Now I hate to be negative on this app, but there isn’t enough discussion about how on the latest episode of D20 on a bus, Brennan was quite frankly a problem player.
When a DM says ‘air’ and asks you to ‘ponder that’, I think bombarding the DM with questions about ‘context’ and ‘where is the air’ is the mark of an adversarial player. When Katie said air, I personally shed a tear whilst pondering. The questions from Brennan were straight up not OK, and it really speaks to his character.
Honestly, that’s why I fully heartedly believe that at the end of the game, the four other DMs exiled him from the DnD community. Then Sam had no choice to fire him because without DnD being Brennan’s thing, then there was no more use for him at Dropout. He only said ‘no bad blood’, but I’m too well versed in YouTube apologies to know that there is always bad blood.
Now I know no one in the space is brave enough to comment on this, but just know we hear the confirmation in their silence, and it is resounding. Wake up, people.
today I was the problem player. I made a spur-of-the-moment decision that threatens to derail the entire campaign right at the end of it.
My character died for the umpteenth time in a fallen Netherese city in the glaciers east of Ten Towns, and from the collapsed tower of necromancy, the team pulls an artifact believed to hold the power to bring back the dead. Naturally they try it on me, and the DM turns to me and asks "so who comes back?". After a short discussion with the rest of the players, we decide the funniest answer would be Roderic, an evil demonic warlock from a previous campaign.
Now his story is long and interesting and involves forgotten memories, and so I play him as he was in the beginning of the last campaign. Limited power, no memories yet of the demonic stuff. And, it's decided this will all be happening before the events of that previous campaign.
So, then... today.
As part of a ritual of passage, he must reveal a secret. And in that moment, I decide his secret is that he does remember his pact with Baphomet and his descent into the abyss. He turns away from the team, throws up a firewall to prevent them from following, and bolts for the Mythalar in the centre of town...
...suitably dramatic, but a real dumb thing to do right before we're about to confront Auril the frost maiden!
I play d&d and we currently have a…problem player so to say. I like to say Im a nice person but i know deep down im a bitch, this person genuinely grates on my nerves so much. Im going to winge a bit but I would like any advice I can get.
He speaks over other players in rp, yells at the party when we don’t want to fight a much stronger enemy that two-shot the highest level player (with disadvantage to hit), constantly argues with the dm, gets upset with the dm lets a player have a moment I assume because its not about him.
I literally don’t know how to handle this in a mature way because our dm wants us to “fix” him ig, he has a problem kicking players out which would be fine if this player didnt veto jokes by saying “its not story relevant” then spending actual 30 minutes doing ACTUAL bank talk with the dm, “does that have inflation? what are the taxes?” its exhausting. I don’t want to be the asshole that ends up yelling at him either, He constantly excuses his actions by saying hes mentally handicapped, and you can call me a dick for this but its not an excuse to try and but into another player’s moment or try to strong arm other players into doing what you want. He has this constant need for validation, for it being all about him and he wont interact with other party members, he has to be this all powerful badass that one shots enemies with 5 damage.
sorry, I’m rambling, if anyone has any advice let me know, I’m just tired.
I'm apparently the problem player in Dungeons and Dragons for the same reasons why I'm a problem person in real life - losing papers, being egocentric, having an annoying cartoon character that's hard to see or care for as a person, unrealistic motivations and an un-believable background, and splitting the party.
Roleplaying Games and the ‘Stop Having Fun Guy’ - The Munchkin
Alright, here’s the second part of the series. This might be a bit lengthy, so hold on. I plan on describing these kinds of players, and also ways to help get around them.
Now, the most powerful tool in dealing with any kind of Stop Having Fun Guy, is communication. Directly telling someone their behavior is Not Okay is a strong tool, but it is akin to an atom bomb. Direct confrontation leads to direct conflict. While some players might simmer down when confronted, many others will double down. Overall, this may not be the best solution, depending on the natures of the GM, players, and even the environment in which you are playing. Besides the infamous ‘little brother’, I have been to stores where the store themselves forbids GMs from booting players out of their games unless the player is getting booted out of the entire store. This means more subtle methods are to be used, which is what this series will hope to cover.
The Munchkin is a type of power gamer who is in it to ‘win’, even though most games have no such concept. While this can mean a social powerhouse, often it means a mechanical one, and is the definition we’ll be using in this series. These types of players see the game as a ‘them vs the GM’, and aim to ‘defeat’ said GM. Due note, though, that not all Munchkins are Stop Having Fun Guys (SHFG). The difference is in attitude
The SHFG Munchkin is a kind of player who firmly believes that their method of play, min-maxing their character to ‘defeat’ the GM, is the only proper method of play. As such, they will judge all other characters and players on this standard.
As a player, from a player’s perspective, these people can be rather frustrating. They can be, like all SHFGs, very judgmental, comparing everyone’s characters. Classic ‘who can take who on?’ debates, if you can even call them that, are common even if the only person doing it is the Munchkin themselves. They get pride out of being the most powerful member of the party, regardless of circumstances. But, what truly puts these people into the SHFG category and not just a generic Munchkin is the attitude that everyone at the table should be doing the same thing. Everyone should be doing their best to min-max and exploiting the rules to get as powerful as possible, not understanding how anyone can gain enjoyment from the game without it.
As a player, I’ve found one of the best ways to deal with this kind of SHFG is... to not care. Or at least, not seem like you care. Be blase about the amazing feats their character can do. Shrug your shoulders and say you’re not really interested when they talk about how they can optimize your character if you let them give it a few tweaks (often these ‘tweaks’ can take the form of completely ripping the heart and soul of the character in the search for more +1′s, so buyer beware). With any luck, persistence, and general co-operation of the group, this behavior will steadily go down. Granted, if you have a Killer GM, their advice may be more warranted than you would like, but that is a different kettle of fish.
As a GM you have a few more weapons here besides shunning. As with normal Munchkins, using Social rewards can be a greatly powerful tool. Rewarding a strong RPer with their own successful business can really make that super awesome +8 sword, or ridiculous prestige class the Munchkin loopholed into a lot less cool, make the Munchkin a lot less likely to brag about it and encourages non-Munchkin behavior in the entire party.
One issue that these kinds of SHFGs can bring to the table, is the arms race. This is a very problematic thing for a GM, especially a shyer one. If you let this kind of player min-max to his heart’s content, then he is going to leave the other players in his proverbial wake. The flying golden god on his griffon mount, smiting his foes with repeated charge attacks of 8d8+6d6+24 each, doubled because charging, and quadrupled further on a crit can be extremely problematic when the next frontline fighter in the group does... 1d10+4. This means that in order to challenge the Munchkin, you will slaughter the rest of the group, but if you don’t the Munchkin will walk all over it, making the rest of the group useless. This is often the SHFG’s best argument for why the group should go over to their way of thinking.
The best defense here is to be proactive. Work with the characters as they are being created. This is something you should always do as a GM. Find where a player sees their character’s strengths, and find ones that the player may not. That previously mentioned frontline fighter with the ‘pitiful’ damage might have great detective skills for hunting down the supernatural. Great! Have a storyline where that can shine. Sure, the Golden God might instantly kill whatever the threat was, but if you give most of the credit to the guy who found the thing, or at least make that a notable point, it lets the ‘lesser’ character have his time in the sun, while giving the Golden God his glory.
This all in general can come down to de-emphasizing the combat in the game, where the Munchkin thrives.
Now, if you want to have your combat-heavy game, and counter the Munchkin SHFG, your best bet is to close off the power cap. Adjust the power level of your campaign. You can do this in a number of ways. One way is to just ban classes. Dungeons and Dragons, and Pathfinder have a very distinct power tier system that you can find floating about. The super powerful classes such as Wizard, Cleric, and a certain variation of Psion can be horrible game-busters and closing them off can stem the Munchkinism. Banning certain source-books can also work. Especially in 3.X D&D, source books can be... hit or miss on the power scale, due to the Open Gaming Licence. There are some stupidly powerful splat books out there, and if you don’t like it, or just aren’t familiar with it; ban it.
Now, SHFG Munchkin GMs are... very dangerous. Keep in mind; the idea behind a SHFG is that all players of a game need to conform to their way of playing the game, anything else is ‘wrong.’ In this case, we are talking about min-maxing and exploiting rules. Prepare for no mercy, as your GM is likely a killer. Horribly unbalanced encounters will be common here, as will traps and other nasty surprises. They will expect, nay, require you to play on his level in order to even survive.
While it may not be necessarily endemic to the SHFG Munchkin, I have found each one I’ve played under also being a huge fan of ‘Gotcha’ traps, both socially and mechanically. These are traps that the GM has set up designed so that the player will not see it coming unless they read the GM’s mind. In a social context, this can mean the GM wants to bait the player’s metagame knowledge to make the party look like fools. The kobolds you’re attacking? Actually peaceful. And you slaughtered half the village before the GM ‘made’ you stop. You monsters. How should you have known? Well, if you had just taken the time to ask the small reptilian creatures, who in nearly every game and setting (often including this one) are Lawful Evil xenophobes who attack other creatures on sight, then they would’ve been totally peaceful and cool with you. The giant monstrosity that burst out of the pile of corpses right next to the party on this mysterious slaughtering ground with a great roar and show of muscle, that the party then won initiative on? Well, it’s actually like 15 levels higher than you, stomps you flat, and rather than kill you, lectures you on talking to the monsters that by all rights you would expect to try and kill you.
But don’t get clever. If you try and start questioning every monster, this kind of GM is likely to drop the charade and now punish you for trying. Walk into the next kobold village to peacefully trade? You set off every trap and now they all attack you. No, they aren’t peaceful, they’re kobolds for crying out loud!
Sadly, there isn’t much you can do about this kind of GM, short of just verbal protest when they pull their bullshit on you. Some may try and ‘optimize’ your characters for you, to pull you up to their level, but much like when they are a player, they can often not care about the ‘soul’ of your character, discarding it to fit their vision of a min-maxed character. Others may instead prefer you to sink or swim, to learn the system as well as they do by trial by fire. In either case, the players are having less fun.
In any case, you need to Stop Having Fun, Guys, and start playing by their rules.
