Questions tagged [problem-players]
For questions about participants in an RPG who, for whatever reason, contribute to the difficulty of running the game. (See also: the [problem-gm] tag.)
482
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How to help a player create a character with more long term motivations?
I am currently DMing a campaign for a player that I will call Will and 2 others. To start off, Will is not really a problem player despite this question being tagged as such. He is engaged in the game,...
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12
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2
answers
508
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What to do with a player that doesn't know what type of game he wants?
So, IMO a player of mine seems to have not-so-clear ideas about what he wants. We are playing Pathfinder 2e, and he doesn't like it. That's fair, everyone has their own preferences. But from what he ...
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4
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How can a DM handle players coming up with PCs that they don't feel are a good fit for a world or campaign
My situation:
I've been worldbuilding for a while and more so since it looked likely I'd get to DM for the first time. I provided a pre-session zero PDF to my players, containing 6 truths as well as ...
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6
votes
2
answers
703
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What if one PC wants to do something without party?
As a player, how would you approach your DM about your character doing something out of session that neither the others players/party wouldn't witness.? (Example, asking to sneak away from the party) ...
user75679
31
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5
answers
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Am I using my high level spells wrong?
I have been playing D&D 5e for only five months. I play a 5th level wizard. My warlock party member constantly berates me for using spell slots in encounters and says I need to "understand ...
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24
votes
12
answers
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Is it appropriate to address characters by their race in D&D?
Simply, calling an elf an elf or a dwarf a dwarf in a non-defamatory, non-insulting way: is it justified to call this out as racist language in a D&D game?
More specifically, we have a player, ...
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30
votes
14
answers
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How does one play a Chaotic Evil character without disrupting the play group?
A follow-up question to How to deal with a PC trying to kill another?
As I understand the answer to that question, PCs killing one another is generally not the intended outcome of campaigns, and the ...
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6
votes
6
answers
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How do I handle my possession mechanic fairly?
In my campaign, the goal is to find ten major god-level artifacts, each linked to a specific god in the setting. Each artifact has a part of the soul of the god it’s linked to, and that soul has the ...
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21
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2
answers
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How to balance FATE when some players just can't fail?
I'm GMing a long-running game in FATE core, and I've been running into a bit of a balance problem. A couple of my players have gotten (what feels to me like) too powerful. They don't really seem to ...
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27
votes
7
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What should I do about another player who randomly starts PVP?
Characters (both players, both level 9):
Me: Life cleric and party healer/support
"Barb": Beast barbarian with split personalities (in character)
We have a player (let's say "Barb&...
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8
votes
1
answer
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How can I, as a GM, make players with different playstyles be more moderate?
I'm a GM for this group of players playing Pathfinder 2e, and we're playing an adventure where they are supposed to be city guards. Now, one of the players is taking it to an extreme level of ...
- 1,690
16
votes
7
answers
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What do you do when one of your players is being difficult?
I am running a campaign and have been for about 5 months now. All of my players are pretty new to D&D. All except one. He is honestly my worst player despite all of his experience. He is ...
- 199
7
votes
4
answers
950
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Problematic player constantly looking to power play
I have a problematic player who is constantly looking to power play. The last campaign consisted of them asking for a large number of uncommon magic items. Thier argument was if they are uncommon , ...
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1
vote
1
answer
556
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Player misunderstood NPC, now misrepresenting quest goals to rest of party [closed]
Overview:
One of my players had a conversation with an NPC in a language no other character or player was in on, and now the player's misunderstanding of what was said is making a simple side quest ...
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13
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5
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I've felt "attacked" OOC because of IC character events. Did I deserve it? [closed]
When I was in college I had my first chance to play some TRPG. I played half-a-dozen one shot there but then I dropped out and when I enrolled again I couldn't find another group. Now, years after ...
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23
votes
3
answers
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How can I show a friend of mine that his behavior is about to make me quit playing?
I'm currently playing at a table using Discord with some online and IRL friends, once a week. All's good in the world, but recently, another friend asked me to join, and after checking with our GM, he'...
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8
votes
3
answers
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How to approach your DM about an issue?
I'll preface this with a bit of detail about our game. It's all online (thanks, pandemic). We use Discord voice, D&D Beyond, and Roll20. It has been a nice distraction so far. This was my first ...
55
votes
4
answers
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Dealing with a Repeatedly Cheating Friend
I'm the GM of a long-running online Vampire: the Masquerade campaign. Three years ago, we had a new (and young) player who cheated on dice rolls. I kicked him out.
A while later, he messaged me to ...
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50
votes
6
answers
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How can I deal with a 'soft' alpha gamer player?
Alpha gamer is a type of player in cooperative games, who effectively makes a decision for another player. In this question I am asking how to deal with a 'soft' version of this player archetype, who ...
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34
votes
9
answers
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How to stop myself from interrupting the session to correct the DM's mistakes?
I like to think that admitting my mistake is the first step to learning.
I learned the rules (features, traits, spells) fairly quickly and feel confident in my knowledge on how the rules as written ...
- 1,789
18
votes
4
answers
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A player loves the story and the combat but doesn't role-play
Together with my best friend Jon, I'm in a group of people who enjoy RPGs. I've been GMing for several years in this larger group. Other friends of that group also GM. I'm the most story-oriented GM, ...
- 6,556
9
votes
1
answer
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How do I deal with a fellow player who cheats, if the GM won't do anything about it? [closed]
I have played with this same group of friends for over 20 years. However due to COVID we have had to play virtually using Roll20.
This has had the surprising and revealing effect of letting us see ...
- 10.5k
2
votes
2
answers
257
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To what extent is the DM responsible for resolving interpersonal conflict? [closed]
Interpersonal conflict can arise between any people.
If a player has an issue with another player within a gaming group for a game that has a DM/GM/Keeper, what responsibility does a DM have to help ...
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vote
6
answers
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How do I handle players that don't care for the rules I put in place as the DM and question everything I do?
I am DMing a game of dnd 5e or close to it. It's a homebrew campaign. We are mostly new to D&D with the exception of 2 players that play with other groups.
I have 2 players that seem to question ...
22
votes
5
answers
5k
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How do I deal with this very annoying teammate who engages in player versus player combat?
I am playing with some friends over Discord, and one of them makes characters with a bit of a light temper. Not that bad, right?
Wrong. If you do something or say something he doesn't like, he makes ...
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13
votes
4
answers
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Can I keep playing a character who annoys other PCs?
Context
This question is about an online community campaign. We are around 20 players who play in a persistent universe where anyone can run a game as a GM. The system is Pathfinder 2e and players can ...
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votes
7
answers
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How to deal with player who won't roleplay, insists character-friction is bad, and doesn't take the game seriously?
I've browsed most of problem-players and still felt we needed more info, or more allegorical advice from experienced gamers but am now seeing stuff in gm-techniques I had missed that is somewhat ...
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8
votes
1
answer
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Lore Jockey players
I've been having problems with a player where he'll trying to get me to homebrew rules for him based on these lore points. Recently he wanted to get his blade serrated to do bleed damage. After ...
10
votes
4
answers
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I am a new player in a group. Another player's character has spent their childhood in a brothel and it is bothering me. What can I do?
I am a new player in a group. Another player's character supposedly spent their childhood in a brothel before being sold to pirates; they served on the ship's crew before eventually deciding to retire ...
- 18k
38
votes
7
answers
7k
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How to uninvite a friend from a campaign?
I'm am prepping to DM a campaign for some of my friends. Until that starts, I'm just playing in the campaign of one of those friends. A few months ago I had invited a few of them to join the campaign ...
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11
votes
3
answers
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How do I as GM handle PCs with "My Guy Syndrome"?
In my campaign I have several players that fall really heavily into "My Guy Syndrome" which is to say that they will excuse character actions that sabotage themselves and their teammates ...
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6
answers
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How to prevent players from sabotaging themselves by engaging in long arguments about what to do next?
I feel like my players often self sabotage. Often we'll experience moments where the session will come to a complete pause as the player characters argue over what to do. At this point I've started to ...
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17
votes
2
answers
989
views
What do I do if my group isn't gelling?
It's my first time playing D&D with a bunch of other first-timers (using the starter kit). One of the players is steamrolling over other players and his character is insufferable. What do I do if ...
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22
votes
4
answers
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How to manage players who stay in the gamemaster mindset when they are players, not GMs?
