I'm curious about a few things, including:

1) The general age of your players

2) The age(s) of the uninvited sibling(s)

3) The level of distraction/inappropriateness provided by the siblings

4) The relationship between the invited player and the uninvited sibling(s)

5) How long do your sessions last?

4. Well they're siblings. I think the older one doesn't really want to bring the younger one but is asked to by family.

That explain more things. Your friend dont bring his siblings to bother you but because he has no other choice. Not telling you in advance wasn't polite but knowing you would most likely said: "No, dont bring your brother", I can understand why your friend did what he did. Your problem isn't about unexpected players, it is about having a player who need to babysitte his siblings during your game night.

You must accept the problem and try to find solutions with your player unless you want to kick him out of the game. Maybe try to Schedule your game night when your player dont have his siblings with him? Prepare other occupation like movie for them? Include them in the game even if they aren't the best roleplayers? In my experience, kids love roleplaying generally.

As for your second problem, Cut down the number of players. You aren't gonna survive with that amount of PC and lack of experience. You will be burned after the first sessions.

I'm curious about a few things, including:

1) The general age of your players

2) The age(s) of the uninvited sibling(s)

3) The level of distraction/inappropriateness provided by the siblings

4) The relationship between the invited player and the uninvited sibling(s)

5) How long do your sessions last?

4. Well they're siblings. I think the older one doesn't really want to bring the younger one but is asked to by family.

That explain more things. Your friend dont bring his siblings to bother you but because he has no other choice. Not telling you in advance wasn't polite but knowing you would most likely said: "No, dont bring your brother", I can understand why your friend did what he did. Your problem isn't about unexpected players, it is about having a player who need to babysitte his siblings during your game night.

You must accept the problem and try to find solutions with your player unless you want to kick him out of the game. Maybe try to Schedule your game night when your player dont have his siblings with him? Prepare other occupation like movie for them? Include them in the game even if they aren't the best roleplayers? In my experience, kids love roleplaying generally.

As for your second problem, Cut down the number of players. You aren't gonna survive with that amount of PC and lack of experience. You will be burned after the first sessions.

I disagree to a Point with you here.

#1 If My mom said "Take your little brother with you" When I said I was going over to a friends house, and I knew that I had been asked not to, I would reply "Mom, They have asked me not to bring others."

#2 If My mom then said "You can't go if he can't go" (which IMO is an ******* move of Parents who don't want to watch their own kids) I would then call Or text My friend to Let them know the situation and let them Have the Choice to make the call as to whether it was going to be acceptable or not.

#3 if the friend still said no, I would go back to my parent and say "Johny says he can't have anymore over as he already has X# people there. How is it fair to say I can't go if I can't take him when it isn't My choice if he can come or not?"

#4 If the parent still unreasonably Denied me, Then i might start thinking of moving out.

#5 IF it is a Situation of a younger sibling that can't be left home alone when Both parents work? That again isn't te problem of the host. That is a responsibility of the sibling. It may seem Jerkish, But Why should everyone else game time/relaxation be interrupted by because of the responsibility of another player?

#6 The Sibling is in the Mid Teens. Doesn't he have his own friends he can go to? In my mid Teens, hell, I was going to Lots of Places and friends homes on my own. Heck I was Going to The Mall On my own. IMO, unless the Sibling has some sort of Mental Problem that makes him not capable of being on his own, or going to other friends on his own, Like Downs or something, I would be pretty pissed at my parents for trying to have him leashed to me.

#7 The Gm here has indicated it hasn't Always been just siblings he has done it with.

#8 when it has been made clear that you don't just show up with a +1, You don't jsut Show up with a +1 regardless of the circumstance. You Call and Clear it first.

Don't forget that we live in the age of the helicopter parent that wants someone else to take care of their little snowflake but complains every time little Timmy gets a skinned knee....

This is actually a pretty good system for drop-in guests. Let them know you don't have room for another character, and ask them to help come up with ideas for Advantage and Threat.

