recklessdice.com/2011/11/episode-21-bad-players/#comments

Ah the bad players topic...

Sure to get any GM riled up, as proven by the number of bleeps

You can try and somewhat keep the campaign on track, you can provide a sandbox for the players to run wild in, but sometimes players just aren't into it.
The trick I find is to be able to go with that flow, and abandon all your hard work/preparation and break out Descent, or Castle Ravenloft, or some other boardgame then where they can run wild. If you've prepared for 2 weeks for a session, that's a bitter pill to swallow

What I didn't hear though, and what I've had some success with is :

- Don't hand out xp at the end of a session, or rather: hand out the xp, but don't actually have them work it out till the start of the next session.
- Let them work out what they're going to spend their xp on, or let them plan their long-term goals in front of eachother before even getting started.
- Have the *players* recap last session before picking in as GM (this also helps me to show what clues went straight over their head, and what could bear repeating)

These 3 things mean you need to reserve half an hour extra of game-time, but let's them mentally get into the framework/ruleset/world before actually getting started. It prepares the mind sort of

I've also simply stopped talking a few times. It tends to get things quiet again. Finally, I've also handed out temporary condition cards once. I figured since he wasn't playing at optimum level, his rolls should reflect that. Not sure if that was a good call, but it did get things back on track. After the next break, I took them back out of the game.

Of course, players that want to teabag the Emperor, are perhaps best off playing a different game altogether

To be honest - and I say this with all due sympathy for GMs - but if I was part of a somewhat rambunctuous group, and we went into a tavern to look for a contact, and we were told we had to wait about for him to arrive - I would probably become distracted myself.

And if I was new to the background and system I would probably be even more impatient for something that I could interact with to occur.

So - whilst I feel the guy's pain - I think he made some mistakes, and that he is blaming the consequences for these mistakes on his players.

Firstly it doesn't sound like he made an awful lot of effort to explain to his magic-using PC why a bright wizard/grey wizard combo was inappropriate. In his position I would have stated very clearly that such a character would either be boring to play (hiding his heretical abilities all the time) or soon to be killed (the minute anyone with any authority heard about a grey wizard doling out fireballs) and I would have forced a choice either way before proceeding. Wizards who mix college magic either hide it well, fall to chaos, or get burnt at the stake, and those aren't options I would want to explore in an introductory scenario based around an Eye for an Eye.

Secondly I would say that if you don't want your players to joke and goof about with you - don't joke and goof about with them. So if I had players who wanted to force a tangent about brothels, and I didn't want to deal with that, I would not say "well yes there is a nearby brothel", because of course they will get distracted and wonder what's going on at the knocking shop. So the correct response to "the red moon - that isn't a brothel is it?" is "ha ha - no just a tavern".

Joke acknowledged and no fuel for distraction, see?

Lastly, and this really is the killer for me, when the PCs finally started asking around and following the adventure cues the GM put his own barriers up by deciding the Vern Hendrick was not known to the patrons of the inn and that the PCs had to ask the right inhabitant of the Red Moon and then - furthermore - wait around for him to arrive.

Even I, as an experienced player and GM who is willing to be patient as long as I am sober, would resent that sort of GMing. If the players are acting bored the last thing you do is slow the pace - you should ramp it up until they get to an interesting part of the adventure - which for new players tends to be conflicts, interactions, investigations or puzzles.

So by that point the GM should have responded to the enquiry of "do you know where we can find Vern Hendrick" by saying "the guy says 'ah - you have found him - are you here about the job, well sit down and let me tell you all about it...'"

And then get them out of Ubersreik and into the manor so they can start interacting and doing interesting stuff.

I hope I'm not being too harsh on the GM - it is hard and pretty thankless work at the best of times - but new players should be expected to adopt archetypes like the mad wizard or kleptomaniac thief by the nature of being new - and you need to anticipate that a bit by forcing the relevent events of the adventure.

As the players and GM gain experience it can then become easier to allow for fleshing out tangents and eccentricities, like having to wait around or ask more than one patron for guidance. But I really think introducing that sort of detail in a first game just leads to this sort of confusion.

