Skip to main content
90 votes

How should I work with a player that doesn't take it seriously at all?

You should have killed his character This player believes that nothing they do will have consequences because you'll never be willing to narrate that their character is dead. You wrote: I gave ...
Dan B's user avatar
  • 90.6k
50 votes
Accepted

How can I roleplay a vulgar character without using profanity?

It takes some discipline, but develop and use fake profanity, specific to the setting. You have an advantage here, as the GM (which I infer, since this is about an NPC, not a PC) because it is ...
Novak's user avatar
  • 45.7k
26 votes

How should I work with a player that doesn't take it seriously at all?

Ask him if he still wants to play You can't make anyone take things seriously, if they don't want to. At session Zero he especially said nothing even when i asked him When you ask "what game do ...
enkryptor's user avatar
  • 70.8k
24 votes
Accepted

Is it up to the DM or to the player to "fix" a tone problem in the group?

You need a second "session 0" The problem, as I see it, is that the other player decided to play a different game to the one you all agreed to. You say in your session 0 that you all agreed ...
NathanS's user avatar
  • 80.8k
19 votes

How should I work with a player that doesn't take it seriously at all?

Be the firm one. Sounds like you are suffering from several of the well known Geek Social Fallacies. This guy is disrupting and injuring other people’s leisure despite being asked to stop. This is ...
Dale M's user avatar
  • 216k
19 votes

How can I roleplay a vulgar character without using profanity?

Consider minced oaths. I concur with other answers that recommend making up setting-specific curses. Doing so will achieve your objective (i.e., in-world vulgarity without real-world profanity) while ...
screamline's user avatar
  • 9,363
12 votes

How can I roleplay a vulgar character without using profanity?

An easy approach is to make up profane words. It's a popular workaround in TV shows to let them stay network TV friendly (Examples include "frell" in Farscape, "frak" in Battlestar ...
CatLord's user avatar
  • 21k
12 votes

How do I keep things serious in a session while keeping the fun?

Well, this is another of those messy "interpersonal relationships" questions in which the short answer is always "Have you tried talking to them about it?" But to break that out a little bit: First, ...
Airk's user avatar
  • 3,382
11 votes

How should I work with a player that doesn't take it seriously at all?

Session 0 The first step is to make sure the group has clear expectations about the game. Maybe you’re the only one griped by this. Maybe they all are. Often it can be helpful to have a “Session 0” ...
mxyzplk's user avatar
  • 176k
10 votes

How can I roleplay a vulgar character without using profanity?

I don't know how helpful this will be, but I am forever reminded of Terry Pratchett's approach with the character of Mr. Tulip from The Truth, whose dialogue was heavily peppered with the exclamation '...
vonBoomslang's user avatar
  • 8,151
9 votes

How can I roleplay a vulgar character without using profanity?

Based on the understanding that you want your NPC to be seen as coarse, rude, and unsophisticated as opposed to just swearing a lot, I invite you to observe the axiom "actions speak louder than ...
Dark Hippo's user avatar
8 votes

How should I work with a player that doesn't take it seriously at all?

Ask what the group thinks. In the end, you are not running this game for a single player. That means, you probably are not the only one who might find their actions disruptive. Ask what the rest of ...
Nikita Akopjans's user avatar
7 votes

How can I roleplay a vulgar character without using profanity?

In the past, I have GMmed in a few rounds and portrayed several quite rude characters during such. In general, I used two tricks up my sleeve: I put the expletives into indirect speech and condensed ...
Trish's user avatar
  • 46.9k
6 votes
Accepted

How should I work with a player that doesn't take it seriously at all?

Let This Player Know You Aren't Happy With Their Character's Behavior There's a second side to this issue - you as the DM need to make it clear to this player that you is not having fun with this. ...
Zibbobz's user avatar
  • 9,720
6 votes
Accepted

How can I as GM control off-topic moments and get the players to maintain a serious tone?

These sorts of issues are very common, particularly among newer players. A mismatch of expectations between the GM and the players can cause a great deal of frustration for both, and can easily kill a ...
Kyle Doyle's user avatar
  • 2,490
4 votes

Is it up to the DM or to the player to "fix" a tone problem in the group?

Aside from talking to the player outside the table as other suggested (second session 0), there are options that you can do while in character. Remember that people have their limits. Different ...
Chepelink's user avatar
  • 5,894
4 votes

How should I work with a player that doesn't take it seriously at all?

For the first player, the quiet one, you might consider the possibility that he has some kind of social inhibition and would really like to participate but is uncomfortable for some reason. Talk to ...
Chick's user avatar
  • 41
3 votes

Gracefully roleplaying the end of the world without implying mass extinction

Since you mentioned stars disappearing and colors fading: what if people just disappeared, becoming forgotten by most everyone? It can introduce a lot of friction and anxiety as others start noticing ...
Marcus Ilgner's user avatar
3 votes

How can I as GM control off-topic moments and get the players to maintain a serious tone?

For Call of Cthulhu specifically, I can see three possibilities: Do players want to engage in an investigation game? If they don't, trying to force them into it will not work. All RPGs, and ...
Thalantas's user avatar
  • 596
2 votes

How can GMs evoke the tone of danger in an RPG?

One way to engage the players sense of danger in a more narrative game is to ask them about it. "Druid, your nature sense is picking up something very strange- what is it?" "Wizard, something is ...
glenatron's user avatar
  • 1,553
2 votes

Staying in character and taking it all seriously

Why not both? Our group very much enjoys intense, character-based role-play. We come up with PCs that have strong personas and emotions. The Plot-Lines lead us down challenging paths, where we ...
Black Spike's user avatar
  • 3,226
2 votes

How can I roleplay a vulgar character without using profanity?

'Feck' notably lacks the sexual connotations that "f-ck" has but can otherwise be used to replace "f-ck" in any other way—this includes terms such as "fecking", "...
Konchog's user avatar
  • 143
1 vote
Accepted

Gracefully roleplaying the end of the world without implying mass extinction

Have the end of the world be cyclic, and people hibernate Having everyone die is pretty morbid, yes, so rather than that have everyone go to sleep. I've done this when doing philosophical campaigns ...
Nepene Nep's user avatar
  • 19.2k
1 vote

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

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 ...
R.I.P.30.12.21Baskakov_Dmitriy's user avatar

Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible