So I have my first true session of Edge of the Empire with my group this weekend and
looking back on previous attempts to get a game together I was curious if anyone here had stories of bad players or just stories of sessions that went awry.

I'll get the ball rolling by telling you about our experience. We had one player, who has since left our group, who wasn't the biggest fan of star wars and generally only ever wanted to play medieval fantasy RPG's like Pathfinder. The rest of the group was really excited to give edge of the empire a try and eventually he conceded to play so long as he could play a force exile with a lightsaber. Being the wet-behind-the-ears GM I was at the time, I eventually allowed it after a week and a half or so of 'this happens or I don't play' and trying to convince him to make compromises and such for the sake of the rest of the group. I didn't want to run the adventure with only two people.

Fast Forward to game day and after being told this player couldn't make it due to, I arrive to find him and his friend he brought with huge grins on their faces and the rest of the group. looking worried that I might explode in rage. Their fears were not entirely unfounded...

The game went terribly. The problem player would use their lightsaber to solve any problem, social or combat wise and generally it led to the rest of the party outright telling him to knock it off, His friend just sort of sat there staring at his sheet the entire time looking sullen and pathetic. We finished Escape from Moss Schutta after some quick and dirty tactics on my part to avoid the force user from tearing up the place and got about halfway through LAotH before it was time to leave and we fled from the table. That was three months ago.

I hope you found my wall of text entertaining and will share your bad experiences below.

Wow, just wow! Sorry to read about that play experience, when players threaten to not play because their demands aren't met that's a sure sign of things to come.

I had a player recently who was a big fan of SAGA edition and he played in one of my SAGA campaigns which he pretty much singlehandedly sunk. Anyway I decided to run EOTE for a group and let him join in against my better judgement. He spent the rest of the session complaining about how simple it was and how there were no character options or rules for things to do. Note I was running the Beginners Game since the Core hadn't come out at the time.

During the game his attitude became progressively worse and he became far more aggressive to me and the other players. His actions became weirder and illogical. Every 20 minutes he would get up to go to the toilet, blow his nose for two minutes, and then come back to the table and we would suffer another drop in his behavior.

Finally the game ended and he left, the rest of the players and I sitting at the table stunned by how the game went. Eventually we all had to agree that he was going to the toilet to snort coke. It was the only reasonable explanation we had for it. Suffice to say I haven't invited him since.

Bad players are bad players and while it can suck to find your group short handed on players, its far better to run a 2 player game then it is a 3 player game with one person their determined to screw it up for everyone else.

The advice is probably obvious, I'm sure you don't need to hear it but just for the record, boot his ass out and don't look back. Booting a player for being a jerk intentionally is not only a good lesson for him, but its a good way to establish yourself to the other players as a guy who cares about their time, which was wasted by having a jerk at the table. Unfortunately these stories aren't always so black and white and I understand that. For most of us that "jerk" player might actually be a good friend, cousin, brother or otherwise. Its not always so simple.

My story is what amounts to one of the biggest lesson I learned as a GM and one of the worst gaming experiences I have ever been a part of as it was a kind of catch 22 I couldn't get out of.

I had a very good friend of mine that is a bit of a power gamer who greatly desired to join an ongoing campaign I had run for nearly a year. I had managed to keep him out of the game not because I had anything against him joining, I can handle power gamers, but because the other players all knew him as well and didn't like playing with him. He however kind of played the puppy eyes and pulled the friendship card so I convinced the group to let him join the game for the final chapter of this very long campaign.

Right out of the gate I laid down the law for him about power gaming. We where using 3.5 rules which was a very easy system to manipulate. He created a reasonable character, so I thought and the first session with him in it started. What he actually did was create a perfectly deadly combination of feats that at a first glance one might not notice. He had a lot of system mastery and I overlooked it. In the first scene of the game, he met the existing players, this was supposed to be more or less a formality as we had agree that he would be an old men at arms that one of the characters in the group was familiar with. However in the first scene he opened up and attempted to conjule payment for his services that he was about to render. The players didn't buy it and told him no thank you, services not needed. He promptly threatened the group, drew his weapons and effectively became the bad guy. Now I stopped the game, but the other players, rather miffed and pretty confident they could win a fight with this character wanted to ride the fight out as if it was a monster fight.

