How can I deal with a "goof-ball" player in my WoD group?

Question

I am a storyteller in a World of Darkness group, and I'm about to start designing a new scenario. However one of my players (let's call him Eric) is worrying me. Eric usually goes the goofball route when it comes to roleplaying. This means that he is great at doing just that (DM-ing comedic campaigns in D&D for example) but less great when it comes to actual serious roleplaying.

In my last (and first) WoD campaign (a pre-written scenario called Night of the Ghoul) he said that he played a depressed artist with a cat who lived in his backpack. However, after min-maxing him, he played the character like an aggressive and borderline psychopathic thug who had almost no regard for anything, including his own life. Basically an MMO-character in the present day.

Now I want to run a proper, serious survival horror story, but I'm afraid that he will goof-out again. Is there any way I could design the story to build around this or fix this issue without just goofing-out myself?

(Eric's old character is now in jail for assisting in killing a hobo, digging up the corpse of his uncle and decapitating it and wounding a teenager… laughing all the way.)

Answer 1

As usual, there are several grades of response. In order of goodness:

Option 1. Talk to him. Discuss this concern with him as a fellow adult, outside of game. Bring to his attention that he's behaving like a homicidal maniac rather than the character he claims he's playing (sounds like a good reason to deny him Willpower restoration in WoD, too). Standard procedure for dealing with problem players, really.

Option 2. Kill his PC repeatedly and without mercy. If you've talked to him about it but the behavior still hasn't changed, then it's time to use in-game incentives. Set up a situation where he's likely to separate himself from the group, and then obliterate him utterly. Do the same to anyone else who puts themselves in such a risky position; fair's fair, after all. Very much in keeping with survival horror tropes, so it reinforces the mood you're going for; if it happens in the first session, it could set the tone for the whole game right off the bat and show the players that you, and the game world, both mean serious business. I've found that several 'goofball' campaigns got much more serious very rapidly after a surprise PC death due to overaggressive behavior in the face of overwhelming force. Be aware that some people will take this as a challenge, in which case you move to...

Option 3. Boot him. If he's a repeat offender, won't yield to reason, and keeps up with it despite repeated PC deaths which were clearly a result of the problem behavior, then I don't think you're going to be able to get him to stop. Booting can be tricky if he's close friends with the other players and they don't mind the behavior, in which case your two options are either finding a new group or yielding and running a 'goofier' campaign.

Answer 2

Besides all the solutions already proposed by others, you may also want to try and consider his character and playing style as a creative challenge.

Try to approach this challenge as if you've been asked (by a huge publisher/studio :)) to write a story for, or at least, prominently featuring the Joker (of Batman fame), for example. Or to write a story that would give an actress/actor like Helena Bonham Carter or Jack Nicholson room to play what they usually play best.

Try to incorporate the character into the story, build on his ways, eccentricities and near-psychopathy. Write for his character. Have Eric design such a character on purpose ("you've proven quite good at playing this, so I need you to play such a PC in the next adventure") and even drive/motivate him to play as such. (WoD is one of the best settings for such characters anyway, besides Call of Cthulhu. :))

You may even want to turn these traits "against the character" in the story. Have it revealed by an occult expert (an NPC?) that these bouts of his are probably caused by a spirit trying to possess him. Take control away from Eric for a brief scene or two, have his character perform even worse acts than he'd have performed by himself. (Attacking his own companions or innocent bystanders etc.) Allow the player to restrain these attacks by spending Willpower. Have him be a subject of a Mind mage's curse, if spirits are not your thing. Or have him be strongly wolf-blooded, a werewolf in the making. But these are extra options, to be used and considered carefully, even in a game of "personal horror."

Answer 3

My initial suggestion was to be, "treat his actions realistically and enforce appropriate consequences, both social and societal." But the edit you've added shows you've already done that, and it doesn't seem to have had much of an impact.

Given that, the step to take next is to ask him directly not to be a goof-ball. Use the example of the last chronicle as a guidepost of what you don't want: you're hoping to run a "serious survival story" and wacky madcaps and cartoon slashers aren't appropriate. If he can handle that, great; if not, express your regrets and invite him to the next game that can handle a little more dedicated silliness.

You might find some useful information in the answers to this question as well.

Answer 4

First thing - min maxing is utilizing the rules to get what appears to some as an unbalanced advantage. As a gamemaster, you should feel free to eliminate rules as you feel fit - but do it prior to starting the game.

NOTE: This assumes you aren't having a personality conflict with the player.

Regarding his character choice, a few ways of dealing with him, in terms of the whole campaign -

1) Interview your players to find out what kind of game they want to play before you start. If the consensus is remarkably different from the game you want to run, talk it through. Getting the group to agree to the tone of the game helps you get other players to reinforce the style of play. Emphasize the rules you think are the most important.