The situation takes place in an online Pathfinder 2 community. Here everybody has PCs and can play on any session with a level that more or less matches the level of one of his PCs. A handful of those ...
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37
votes
5
answers
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How do I engage someone who is playing his character poorly?
I am DMing a game where one player has never quite seemed happy. He regularly questions rulings and gets quite hurt when he tries to do things with his character and they don't succeed.
He is playing ...
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37
votes
8
answers
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How do we gently ask a frustrating player to leave our game?
I have been a part of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign for almost a year now (I am not the DM) and we have a player (in his early 30s) who has, within the past few months, quickly become very ...
10
votes
3
answers
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I have a player who will not stop cheating [closed]
As the title says, I have one particular player that has a digital file version of Curse of Strahd and is hellbent on cheating. They have done just about everything from faking dice rolls, using ...
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6
votes
2
answers
891
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What should I do about a player who isn't engaging?
Recently the party I DM for has had to move to playing online (due to covid and social distancing). It started off fine and everyone was having a good time but over the last two sessions one of the ...
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57
votes
7
answers
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What to do if a player expected much more than DM gave?
I was not the DM in this session, it was my GF, but she does not speak English so I'm here to ask for all of us. We've faced an issue we can't seem to solve.
It was our 2nd game, none of us have ever ...
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5
answers
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How can I handle a player who seems to utilize skills their characters don't have?
Well the tag is slightly misleading as these players do not cause problems. However I have encountered several players who exhibit skills their real life counterpart has without actually metagaming. ...
- 18k
30
votes
4
answers
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Could I have handled this PC interaction better?
I started up a play by post game on roll20 for a group of friends. A co-worker, and friend of another player, had asked to join in. Let's call him P1, or Player 1. I said sure, we got the game going ...
- 3,093
16
votes
9
answers
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How should I deal with a player who wants to circumvent combat when the rest of the party wants to fight?
I'm a very new DM running a homebrew DnD 5e campaign for a couple of friends.
One of my players, who is by far the most experienced, plays a bard who is definitely optimised for roleplay, and that ...
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25
votes
10
answers
6k
views
How do I deal with a player wanting to do an activity that takes weeks when the party doesn't want to?
I'm currently running a campaign with 5 players at level 3, one of which is a Wizard Dragonborn who's entire character is devoted to becoming a real dragon by the end of the campaign through some kind ...
- 369
41
votes
11
answers
9k
views
Consistency between "yes and" with "no, because I'm the DM"
Context: I enjoy running softer systems, with Numenera being my latest favorite. I discard rules left and right in favor of what feels right during the play. I love the "rule of cool" too, ...
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1
vote
4
answers
1k
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A player got upset because he made a wrong move and now I can't DM
Backstory
I'm a newer GM (I've only run 3 3.5e games and 1 5e game over the last 20 years of playing RPGs).
My group has a DM/player who is extremely experienced and knowledgeable about all things RPG....
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votes
2
answers
625
views
I'm tired of a friend's PC, how to cope with it?
The situation
At my table we are 3 players and one GM. All are close friends of mine. We are currently playing a game of pathfinder 1e with the Path of war supplement and are lvl 8 and all play path ...
15
votes
5
answers
1k
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I don't like a fellow player, what should I do?
We're playing online.
I don't like the player, not the PC, the PC themselves is fine, which kinda makes this worse, if it was the PC, I could chalk it up to good RP.
This player also isn't unlikable/...
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votes
7
answers
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How do I get a new player to stop rewriting my game to match his favorite fiction?
I have a D&D 5e game that I've been running for a year that is on pause because some players don't want to play online or go outside (stupid plague ruining my tabletop). So I offered my son and ...
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26
votes
8
answers
8k
views
How should I work with a player that doesn't take it seriously at all?
I am a GM and I really need advice regarding one of my players.
I play with my group a campaign with FATE rules in a postapocalyptic dark and gritty homebrew world which is mainly horror based, ...
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4
votes
2
answers
516
views
How much should I as a GM adapt the rules of my world to suit my players?
I'm DMing a DnD 3.5e game with some combat but mainly focused on narrative and building towards interesting moral themes. I told my players this in session 0.
In the game for our last session the ...
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