Greetings, fellow DMs!
One of the players in my group suffers from some serious indecisiveness.
She often struggles to make up her mind when creating a character. For instance, despite having had two weeks to make her PC, she still showed up to the first session of my current campaign with an incomplete character.
And at the table, she often appears to be unable to handle the pressure of being put on the spot when it's her turn. (IIRC she got her start with PbP games, and I sometimes wonder if she'd be happier still playing that way than face-to-face.)
She also always plays a Lawful Goody-Two-Shoes type of character. One of the other players said to me recently that he felt we needed to get her to come out of her shell a little and try playing something a little more chaotic. (Her current PC is technically Chaotic Good but she hasn't been roleplaying her that way.)
In addition, over the past few years, she has played multiple different versions of D&D (3.0, 3.5, Pathfinder, 4e, NEXT, and 5e) plus FATE Bulldogs!, and she frequently gets confused about which rules are in which game - sometimes quite stubbornly so, too, much to the frustration of myself and the other people in the group. I'm always telling her "not in this edition" or "you must unlearn what you have learned".
I don't want to kick her out of the group merely because she can be slow and confused. The trouble is that I've got six players, which means that encounters can sometimes take a while as it is, even when everyone is on the ball. Coaxing decisions/answers out of her can be quite trying sometimes. I don't want to punish her by putting her on a time limit (after which time her character automatically delays or something) either.
Do you think it would be worth teaching her how to be more decisive, especially at the table, or should I just leave her be? If yes, has anyone got any good suggestions on how I can go about doing it in a considerate way? If no, has anyone got any viable workarounds for minimizing the disruptive effects of her indecisiveness?
Thanks in advance!
One way to go about it, is to make creating a character part of the story. Instead of instantly rolling the whole character, have the players play through part of the story first. Maybe they get to play out their childhood, and that is how they pick their class? There's also a tarot card system that randomly determines attributes for the players, which also works great to get people out of their comfort zone. Another trick I often use, is to write a few simple interesting facts that the players can choose for their character if they want. This gives them something to build their character around. Maybe her paladin is already a famous hero? Maybe her warrior is on a quest to avenge her parents? Or maybe her rogue just got out of prison after a huge heist, but was betrayed by one of her dearest friends?
Simple ideas like these can easily help a player build the backstory for their character, and allow their backstory to become a part of the DM's plot. You can also make custom character sheets, that make the rules a bit more clear, so she knows what to roll. For example, you can add a seperate section on her character sheet that explains what her casting DC is, and how it is calculated. Or you can have a spot above her skill list, which explains what her max rank is in any skill.
Another thing you can do, is to be more clear what you want the players to roll. I have a new player in my group, who has never played DnD ever. So when I ask him to make a fortitude save, I tell him: "Roll a 20 sided die, and add your fortitude bonus, to resist the poison". I also tell my players to write out what their attack bonus is for each weapon, so they never have to go look it up.
If you want her to play less goody-two-shoes, you can't force her to play a morality that goes against what she feels comfortable playing. What you CAN do however, is confront her character with moral decissions that make her think about the nature of good and evil. Maybe her paladin discovers that her holy order is in fact doing things that she disagrees with, and this can create wonderful roleplaying. Maybe her rogue discovers that after robbing the villain of all his weapons, the country is suddenly without proper defense against a greater evil, and she'll feel responsible for the people that die because of it. Maybe her wizard will find himself in a region where magic is considered an act of evil, and she finds herself in a situation where she needs to lie and keep up appearances.
Yes, I think it is very much a good idea to help her really get into the edition. I think even the best people can get rules from different editions or similar games crossed. As for desiciveness, maybe just run through some improv storytelling. No real rules, just quick in character talking and descicions. IF she is your friend, and a good player (over all) then i think it is work the investment.
Try partnering her with a more decisive player and tie their characters together in backgrounds. E.g. a sergeant and soldier still traveling together. The more decisive player can help her decide what to do. I'd avoid using the word "order", though if she's comfortable with that then it could work. You'd have to pick the lead player carefully though to avoid outright abuse.
In your group, does anyone second-guess other people? For example, I say I'm going to move over here and attack the necromancer and Bob chimes in and says, "No, go deal with that skeleton by the door!"
Do people catch ribbing in your group when they make a "stupid" decision? For example, I attack the skeleton which gives the necromancer another round to summon more zombies. "Nice work, iserith, you should have attacked the necromancer!"
Is there often debate about important courses of action, in or out of combat? Like coming up with a plan takes a while because the finer points must be discussed and contingencies weighed (even against unknowns)?
I have tended to find that indecisiveness on the part of a player is usually due to one or two things.