SnowDragon, on 13 Oct 2015 - 5:44 PM, said:SnowDragon, on 13 Oct 2015 - 5:44 PM, said:SnowDragon, on 13 Oct 2015 - 5:44 PM, said:

vilainn6, on 13 Oct 2015 - 2:48 PM, said:vilainn6, on 13 Oct 2015 - 2:48 PM, said:vilainn6, on 13 Oct 2015 - 2:48 PM, said:

GroggyGolem, on 13 Oct 2015 - 1:25 PM, said:GroggyGolem, on 13 Oct 2015 - 1:25 PM, said:GroggyGolem, on 13 Oct 2015 - 1:25 PM, said:

gwek, on 13 Oct 2015 - 12:43 PM, said:gwek, on 13 Oct 2015 - 12:43 PM, said:gwek, on 13 Oct 2015 - 12:43 PM, said:

I'm curious about a few things, including:

1) The general age of your players

2) The age(s) of the uninvited sibling(s)

3) The level of distraction/inappropriateness provided by the siblings

4) The relationship between the invited player and the uninvited sibling(s)

5) How long do your sessions last?

4. Well they're siblings. I think the older one doesn't really want to bring the younger one but is asked to by family.

That explain more things. Your friend dont bring his siblings to bother you but because he has no other choice. Not telling you in advance wasn't polite but knowing you would most likely said: "No, dont bring your brother", I can understand why your friend did what he did. Your problem isn't about unexpected players, it is about having a player who need to babysitte his siblings during your game night.

You must accept the problem and try to find solutions with your player unless you want to kick him out of the game. Maybe try to Schedule your game night when your player dont have his siblings with him? Prepare other occupation like movie for them? Include them in the game even if they aren't the best roleplayers? In my experience, kids love roleplaying generally.

As for your second problem, Cut down the number of players. You aren't gonna survive with that amount of PC and lack of experience. You will be burned after the first sessions.

I disagree to a Point with you here.

#1 If My mom said "Take your little brother with you" When I said I was going over to a friends house, and I knew that I had been asked not to, I would reply "Mom, They have asked me not to bring others."

#2 If My mom then said "You can't go if he can't go" (which IMO is an ******* move of Parents who don't want to watch their own kids) I would then call Or text My friend to Let them know the situation and let them Have the Choice to make the call as to whether it was going to be acceptable or not.

#3 if the friend still said no, I would go back to my parent and say "Johny says he can't have anymore over as he already has X# people there. How is it fair to say I can't go if I can't take him when it isn't My choice if he can come or not?"

#4 If the parent still unreasonably Denied me, Then i might start thinking of moving out.

#5 IF it is a Situation of a younger sibling that can't be left home alone when Both parents work? That again isn't te problem of the host. That is a responsibility of the sibling. It may seem Jerkish, But Why should everyone else game time/relaxation be interrupted by because of the responsibility of another player?

#6 The Sibling is in the Mid Teens. Doesn't he have his own friends he can go to? In my mid Teens, hell, I was going to Lots of Places and friends homes on my own. Heck I was Going to The Mall On my own. IMO, unless the Sibling has some sort of Mental Problem that makes him not capable of being on his own, or going to other friends on his own, Like Downs or something, I would be pretty pissed at my parents for trying to have him leashed to me.

#7 The Gm here has indicated it hasn't Always been just siblings he has done it with.

#8 when it has been made clear that you don't just show up with a +1, You don't jsut Show up with a +1 regardless of the circumstance. You Call and Clear it first.

We dont know the family situation of this player, so let try to remain open minded and stay with the fact:

"Big bro sometimes brings a +1 of lil bro, sometimes other siblings and sometimes just himself. Mostly just himself."

"Well they're siblings. I think the older one doesn't really want to bring the younger one but is asked to by family."

That show that some time that player is stuck with a sibling whathever the reason and he cannot get rid of this responsability even if he know the Gm dont want to see little siblings because he find them annoying and the group is too big. OP said it's happen before and it is most likely to happen again I guess.

Now this thread contains a lot of good solutions to help with the situation but I dont think denying the player the pleasure of playing that game just because of his babysitting responsability is the best solution.

Now this thread contains a lot of good solutions to help with the situation but I dont think denying the player the pleasure of playing that game just because of his babysitting responsability is the best solution.

That, IMO, is really up to the Hosting player primarily and the group secondarily.

