Does anyone know of any good essays, articles or blogs online that outline types of players?

I have a few conflicts arising around my table regarding play styles and think having a few objective documents of reading material would go a long way towards defusing them. I know over the years I've read a number of such articles, but a brief search isn't finding anything helpful.

Secondary, and more specific: Do the GMs out there for specific strategies on engaging and rewarding a highly competitive player who feels the need to "win" in any game he plays. Because of this player, I've had to remove a recap + reward bonus xp to the MVP of the night I like to use during play. Overall, he's a good guy, clever, and well-spoken and fun to have at the table, but his temper and competitiveness get the best of him. I'd love to hear any tactics on ways I can entice/reward him as a specific player for the good and to help him feel like he "won" something by the end of the night that would not necessarily put him adversarial to the other players in the group.

This may not be what you're looking for, but isn't this the point of giving equal exp to everyone? I love this strategy, as it removed the competitive incentive. BUT, you DO have the fate pool to add too. Can you channel your player towards doing things for the good of the group, and rewarding him/her by awarding the party fate points? He/she will hopefully get a kick out of knowing that they're doing such a good job, but it won't be anything that hurts the group or the game.

I've not been a fan of giving different levels of exp for a long time. I feel that a) roleplaying should be its own reward, that all players should (and usually are) be doing it to the best of their ability, and b) it's very hard to award in a fair way. You end up giving the player who's consistently the best roleplayer a lot more exp than everyone else (or even worse, it gets spread around to everyone but the single worst roleplayer). Alternatively, you end up awarding the loudest or funniest player, and shyer players get missed. And the shy player - who may not feel confident enough to play the social champ - can be doing an excellent job of playing a quiet, subtle character… But it just doesn't look as obviously impressive as the player who's playing the drunken, loudmouthed comic poet constantly coming up with witty lines for his/her character to say.

http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/models/robinslaws.html

These are quite popular types, and the book it comes from is pretty good, too. I think it's available on pdf.

But, it sounds like your player goes beyond a 'type' or play style and is more about winning, which it seems to me is incompatible with roleplaying in a party. It sounds like the guy just doesn't get it. I can't really think of a way to help, except to just tell him straight up, he's doing it wrong.

Also, I never give players different xp. They're all in this together. Or exactly as AD says, above.

There is going to be an article in the upcoming LF9 about handling problem players and group unity / dynamics. It looks really good and useful. I know that the LF9 supplement is in final page layout, so if you could hang on a bit, you may find some really useful techniques and ideas there.

I am not sure of the expected release date, but it should hopefully be fairly soon.

Cheers,

Alp

Here is a

Here is a

I recommend the latest season of narrative control podcast

http://narrativecontrol.libsyn.com/

Last 5 or so episodes have been GM selfhelp gold. Though you might want to skip the non-consensual play episode for now as I doubt the wheels have fallen of that badly for your group, Fenderstat's player should give that episode a listen though.

Youve got a classic case of workplace team management issues with the competitive player. Put him situations where he can win by helping the other players, give him a subplot to resolve that requires assistance from team members, give him multiple love interests to compete for, make him the champion of some patron. Stuff to engage him outside of the other players. Else run with him turning on his companions and let the chips fall…

Thank you all for the links. I'll be doing a good deal of reading and listening before I start brainstorming my next session

Daedalum said:

This is a pretty good podcast actually. I just listened to a few episodes, for some reason I love these GM tool style podcasts . My **** player is a strange one, how he goes about it totally fits and he is very sneaky about, he acts like a cowardly bully and he is never a "good" person, like most rapists I assume? Now that I finally run a sandbox it's not a huge problem and it doesn't grate on any of our players, even our new addition female player who finds the concept amusing so I'll leave him alone for now.

Would in-the-moment rewards satisfy?

Good roleplaying of an action can grant fortune dice on it, for example, or be rewarded with dice into the Party Card fortune pool. The latter ensures that "everyone benefits" and doesn't create long run disparities which any "singular rewards do".

One thing to avoid is having the story/action tilt towards the player who offers most input etc. It is tempting and certainly input should be rewarded but over time it is unfair to other players who may simply have different play styles.

Ultimately, I admit to an unsympathetic view that someone who needs to win over other players needs to go find a boardgame to play or a specifically player vs player rpg game like In a Wicked Age, not a shared-objective adventuring group RPG. I'm very lucky that my players with competitive edge compete to know rules best and contribute most, not to "beat out" others.