Okay, down to business.
Short version:
The youngest and least experienced player in my group has gone from promising, enthusiasic new player to whining munchkin ever since a TPK while I was DMing. I think he's still angry over his last character. He's been abrasive both in and out of character, downright rude even. He made one of the other players quite angry by abusing his hospitality last week. Unfortunately, the guy's pretty introverted, and hasn't responded well to our attempts to talk about it.
However, we all know it used to be fun to play with him, and we want him back the way he was. He's likely to take two other players with him if we ask him to leave, so even if we wanted him out, it'd cause other problems.
I was thinking that with a group consisting of 3 veteran roleplayers and two LARP enthusiasts new to D&D but not to RP in general, we could do something to help our newbie shine.
Any suggestions? Similar experiences? I recall seeing a sort of player's contract somewhere on the forums, outlining what it means to be a good player. Does that ring a bell with anyone?
Long version, all the details, BIG read, but spiced with a humorous TPK anecdote:
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Here's my problem. An old roleplaying buddy of mine has been DMing since July or so, for a group consisting of four of his friends, and me. The party makeup has changed a lot, since then: one player quit out of disinterest, and two were asked to leave because they simply couldn't grasp the rules of the game. The fourth, however, was very enthusiastic about the whole thing, and really tried hard. He's still with us, and he has recently introduced two friends who so far seem to fit nicely with the group. It's this fellow I want to talk about...
Just so there's no room for confusion, here's the makeup of our group. I've faked the names, I'm not sure if they'd mind otherwise
Rob - DM, friend of mine since grade school, 10+ years of RP experience
Josh - The subject of this topic, plays since last summer.
Dan - Friend of Josh's, been with us for about 5 sessions, not sure if he's played before.
Richard - Also a friend of Josh's, joined with Dan.
Chris - Friend of Rob's, long time 3.5/white wolf DM/player, just enjoyed our second session with him last friday.
Me - Been role playing since Rob first showed me his D&D boxed set when we were 12
Now, about Josh... When we started out, I was really impressed with him. He was amazingly creative for someone who'd never played before, and it was truly fun to play with him. He kept notes, his warlord had personality, etc. I saw some great potential there...
Forward 5 months to today. The original party was killed when I temporarily took up the DM position, since Rob needed a break. The party was level 8 by then, and we agreed that I'd get them to paragon, at which point Rob would take over. So as not to interfere with the grand scheme of things, I created an island with cursed winds and currents, preventing anyone from leaving. The party had to lift this curse before they could leave, which would be around the time they reached level 11.
I also decided that my BBEG would be Josh's character's great-great-47xgreat-grandfather's lich, out to steal his very destiny. Give him a chance to shine, I thought. Unfortunately things didn't end well for the party...
One session, Richard couldn't make it, so I had his character snatched up by an adult black dragon. This left the party to rescue his NPC character from the dragon's lair. They didn't penetrate far enough to find him, so they found him next session, while Richard was present.
His character, the healer, was wounded and missing his gear (located in the tomb spider larder one room down the hall.) I had hoped they'd be careful... But when I described the web-covered, and the fist sized spiders crawling around, the warlock decided to torch the place with a fire power. So the greater part of the webs in the room starts burning, and they flee the room. I told Richard at that point, "Gee, I wonder what that fire's gonna do to your stuff...", but they didn't take the hint. They instead went straight onward to the dragon's lair, with a naked cleric, no gear whatsoever. I tried to discourage them, I honestly did.
But they charged into the tunnel, with no light source. Not good when the tunnel ends in a hole with a 12 square drop into the final chamber where the dragon resides.
Eventually everyone was down there fighting an adult black dragon, a tomb spider with its brood and two minotaurs... Except the cowardly cleric of Kord, who didn't jump, and was thus out of range for all of his healing powers. TPK ensued.
Rob has taken up DM duties again, with new campaign set 10 years after the last one.
Unfortunately, I've seen Josh devolve from promising new player to a munchkin who does little more than complain. Last friday's session was a disaster.
It may have had something to do with the bee's nest my seeker punted into his bedroom while he was 'entertaining company'. Perfectly valid quest, by the way. The lady in question was a mother of 6 children, sired by young strapping adventurers who inevitably got themselves killed. Her sister was the one who had to go begging for food at the temple of Pelor, and implored me to stop 'the deed' from taking place. This was an idea of Rob's that would encourage some player-to-player roleplaying.
It backfired majorly: instead of the "AAARGH, BEEEEEES!!!" and general hilarity we'd hoped for, he said "Frederick gathers his stuff and goes downstairs."