One is decision paralysis resulting from too many options. For myself, I don't like having fewer options, but some people are happier with a shorter list of options to choose from. That goes for both character creation and potential actions to take. People like this can benefit from a cheat sheet that gives a short but complete list of potential actions one can take during combats. They can also benefit from a simplified list of character creation options - make a quick reference sheet that lmiits the player to just the PH, for example, with the freedom to add more options later on.
The other, and more common problem I see is indecisiveness during play because of fear of making a mistake. Some players are a bit on a paranoid side ... and some GMs do nothing to discourage that because they punish player misteps with unfun penalities, humiliation and ridicule, and they do nothing to stop other players from joining in that kind of negativity. The solution to this is to not punish player mistakes, but reward them instead. Even if something bad happens to a character when a player makes a mistake, that bad thing should also be FUN and REWARDING to the players involved. And then you'll find that (as Bob Ross says) there are no mistakes, there are only happy accidents. When players see that they won't be punished and lose out on fun and get ridiculed for making mistakes, they'll have less fear about taking decisive actions, taking risks, and not always choosing the optimal choice at all times. Foster an environment at your table that encourages decisive action, makes making mistakes part of the fun, and rewards taking chances.
At the table, when the player is hemming and hawing, state outright that there's no need to be indecisive and overanalyze because no matter what they do, it'll be fun. Help them to creatively flavor even "I hit it with my sword," into something exciting, and also remember that input from other players is good, but in the end they should strive to surprise and entertain the rest of the group with their own decisions.
While we examine potential causes for her indecisiveness, consider reading Players 101.
I've had, and still have, many indecisive players. As such, I'll vouge for the advise that Iserith gives. It can work, and if it doesn't, there is still hope that your player(s) recognize things which they can work on to help minimize the indecisiveness, such as my players have been dedicating effort to remind them selves to not second guess the other players and especially to not second guess their own choices.
A quote that has become popular at my table is "Why didn't you... nevermind, do what you are doing."
That, and the players actually have their character ask another character to do a specific thing now, rather than debating "better" courses of action out of character and to the detriment of game play.
I have no probem with players discussing OC strategies in between player actions though. They can take as long as they want to decide what they want to do. After all, this isn't playing out in real time. I can freeze and unfreeze the story whenever I want as a DM. I love hearing their theories, and motivations for taking certain actions. By all means, let them discuss it at great length. Its all fine by me. It means less work for me as a DM. All I need to do is sit back and occasionally weigh in on the matter with additional info.
For example, I have a new player in my group who plays a Druid. And sometimes he's not quite sure what he can do as a Druid. He'll often get advise from other players, but often I will interrupt them and weigh in as well, by telling him "as a druid, you know this and this". For example, could the druid transform into a crab, and blend in with the other gigantic crabs? Even though he is not of the same size category? I would tell him: "As a druid you know that these crabs aren't very intelligent, but some may see a smaller crab as a tasty snack. So you'd have to convince them with your animal empathy that you are not food, nor a threat."
@ Pukunui:
Incomplete character: could you please share more info about this? In what way was the character incomplete? Was the incompleteness mechanical (ability scores, background), or the less mechanical character aspects, like Ideals, bonds and flaws, or a backstory?
Action indecision: as has been mentioned earlier it could be that she is worried about being ridiculed for making a dumb move.
Lawful goody-two-shoes: I would personally only find this to be a problem in two instances:
First, if the character did not fit well into the general theme of the campaign world or game. For example in games that has an in-depth exploration into good, evil and all of the gray areas in between characters with more nuanced outlooks on alignment would probably be preferred. Then again the majority of D&D I’ve played seems fairly black and white, evil antagonist doing evil that team PCs stop since they are part of team good.
Second: it impedes on the fun of other players who want to play more morally ambiguous characters by stopping their plans. For example a rogue may want to start a rogue’s guild, but GTS keeps turning their would be henchmen into the authorities.
I think that I would tell the other player to focus on their own character and not try to “help” the other player. Everyone has different thoughts on what makes a fun character. For example I have played with many players who almost always make characters that have the primary, if not sole goal being to acquire wealth. I find that to be really boring as a motivation, and yet it’s so common it seems. I don’t criticize them or try to convince them to develop motivations that I find more interesting, it’s their character, their character’s motivations are interesting to them and that’s all that matters IMO.
On a side note, I really don’t see how chaos>law = come out of shell. I don’t think her indecisiveness is due to PC alignment, if the other player thinks chaotic means faster acting on the players part.
Rule confusion: hopefully she will become more familiar with the rules with play. As others have mentioned when she brings in incorrect game mechanics, describe how D&D 5th handles it and have the action proceed like that. I would take a note about it and talk with her between sessions if she is stubborn about the ruling.