Spells where thrown, swords where drawn and the fight started. Now I'm a fair GM and I pride myself on running the rules straight. I don't play favorites, we rolled in the open and I told them before the fight started.... we can stop this right here and now, boot this player out of the game, erase the scene and pick up where we left off before he joined. But the players insisted the fight took place. What followed was 3 hours of the most intense arguing, rules lawyering and aggressive behavior I had ever seen out of any of these players. When the fight was over, people where storming out of the house, telling each other to F-off. The campaign never recovered and the group itself was never really the same after that. Things where said that went far and beyond simple role-playing, things that I took personally, they took personally etc..

Morale of the story is, be a good GM.. keep bad players out of your game.

It wasn't a nightmare player, but he was the worst player I've ever seen at staying alive.

Back many years ago back in college, the first game we played of that group, the players had run afoul of a Imperial Spacetrooper transport (a ship, in case you are unfamiliar with them, that's comprised of a half dozen man-size airlocks for easy deploying of the Spacetroopers). 95% of the personnel is deployed assaulting another ship, leaving Danny-of-the-Week (as we were prone to calling his characters) and one other player to sneak about the nearly deserted ship.

When they heard voices coming their way from down a hall of doors (AKA the spacetrooper airlocks), Danny-of-the-Week decided to hide in one of said airlocks - the airlock that was open to space. "It's locked", I said, "You cant open it" - which he took to mean in all seriousness 'this must be an awesome hiding place!' and started doing his damnedest to open the door. He started slicing the lock, bypassing safeties and every warning sign that I was throwing up saying that this was indeed a bad idea. He just wouldn't take the hint.

Fine. You open the door. There's nothing on the other side. Literally, nothing.

That was death number 1. From that point on, once a week like clockwork, Danny-of-the-Week would find a stupid way to die. Once he stuck his face - on purpose - in a facehugger-ish egg during a game I was shamelessly ripping off from Alien (after they full well knew what this creature would do), One of the other players (a very protective wookiee) threw him from a speeder after he tried . . . ahem, aggressive sexual advances with a lady (not that she needed the Wookiee's protection - she was a marine and a Jedi and fully capable of kicking his ass on her own). One time, he hid in a clearly marked barrel of toxic waste.

Thing is, he wasn't clever enough to be trolling us - this was all just his personal playing style. He was honestly trying, but he was just that clueless. It wasn't anything I was doing as a GM, all those character deaths were all on his astoundingly bad choices.

good lord those are some awful stories. Mine doesn't compare, but here goes.

So, we have a tight group of friends. most of our interactions are not tabletop RPG related...in fact, we don't RPG all that much. We hang out, we all talk...so I can't imagine a scenario where we would stop hanging out because of something that happens during RPG night.

However, we did have a little bit of an argument one time. We had been playing 4e for a few weeks. One player, approaches it like a Video Game. Wants DPS as high as he can make it, and then loot everything he can get his hands on. We sort of unanamously agreed to have a "party" fund. Where all loot and all gold would go into a single pot, to be spent whenver the group is back into town.

But the one player has loot lust and wants to loot his own stuff. So, AS SOON as the encounter was over he was the first one to say "I search their pockets", and then refused to share whatever he found. At one point, he was like, "let's just assume I intend to loot the place at the end of each fight"....that was met by wholehearty disagreement. He thought it was unfair to him that if he wanted his character to loot and keep stuff, he should be able to...and that the group was overriding his decisions.

He and another player were arguying by the end of the night, but it ultimately settled down.

Even the pros have bad days;

http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/talesfromthetable/tale02-bumbling.html

My players aren't that great, but at least they resolved Death In Freeport.

Two of my players are ADHD. One is always a problem, if he's not the center of attention, he's a total distraction. I keep him because his father is a very good player who reasons things out. All of his characters have died from lack of thinking. In many cases his actions are downright suicidal.

Whenever he really steps in it or screws up, he just gets despondent, and stops participating.

He decided that Slicers can only surf the internet, so he pretty much didn't participate in his first EOTE adventure. (All the other players had fun, even the pacifist Rodian Medic.)

I haven't seen any really evil players since I was a teen.