Now, his character didn't know that I was responsible, but I figured I'd have a swollen eye from a sting. I figured he'd want to rebuke me, in character, what with being stung 20 times and all... He didn't pick up on that, though, even though I announced it clearly. He just moped about not getting to score. When I say mope, I mean dirty looks at the DM and other players, general bad mood, and being abrasive IRL. He also started drinking a lot more. (Most of us drink during play, but with moderation.)
Anyway, after this bit of 'roleplaying fun' we went out and had some social and combat encounters, where he got quite badly hurt. (Terminal filth fever, for one thing, plus the damage one inevitably incurs as the only defender in the party.) The disease thing was worst: not being trained in endurance, he had to roll a 20 to improve. So instead of playing sick and figuring out a way to get cured (the cleric of Pelor whose temple we were ridding of rats would've been a good start) he got angry and declared he'd '****ing roll until he got a 20 then'.
I could go on about the in-game stuff, but what really got me was what happened after the session. We were playing at Chris's house, who invited us so we could play without distractions. When we finished, he was generous enough to treat us to a glass of whiskey. We enjoyed the usual after session talk, until Josh decided to just grab the bottle and -top off his glass- in a most gruesome breach of common decency. And that after being disruptive and plainly annoying the entire evening.
Now, I'm looking for suggestions to help get the guy in a better mood, to teach him to see adversity as a challenge to overcome. I don't want to get him booted, he used to be fun to play with. Besides, he'd take Richard and Dan with him, leaving us with only two players.
Here's my problem. An old roleplaying buddy of mine has been DMing since July or so, for a group consisting of four of his friends, and me. The party makeup has changed a lot, since then: one player quit out of disinterest, and two were asked to leave because they simply couldn't grasp the rules of the game. The fourth, however, was very enthusiastic about the whole thing, and really tried hard. He's still with us, and he has recently introduced two friends who so far seem to fit nicely with the group. It's this fellow I want to talk about...
Just so there's no room for confusion, here's the makeup of our group. I've faked the names, I'm not sure if they'd mind otherwise
Rob - DM, friend of mine since grade school, 10+ years of RP experience
Josh - The subject of this topic, plays since last summer.
Dan - Friend of Josh's, been with us for about 5 sessions, not sure if he's played before.
Richard - Also a friend of Josh's, joined with Dan.
Chris - Friend of Rob's, long time 3.5/white wolf DM/player, just enjoyed our second session with him last friday.
Me - Been role playing since Rob first showed me his D&D boxed set when we were 12
Now, about Josh... When we started out, I was really impressed with him. He was amazingly creative for someone who'd never played before, and it was truly fun to play with him. He kept notes, his warlord had personality, etc. I saw some great potential there...
Forward 5 months to today. The original party was killed when I temporarily took up the DM position, since Rob needed a break. The party was level 8 by then, and we agreed that I'd get them to paragon, at which point Rob would take over. So as not to interfere with the grand scheme of things, I created an island with cursed winds and currents, preventing anyone from leaving. The party had to lift this curse before they could leave, which would be around the time they reached level 11.
I also decided that my BBEG would be Josh's character's great-great-47xgreat-grandfather's lich, out to steal his very destiny. Give him a chance to shine, I thought. Unfortunately things didn't end well for the party...
One session, Richard couldn't make it, so I had his character snatched up by an adult black dragon. This left the party to rescue his NPC character from the dragon's lair. They didn't penetrate far enough to find him, so they found him next session, while Richard was present.
His character, the healer, was wounded and missing his gear (located in the tomb spider larder one room down the hall.) I had hoped they'd be careful... But when I described the web-covered, and the fist sized spiders crawling around, the warlock decided to torch the place with a fire power. So the greater part of the webs in the room starts burning, and they flee the room. I told Richard at that point, "Gee, I wonder what that fire's gonna do to your stuff...", but they didn't take the hint. They instead went straight onward to the dragon's lair, with a naked cleric, no gear whatsoever. I tried to discourage them, I honestly did.
But they charged into the tunnel, with no light source. Not good when the tunnel ends in a hole with a 12 square drop into the final chamber where the dragon resides.
Eventually everyone was down there fighting an adult black dragon, a tomb spider with its brood and two minotaurs... Except the cowardly cleric of Kord, who didn't jump, and was thus out of range for all of his healing powers. TPK ensued.
Rob has taken up DM duties again, with new campaign set 10 years after the last one.
Unfortunately, I've seen Josh devolve from promising new player to a munchkin who does little more than complain. Last friday's session was a disaster.
It may have had something to do with the bee's nest my seeker punted into his bedroom while he was 'entertaining company'. Perfectly valid quest, by the way. The lady in question was a mother of 6 children, sired by young strapping adventurers who inevitably got themselves killed. Her sister was the one who had to go begging for food at the temple of Pelor, and implored me to stop 'the deed' from taking place. This was an idea of Rob's that would encourage some player-to-player roleplaying.
