupid and unfair at times, but that doesn't mean we cant talk it out and correct it.
People get the wrong idea about other ppl at the table, they make assumptions. Sometimes people troll, sometimes for fun, sometimes out of spite. I've seen it. Ive seen an entire table of 8 ppl or more ripped apart and divided because of some immature crap.
U guys ever have such an experience? Cuz if so, it can significantly impact one's enthusiasm for the hobby
Were u ever able to correct things, or did it degenerate more and more until all or part of the group broke off? Curious to know. Im HumanFighter. This post was a sweaty one for me.

[KorvinStarmast]

There are a wide variety of things that will create fissures and sometimes fault lines in small groups, not just in gaming groups.

How people handle them is very much wrapped up with who they are and how important the group is to their sense of well being.

I was a member of a volunteer group for a decade and recently advised the person chairing it that I would no longer be involved. When asked why, my response was simple:
"I am not interested in putting up with the pettiness that is increasing; I choose not to subject myself to that in my free time."

In a gaming group, if being with that group stops being fun, people find other stuff to do with their time.

[Quertus]

I tend to handle things like this by telling the GM they’re an idiot, and why, to their face, in front of the group. And, if they don’t learn, kicking them from the group. If they do learn, all’s forgiven. Simple as that.

I’m not one for “festering”. Work with the group, or get out.

[False God]

I've had trolling players. I give them the boot when I'm DMing, or I leave the table if a DM won't resolve it. My time spent playing D&D is not my time spent on Twitter, I won't tolerate poor moderation.

I've had players generally be jerks to each other, and again, this is something the DM should be resolving, not making worse. If the DM isn't going to make things better, I'll leave. If I can't make things better as DM, I'll remove problematic elements.

There's a reason my games these days are few and far between. I'm pretty iron-fisted when it comes to problematic anti-social behaviour. Keep it in character, work out IRL problems outside the table, and if you can't then leave.

So, yes, I've had your problems OP, and it's why I play less and am stricter on my players.

[HumanFighter]

I've had trolling players. I give them the boot when I'm DMing, or I leave the table if a DM won't resolve it. My time spent playing D&D is not my time spent on Twitter, I won't tolerate poor moderation.

I've had players generally be jerks to each other, and again, this is something the DM should be resolving, not making worse. If the DM isn't going to make things better, I'll leave. If I can't make things better as DM, I'll remove problematic elements.

There's a reason my games these days are few and far between. I'm pretty iron-fisted when it comes to problematic anti-social behaviour. Keep it in character, work out IRL problems outside the table, and if you can't then leave.

So, yes, I've had your problems OP, and it's why I play less and am stricter on my players.

Ah, good on ye, False God. Yes, in my experience, those that troll (for "somewhat" justified reasons or not) dont last long in group
but what if the gm himself is the problem, singling out a player for some unknown reason? Guess we gotta talk that out, although we can all agree it is uncomfortable

[gbaji]

There's a reason my games these days are few and far between. I'm pretty iron-fisted when it comes to problematic anti-social behaviour. Keep it in character, work out IRL problems outside the table, and if you can't then leave.

Hah. That reminds me of my (relatively brief) stint as a guildmaster in a mmorpg. The previous GM was leaving and more or less handed control to me, and OMG what a headache. The sheer drama. Crazy. One player literally had a tantrum because one other member had the gall to join a group with a character played by someone they'd apparently had some conflict with in the past. And no, I did not know what it was, nor did I want to know. Ok. I get if you don't like someone, then don't play with that person, but to insist that no one else could either? That's like playground nonsense right there.

I think I've been mostly blessed in that my longer running game groups have been mostly made up of low key, relaxed, and (at least somewhat) mature players. Shorter term, one shot or pickup type games didn't last long enough with any one set of people for me to really worry about player personality issues (well, aside form the usual player tropes, but that's easily handled). I had not realized that such people actually existed (outside of gaming horror stories) until that guild thing online. Sheesh! Is it just younger people, or were we all this boneheaded back then? Maybe I don't want to know the answer to that...