If they Don't want them there, due to descriptiveness and/or not having anything for said sibling to do, and the Group finds it a problem... Then regardless of the Big Bros woes of the situation, they don't have to accommodate it.

When Big Bro has been told little bro isn't welcome, you don't keep showing up with Little bro.

IF at th Age of 17+ my Family was Telling me I had to take my 14-15(or younger) year old little brother with me, I would fight it and start Looking to move out.

#1 the age and Maturity levels of the ages makes such mixed outings Some what Inappropriate.

#2 I would have told My Parents that the sibling, not by my choice, Isn't welcome at the home to which I am going.

#3 a 14-15 year old should be capable of taking care of themselves and a 17 year old shouldn't be being made Unnecessarily responsible for said siblings Entertainment.

So I agree with the OP that the Player is out of bounds, by not calling and asking, and If he can't get himself out of it, Bow out by choice Rather then Intentionally Disregard what has been told to him by the Host and been made clear t him that it isn't acceptable by the group.

If he can't play due to the issue.. that Isn't the fault of the group. The Blame her lies with the player himself for not working things out with his parents and/or with the parents for being unreasonable.

First we all agree it was disrespectful to bring a sibling without asking before.

Second, Saying the blame lies with the player is exaggerating. As I write before, we dont know all the story. I had this situation happened in my group before. One of my best friend needed to take care of his little brother (13 year old) because his parents were working every evening of the week. So if we wanted to play with him, we got two choices: playing at his house, or welcoming the little borther in our group. I must say my group has a normal size of 4 players so it was easier to add him than in the OP case.

At least the OP said his player does it occasionly so I think something can be done to avoid the problem in the futur but for that the Gm, the player and the rest of the group must cooperate.

With the obvious issue of not knowing the exact situation, my feeling is that the minimum the older sibling should do is contact the GM and/or the home owner and let them know that the younger sibling is to be expected. If it is a common situation that the parents expect older sibling to babysit other family members then the group should try to accommodate as much as possible or the older sibling should ensure that he parents know the situation. If it tends to be certain days of the week that the older sibling is expected to babysit then perhaps look at rescheduling the game if possible.

If there is no way out of it then perhaps look at finding something else to occupy the younger sibling, just because older sibling is expected to bring younger sibling it does not follow that you are required to entertain them.

With our group the GM and the person (assuming they are not the same person) whose home is being used should both be contacted whenever a potential other person might turn up. I run a game at a friends house on Saturdays and even if I wish to bring someone else in I check with my friend first.

Supposed to talk with the player about it today. Will update with the outcome if anyone's interested.

Hope it goes well.

If it was me, my approach would probably be something like, "Look, I know you can't always avoid bringing your bro, but I have concerns that he'll disrupt the game. Please try to let me know beforehand if he's coming, but either way, also please try to make sure he's got enough stuff (homework, book, Kindle, whatever) to entertain himself."

I've been through this:

I've had a player (in his mid 30's) stuck babysitting his nephew (8-10 years old) while the player's sister went out of town. The first time this happened he brought his nephew to game night without telling us until he got there. It was very disruptive to say the least. Constant questions, both about the game and not, asking for food, asking to play with dogs, asking for drinks. None of this was the little boys fault as he was just acting his age. We answered the boy's questions about the game and had him roll dice a couple of times for us which he quickly bored of and decided he had no interest in the game whatsoever.

Afterward we had a talk with the player about letting us know beforehand if it happens again. The next couple of times he babysat he let us know ahead of time and they brought video games so the nephew was mostly complacent. Eventually, when his nephew was staying over, the player would stay home since it still made the game difficult. Plus he felt bad about neglecting his already displaced nephew.

Is it a crappy move to bring an uninvited guest without calling ahead? Absolutely! Did it suck for the group when the nephew was there? Yes it did. Did it suck for the player to stay home instead of role-playing? Of course. But I mostly feel sorry for the nephew who has no say in the matter and ends up feeling unwanted.