I think the GM understandbly tried to give Ubersreik a bit more colour and detail than is given in the adventure. But the reason Ubersreik isn't detailed is because it's only there to provide a reason to go to the manor, so unless the GM had thought up some real extra detail and events of interest in Ubersreik the best thing to do was get the party on the road ASAP.

I hear you. I think a lot of inexperienced or overwhelmed GMs make similar mistakes:

* They forget to use the "no vital clue should be withheld from the players" if they are trying

* Keep the game moving. If they seem like they're confused or bored, reiterate why they're there and go right ahead and give them TWO good options of what to do. Sometimes players are tired, bored, or ADHD and just need a little guidance

* Sometimes you need to kick a player the hell out of your group or not invite them back (we call that openly cancelling the game and then secretly playing

* PLAYERS NEED TRAINING. I think when a GM starts a campaign, with existing players or new players, he really needs to lay down the table rules on what he expect and what he's trying to portray:

• Character naming (to theme or just name your guy bob bobbindoglover)
• Will it be a heavy roleplaying game? Should the players make social or combat characters?
• What time do you like to get started and end the game? 645PM to 11PM on a thursday? Is it ok if players routinely show up a half hour late?
• Do you have a Yahoogroup/discussion group set up? How do you schedule the game?
• The GM MUST go over the basic details of the world. Players don't like being handed a stack of stuff to read (Hey, why don't you read this 26 page background on NORDLAND since your character is from there..OH, and btw, the campaign will be set in Reikland). Best just to say: The world is dark, all of the forests are haunted with beastmen and worse. All the towns have stockades. There are coaching houses each day's travel that are also fortified (with shutters at least). Chaos is constantly trying to break through. Your first career is what you are LEAVING, not what you are becomming so think of it as "you're leaving that life behind, but it gave you the skills you have today to be an adventurer/sell-sword."
• How do you replace players? (I use meet-up, keep an ad up at the FLGS, and ad on Rpg.net, paizo, Wotc, and enworld). GMs forget that players are HIGHLY replaceable and if you don't have a waiting list for your campaign, you havent advertised enough. Expect 2-3 months to put together a core group of regulars.
• How do you bring in new characters?
• How much money does a typical character "make" per session? (GM shoudl keep this in mind for balance)
• How do you replace dead characters? Is it a punishment for being heroic? (i.e. are you taking away x.p if people die, even if they were doing a good job roleplaying?_)
• Do you expect players to buy the Player's Guide eventually so they don't have to borrow yours and so they can "study up" outside of the game? I think a lot of GMs just expect that players are thinking about the campaign as much as we do. REALITY CHECK: If they don't have anything in their hands, and you're not discussing things on your YAHOOGROUP, then your players aren't thinking about your game at all!
• etc.

I hear you. I think a lot of inexperienced or overwhelmed GMs make similar mistakes:

* They forget to use the "no vital clue should be withheld from the players" if they are trying

Perhaps. I think he was probably trying to add some verisimilitude to the proceedings by thinking "well, not everyone in the inn knows him and he isn't lilely to just be here all the time" - but that's not really relevant and waiting around is just boring.

* Keep the game moving. If they seem like they're confused or bored, reiterate why they're there and go right ahead and give them TWO good options of what to do. Sometimes players are tired, bored, or ADHD and just need a little guidance

To be honest I wouldn't bother with the second option at this juncture. Just get them talking to Vern, on the wagon and up to the manor. At that point they start having conflicts, interactions and a detailed environment to explore - options galore.

The only reason to give them options in Ubersreik is if you have the mental or physical resources to hand weith which to turn Ubersreik into an intertesting environment with other stuff going on. I really wouldn't do that unless I was plannign to run Edge of Night or something else - if so I might work in some little foreshadowing episodes - but only if I was confident it wouldn't end up with too much time chasing red herrings.

* Sometimes you need to kick a player the hell out of your group or not invite them back (we call that openly cancelling the game and then secretly playing

True, but again (with a reiteration of how hard it is to be a GM and with all respect and support for the guy) I'm not sure the problem here is problem players as much as general inexperience.

So i don't know - maybe they really were unreasonable, but it sounds like he had set a precedent for allowing them to create eccentric characters and interpret the game world by suggesting the brothel, and then he had to deal with the consequences of that and ended up getting frustrated.