I am having similar troubles, unfortunately.

I had a party playing through Trouble Brewing (back of the Core book adventure). They had convinced a defeated enemy Wookiee to join their party (I made one of Daro's gang a Wookiee). Once they defeated Bandin the Wookiee wasn't ok with the party selling off the Glitterstim they found on Bandin's ship (he hates Glitterstim, had a family member addicted to it).

Well instantly the trouble player says to me (not in character) "this guys a criminal and he doesn't want to sell Glitterstim? That doesn't make sense." I encouraged him to ask the Wookiee about his reservations. He did but still wanted to try and argue with me, basically telling me he wasn't enjoying how I was playing the Wookiee character and it "didn't make any sense". Basically insulting my GM'ing and hoping I would say "ya I guess your right, ok he doesnt object". I didn't of course.

When they landed on Kessel to turn in the reward, they left someone on the ship. While problem player feels "left out" because other player is more the "face" of the team so he is doing the negotiation with Moruth Doole, the imp stormtroopers arrive to search the ship but the player on the ship locked the door. So the stormtroopers start cutting into the hull and with blowtorches and are inside rather quickly. Moruth Doole had asked if they retrieved any Glitterstim and they had lied and said no.

When the Stormtroopers find the Glitterstim Doole is mad and they failed a negotiation check so Doole offers them nothing for Bandin and takes the Glitterstim, but lets them leave.

Problem player freaked out. "How can they cut into our ship so fast?" "This doesn't make any sense!"

I'm at a loss for how to handle this. I can't really expel this player because he's my brother in-law and it would be awkward. I talked it out with him for quite awhile and listened to him basically insult my story and how I played the NPC's. I thanked him for his criticisms acknowledged I could do better and he barely apologized. In the end my goal is him and everyone else to have fun so I need to pay attention to what he finds "unfun". I am just afraid of this behavior continuing no matter how I try to cater to his expectations.

This side of gaming makes me sad. Why can't we just play the game and have fun no matter if you're "winning" or not?

It's very hard when players insist on "winning." Some of my most memorable and fun moments revolve around some of our groups most horrendous failures. A good failure can take a game in wonderful directions that were never anticipated. Our last several sessions have had some absolutely atrocious dice rolling, and a few "why did we just do that" decisions, which when mixed with players who are relatively new to the system (so not in any way maximized,) have led to some awesomely fun moments.

To much failure will eventually get frustrating, but I don't understand why people are so afraid of a little bit.

My nightmare player wasn't in Star Wars, so I hope you'll all forgive this tale.

Many years ago, one of my buddies from college (Jonathan) asked if I wanted to GM for his old high school group during the summer. I said sure. Overall, it was a good group (more than two decades later, I'm still in touch with a few of them, and actually still play with one of them), but there was a player named Mike who was often... problematic.

Thing is, I didn't realize that Mike saw himself as the group's GM and I think he resented having competition. It didn't help that I wanted to do a superhero game, and after I started mine, the one that he's been doing petered out. Still, Mike and I played together for at least two summers (he started GMing a Shadowrun campaign).

Two few highlights from our time together:

1) In one sword-and-sorcery game, he was playing a rogue-type character who has secret information that the rest of the party needed. It was pivotal to the plot and his character's main reason for being with the group. Mike decided the character would kill himself before sharing the information. When the other players realized this and took away a knife and sharpened coin, and confined him, he stabbed himself in the eye with a marionette and tried to swallow his tongue. Fun guy, right?

2) Mike was often passive-aggressive and would arrive late, leave early, miss sessions, or otherwise try to disrupt the game. One session, he was running very late when we got a call for Bob (Mike's closest friend among the other players). Bob hung up, visible upset, and related the following tale:

Mike had gone back to college early to drop some stuff off at his dorm. Younger kids (I forget if they were high school or grade school) were having soccer camp on the campus, and a kid had run out in front of Mike. Mike didn't see him, and hit him with his truck. The kid was at the hospital, and they didn't know if he was going to live or die. Mike was in police custody and needed Bob to come bail him out because he was afraid to call his parents. So Bob left. Although it put a pall over the night, there wasn't much the rest of us could do, so we puttered through the rest of the session.

Thing is, the whole story was made up.