In our case the boy obviously had no interest in what we were doing, even after trying to come up with at least a small way to include him. But I started role-playing when I was 10, and there are multiple threads on this forum of people including their kids or students in Star Wars. It sounds like the little brother in your case is actually interested in what you are doing. Is there maybe a way to include him? I know it won't be the group atmosphere that you were originally going for, but that doesn't still mean it won't be fun. I don't mean to sound judgy. I'm just curious if there may be another alternative that could work for everyone.

This hobby can always use more people.

It may not be what you want to hear, but my advice would be to accommodate the +1.

If its as bad as everyone is implying, the poor kid must be so bored.

Talk to your player and if its the case that he will always bring his +1; I'd say make lemonade out of it. Heck, require them to create two mutually cooperative characters; a Wookie with a Droid he can never finish putting together.. or a sibling bounty hunter team..

It's Star Wars.. its fun.. getting somewhat pissy about it is really not what its about. And by no means am I insinuating you are; I would just say maybe you can see this as an opportunity to do something.. different.

I'm new to GMing, would prefer to keep the group as it is. On the one hand, it will already be hard to handle things with 6 PCs, on the other they all work together well and are generally intelligent when it comes to games.

The +1 tends to, as I've mentioned, bog down any game we play, making it difficult to even try to play a simple game. On top of that, they generally get on everyone in the group's nerves frequently.

So while the game will not only take longer, it will be grueling to explain the rules every single time the kid has to do something and it will make the entire experience un-fun and tedious for everyone. It has happened every time we have played a game with this person. It's not really about the atmosphere I intend for the group, it's that I would prefer everyone have fun and not walk away frustrated and exhausted.

So I finally talked with my player about the situation. I let him know that our group is full and that we don't really have room for another, in fact, we've got too many players as it is. The larger the group gets the more difficult it is for me to keep everyone involved and make sure people aren't frustrated or bored so his +1 won't be able to play. I said he is welcome to come hang out and we can try to find something for him to do if he needs to bring him. I just wanted to be clear on that so there wasn't any confusion or anything.

He said he and his younger sibling understand and it's no worries. Session 1 is this Sunday. Thanks for all your advice everyone, I appreciate it.

I ran into this problem around session 3 of my own campaign. We started with four, but by session 3 we had five more people that wanted in. This is my first game so I didn't want to handle any more than six, so two joined and we actually started a second star wars game- one I'm not GMing- on another night for people that wanna play.

Of course, we didn't have that planned the night of my game, so I had to just tell them that I only had room for two more. There was some hemming and hawwing, but they got over it. As long as you are upfront with people, you can smooth it over. Of course some people are rude and make things difficult, but the simple answer for those people is that there is no simple answer.

Yeah. Well the awkward ending to all of this is the younger sibling knows he won't be joining us but has come to the first two sessions so far. He isn't too distracting thankfully and brings stuff to keep himself entertained.

In the meantime, I've now started up a third group for the game and we just finished session 1.

Don't forget that we live in the age of the helicopter parent that wants someone else to take care of their little snowflake but complains every time little Timmy gets a skinned knee....

I see that every day in my job.... I believe Thomas Mores' Utopia should be put into use and some people should not be allowed to breed.... errrr, sorry I mean, have children

"If you can't be arsed..don't have kids!" is what I would like to shout at them but I'd get fired

This hobby can always use more people.

I have managed to get both my kids into rp'ing... it's up to us really as I'm a first generation rp'er... and video games could KILL table top rpgs.

My eldest (18) is taking time out for studies... my youngest (15) has joined 4 weeks after we started and has fitted in quite nicely with a Bounty Hunter... one late-ish night a week is OK and holidays rock for him

He sometimes forgets and does the 'Shanking' action has he describes it (think Assasin's Creed wrist blades) it's hilarious!!

Yeah, tats always a problem. same with any boardgame night. Seats on a gaming table are a finite ressource. also tell them, that an RPG needs commited players, who can almost guarantee that they will show up on a weekly basis for howlong your campaign is planned.

Also, a personal tip from me:

If you are new to GM'ing: 6 is too much.

I am speaking from experience because we started with 6 PC's as well. a co-worker who is a very seasoned roleplayer (but we have no social connection) flatout told me the same thing when I told her about me and my friends starting EotE. It's too much too handle as a newbie. Pretty soon the group disbanded, we had in-character fights on the table (which I'm totally cool with), rule disputes even when the GM said "That's that and that's final".