It backfired majorly: instead of the "AAARGH, BEEEEEES!!!" and general hilarity we'd hoped for, he said "Frederick gathers his stuff and goes downstairs."
Now, his character didn't know that I was responsible, but I figured I'd have a swollen eye from a sting. I figured he'd want to rebuke me, in character, what with being stung 20 times and all... He didn't pick up on that, though, even though I announced it clearly. He just moped about not getting to score. When I say mope, I mean dirty looks at the DM and other players, general bad mood, and being abrasive IRL. He also started drinking a lot more. (Most of us drink during play, but with moderation.)
Anyway, after this bit of 'roleplaying fun' we went out and had some social and combat encounters, where he got quite badly hurt. (Terminal filth fever, for one thing, plus the damage one inevitably incurs as the only defender in the party.) The disease thing was worst: not being trained in endurance, he had to roll a 20 to improve. So instead of playing sick and figuring out a way to get cured (the cleric of Pelor whose temple we were ridding of rats would've been a good start) he got angry and declared he'd '****ing roll until he got a 20 then'.
I could go on about the in-game stuff, but what really got me was what happened after the session. We were playing at Chris's house, who invited us so we could play without distractions. When we finished, he was generous enough to treat us to a glass of whiskey. We enjoyed the usual after session talk, until Josh decided to just grab the bottle and -top off his glass- in a most gruesome breach of common decency. And that after being disruptive and plainly annoying the entire evening.
Now, I'm looking for suggestions to help get the guy in a better mood, to teach him to see adversity as a challenge to overcome. I don't want to get him booted, he used to be fun to play with. Besides, he'd take Richard and Dan with him, leaving us with only two players.
Those were all pretty horrible experiences for a new player to go through, considering you don't really know the guy. And you don't know what he's like drunk.
Honestly, you're probably the main impediment to his enjoyment at this point.
I think it's generally accepted that if you take over a session for an absent DM, you play softball. You don't want to completely end a campaign with a TPK, on a completely random mission unrelated to any story, for essentially no actual gain even if they succeeded.
Presumably you designed the adventure while sober. If your audience is drunk even a little, it's probably a good idea to keep things straightforward and avoid multiple twists and turns and impediments to their progress that they might get hung up on, when those things could kill them all.
If they burned away the webs, that seems relatively logical in the scheme of RP games. Was this burning going to go on for a really long time, and thus they went somewhere else? It should be "The webs burn away and burnt bodies of spiders fall all about. The way is now clear, if smelly." That way they keep moving forward and can just go and get their stuff immediately before they get distracted.
Instead of clearly reminding them that getting the stuff back ASAP was a good idea, you kind of coyly indicated that the gear might burn or get singed. Probably too subtle.
And then at the end the random dragon mercilessly slaughters everyone, which you apparently take much delight in. Even if it was their own tactical blunders, it's not easy to view it that way. They didn't put the dragon there and get entertained by the aftermath.
So that new player Josh lost his original character, which he had apparently invested a lot into, to a fluke dragon fight that he may have felt "railroaded" into because of the family tie you unilaterally decided on. It's a good idea not to mess with people's backstories unless you have their permission.
And then the usual DM didn't handwave it away when he got back as "a dream" or getting rescued or fighting their way out of the afterlife or whatever, but was fine with continuing with everyone having been killed off. So that can feel sort of like a betrayal from him too.
So that's pretty depressing for a new player, who may not have been expecting a high lethality, or "random" death game (which have really fallen out of favor these days anyhow), and instead was looking forward to continuing to play his Warlord for a good long time, developing his personality and making him a hero. With the TPK in a dragon's lair, can't even be raised from the dead now. All the investiture gone to waste.
Then later his new character was apparently going to have intimate relations. You probably don't know that much about the player's personal life, and any frustrations he may have with women which may make even fantasy liaisons helpful for his ego. Especially when drunk.
So your character screws that up for him, played by you, with a relatively ridiculous method that would certainly lead to embarrassment for the character if nothing else. Plus, it seems like it was a cabal of all the other players against him, since presumably you all found it hilarious to do things that way rather than just walking into the room and explaining to his character about the job you'd been asked to perform.
So not only do you seem to have something against him personally because you're screwing up his character at every turn, but you're entertaining everyone else at his expense.
He's trying to seriously roleplay, and you guys are acting like drunk frat brothers.
Now obviously that was a very harsh and likely unfair way of viewing the events, but it may not be far from how he perceives them. Especially if everyone is drunk. So yeah, it's gotten pretty tiresome just showing up the the game I expect because nobody is on his side.