So yeah, I can see how player conflicts can create huge problems at a table (virtual or otherwise). You'd think they'd be able to stick to playing, but yeah, I get it. IMO, the one that's harder to deal with is when a GM is causing problems though. I did see one situation (many many game tables ago) where apparently the GM and one player had a personal falling out over something (off table). I never knew the details, but it definitely had an effect on play. It didn't help that this particular GM also had a GMing style where he liked to play the players and not the characters. What I mean by that is that he would determine things that he thought would make the player uncomfortable or unhappy or conflicted and then put their character into that situation. Not sure if he felt like he was engaging in some sort of therapy or something, but it was sometimes laughable yet annoying at the same time. And I don't think he quite "got" the whole "roleplaying" thing, because he'd try to do this to me, and I'd be like "my character has no problems with that at all" (and follow up with over the top roleplaying of whatever it was), and you could almost see the gears spinning in his head as he tried to figure things out. In this particular case, he just kept hitting this other player's characters with stuff he knew the player would be annoyed with (even though it didn't affect the character really at all). The player just got increasingly annoyed by this and eventually quit (which was likely the objective).


I also did not play in, but know a number of players who did, a game where the GM has clear "favorites". IIRC, this was an ancient Chivalry and Sorcery game, and the GM would basically toss random stuff at the players. And coincidentally certain players always got lucky "good" random stuff that happened to them, and other players got unlucky "bad" random stuff. One of the players in that game told me that the trick was that if you entertained the GM, you basically got rewarded by having "good" things happen. Terrible way to GM, but at least those who figured it out managed to get by I suppose.

There was one GM that I did play under who had an odd habit of retconning and "balancing" things after the fact. He would provide items or abilities to characters as rewards/treasure, and sometimes as needed things to complete a scenario, and then "forget" that he gave them out. If you played the character later, and used the item or ability, he'd be like "wow. That seems pretty powerful, are you sure that's what it does" (usually followed by you showing him the writeup for it that he wrote and handed out). That was the death knell. You knew he would be gunning for that thing, and try to remove it from the game. It got so bad that I just stopped using certain items because I knew he would find a way to take the away, or destroy them. Or I just stopped playing certain characters if I felt that he might think they were overpowered for the scenario. He also had a proclaimed rules that anyone could play any character on any adventure, but he quite clearly would take steps to eliminate characters or abilities if he felt they were too powerful. It's one of the reasons I am very open with my players about scenario power level and expected characters (and will let them know if they are too weak or too powerful).

[False God]

Ah, good on ye, False God. Yes, in my experience, those that troll (for "somewhat" justified reasons or not) dont last long in group
but what if the gm himself is the problem, singling out a player for some unknown reason? Guess we gotta talk that out, although we can all agree it is uncomfortable

If the table, as in, the other 3-4 people aside from the Dm and the targetted player recognize the problem, they need to stand up for the player and "talk to" or "call out" the DM, whichever way prompts the DM to straighten up. If nothing works, or the result is that the DM has some certain problem with Target Player, the group should collectively boot the DM.

And before people say "but what if you're a group of friends", well, that DM isn't a friend if that's how they're gonna treat another friend, and if this Target Player is a stranger, then the DM is a questionable friend at best if they'll treat total strangers poorly.

Hah. That reminds me of my (relatively brief) stint as a guildmaster in a mmorpg. The previous GM was leaving and more or less handed control to me, and OMG what a headache. The sheer drama. Crazy. One player literally had a tantrum because one other member had the gall to join a group with a character played by someone they'd apparently had some conflict with in the past. And no, I did not know what it was, nor did I want to know. Ok. I get if you don't like someone, then don't play with that person, but to insist that no one else could either? That's like playground nonsense right there.

Been there, Guild Mastered that. It's crazy the kind of drama some folks can generate. I don't have time for that in-game much less IRL. My time at the table, both as DM and player, is what I like to call "dice therapy", like "nature therapy" it's a nice little escape from all the day-to-day troubles of real life. Not that the games don't have their own trials and tribulations, but at least my character can solve things with a sword, or magic, or if I'm not feeling like talking much(my job involves a lot of talking), turn into a cat for most of the session.