I REALLY don't want to be harsh - I have been there myself - but it sounded to me like the guy was liberal when he should have been strict ("OK, have an oddball wizard, OK, have a nearby brothel") and strict when he should have been liberal ("OK, so you want to get on now, well I am going to make you wait around for a bit more first").

* PLAYERS NEED TRAINING. I think when a GM starts a campaign, with existing players or new players, he really needs to lay down the table rules on what he expect and what he's trying to portray:

Well, they don't need as much training as a GM.

This I think is a reasonable expectation of a player:

* You are to interpret your character within reason, with an eye to making it a fun game, the mechanics and background should be your guide unless the GM makes exception.

And this is a reasonable expectation of a GM:

* You are to interpret everything else within reason, with an eye to making it a fun game, the mechanics and background should be your guide but if not it's only fair to let your players know about any exceptions you wish them to honour.

That's my general philosophy to it anyway - at least with new groups. Once you all get to know one another and trust each other it can get looser I think. With this philosophy in mind I would answer your list in the following way.

Names - allow players to name their characters. I would let most fantasy-sounding names go whether or not they are WFRP-specific, though i prefer apt names if possible. If wildly inappropriate I would try a compromise ("Bob Bobbindoglover's a bit wierd for warhammer - how about Bert Wulflieb or something? That's kind of cod-German for 'wolf love'.")

Social or Combat? Totally up to them as far as I am concerned. As far as obliging players to add things in to their character concepts i would only go so far as to suggest things the adventure absolutely requires in order to work (for example if playing the Enemy Within campaign strictly as written you really need someone who knows how to handle a boat and dwarfs will be a problem at the start - some adventures require a PC with magical sight - and so on).

Replacement chaacters - I would certainly think about this is a player makes an inappropriate character and then plays it recklessly. For example if I had a player play a grey wizard who could cast bright magic I would expect him to get himself killed. I might even say "this guy will probably be killed unless he is extremely careful, do you want to create a quick backup concept?" This helps me by setting precedent for harsh treatment if the guy does start blasting out fireballs, and also takes the sting out of it a bit when NPCs and so on inevitably victimise the character.

Also I think sometimes a backup or replacement character can help keep the show on the road. Imagine playing An Eye for an Eye and during the day a lone dwarf appears from Karak Azgaraz on the trail of a lost ancestral hammer. Perhaps the rest of his party have been killed on the way and he himself is in need of first aid and bedrest. He needn't play much more of a role but could provide a spare PC.

Thinking about it you needn't go that far, any of the soldiers or servants at the manor, or the drugged coachman, might feasibly want to take up a life of adventure once they met the PCs. Ashaffenburg might even encourage it if he wants to patronise the group. And so on...

This has a downside - in that players who lose their character get a replacement over whom they have no control vis a vis character concept. There is an opportunity here though in that a player who enjoys playing a freak can be told "OK play it - but if it annoys others and gets killed your replacement is likely to be someone from the area, and they are likely to be much more mundane - so you better be careful with your secret Dark Elf Spy (or whatever) if you don't want to end up with a soldier or servant".

If they really hate that then they can always make a more interesting replacement when they are next in a cosmopolitan environment - when they get back to Ubersreik or whatever.

The only problem with this approach, I find, is during wilderness campaigns were PCs can be on their own for long stretches of time.

The other stuff - money - session arrangements and so on - I think that's best left up to the culture of the particular group really. I tend to be pretty liberal about such things just because I want players to have fun, but I know other GMs who are really strict and still manage a fun game. On the other hand I think it fair to make sure players understand and appreciate the work the GM does in prepping the game and compensate for that - for example most experienced groups I have been a part of adopt a guideline that the GM does not have to buy his own drinks or dinner on a game night.

I think that it should be reiterated that the issue (at least for the writer in the podcast) isn't one of bad players, so much as incompatible players. What those players were doing wasn't inherently wrong or bad. There are some gaming groups that run crazy, gonzo sessions, and everyone has a blast. Those "problem" players would fit in perfectly in those groups.

I don't like looking into someone's game or play style and tell them "you're doing it wrong!" We all do things differently, and we all get different things out of gaming. As long as everyone at the table is having fun, then whatever everyone is doing is good gaming.