Your best option is likely to talk to him personally, apologize for the other stuff, and try to promise not to screw around with him even if that means giving him special treatment. Some people are more sensitive than others.
Otherwise he'll probably just keep racking up a "score" on you guys until he quits.
I wasn't really thinking from his perspective... It was his first character, and all. He really liked the idea of being tied to the story personally, and he was enthusiastically pursuing 'his' quest. He must be really bummed out that the party didn't make it.
I mean, we discussed the possibility of death in advance. We agreed that a bit more danger would spice things up. Rob and I had forged a plan B, our current campaign, in case of TPK. But even when you're warned, failure sucks.
It's a shame, though... We've been pulling beehive-in-the-bedroom-caliber shenanigans since the beginning; it's always been a lot of fun, and Josh always went along with it. Until the recent events, that is.
The other players have gotten over it by now, they're looking forward to what's coming. I guess we didn't even consider that he might be taking it harder than the rest of us.
When you're in a bad mood already, and the joke is on you (even with the best intentions), it's childish and stupid.
We've all done stuff like this. Have a talk with the man. Sort out what he's unhappy with, and try to fix it. At least acknowledge that he's unhappy. Ignoring it is more salt in the wound.
PS: You mention his breach of hospitality as a grave insult, but not refilling your glass is not a practice I've heard of (although in hindsight it makes sense, and I probably wouldn't do it anyway). I don't know him and I wasn't there, but it seems to me that perhaps he had no idea he was offending anyone.
Anyway, I spoke to the DM, and we'll be having a party gathering to discuss things, and get the hard feelings cleared up. He responded positively to having the party sign a list of basic table rules. We figured a code of conduct we all agree on would help not just with this matter, but with numerous other, smaller problems we've had.
I found the following manifesto, but it's not exactly what I'm looking for:
these rules are written on paper, not set in stone tablets
rules are suggested guidelines, not required edicts
if the rules don't say you can't do something, you can
there are no official answers, only official opinions
when dice conflict with the story, the story always win
min/maxing and munchkinism aren't problems with the game; they're problems with the player
the game master has full discretionary powers over the game
the game master always work with, not against, the players
a game that is not fun is no longer a game - it's a chore
this book contains the answers to all things
when the above doesn't apply, make it up
For one thing, it doesn't address IC/OoC knowledge (keeping them separate), or concentration at the table (listening to others roleplay instead of talking about video games).
I'm pretty sure this isn't the only list of its kind, but so far I haven't been able to find any others. Any help there? We'd like to have something to start with that we can tailor to our group's needs.
Of course, you know the guy better than I do, and based on what you described it does sound like some group friction.
Thought 2: Many of us (if not most of us, and I most *certainly* fit in this category) were socially clueless when we started out. In particular, this means that we didn't start out wiht a good intuitive grasp of appropriate behavior. Cluesticks, administered in a gentle fashion, can be really very helpful for this sort of thing.
Fortunately, he was very open to the idea of not drinking at all for a couple of sessions, after we reminded him how much more fun he was to play with sober.
Also, we had him actively participate in creating a code of conduct for the entire party, so we've got something to fall back on when things go wrong.
1. We're all in it for the fun of it; if the game's not fun, it's not worth playing.
2. There's never an excuse for wasting other people's time.
3. No metagaming: what you know and what your character knows are two different things.
3b. Metahumor is fun, but keep it snappy so it doesn't become a distraction.
4. Make die rolls only when prompted by the DM.
5. D&D is a cooperative game; there is no protagonist, so...
6. Pay attention when another player is in the spotlight, watching others roleplay is fun, too. But...
7. Depending on who's most suited for the situation at hand, different characters will take point at different times. This is part of the game; accept it. (i.e. you can't be good at everything)
8. Short (5-10 min.) breaks will be taken after each encounter, to keep everyone fresh.
What we haven't talked about is the whole carrot/stick thing. I think sticking to these rules should be rewarded in a small but significant manner, while ignoring them should have negative consequences. However, an xp bonus/malus isn't an option, since we want to keep the party at roughly the same level. Suggestions?
But you're right, it sure is nice to talk about party friction instead of immediately reaching for the +6 Hammer of Banning
What we haven't talked about is the whole carrot/stick thing. I think sticking to these rules should be rewarded in a small but significant manner, while ignoring them should have negative consequences. However, an xp bonus/malus isn't an option, since we want to keep the party at roughly the same level. Suggestions?
I think the bonus is that the game goes more smoothly and more gets accomplished. Maybe the DM says, "Good job tonight keeping things moving, guys."
For penalties, everyone can look at the guy and say, "Dude, shut up. We'll take away your beer if you don't, you signed that thing right?"