This player seems to require a fair amount of shepherding and hand-holding. As you're the DM, and you've accepted her at your table, IMO this duty falls to you. If you're unwilling to do it, (again IMO) you should step aside for someone who will or ask her to withdraw. But! If you are willing to help her, I have some advice:
1.) I require all characters to be submitted for review and approval prior to play. This enables me to fix any errors or even fill in what's missing. This will solve the incomplete character issue.
2.) Have her read Players 101. I wrote it for her.
3.) Run your game with stronger entailment. Ex. I put initiative order visible for everyone to see. AND I say who's next, and who's after that. And when it is someone's turn, I give a 1 sentence summation of the circumstance and ask what they do. This way, each turn has strong framing, and each player is reminded constantly of the situation, circumstances, and order. Especially important in TotM portions of the game.
4.) Adjust and manage your expectations. Your player has no system mastery. She doesn't appear to be learning any. So you must learn to deal with her. Handle her by lightening her load.
5.) after describing the situation and asking "What do you do?" Listen. Ask for a clear goal and an approach or method of achieving that goal. Do not bring any rules into this - just the character, situation, and obstacles. Once she coughs up a goal and an approach, You find a way for it to work in the rules. (They're not for her, anyway, they're for you).
6.) Send her my way for training, if needed.
Thanks for all the insightful comments, guys! A few too many to quote now, so I'll just respond the best that I can.
Regarding her incomplete character: She came to the table without having chosen any of her warlock's spells, so during the opening combat encounter, her character was just hitting things with a melee weapon instead of using an attack cantrip or some such thing. We were starting at level 3, and she had chosen the Pact of the Chain but insisted that she "find" her familiar during the game instead of going with the RAW and casting find familiar (which she said was boring). We also didn't do a good job tying her character to the other PCs, which has resulted in a number of other issues, such as her choosing to have her PC go off alone with an NPC and the other players being somewhat reluctant to help her PC out when she is dying in the middle of combat.
Regarding her rules confusion: It's usually along the lines of "Standing up provokes an attack of opportunity." "Not in this edition." "But I'm sure it does!" Since she has got her own copy of the 5e PHB, I think from now on, I'm just going to tell her to look up the rule herself. I already do that when people ask me how a certain rule works and I don't know the answer off the top of my head. In terms of her becoming more familiar with the rules the more we play, I hope so - she's playing in several 5e groups now, and she's even taken up DMing an Encounters table (!!) - however, I am somewhat skeptical considering we've been playing 5e since its release and were playing the playtest (both the open beta and the closed 'alpha') for many months before that.
Regarding her alignment preferences: I don't want to force her out of her comfort zone personally. I'm not entirely sure why I included that. I think the thing is that she can come across as "mothering" sometimes. The rest of the group does tend towards morally ambiguous, so she always ends up being the straight-laced odd one out who argues with the others about their crazy plans and impulsive actions.
Something that I find ironic is that she has been complaining that the warlock doesn't get enough spells. In fact, she says that casters in 5e don't get enough spells in general. Yet I just can't see her coping with all the options that come with playing a full caster in previous editions, let alone a 5e one. Playing a warlock is probably a good thing for her, even though she doesn't seem to realize it. [To be honest, though, I think she'd be happiest playing a beastmaster ranger, because all of her characters seem to need an animal companion of some kind - and she has expressed her disappointment that druids don't get them anymore, despite most of the druid pictures in the PHB indicating otherwise.]
iserith wrote:
bawylie wrote:
pukunui wrote:
iserith wrote:
You could try what I do with the players I have that, if I give them the book, the framing of the campaign, and then set them free to put their own character together will return an entire month later having not finished: Arrange time to be in the same room, or at least able to communicate complex thoughts clearly and quickly (i.e. skype, phone, etc.), and you do any and all book referencing that needs to be done while breaking character creation down into steps (but not the ones in the PHB... I dunno why, but I always feel like the official step-by-step character creation rules of RPGs put things in a less useful order than they could be).
Lead the player through thinking up each aspect of the character they need one thing at a time, and try to start with background - I've found that most people have an easier time making simple choices like whether their character grew up in a city or in the country that diving into things like "what class do you want?", and each choice they successfully make starts to build an image in their head which makes the remaining choices easier, like deciding that a country-grown character is more likely to be a ranger than a wizard.
Through that process, I have taken a player that usually takes 6 hours to make a character own his own in a system he is familiar with and helped him through character creation in a system he'd never played in 30 minutes (and they were of similar complexity... not like I'm comparing D&D 3.5 character creation to making a Vampire: the Masquerade character).
