Hot answers tagged groups
15
This always seems to be the answer, but...
Talk to the player first.
I'm assuming you have some means of contacting your players outside your normal game time, if only to set up game or let each other know of cancellations or emergencies. Send your player a message, something along the lines of "Hey, I've noticed that you seem dissatisfied at game lately. ...
9
Do not look at systems but at settings. If the setting is interesting enough, if the lure of the story to be told is captivating enough, and if each player can see a protagonist they would like to play then you have won them over. Then, if you must, find a system that match. There are several ways you can do this:
A commonly known setting: say Conan or ...
7
Check out Belkar, from the Order of the Stick. A chaotic evil character in a mostly-good-aligned party. See this quote:
Despite his kill-first who-cares-about-asking-questions attitude and lack of party loyalty causing the occasional problem, Belkar has proven to be generally effective as a party member [...] but, with carefully applied threats, the rest ...
5
If you're following the Tao of Bitterleaf route, there are two obvious options:
As a player, assume your inevitable demise when you go too far, and don't get annoyed when it happens. As a character, do what you like, but don't actively sabotage your own group for no good reason (only when it benefits you).
As a player, limit yourself in order to play a ...
4
Sounds like it’s less what you do, and more how you do it
When given the chance to kill or hurt someone, go over the top. Describe the character as making his opponents hurt as much as possible within the constraints of practicality, and have him exult in the pain and destruction he does succeed in causing. In fact, I’d probably have the guy ...
4
Less crunch can be Savage Worlds. It is still a classic RPG, but carefully optimized to require the absolute minimum of rules-calls and rolls. It is my go-to system for any style or genre of RPG. SW does pretty much everything well and fast.
Still less crunch means you are in the realm of "story games" where the resolution of actions is not "you lose six ...
3
One more point that should be stressed: even if the player does leave the group, try to get his explicit buy-in to have his character sacrificed. Many players will probably like the concept, a dramatic farewell to the game, but not all. I've seen similar situations - PCs of former members dying to get them out of the way, narratively speaking - turn into ...
3
Talk to him in person or, failing that, send him a well written email.
You definitely want to approach this delicately and with as much respect as you can communicate towards the player in question. Mention that you feel you don't get to communicate with all the players as much as you would like to and then dive into talking about what issues he might have ...
3
KRyan's answer was great, but covered things mostly from the player angle; this answer is meant to provide some potential concerns from the angle of planning and running the game.
Magic Can Do Anything
No, really. Anything. They even published a time travel spell. Obviously in a real game environment the all-consuming power of the wizard and druid isn't ...
2
Have you explained the reasons behind that change? Hopefully at least some of them are as smart as you, and will understand why a light rules game is preferrable in your current situation. They may also empathize with the people that can't invest so much in the game.
If that fails, simply tell them "Okay, just trust me. Let me a couple of sessions. If you ...
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