[Crake]

I once played in a university game, and this was back in the late 2000/early 2010s, I was still pretty into the whole dnd 3.5 character creation minigame, and I loved discussing builds and character ideas, which sorta earned me a bit of a moniker of being a munchkin or power gamer, despite never actually implementing or trying to use any of those ideas in any actual games.

Despite that though, we were playing a 3.5 adapted version of the original temple of elemental evil modules, and while everyone else for the most part was fine (there were a couple of character deaths here and there, especially early on), my characters practically went through a meat grinder. No big deal, I thought, just poor decisions on my part I guess, along with some bad rng sprinkled in... Until I started noticing abilities just generally being ignored or twisted, or negated entirely, and eventually, after maybe a year, to a year and a half into this game, and more characters than I could count on one hand, I end up getting a DM from a friend that told me that the DM had admitted to him that he goes after my characters because I'm a "powergamer" and he wanted to make sure I didn't ruin the game.

I didn't make a character for the next session.

[Keltest]

In my current group we discovered that 5-6 players was about as many as we could handle before the attention division just got too much for the DM to keep up with. Nobody felt listened to, and we ended up dropping that campaign because it had taken irreparable damage. Too many people just wanted too many different things, and the campaign couldnt survive that.

Beyond that, we found out one of the people in the group was a child groomer, and we already mostly didnt like them, so we kicked them to the curb real hard. Other people parted on more amicable terms, so now we're down to a healthy core.

[northernbard80]

My old group back in Queens NY did that back when we played 2E. Then again, we were all reckless teenagers and realized years later how foolish we all were.

Age plays a factor. How old are these players? If they are teenagers or even college students, that may be understandable.

At either rate, if it is seriously disrupting the game, find a new group to play campaigns with. There's also online campaigns like PbP and VTT. Solo gaming is also an option nowadays.

[Cygnia]

I was in a PBEM a few years back where a problematic guy in his 60's tried to kill the game rather than suffer the consequences of his own actions. Or, failing that, tried to get me kicked as well.

I knew the guy on another forum. Complete and utter narcissist, always had to be right. SOB literally got into my face at a con to argue/threaten me about it. Needless to say, he was no longer welcome in that PBEM. Unfortunately, he wasn't kicked from the con.

[King of Nowhere]

no, never had that kind of drama. I play with mature, responsible people. Now that I've been playing with the same group for many years, I can also say I play with friends.

not to say there never was drama, especially some years ago when some players were kids. but the drama got solved. people clashing and bad feelings being involved, that can happen. people holding grudges? big no-no.

[Vykryl]

Yes, and still fuzzy on exactly what happened. Our normal group was put on hold because of covid. Started playing within our duplex. Two of the original members didn't join, three new members were added. Two of these being the DM's new so and it's best friend.

There was a lot of raunchy humor from the new members. A lot of derailing to talk about 3rd edition d&d. Some how the best friend always had answers for whatever the DM threw at us. When the game imploded, i was in the restroom and never got a straight answer on what happened.

The only part I do understand came out in out of game conversation after the blow up: DM's so was helping her design the campaign, then helping his best friend build characters to thwart the campaign. Yahoo was talking about gaming with my son and I a few days later and told us what he'd been doing.

[Bulhakov]

As a player I've had some poor experiences with in-character mocking/trolling, but it was solved with an after-game honest discussion about hurtful gamestyles and toning it down a little (it's a fine balance - if we all mock eachother, it can be a very fun teasing game, but if several people mock one character, it's hurtful).

As a GM I've had some annoying/antisocial players, and managed to solve it through a combination of OOC chat and in-game consequences.

Finally I made some mistakes as a GM, e.g. creating too emotionally-charged storylines that were a bit too much for the players to handle and divided up the team, eventually leading to us stopping playing (though the fact that over half the players became parents soon after was probably the main reason we discontinued our RPG sessions).

[gbaji]

As a player I've had some poor experiences with in-character mocking/trolling, but it was solved with an after-game honest discussion about hurtful gamestyles and toning it down a little (it's a fine balance - if we all mock eachother, it can be a very fun teasing game, but if several people mock one character, it's hurtful).

As a GM I've had some annoying/antisocial players, and managed to solve it through a combination of OOC chat and in-game consequences.

Finally I made some mistakes as a GM, e.g. creating too emotionally-charged storylines that were a bit too much for the players to handle and divided up the team, eventually leading to us stopping playing (though the fact that over half the players became parents soon after was probably the main reason we discontinued our RPG sessions).

It can be a fine balance between engaging in roleplaying as an opportunity to play different types of characters with different (and perhaps in some cases modern socially inappropriate) personalities, allowing for in-character resolution of such conflicts and whatnot, and having players themselves become offended or upset by such things. And it highly depends on the players at a given table and how willing they are to stretch themselves in the name of roleplaying (and of course, when/if someone takes such things too far).

And yeah, as a GM it can be tempting to put PCs into situations that may be a bit difficult or uncomfortable purely for the purpose of roleplaying out such scenarios, and there can be value/fun to that by allowing players to play out things they would never do in real life. But you have to be extremely careful. At all times, you really have to be aware of the table and how the players at that table are going to see these things and how they will react to them.

My general rule of thumb is to lay off this sort of thing until you are certain of the comfort level of the table. As a GM you can never go wrong with a very straight forward scenario in which the PCs work together to achieve common goals via cooperative effort against pretty standard trope "bad guys". Start there and feel your way from that point.

[Jay R]

All humans have human failings, including me, including you, and including the other players at the table.

Correct the things you can correct. Accept the things you can't correct if you can have fun that way, or leave the game if you cannot. Since I starting playing rpgs in 1975 I have left exactly one game for that reason.

There is a legal maxim: "Any lawyer knows the law. A good lawyer knows the exceptions. A great lawyer knows the judge."

Similarly, a great player knows the DM. Anything which requires a judgment call will work better if the DM believes in it. So part of being a great player is getting along with the DM. There's nothing specific to D&D there; part of being great at anything is getting along with others.

With most DMs, that mainly means good cooperation. When I try to do impressive builds, the DM knows my plans long before I get to the table. If something just won't work, I'd rather find out before I try it against a dragon.

I once had a DM who really liked his DMPC. I realized that anything that would help his DMPC was far likelier to work. So I tried to find common goals for my character and the DMPC.

I had a DM who was really impressed with gutsy play. So my character in that game became much bolder.

Again, this is not a D&D-specific approach. I try to be the kind of employee my boss respects, or the kind of consultant my client admires, or the kind of teacher my statistics students learn from, or the kind of trainer my fencing students respond to. I once started following the local basketball team, just because my boss liked to talk about basketball.

If you can bend a little in the direction of the people around you, they are far likelier to bend a little in your direction.

[KorvinStarmast]

I was in a PBEM a few years back where a problematic guy in his 60's tried to kill the game rather than suffer the consequences of his own actions. Or, failing that, tried to get me kicked as well.

Does PBEM mean Play By E Mail?

All humans have human failings, including me, including you, and including the other players at the table.{snip great post content}
If you can bend a little in the direction of the people around you, they are far likelier to bend a little in your direction.

And I think you run a Dale Carnegie course on the side.

[Bulhakov]

My general rule of thumb is to lay off this sort of thing until you are certain of the comfort level of the table. As a GM you can never go wrong with a very straight forward scenario in which the PCs work together to achieve common goals via cooperative effort against pretty standard trope "bad guys". Start there and feel your way from that point.

Totally agree. But my big GM "fail" was actually with an extremely well known group we've been playing with for almost 10 years. It was because everyone was so genre-savvy and experienced that I had to experiment with less "cliche" plotlines and ideas.

