Difficult Player Type

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

I have a similar problem. I have a player who I honestly think genuinely wants to play. He has experience with tabletop games, he's willing to do more "high brow" style intellectual and social oriented games and even wants to get friends involved.

...but he enjoys being a "troll" online. He puts purposely inflammatory comments on message board, runs a "chan" type site, enjoys "ganking" low-level players in PvP MMORPGs and enjoys saying (shouting) inappropriate things in public.

However one-on-one in person he's a pretty decent guy, which makes me think a lot of the other stuff is just an act.

So I really don't know if he'd be a good match or not. I'm thinking of vetting him with one-on-one play or two on one and go from there.

The difference seems to be that he's anonymous and thus automatically gets past consequences for his in game antics online but has to deal with real people at the table.

Keep your game separate from his online stuff and you're likely to do fine.

That may mean dropping out of the online stuff you do wit him, if any.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Six_Gun_Sam

The PC must have the Common Sense disad at no point cost.

I've tried this with the last player of this sort that I had.

GM: "Nope. Your Common Sense power is tingling."

Player: "I don't care. I do it anyway!"

GM: "... whaa whaa whaa my precious unique snowflake can't do whatever it wants whaa whaa whaa. No stop the ******* and moaning."

Other players: "This isn't fun."

[Six_Gun_Sam]

Well darn.

To borrow a line from an old geezer at that purple colored site: "No gaming is better than bad gaming."

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Six_Gun_Sam

Well darn.

To borrow a line from an old geezer at that purple colored site: "No gaming is better than bad gaming."

The solution at that point is to kick them out, I was just hoping there was a non-confrontational, Robin D. Laws-esque solution to the problem wherein everybody gets something that they want out of the experience.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I have to say, you know me, sir. That is exactly the advice I was fixing to give: figure out the things that are necessary to the kind of campaign you want to run, spell those out, and tell them that committing to doing those things is a requirement for playing. Explicit social contracts are your friend.

Yes, yes, yes. Frequent exposure has made me a big believer in this. Not least because of this:

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Player: "I don't care. I do it anyway!"


Other players: "This isn't fun."

At its most fundamental level, a game should be fun for everyone playing it. If it's not, then either the game needs to change or the people playing it need to change.

That's where the true value of the prospectus/social contract lies. It says: "This is the sort of game I am interested in playing. How about you guys?" and gives them a fair chance to say either "Sure" or "Nah, not really" before you get too deeply involved.

To be honest, with a bunch of Captain Wackies, I'd pick my game carefully. I'd probably opt for Toon or Paranoia over GURPS or In Nomine, just because the atmosphere would seem to better fit the prevailing mood ... which in turn might give you a chance to play with them long enough to decide if their play style is something you can live with and adapt to, and for them to decide the same thing.


It can be done. But you're right to be thinking about it ahead of time. And it has to have everyone's cooperation or it doesn't have a chance.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

The solution at that point is to kick them out, I was just hoping there was a non-confrontational, Robin D. Laws-esque solution to the problem wherein everybody gets something that they want out of the experience.

Sure, I mean there's the possibility that there's a style of play they want that you're not giving them. So look and see if you can toss in some meaningless combat encounters against mooks who are clearly the bad guys and whatnot, with no consequences. But if it is the case that they just want to roll around and do stuff like that, and the other players don't, compromise is not easy.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Sure, I mean there's the possibility that there's a style of play they want that you're not giving them. So look and see if you can toss in some meaningless combat encounters against mooks who are clearly the bad guys and whatnot, with no consequences. But if it is the case that they just want to roll around and do stuff like that, and the other players don't, compromise is not easy.

I can handle Butt-Kickers, but that's not what I'm talking about. The player type I'm talking about isn't really interested in winning fights necessarily, they just want to do weird stuff, and I guess get away with it.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I can handle Butt-Kickers, but that's not what I'm talking about. The player type I'm talking about isn't really interested in winning fights necessarily, they just want to do weird stuff, and I guess get away with it.

Well, if they're not Butt-kickers who are acting out, but just want more weird I think that's just a fundamental disconnect from the rest of humanity.

I mean, sometimes I want to play GTA and just fly a plane into someones car, but doing that while everyone else is trying to do something non-psychotic is disruptive.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Brett

I don't like the terms "game master" and "dungeon master" much. The authority of the GM has to be there as a last resort, but a game should not run by its frequent exercise.

Lest anyone be tempted to falsely imagine Brett's gaming table as Big Rock Candy Mountain; he's fine with the terms 'Wearer of the Viking Hat', 'Great Horned One', 'Hamhumper-in-Chief' and 'Rutmaster'.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

These players have the following traits:

• They like to do "wacky", outre', and implausible things in game.
• They are adept at rationalizing their actions in-game, in a way that makes sense apparently to them, and therefore don't respond well to iron handed statements of "You simply wouldn't do that"
• They tend to instigate and escalate conflicts in game.
• They don't seem to generally fear narrative consequences for their actions, and will happily get the entire party killed or arrested rather than desist.
• They tend to become progressively stranger as the campaign continues, as though they are deliberately establishing limits and then pushing them.

"wacky": I would accept this in some campaigns, but not in others. I don't normally bother to specify when wackiness is unacceptable, because that's my default assumption. It sounds as if you might need to say up front "wackiness not acceptable here."

rationalization: I would not usually so much say they can't do something, as ask them for an explanation of their character's motives, I think.

conflicts: In some campaigns those are acceptable, so long as they are character/character and not player/player. Spoiling other players' fun is never acceptable. A player who makes the game not fun for other players is on the way out.

narrative consequences: If they're getting their own characters killed, more power to them. If they're endangering the other characters, the other players are free to stop them; I don't assume PC immunity.

pushing limits: I haven't dealt with that one specifically, but my suggestion is that if you think it will happen, you need to establish the limits in the very first session.

A roughneck frontiersman was traveling across Pennsylvania on his way home after a visit to the city. Halfway across, he put up for the night at a farmhouse. The farmer and his family were Quakers, so he decided to amuse himself by harassing them, knowing they weren't allowed to fight with him. So he took more than his share at supper, pinched the farmer's ear, and eventually patted the farmwife in an improper place.

At that, the farmer stood up and walked over to the mantel. When he turned around he was holding a fowling piece. "Friend," he said, "I would not harm thee for all the world, but thee is standing where I am about to shoot."

Bill Stoddard