I tried. I honestly tried. I stayed up late to talk to her via FB chat, which is the best way to talk to her in real time, but she hummed and hawed and demurred. She couldn't decide on what race to play. She couldn't decide on what patron to pick for her warlock. She couldn't decide on which pact boon to choose. She couldn't decide which background to take. She managed to get most of that figured out before the first session - with much prodding from me - but still hadn't settled on her PC's spells and possibly also the personality traits. She also didn't make any effort to connect her PCs to any of the others - and I wasn't really able to help her because she hadn't provided me with much to work with by the time we started playing. She did end up giving me a decent backstory for her character, but of course she chose to make her a hermit who is the Chosen of Lurue the Unicorn Queen, so that didn't help with tying the PC in to the rest of the party either.
I was able to meet with another player in the group and walked him through making his PC because I knew he wouldn't do it on his own in time, but I wasn't able to meet up with this player unfortunately. Next time she has to make a new character, I'm going to suggest that she start with a character concept and work toward that, rather than trying to just pick and choose things from the whole book that seem interesting.
I can feel for your player that all the magic spells are overwhelming - I had the same feeling for 3.0/3.5
One way to avoid this is to play a non-magical character. I am currently a v5 Monk.
In 3.0 I was a Bard who was best known for writing songs about the group's deeds, and swinging a quarterstaff - but not for clever spell choices or adaptations.
If you can do this without being overbearing*, sit down face-to-face with your player and discuss the contents of this thread. Right now she sounds like The Weakest Link waiting to happen; emphasize that you want to avoid the smashup you can see coming.
If a Beastmaster Ranger or a Druid are more her style, let her poof her character mid-story. Maybe have her start with the Backgrounds for a story that intrigues her, then build the character in reverse from there.
Do emphasize that you (and I) want to avoid this 
happening to her.
* I can be overbearing at the drop of a hat, so if you can pull this off you are a better DM than me.
BRJN wrote:
In this situation I would definitely go for the option to have the players build their character while they are playing the game. Maybe they all start out without abilities and spells, and have to learn them along the way. Maybe if she can't pick a class, she starts out without one.
Imaculata wrote:
So is she like this for other games? The situation your describing sounds really familiar and in my situation it came down to the play was sandbagging because a) they didn't want to change campaigns (changing from CoC to Firefly and from Savage Worlds to Pathfinder) or b) didn't want to say they just were not interested in playing (Savage Worlds and Fate Accelerated). It might not be your situation, but it is something to consider.
Yes, I did read that. I would say that she played Hengar the tribal warrior with great aplomb.
If you already answered this, ignore my missing it.
Do you know why she is so slow to deside? Does she have any learning issues?
My little girl (17 years old) sounds just like this player of yours. And my baby is a high function autistic. The more I push her to "get out of her shell" the more she closes up. The more I try to help her deside faster, the slower she becomes.
Just curious, because I can understand your feelings to a degree.
I am not aware of any learning disabilities on her part, though I have long suspected she might. She is a grown woman in her thirties and yet she still counts on her fingers, for one thing.
She has made a decision on the concept for her new PC, at least. One of the other PCs in the group is a 12 year-old street urchin bard whose mother is a traveling prostitute who has a string of children she's abandoned all up and down the Sword Coast. That PC's player suggested that the indecisive player play his PC's mother.
Considering that she always plays the straight-laced, motherly moral compass/group conscience in a group full of reckless, impulsive oddballs - regardless of what game we're playing and who is GMing - that choice is a bit like starting out at accountant, aiming for lion tamer, and ending up at banker instead. The prostitute aspect is pretty out there for this particular player (definitely not "straight-laced"), but now she's going to be taking on the mothering role in a literal sense, not just a figurative one. She's thinking rogue, which does make the most sense given what we know of the character so far (while she is a part of the urchin PC's backstory, she has not yet made an appearance on-stage).
I suggested a number of different ideas, such as she's really a spy or even an assassin - maybe even one who does the deed like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. Or maybe she's a fallen noble whose family is constantly hounding her from town to town lest their reputation be besmirched even further for her wanton ways. I've also offered the possibilty that the BBEG wizard the PCs are pursuing has kidnapped the mother (he briefly "befriended" the urchin PC and so knows all about his mother, as the PC is quick to tell everyone he meets about her and the lurid diary of hers he possesses) ~ could be a good way of introducing her character quickly, as the PCs will want to go rescue her and will get to confront the wizard as they do.
I'm curious to see what she comes up with over the next month or so. (Our last session for the year was last night, and we won't be playing again until the end of January due to summer holidays.)
pukunui wrote:
dafrca wrote: