Speaker 1: Howdy, how's it going? My name's Davy Chappie, and I have had a lot of experience playing with players who play too much. One of the advantages of having my whole life revolve around D&D is that my whole life ends up revolving around other people as well, which has made me well acclimated to the wants and desires of your typical tabletopper. But I have also found that some of the people who top tables are only out for their own pleasure, and so it's my job to warn you of the red flags and teach you how to fortify your boundaries against the problem players. As always, keep in mind that the majority of this is just my opinion, so if you're the type of person who believes that any tiny step away from pure individualism is a direct attack on you, feel free to play your games however you want. But before we get to the video, it's ad time. Have you ever played D&D and thought, hey, 5e is nice and all, but the game is so simple that a baby could learn it, and I haven't had an accident in two weeks, so I want something crunchier. If this describes you, then you need Alcander's Almanac of All Things, a modular 5e rules expansion for combat, exploration, and social encounters. This book gives you new rules for the three pillars of your favorite role-playing game. For combat, you get new conditions, spell mechanics, and martial actions. For exploration, you learn new ways to run travel and downtime. And for social encounters, you get new mechanics on how talking could affect the game, new ideas on how to prod your players into speaking more, and a fancy new reputation system. Hot off the presses and onto your table. Other features include a complete overhaul of the weapon and crafting systems, and so much more that you'll look like the child of a helicopter parent after the first snow of winter. All this can be yours if you check out the kickstarter link in the description below. Alcander's Almanac of All Things. Why play 5e when you can play 55e? But with that out of the way, let's begin. So the goal of D&D is to have fun. It's rule zero, the golden burger king crown, the reason why we waste all of our time staring at plastic and hallucinating magic in a non-drug way. And every time that something happens to you, it makes you happy. Happiness is fun, fun is the point of the game, we play to be happy. It only makes sense, then, that you would want to maximize your happiness by having the most fun possible. And on that ladder to the top, there are bound to be losers. Not to say that everybody who inconveniences you is in a malicious plot to directly attack you and destroy your fun for their own personal gain, but it's easy for people to misconstrue how their behavior is going to affect others. I genuinely don't believe that people are inherently evil, but what I do think is that people are inherently selfish, and will often take the path of least resistance, whether that be a good or a bad thing. You don't purposefully set your friends up for failure and chip away at their internalized sense of self-worth, you just have a joke and you think that this person is the best person to get punchlined. Growing up, I was stuck in a friend group that was hyper-fixated on individual gain, both on and off the tabletop, so I got first-hand knowledge of what it looks like to be on the shorter end of the stick, and more importantly, how to spot the different types of problem players. The main type of peepee that you have to worry about is a player who's focusing too much on themselves without realizing that they're absorbing the fun out of the room like a black hole of social awkward cues. This type of player is honestly the most easy to deal with. A player that isn't coming from a place of malice will usually be genuinely bothered by the realization that they've negatively impacted their friends, and will work on their own to fix their behavior once they've been told about it. With that being the case, you should keep in mind that social games are a two-way street, and if you feel like the root of the problem is just pure ignorance, then you should also try to nudge them in the right direction, and acknowledge that they're taking steps away from that unwanted behavior. Most people don't want to be the reason why their friends are having a bad time, and positive affirmation is a better signal than cold indifference. That said, there are some people who do want to have a bad time, or even get a thrill out of antagonizing their friends until either they all rage-quit, or the problem player ends out on top. These are the types of players who run into a fight after the party explicitly tries to avoid combat, or steals items, sells them on the black market, and then murders the fence to steal their item back and frame it on the druid. To them, the game is their recreational time. They put the effort into showing up, and by goob, they're gonna have their fun, whiners be damned. The path to dealing with this player is pretty similar to dealing with a player who's causing problems by accident, in that you should talk to them and let them know that their shit won't fly, but don't give them the wiggle room to do it again. If I think that a player is sabotaging their party, I stop the session, and I go through all the reasons why what they're doing is shitty, and I make it clear that in a game about group cooperation, I'm not gonna let one player go on a point-and-click adventure to win the game by themselves. Of course, some players are craftier than others, and they'll try to toe on the line of social acceptance so that they can get what they want while also having plausible deniability. Maybe, after going through a dungeon, they just happen to be the only person with the key to the chest, which just happens to give them first pick of the loot, which just happens to give them enough gold to buy riding horses, which just happens to give that player control over where the party goes next. More than anything else, beware the player who uses their knowledge or gear over the game to put themselves in a position where they're making all of the important choices in a party, because that player is hard to notice, especially when they sound so reasonable. I mean, they do have the horses, and they're