Mike had engineered the whole thing "to see how much people cared about him." Net result: Mike never played with us again, and many of the other players (who had been friends with Mike since grade school or high school) were mad and stopped talking to him. Bob took some heat for his part in it, but we all realized that he was just doing what his buddy asked, so we didn't hit him too hard. Bob actually continued to play with us for a few years after that.

Problem player freaked out. "How can they cut into our ship so fast?" "This doesn't make any sense!"

At that point, I'd just mention "look how fast it took the stormtroopers to blow thought the door on the Blockade Runner". Fast is not an issue for breaching hulls.

Wow. Some of these stories. I thought I had it bad.

Some of these draw some harrowing parallels with the guy from my story. We both started the group together as we had a mutual interest but it eventually turned into a battle for dominance over who was considered the 'Alpha'. He would constantly try to tell me what my role as GM is and how I should include this, that and the next thing because it's what 'he' finds fun.

(such as magic weapons in pathfinder, despite that I was a total newbie to the system at the time and was having trouble understanding the process behind including magic weapons, I've only been playing tabletop rpgs for half a year or so.)

I could go on but in the end it all culminated in more people coming to the group, and his participation becoming less and less necessary for the game to go on, he didn't like that we would just continue playing without him, despite the fact that all our schedules matched up except his. So we would essentially never get to play if we just waited for him to have a convenient day off.

He layed a guilt trip on me about how it used to just be a nice thing the two of us did and how he doesn't feel like he doesn't matter anymore and said he was gonna take a break and maybe sometime he'd come back.

He's not coming back if I can help it!

Problem player freaked out. "How can they cut into our ship so fast?" "This doesn't make any sense!"

At that point, I'd just mention "look how fast it took the stormtroopers to blow thought the door on the Blockade Runner". Fast is not an issue for breaching hulls.

excellent point! I just don't like having to defend it in the first place. I suppose I could have had the troopers roll for their attempt to enter, perhaps that would have made it feel more "fair" and less arbitrary. I just thought, there is no way these Stormtroopers AREN'T cutting in. And then instead of describing the resulting scene I'm busy defending the scene's validity. Much of this probably comes down to my own inexperience in describing richly the action.

During the game his attitude became progressively worse and he became far more aggressive to me and the other players. His actions became weirder and illogical. Every 20 minutes he would get up to go to the toilet, blow his nose for two minutes, and then come back to the table and we would suffer another drop in his behavior.

You know what that is, right? He went to powder his nose. I have a good friend who went through drug addiction and it was exactly like that...except for the attitude, because he was the GM! The guy can take enough stuff to kill a horse, and has probably Presence 4 and Charm 5. So we'd be playing and he'd slowly wind down until he looked like hell, then he'd go to the bathroom complaining about "something he ate". The he'd come back all chipper and raring to go, but totally scattered and you couldn't get a word in edgewise, meanwhile blowing his nose and complaining about allergies. We figured he was just stressed from work and a strained marriage, and besides, the story was/is pretty good, and the world he's created is amazing.

Some people hide it well, or we don't suspect it of them.

Wow. Some of these stories. I thought I had it bad.

Some of these draw some harrowing parallels with the guy from my story. We both started the group together as we had a mutual interest but it eventually turned into a battle for dominance over who was considered the 'Alpha'. He would constantly try to tell me what my role as GM is and how I should include this, that and the next thing because it's what 'he' finds fun.

(such as magic weapons in pathfinder, despite that I was a total newbie to the system at the time and was having trouble understanding the process behind including magic weapons, I've only been playing tabletop rpgs for half a year or so.)

I could go on but in the end it all culminated in more people coming to the group, and his participation becoming less and less necessary for the game to go on, he didn't like that we would just continue playing without him, despite the fact that all our schedules matched up except his. So we would essentially never get to play if we just waited for him to have a convenient day off.

He layed a guilt trip on me about how it used to just be a nice thing the two of us did and how he doesn't feel like he doesn't matter anymore and said he was gonna take a break and maybe sometime he'd come back.

He's not coming back if I can help it!

ya that is very similar to my situation. Oh man, RPG'ers sure can be passive-aggressive bunch huh?

In a nice show of support though, the other three players made a point of messaging me the next day to thank me for a great game and for all the time I put in preparing it, they knew I had taken the criticism a little hard. It's tough spending time preparing a game with the sole purpose of creating enjoyment for your friends and then having them say in so many words "this sucks, you don't know how to do this".

ya that is very similar to my situation. Oh man, RPG'ers sure can be passive-aggressive bunch huh?

In a nice show of support though, the other three players made a point of messaging me the next day to thank me for a great game and for all the time I put in preparing it, they knew I had taken the criticism a little hard. It's tough spending time preparing a game with the sole purpose of creating enjoyment for your friends and then having them say in so many words "this sucks, you don't know how to do this".

Aye, he was a huge bully outside of the group too so that factored in the decision to never associate with him again but I was too caught up in thinking it was just me being too overly sensitive to notice.

On the plus side, the first session I gm'd without him, I got a thunderous round of applause from my group. Felt good, man.

During the game his attitude became progressively worse and he became far more aggressive to me and the other players. His actions became weirder and illogical. Every 20 minutes he would get up to go to the toilet, blow his nose for two minutes, and then come back to the table and we would suffer another drop in his behavior.

You know what that is, right? He went to powder his nose. I have a good friend who went through drug addiction and it was exactly like that...except for the attitude, because he was the GM! The guy can take enough stuff to kill a horse, and has probably Presence 4 and Charm 5. So we'd be playing and he'd slowly wind down until he looked like hell, then he'd go to the bathroom complaining about "something he ate". The he'd come back all chipper and raring to go, but totally scattered and you couldn't get a word in edgewise, meanwhile blowing his nose and complaining about allergies. We figured he was just stressed from work and a strained marriage, and besides, the story was/is pretty good, and the world he's created is amazing.

Some people hide it well, or we don't suspect it of them.

Yes, it took us a while to puzzle it out, but that is the only explanation that makes sense.

A friend of mine is playing in my group, we used to play SWTOR together and he had a tendency to think his character in that game was game-breaking and above the mechanics of the game.

So I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the same issue is occuring in our Edge of the Empire campaign. He plays as a force sensitive sniper and I'm positive he sees the entire game as a competition between his character and the story. He doesn't play to the character nearly as much as he tries to play to beat the game rules and mechanics.

I thought about putting him on the other side of the screen for a session so he can see that the role is trying to progress the story and not a battle against the PCs.

I honestly believe he has good intentions, he just wants his character to be Iconic. He wants to already be at his Luke Skywalker; hero of the Jedi level.

Advice?

I honestly believe he has good intentions, he just wants his character to be Iconic. He wants to already be at his Luke Skywalker; hero of the Jedi level.

Advice?

Easy - start small. Lets say, next game the players are hired (well, more approached - since hired has the connotations of eventual payment and these farmers cant do that) by some local farmers who are being harassed by bandits. They need some hired guns to come protect this years crop and keep the women from getting kidnapped and/or raped. Make it a good one - lots of moments for the players to shine. Everyone gets a crowning moment of awesome.

After they win, have the farmers shower praise upon them, sing ballads about them, build statues in the town square and that sort of thing. Make them huge heroes in a small pond.

Then, do it again on a larger scale. Not right away, and not the same story of course - but make a group of people grateful that they came in and saved the day. This should make him happy without going straight to the "I blew up a death star" level of fame.

Wow. Some of these stories. I thought I had it bad.

Some of these draw some harrowing parallels with the guy from my story. We both started the group together as we had a mutual interest but it eventually turned into a battle for dominance over who was considered the 'Alpha'. He would constantly try to tell me what my role as GM is and how I should include this, that and the next thing because it's what 'he' finds fun.

(such as magic weapons in pathfinder, despite that I was a total newbie to the system at the time and was having trouble understanding the process behind including magic weapons, I've only been playing tabletop rpgs for half a year or so.)

I could go on but in the end it all culminated in more people coming to the group, and his participation becoming less and less necessary for the game to go on, he didn't like that we would just continue playing without him, despite the fact that all our schedules matched up except his. So we would essentially never get to play if we just waited for him to have a convenient day off.

He layed a guilt trip on me about how it used to just be a nice thing the two of us did and how he doesn't feel like he doesn't matter anymore and said he was gonna take a break and maybe sometime he'd come back.

He's not coming back if I can help it!

ya that is very similar to my situation. Oh man, RPG'ers sure can be passive-aggressive bunch huh?

In a nice show of support though, the other three players made a point of messaging me the next day to thank me for a great game and for all the time I put in preparing it, they knew I had taken the criticism a little hard. It's tough spending time preparing a game with the sole purpose of creating enjoyment for your friends and then having them say in so many words "this sucks, you don't know how to do this".

You're the GM. Your word is law, and your word overrides the core rulebooks. THAT is how you keep rules lawyers in their place. You are Judge Dredd. You are the law. (But the law also works in the player's favor, some power hungry GMs forget that too)

You are also the host of the entire party. And your job is to ensure everyone is having a good time. If one person continuously ruins it for everyone I would take them aside and discuss it with them. If they don't take it well, make it clear that the talk was a "warning" and they were only going to get one. After that, for the good of the group, sometimes you have to pull the weed.

You're the GM. Your word is law, and your word overrides the core rulebooks.

I seriously think that for Star Wars, we should be referred to as the 'Emperor' not some pidly GM;

"Everything that has transpired has done so, according to my design. Your friends, out there on the sanctuary moon, are walking into a trap, as is your Rebel fleet. It was I who allowed the Alliance to know the location of the shield generator. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band...."

You're the GM. Your word is law, and your word overrides the core rulebooks.

I seriously think that for Star Wars, we should be referred to as the 'Emperor' not some pidly GM;

"Everything that has transpired has done so, according to my design. Your friends, out there on the sanctuary moon, are walking into a trap, as is your Rebel fleet. It was I who allowed the Alliance to know the location of the shield generator. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band...."

Yes.

I think this thread may be relevant to your interests: http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/89147-wait-a-minute-how-did-this-happen-were-smarter-than-this/

A lot of us were already sharing horror stories of sorts on the thread, and you may realize you are not alone.

Some of my horror stories are there, and others are in abundance.

For example, I was running a pre-Order 66 game, where the party knew the order would be passed at any time. I allowed the party to play Jedi (Padawans, of course), and left them to stew on it. One player, who joined in at the tail end on an "invite" from another player, did not want to play ANY form of Jedi, not even Force Sensitive. He wanted a Scoundrel/Tech Specialist who would act as their pilot. Seemed easy enough, so I allowed it.

He was ready to launch the party out of the airlock on game one, and it didn't get much better after that. . .

There's also the time when I was running a Rebllion Era campaign, where the party started off as smugglers doing jobs that aided the Rebellion before openly joining. . .and then one player, who was just joining in, decided she wanted to be a spy for the Empire (a double-agent).

I don't think I've seen party conflict escalate that quickly before. . .

Thankfully, most of my nightmare players tend to cause more problems OUT of game than in-game. Recently, the biggest in-game problems tend to be typecasting (the same guy playing the same character type in three different games) and people just not understanding what they can do.

Out of game, well. . .I've been running the gamut of drunk players joining in online (like last night's chargen session), people not showing up on time or at all, players not bothering to read the rules when they are given a chance to borrow the book (or when they are given a synopsis via cheat sheets), or players just causing drama for drama's sake.

We'll see how my one-shot session goes in two weeks. So far, we have two Dashade (one doctor, one marauder), a Jawa Outlaw Tech, and a Twi'lek Scoundrel. This should be. . .entertaining. . .

Man, reading through these makes me really appreciative of the two different gaming groups I'm in and how generally awesome the players and GMs are in each of them.

Man, reading through these makes me really appreciative of the two different gaming groups I'm in and how generally awesome the players and GMs are in each of them.

Me too! I'd always thought my brother's off-topic chat in my WEG campaign was bothersome... that's small-time compared to most of this stuff!

Problem player freaked out. "How can they cut into our ship so fast?" "This doesn't make any sense!"

At that point, I'd just mention "look how fast it took the stormtroopers to blow thought the door on the Blockade Runner". Fast is not an issue for breaching hulls.

I would play along with it: "yes, you have actually heard of these cutting tools before. They are manufactured specifically for the empire, worth a pretty penny too".

Resume...