The two biggest emotional rollercoasters were:
- when two female players tortured a BBEG to death, because he was a violent pirate slave-trader with a reputation of raping and killing kids. However, during the torture he turned out to have been an eunuch and later investigations showed that the "rape island" where kids disappeared was basically a "Neverland" ranch where he got to unwind pretending to be the "Fairy king" and he quietly sent out the slave children off to various orphanages. (He still was a bloody violent pirate/murderer, just had a genuine soft spot for kids)
- having players who refused to participate in torturing/interrogating two prisoners, to roleplay as those prisoners instead (which basically turned the session into the Stanford prison experiment)

[KorvinStarmast]

Totally agree. But my big GM "fail" was actually with an extremely well known group we've been playing with for almost 10 years. It was because everyone was so genre-savvy and experienced that I had to experiment with less "cliche" plotlines and ideas.

The two biggest emotional rollercoasters were:
- when two female players tortured a BBEG to death, because he was a violent pirate slave-trader with a reputation of raping and killing kids. However, during the torture he turned out to have been an eunuch and later investigations showed that the "rape island" where kids disappeared was basically a "Neverland" ranch where he got to unwind pretending to be the "Fairy king" and he quietly sent out the slave children off to various orphanages. (He still was a bloody violent pirate/murderer, just had a genuine soft spot for kids)
- having players who refused to participate in torturing/interrogating two prisoners, to roleplay as those prisoners instead (which basically turned the session into the Stanford prison experiment)

Were you surprised that this caused issues?

[False God]

Totally agree. But my big GM "fail" was actually with an extremely well known group we've been playing with for almost 10 years. It was because everyone was so genre-savvy and experienced that I had to experiment with less "cliche" plotlines and ideas.

While I realize some may find it worse than roleplaying torture, when my players became too genre-savvy I just started running isekais.

[gbaji]

- when two female players tortured a BBEG to death, because he was a violent pirate slave-trader with a reputation of raping and killing kids. However, during the torture he turned out to have been an eunuch and later investigations showed that the "rape island" where kids disappeared was basically a "Neverland" ranch where he got to unwind pretending to be the "Fairy king" and he quietly sent out the slave children off to various orphanages. (He still was a bloody violent pirate/murderer, just had a genuine soft spot for kids)

And your players learned the valuable lesson not to make assumptions about people based on rumor and reputation, but to determine things for themselves before acting in extreme ways. Right?

- having players who refused to participate in torturing/interrogating two prisoners, to roleplay as those prisoners instead (which basically turned the session into the Stanford prison experiment)

What with your players and torture?

[Cygnia]

Does PBEM mean Play By E Mail?

Aye, that it does...

[icefractal]

What with your players and torture?

I'm wondering that too ...

IME, torture has never improved a game by being present. Sometimes not made it worse, but never an improvement. And I've realized I don't actually have to put up with it, I can just tell people OOC to knock that **** off. People will say you can't dictate what PCs do or what the "camera" focuses on, but they're lying - try having your character spend 10 real-time hours assembling a grandfather clock gear by gear, and see how long that standard lasts.

[animorte]

I'm wondering that too ...

In the past, I tend to avoid the details. Throw out a few Constitution saves. If the first one fails, you get your answer. If the second one fails, they go unconscious.

Side note: I meant to say a few months ago, I quite like your name.

[GloatingSwine]

In the past, I tend to avoid the details. Throw out a few Constitution saves. If the first one fails, you get your answer. If the second one fails, they go unconscious.

Side note: I meant to say a few months ago, I quite like your name.

The quick way to train your players not to do it is to do it realistically. Make the information useless and wrong. Every time they use torture to get information, the information misleads them and they get set back in their campaign.

[gbaji]

I've never specifically disallowed torture by the PCs in my game. So it's always a possibility, I suppose. And there's actually a religion in the game that gets bonuses to resist interrogation/torture, so it's certainly "a thing that can happen". It's just never really come up. There are a ton of ways to get information (spells and whatnot), but I suppose that depends on game setting and system.