part of the group, so they're gonna try to work with the group, right? And it's not like they didn't help out in the dungeon, so why shouldn't they decide where to go? A good player will defer to the party, and a good player in a leadership position will use the tools at their disposal to help their allies make an informed decision on their own, rather than heavily imply that they should go to the cave of wonders where one lucky person can get a wish. Regardless of the method, players who put their own feelings before everyone else's tend to draw the ire of their fellow party members, but it's important to remember that in the end, we're all still human, and we all still want something. Some of us are just better at working to get it. So sometimes the best option to smooth things over is just give the player what they want. Now, let me be clear here. Give them what they want is not a go-to solution to get them to leave you alone. If you give in to someone's pressure, then they're gonna keep doing it once they see that it works. But nobody is angry over nothing, so if you can identify what's actually causing the player to act up, you can deal with the behavioral problems separately. Tell the player that their actions aren't okay, and let them know that that's not going to be tolerated, but if they're receptive to it, you should help them with whatever issue they were having as well. Once again, check behavior first, that has to be curtailed, but if your response is just, you suck and we won't help you, then they might end up internalizing that they suck and you won't help them. There's no sense in being obstinate to make a point if you actually stand a chance of helping someone, and then, if they try to get what they want again by repeating the same behavioral problems, dropkick them into the sun. I had a player who constantly wanted all the treasure that the party collected, so I just made him filthy rich, and I said that if he used his wealth against the party, I'd take it away from him. He stopped stealing from the party, and he knew that he was getting way off better than he quote-unquote should be, so he didn't rock the boat anymore. You may think that this is just giving concessions to a whiny player, and for the most part, it is, but the end result is that everyone was happy and the game continued, so who actually cares? If he messed up again, I could just say, well, I tried, and then frisbee his character sheet into the realm of not my problem. I've had players who create characters specifically to antagonize me. I've had players who manipulate me into a position where their mechanics automatically tell me to eat shit. I've been pushed into a den of spiders, killed, yelled at for not dedicating my life to helping someone who won't help themselves, and every little thing grew me a thicker skin that I did not want and I do not care for. But now, I'm in a position where I know where my boundaries are, and as a DM, I can make sure that other people know where everyone else's boundaries are as well. It's not just important to deal with a problem player, it's important to make sure that they understand why they're a problem player, and it's much more important to equip every player with the means to recognize when they're being taken advantage of, and be an example for players who want to understand how to stop being taken advantage of. And that brings me to the last issue, which is, what happens when the DM is enabling problem players? Whether it's a DM letting their friends get away with things, or prioritizing their romantic interest, or just simply not thinking that problematic behavior is a problem, sometimes you don't get the backing of the DM like you need to, which leaves you in a weird spot where there's clearly a fire in the middle of the living room, but the landlord won't do anything because he wants to stick his dick in it. First, obviously, you should try to talk to your DM privately, voice your thoughts, and see if you can change their mind. If the DM responds with, what are you talking about, there is no problem, then it might behoove you to check with your fellow players to see if it's actually all in your head. If it's a group concern, you should have more players talk to the DM to let them know that your feelings aren't alone, but if it is something that only you feel, then you've got a choice to make. Stick it out and see if it gets better, or ride off into the sunset and find another game. There's no shame in picking that last one either. It's your free time, and not every table will work with everybody, so if you're not having fun, go do something that will be fun. Now, if the DM says that they'll try to fix things, and then silently does nothing and hopes that everybody at the table gets really cool with shit overnight, then you might be in the presence of a bad DM, and it might be time to find a new one. It's a hard pill to swallow, but when you find an issue with another person, DM, or player, sometimes the best thing to do is take your ball and go home. I spent my entire high school career in the presence of a DM who played favorites, and players who played favorites, and I sure wasn't ever the favorite, but it still took me until after high school when I looked back at all those D&D sessions to realize, wait a minute, I don't think I enjoyed that, and it would have saved me a lot of time to just peace out, but I had it in my head that quitting was a four-letter word, so I used that internalized parental guidance to wear down my self-esteem like a real man, and now look at me, I'm amazing. The point is that it can be hard to know when to drop a table, especially when it's a table consisting of your friends, but you'll never know whether the problems you're facing are actually legitimate until you see it from a different perspective, and then you'll be able to spot a problem player from a mile away, or at least you'll drop social groups a lot more often. Either one's a win, but that'll about do it. I hope you enjoyed this video, be sure to leave a like, comment, subscribe, ring the bell, check out all my social media in the description below, and maybe support me on Patreon so that I can pay problem players to leave me alone. But yeah, Dabby out.