The real problem was that the GM (and half the group it seems) wanted to play a different way, and there was no consensus at the table. The problem is everyone at the table not having fun, not a pair of players needing to grow up (or "pull their thumbs out their ***'s"). Yes, the GM should probably not play with them again (because it doesn't seem from what he wrote that they want to change), but it doesn't mean that what they thought was fun was somehow wrong or inferior.

Excellent discussion. You dudes are some smart guys, has anyone ever told you that (of course the have)?

How do you guys feel regarding Pick up Games vs Consistent Groups? Handling the issue where you do and do not have control of who you may be playing with?

Gitzman

Gitzman said:

I've been running games for 30 years. Since 1990, I've run countless convention games (including RPGA classics, RPGA cthulhu, Living Greyhawk, Living City, Living Jungle, Living Froghopping Realms, and Pathfinder Socieity). These are the epitome of "Pick-Up games." Here, the GMs will and purpose is absolute law. He must be the tyrant lest the game degenerate between the players that no-one else will play with and the rules-lawyers that infest the "living" game systems. (Of course, I've met hundreds of great, normal people as well, but the 5% of BAD PLAYERS stick in my mind and are primarily the reason I burned out from participating as a GM in those convention systems.)

When it comes to consistent group games (including Campaigns and one-shot or short series of non-campaign games): I find two situations most prevalent:

1. When a new group is being formed: The GM needs to say "this is how it is" and put a group together. If the GMs running WFRP, he doesn't let some Johnny-come-lately come in and brow-beat the group into wanting to play Star Wars instead and sit there and badmouth WFRP's system (to use a recent example). I've had to be Mr Fascist GM lately with my Meet-Up group that's in the process of evolving into a core group with several people who were simply incompatible with what I and the "core group" style of play.

2. With an established group, you can be a LOT more relaxed, but to get to this point, the GM really needs to have a "standard" of what he's playing and to some degree that MUST continue. The GM is not the whipping boy for bad or incongruous players. The GM is where the buck starts and stops.

With the example that was sent to you guys, it sounds like the GM just let it be a sandbox game for people who had no idea a) what a sandbox game even is, and b) he let the players walk all over him. There's a level of trust that the GM has to be at with his players for a Sandbox-type game to occur..and that GM gave his players too much trust, in a "new group to roleplaying." I feel for this GM, but it looks like a rookie mistake..one that us Fascist GMs are less likely to make

more to come

jh

douh!

Listening to the podcast made my stomach turn. Those guys were SO far off from role--playing that I am tending to say: "$%$& you kids". Wont work, even with tender care from a noble GM. Don't waste your time.

You play to play not to win. Sorry, but I had this horrible image of puberty-acne ridden WOW kid in my mind.

my 5 cent

About a year ago I caught back up with an old friend from High School and invited him and his wife to play D&D with a mutual friend, his wife, and my wife. Things were off to a great start, but the old friend and his wife (referred to as they from now on) told me they wanted more of a role-play experience than I was giving them with less fighting.

The next session I gave them that with a couple a short but hard fought battles. They then told me they wanted to feel like super heroes but they wanted the fights to be a challenge. Which meant they wanted the fights to look tough but be really easy.

The next session, they told me they didn't like the story and wanted to go where ever they wanted. So I let them, but changed my info to keep the story on track and they said they were being railroaded. So I let them go as they pleased in the market. In D&D, you are expected to be able to make whatever items you want, but not necessarily buy them, but I allowed them to find a crooked magic item dealer. They tried to haggle with the tight-pursed guy and I gave them a small discount, but they were not happy that they couldn't get the item for more than 60% off. After that boiled up and they spent a long time telling me I didn't know what I was doing and that I wasn't running the game the players (ie the old friend and his wife) wanted. It turned out that they wanted a game with nearly no plot and constant dungeon crawls with easy monsters and easy access to all loot at massive discounts.

I stopped everything and said "I'm done. I'm not running a game for you any longer." My wife took over and ran a fairy-tale based game until the other wife left for the military (which was the only reason I continued on with them) and I have had little to no contact with the old friend and his wife since. And I feel wonderful.

I'm back with my old group running D&D and WFRP and everyone is having a blast. Its just sad when one or two people ruin it for the rest.

JasonRR said:

Wow, that is crazy.