2) WoD (old and new) character stats and reward system promote consistency of character, including the desirability of Humanity and the Willpower economy. Make it clear to the entire group that you intend on enforcing it. Other PCs should not tolerate a monster in their midst for the most part. Immediate rewards and penalties work.

3) At the end of each session, ask each player what their character learned and how they grew during the game session. If someone is playing a character that is a 100% departure from what they defined with you and on their character sheet, reward minimal experience points.

Answer 5

Boot Him, Here's Why

Depending on how long you've been playing with "Eric" and how well you know him is of course a major factor. However, in all my years of DM'ing I've found this equation best works without the problem player in it. There's a big difference between a problem character, and a problem player. Though they are usually correlational, it is possible for one to exist without the other.

I'd say find a clean and civil way to remove him from your group and find another (or perhaps play with one less person) as problems like this will repeatedly keep bubbling back to the top of your group. Nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand and his roots aren't sunk to deep into the culture of your group.

This is all of course if other methods have not worked out yet, primarily the direct approach of "please stop being disruptive".

Answer 6

It sounds like your player is playing a different game than you are. His artist character that you are talking about actually sounds really interesting--a homicidal artist. But, it sounds like your issue with him is the tone that he played the character as.

With this perspective in mind I would talk to him about it. Perhaps he didn't realize what he was doing. If he did, then be blunt. Explain that the type of game that he is looking to play isn't the type of game that you are trying to run. If he doesn't feel that he can play the type of game that you are going for let him know that he doesn't have to play at all.

Answer 7

You are playing the best system to deal with such a behaviour

The point is that this doesn't have to be fixed OOC. You have a lot of built-in mechanics and in-setting stuff for that -- because this is not something uncommon in the world you play in.

• Vampires have a Beast within, and have reasons to attempt to control it. Vampires who don't... well, they are on their road to become a Wight, sooner or later. Basically, you are playing a setting about losing your Humanity, so make the world (and his Beast!) react accordingly.

  Did he make something inhuman? Even if it is not listed on the Hierarchy of Sins, as a Storyteller, you are free to expand it and treat other "bad" things as a reason for a Conscience roll. Don't hesitate to call for such a roll every time he commits something evil.

  There are few actual drawbacks of having low Humanity in this system, but one of the important ones is loss of ability to wake up early and fall asleep late. Essentially, this player will lose playtime, and noone except himself could be blamed.

  Roleplay the world reacting to his low Humanity. Make some very rude things slip out of his lips -- this causes problems for WoD characters. The Bearing mechanic makes social interactions very hard.

• PCs in World of Darkness have a huge advantage of being able to spend Willpower points to get autosuccesses. Albeit, they regenerate very slowly, and players need to act according to characters' Nature to get more points. If he ignores the Nature -- feel free to strip him away from this. It will make his character, no matter how minmaxed, a lot weaker.

• In WoD players get XP based on how well did they roleplay in the last session, check the respective chapter in the book. If other players get around 3 XP per session and he gets only 1 XP, after some not so long time his character, again no matter how minmaxed, will actually become very weak mechanically. Combined with better social performance, it may give them chances to learn rare, but useful traits. For example, what about convincing a Lasombra antitribu to teach them Obtenebration? Or at least some Thaumaturgy from the Tremere...

• Apart from mechanics, total psychopaths, though not uncommon, aren't welcome in Kindred (or any) society. Most tasks in WoD would require social interaction, which such a character is likely to fail. Even his fellows are going to try to do something with it -- make other players roleplay interacting with him about what's happening.
• If he loses his character, don't give him a new one right away. Make him wait for the end of the session, and make a private session dedicated to introducing his new character to the plot with him, or even two or three. This will make him more involved in the new character so he doesn't do the same with the new one.

Of course, doing anything from that list, always give good reasoning to the player if he asks you OOC about why are you punishing him.

Treat that all not as a punishment, but rather as a development of the story. For example, once upon a tome his demeanor may attract some completely inhuman cult to him and suggest to join a Path of Enlightment.

Answer 8

I used to punish goof-balls by awarding them no / very low character advance to get them play it right, but as the players felt this as 'punishment' but didn't feel it to be just I came up with something different: Having the players punish themselves by letting them award their own Experience Points.

So the goof-balls had to give themselves low points because they wrecked havoc with the story (and I made sure they knew that they just did that) while the other players got high points for keeping within the scene.

Its important that you check your goof players points so they min-max themselves but I haven't ever encountered a player that does that.

So in the current situation of yours: Tell your players (and Eric specifically) that this is a horror / survival plot and that you will use this technique from now on. Eric will most likely still goof around the first session, but after realizing that he just got 1 or 2 XP because of bad role playing, while his peers got 5 - 6 will soon make him change his plans.