dmtreat
Squire
Posts: 48 
Favorite D&D Class: Ranger
Favorite D&D Race: Dwarf
|
Post by dmtreat on Dec 21, 2016 4:24:10 GMT
Hey all! So I'm sitting here listening to the DMB pilot episode for the heck of it and noticed towards the end of the episode Mitch and Chris go on a long rant about problem players, so it got me thinking.
What is your worst player experience as a DM? Where a player just causes problems on a mass level to the point of a table boot.
I'll start us off.
I had a friend for a long time, he loves DnD and played with us for 2 years. Then the problems came. He started drinking more at games than was welcome, getting irritable without it, etc. He even got to the point where for about 1 hr at the table per game night he would fall asleep.
The last straw was one night we were at the end of. 6 month campaign, big Boss battle, lots on the line, all that jazz. Battle commences between the party and a balor demon. I call for initiative and look up to see that player asleep. Wake him up, roll initiative, back to sleep......
Turn comes around to him, we wake him up. This is what was said.
Me:"your turn"
Him:"what's going on?"
Me: *eye roll and explain the last 20 mins of gameplay*
Him:"ok, I shoot my bow, does 26 hit?"
Me:"yes"
Him: "k, here's my damage *rolls damage* wake me up when I come back around" and he went back to sleep
............this passed us off beyond belief. Now remember, this guy was my friend for years before we started playing DnD, so I couldn't just yell at him and kick him off the table, though we all wanted to. But from there everything went farther and farther down hill and he no longer plays at our table. The last time he played he yelled at me, and everyone else, because I didn't allow him to hide while standing directly in front of a monster.
So guys, what are your storys?
|
|
|
|
Post by DM Exitium on Dec 21, 2016 16:26:03 GMT
I have a chaotic neutral gnomish ranger/alchemist that has attention issues. He gets solo side adventures with me at work (since he works in the next room over) to use his downtime to make potions and explore which plants do what. At first, I enjoyed doing this as I personally like alchemy and herbalism as a profession and no other PC's in the group are actively practicing or RP'ing a profession. But he likes to make "Libido/Love potions" and his description of their effect was both demeaning and graphic so that was a red flag. Instead, he used the potion successfully and I rolled percentage die behind the DM screen and just told them "1 hour later" in the spongebob announcer's voice rather than force other players at the table to RP the graphic effects he wanted the potion to do....
However, as we began big group games again, these 1-PC:1-DM side adventures affected his gameplay at the big group table with me and 7 players. He would run off on his own and demand that I give him attention to show what his PC was doing while the group was sitting and discussing with NPC's. Because of course, as DM I should emphasize the actions of a single player over the other 6?
I struggled with how to handle this for a while, but fast forwarded to DM Mitch's and Chris's episodes that emphasize problem players, and shared The Player's Block episode with my players. None of them listened to it I think, but I summarized it for them and I think it helped a little.
The tips the guys gave on how to handle players that like to split the group, and/or run off on their own, helped me bring this gnome player back into the fold. The tensions peaked when 3 other PCs were planning on how to kill the gnome in game and asked me if I would stop them.
I said "If there is a problem at the table, perhaps we should address it all together when he gets here rather than try to solve the problem in game?" and explained to them that I work with this guy, and see him everyday and he loves playing with us even if not all the players enjoy playing with him. If I let the other players just kill him, I would never hear the end of it.
So instead, when this gnome's player started going off on their own because he was bored with the rest of the group. I would either tell him,
"Not right now dude, I have to focus on the group as a whole. If you're not with the group, I can't take time to DM for 1 person with everyone here at the table"
or
"You run into X monster or NPC and he casts X spell at you" and he's nearly died 3 times from his own decisions to separate himself from the group. I never had to directly confront him, and used DM techniques to make him realize his mistakes as a player rather than letting the other PC's take matters into their own hands.
I topped it off by adding an NPC that the gnome and the rest of the players all hate mutually, so the tensions have been defused...for now....
But he's still chaotic neutral, and RP's it as He does what he wants, when he wants, and he frequently forgets what he wants because his flaw is substance abuse. So the problems may still be simmering.
|
|
|
|
Post by lasersniper on Dec 23, 2016 19:47:43 GMT
Well lets see. I have a couple players that I have major problems with when it comes to group meshing. Problems with bossing around people, squashing RP, hours long justification arguments, but there was one experience in particular that tops the rest.
There was a player, lets call him Aaron. Aaron has had problems meshing with the group, but to his credit he HAS been trying to not constantly overshadow other players. Well there was a campaign that, admittedly, started out with a pretty slow burn. The party was embroiled with intrigue, a semi-secret war, and a shadowy organization which they were pseudo working for while gallivanting around in an airship. A bit confusing, but after months of play (10ish sessions) people were starting to get the hang of their characters and get them entrenched into the story.
Well somewhere along the way, Aaron decided they needed to shake things up a "little" bit. He had come to the conclusion that the airship was the problem with the campaign, made up a sudden in character fear of airships, and in combination decided to "fix the problem". Okay fine, I had dealt with worse at this point so this was treatable. Then he enacts his solution.
Aaron decides his characters most logical action after this sudden "development" in character is to sabotage the ships engine. Sounds responsible.....somewhat, until you take into account he decided to do this WHILE 300+ FEET IN THE AIR WHILE FLYING AT HIGH SPEEDS!!! The party tries to stop him, and I should have just straight up ruled against Aaron at this point, but I didn't and the party failed to stop him.
At this point I should mention that the airships in my world are powered by bound genie, and sudden loss of containment of said genie (especially those ones powerful enough to power airships) cause pretty powerful explosions. Aaron and the rest of the part knew this from experience.
So yes, party fails to stop Aaron, and he rips the magical core from the FLYING airship, causing the genie containment to fail. So airship goes boom, the party falls to its doom, and laughter has left the room. TPK.
At this point the situation was ranked in my top 3 worst table experiences, but then it continues. Aaron has an annoying habit of trying to justify himself NO MATTER WHAT HE HAS DONE. Sure you may get an apology, but the hour long dissertation of how the blame still isn't his cancels that out pretty quick. So we get one of those after the TPK, much to my attempts to cut him off. So now we are tied for 1st of table experiences. Then he did it.
Ontop of trying to "fix" and unbroken campaign out from under me, meta-gaming an PC quirk out of NOWHERE, knowingly taking actions that could easily cause a TPK, and wasting an hour of fake apologizing, he had the audacity to say to me "I knew there were going to be consequences, but I thought you were going to Deus Ex Machina out of that situation"..........0.o
I may have be guilty of fudging a bit here and there, and letting things slide for the sake of the Rule of Cool. But never in my life will I ever EVER just hand wave away stupid decisions. You were flying 300+ feet in the air, traveling at around 50mph, and just set off an explosion that contained the force of 3 fireballs!!!
The table was pretty mad at him, and we have not invited him back.
|
|