One of my biggest problem was campaign writing. writing an exciting combat encounter for 6 people is much harder, because if it is to be a challenge for the group, it is very likely that one or 2 of the group end the encounter in dreamland because the stormtroopers might choose to focus fire on the guy wielding a Gunnery weapon.

Also, when there are 6 people, splitting up makes a lot of sense ingamewise, but it kills the poor gm's brain because half the group will be bored half the time.

And don't even get me started on finding dates for 7 people...

Unexpected guests: This is the one reason* pre-generated characters exist.

Gm: "Hi mike!... aaaaand Little Timmy."

MIke: "yeah I'm suposed to babysit my lil' bro here, so I brought him with me and he wants to play to."

Gm: "Fine. We'll explain the rules and give advice on how to do things as we go along, but time is short and character generation takes so long that I'll just hand you some pregenerated characters so you can dive right in."

Timmy: "That's cool...i guess."

Gm: "Ok Timmy, you can play the pedo priest with a spoon around his neck and a bag of toenail clippings**"

Timmy: T.T

Mike: "Err dude! Those are the pregens for Human Occupied Landfill! We're suposed to play Pathfinder today!"

Gm: "Oh yeah! Sorry about that. Here Timmy: You can play a cleric."

Timmy: "Yay!"

* Ok pregens are also good for teaching new players or learning a new game system.

** Actual existing pregen from HOL. But then again that game is messed up

2/4 groups have 6 players. Yep, I'm GMing for 4 groups... group 4 is the smallest; 4 friends from across the Country over the internet.

Things have worked out okay so far. Due to everyone in the groups having jobs and responsibilities, I told them all it's kind of a once a month thing (also helps give me time to write the adventures). The group I've been talking about here is the first group to get in a second session due to a random night like a week after session 1 where everyone was available.

Of course, as soon as session 1 finished for each group they were like "when is the next one?"

Yeah, tats always a problem. same with any boardgame night. Seats on a gaming table are a finite ressource. also tell them, that an RPG needs commited players, who can almost guarantee that they will show up on a weekly basis for howlong your campaign is planned.

Also, a personal tip from me:

If you are new to GM'ing: 6 is too much.

I am speaking from experience because we started with 6 PC's as well. a co-worker who is a very seasoned roleplayer (but we have no social connection) flatout told me the same thing when I told her about me and my friends starting EotE. It's too much too handle as a newbie. Pretty soon the group disbanded, we had in-character fights on the table (which I'm totally cool with), rule disputes even when the GM said "That's that and that's final".

One of my biggest problem was campaign writing. writing an exciting combat encounter for 6 people is much harder, because if it is to be a challenge for the group, it is very likely that one or 2 of the group end the encounter in dreamland because the stormtroopers might choose to focus fire on the guy wielding a Gunnery weapon.

Also, when there are 6 people, splitting up makes a lot of sense ingamewise, but it kills the poor gm's brain because half the group will be bored half the time.

And don't even get me started on finding dates for 7 people...

This is a matter of the New GMs Skill and time taken studying the game before he starts running it, and of group Dynamic.

6 may have been a problem for your group, but not so with another new GM group.

Yeah. Well the awkward ending to all of this is the younger sibling knows he won't be joining us but has come to the first two sessions so far. He isn't too distracting thankfully and brings stuff to keep himself entertained.

In the meantime, I've now started up a third group for the game and we just finished session 1.

This reminds me of what happened to me a few years ago.

I played two sessions of the Warhammer fantasy roleplay. It was the first time I actually played, though I don't count it for reasons that will so become apparent.

At the time, my sister had just given birth to my first niece. Sis was outrageously irresponsible at the time- what teenager mother isn't by definition?- so I looked after her a lot. Both sessions of mine, I was roped into watching her. She was a baby. A noisy baby. GM even snapped and yelled, which ended my involvement.

I was a wizardy type who cut the arm off of an ally with a sword because I wanted to be a sword guy (and was told no), so maybe that was it instead.

Point is, at least he isn't ruining your fun!