If this were to happen (whether to or by the PCs), I'd avoid details. Just have them make con rolls or something, with maybe successively higher negative modifiers as time goes by (provides some sort of "timeline to break" or something). This is definitely something you don't want to get graphic on though. And yeah, if the players started using this sort of thing as a standard tactic (or, in the first example as some sort of extreme punishment), I'd find ways to make sure that there were consequences. Incorrect information is the most obvious one. Damage to reputation is another.

Did the players learn any sort of lesson from the first example though? To be fair, I almost see that as having its own built in consequence. Realizing they tortured someone to death for something he didn't actually do is somewhat of a moral teaching moment I would think. And one would hope that they would think twice (maybe a lot more than twice) in the future about doing something like that again. I'd at least argue that it's better to learn this lesson in a RPG than in real life.

[Bulhakov]

What with your players and torture?

I wonder that too. Probably, because I tend to create realistic/rational opponents that are not suicidal fanatics and sometimes surrender, my players end up having to deal with prisoners more often than the average adventuring party. And I've seen whole ranges of responses (even from the same players), from letting the enemies go after an oath to never come back, through handing them over to the authorities, to playing judge/jury/executioner, sometimes in unusually cruel ways.

Did the players learn any sort of lesson from the first example though? To be fair, I almost see that as having its own built in consequence. Realizing they tortured someone to death for something he didn't actually do is somewhat of a moral teaching moment I would think. And one would hope that they would think twice (maybe a lot more than twice) in the future about doing something like that again. I'd at least argue that it's better to learn this lesson in a RPG than in real life.

Actually the sessions were very close apart, and they did learn the lessons and that's why two of the four players backed out of the interrogation. The drama was caused by some terrible luck on a few rolls and bad assumptions. The prisoners were a gifted kid sorcerer and his bodyguard (picture Draco Malfoy and Zangief). The kid had sort of a psionic self-defence mechanism - anyone near him felt his pain. The bodyguard had a "life-link" ability that could transfer damage from the kid to himself. As the PCs tried to torture the sorcerer, everyone around took a bit of damage (some had some critical fails and even lost consciousness) and the kid magically healed. Props to my ex-wife who was perfectly playing the role of the ******* cocky kid sorcerer a bit drunk with his powers. The players panicked as they couldn't figure out what was happening taking so much damage from a tied up child, and ended up executing both prisoners. Then the players who temporarily played the prisoners came back as their own characters and wanted to resurrect the prisoners. A big debate broke out that ended the session to which we eventually didn't come back.

[Pauly]

What with your players and torture?

Hollywood glamorizes torture as a quick, clean and easy way to get reliable information.
Lots of people have an idea of torture that is well separated from the reality. One of the main problems with it as a practical investigatory technique is that the person being tortured is incentivised to say whatever will make the torture stop, not the truth.

[Jay R]

The quick way to train your players not to do it is to do it realistically. Make the information useless and wrong. Every time they use torture to get information, the information misleads them and they get set back in their campaign.

The quick way to train your players not to do it is to stop the game and be completely open, honest, and committed to your position..

"I'm prepared to create and run a world for you to pretend to be heroes in. I am not willing to create and run a world for you to pretend to be villains in. It really bothers me and I can't keep going right now. We're stopping for today. If you want to come back and pick up from here as the heroes, I'll keep running the game. But if torturing prisoners is an important part of playing D&D for you, then I'm not the right DM for you; I can't give you the game you want. I sincerely hope you find a DM who will run the game you want to play, but I'm just not up to it."

[False God]

The quick way to train your players not to do it is to stop the game and be completely open, honest, and committed to your position..

"I'm prepared to create and run a world for you to pretend to be heroes in. I am not willing to create and run a world for you to pretend to be villains in. It really bothers me and I can't keep going right now. We're stopping for today. If you want to come back and pick up from here as the heroes, I'll keep running the game. But if torturing prisoners is an important part of playing D&D for you, then I'm not the right DM for you; I can't give you the game you want. I sincerely hope you find a DM who will run the game you want to play, but I'm just not up to it."

THIS. For any line the DM is unwilling to cross.