The competitive player

[10d10]

So... on my gaming group there's this new(ish) guy. He presented us with Pathfinder, a place to game and a Paizo-made adventure.

At first we were very interested in those sweet new system and all. But as a GM he was the "I'll show you how well I know this game and you suck at it" kind of guy. I think he went a bit far on the minmaxing thing and... well, he was more happy beating the players with his buffed NPCs than actually GMing.

That pre made adventure turned to be meh to the group, because he basically read from the book, line by line, put the minis on the map and we fought. It was very mechanical, very.... boring, really.

So the group lost interest and once our old GM (let's call him Oldy) got back on his feet and revived our old, dear, campaign... well, we were a happy bunch of people (very into it and awfully close to our characters).

Of course we asked if the new guy wanted to join our group, he accepted, he built his character and things started to fall apart.

Basically the guy had this great vision for his character: and evil elf with a powerful animal companion, but being quite powerful himself, the character could do everything... alone (with a sprinkle of cruelty, since he was evil).

We were running a Good alignment campaign, with well balanced roles (a fighter, a thief, a wizard, a sorcerer...), Oldy, the GM, said "look, try to tune the evilness down", but the new guy started to compete with everyone at the table: measuring stats, doing solo missions, questblocking, cockblocking... Not to mention that one time (at the band camp) when he started to go all "WOHOO I ROLLED HIGHER THAN EVERYONE SUCKERS!!1ONE"

Bottom line is this: we lost 3 players, Oldy has no idea what to do anymore and asked for my advice since "happy nice chat with a player" isn't working. So I'm asking you guys:

How do you deal with those uber competitive players? How do you handle the One-Man-Group build characters? And what if the guy is just being a jerk?

[pelzak]

Hi,

Present the basic rules to him:
- good alignment campaign only
- cooperative mode of playing
- any other points that needs to be agreed
- limit him to some tier of characters if he like to min-max

1. If he will accept and follow the rules then play together.
2. If he will accept but will not follow guidelines warn him first time.
If he will still break the agreement kick him out.
3. If he will not accept then kick him out.

Simple as it is.

Best regards,
Pelzak

[ImperatorK]

Kick him out if he's not able to behave like a normal, decent human being.

[CaptRory]

The GM's job is to make sure everyone has fun. This includes dealing with troublesome players. If talking to him didn't work, and he's not making the corrections, then he has to be booted from the group.

You can't be passive aggressive about it though. The "Talking" Part needs to be clear and direct. Then failure to change needs to be followed up by firmly booting him to the curb.

[sirpercival]

I mean, if people are leaving the game, it should be obvious.  "If you don't clean up your act, all the other players aren't going to want to play with you, and neither will I.  So if you want to game with us, you need to change how you go about it."

[cvar]

Remove him from the group, he's not a good match for your play style.

[Unbeliever]

Kick him out if he's not able to behave like a normal, decent human being.

+1

Finding the right tone and power level for a pre-established game and group can be a challenge and take some trial and error for the new guy.  Having been on both sides of that situation I'm very understanding.  But, this guy just sounds like a dick.  And, a lot of gamer bad stereotypes all at once to boot. 

If you're feeling generous, give him one more talking to and try and bring the other guys back into the game.  Otherwise, tell him to fuck off.  You can also mulligan the past few sessions for a fresh start.  You've been restarting the campaign anyway. 

[ImperatorK]

+1

And yet my Recog is still the same.




;P

[Nachofan99]

I dunno this situation seems like it's missing a lot of information.

Why was he allowed to build an Evil character in a Good game?
Does your DM not know that Druids are ridiculously good?  Why was this allowed again?
Your Wizard and Sorceror can't compete with this guy?  Are your other players any good?

A new player came in and challenged a bunch of "assumptions" for your group, and that makes him the jerk?

This sounds like your DM is not very talented or knowledgeable of the 3.x/Finder system to me.

Don't get me wrong, a player that's saying stuff like "In your face I roll better than everyone - I am better than everyone!" is a jerk and needs to become a team player and nice person first and foremost. 

But saying "Sure play whatever you would like in my campaign" and then having him literally do that, and THEN call him out for building a great character while everyone else has very "Meh" characters seems odd.

I think the solution lies in the middle somewhere; the group and DM need to get a little more system mastery under their belt, and that guy has to reign it in too.

[caelic]

There's a world of difference between an experienced player who comes into a group of inexperienced players and uses his system knowledge to help them become better players, and an experienced player who comes into a group of inexperienced players and waves his knowledge around because he has Freudian issues.

The former is an asset; the latter is an ass.

[ImperatorK]

The former is an asset; the latter is an ass.

I see what you did there.

[10d10]

I dunno this situation seems like it's missing a lot of information.

Why was he allowed to build an Evil character in a Good game?
Does your DM not know that Druids are ridiculously good?  Why was this allowed again?
Your Wizard and Sorceror can't compete with this guy?  Are your other players any good?

A new player came in and challenged a bunch of "assumptions" for your group, and that makes him the jerk?

This sounds like your DM is not very talented or knowledgeable of the 3.x/Finder system to me.

Don't get me wrong, a player that's saying stuff like "In your face I roll better than everyone - I am better than everyone!" is a jerk and needs to become a team player and nice person first and foremost. 

But saying "Sure play whatever you would like in my campaign" and then having him literally do that, and THEN call him out for building a great character while everyone else has very "Meh" characters seems odd.

I think the solution lies in the middle somewhere; the group and DM need to get a little more system mastery under their belt, and that guy has to reign it in too.

As caelic said, there are people with more experience in a system that are a dick about it when they enter a new group. This was the case and an escalating problem, it took a year to take us where we are now. At first he was the only person with the system books, the only one who read them and the one who sweet talked the old GM to change systems.

That, imo, was a bad move on the GM part, but the group voted and Pathfinder looked cleaner and less broken than 3.5 (I really never minded 3.5, my old Battle Mage was pretty badass and things were fun in the campaign).

Now to answer the remaining questions:

The GM talked to the guy about his evil character. He said he tuned down and changed alignment to chaotic neutral, but when it came to the actual play, he was still behaving like an evil char.

Does your DM not know that Druids are ridiculously good?  Why was this allowed again?

No, the GM thought Pathfinder was well-balanced for all the characters (that's how the new guy sold the system to everyone anyways)

the group and DM need to get a little more system mastery under their belt, and that guy has to reign it in too.

Agreed. I think the GM should grow some balls and learn to say no instead of PCs turning to bitchslap one another to solve these frictions, but since these boards tend to give me helpful insights with a bunch of RPG-related topics, I wanted to hear from other people's experience. This was  the first time we had such a...bizarre player on the group.

[veekie]

The GM talked to the guy about his evil character. He said he tuned down and changed alignment to chaotic neutral

This happens a lot. Generally a bad sign if they switch from evil to chaos when denied evil, because it means they intend to pull the lolrandom card when questioned about evil acts.

[McBeardly]

Kick him out and hope that the 3 other players are willing to come back. Nothing of value will have been lost.

[Libertad]

The GM talked to the guy about his evil character. He said he tuned down and changed alignment to chaotic neutral

This happens a lot. Generally a bad sign if they switch from evil to chaos when denied evil, because it means they intend to pull the lolrandom card when questioned about evil acts.

Chaotic Neutral people don't go out of their way to protect (Chaotic Good) or oppress others (Chaotic Evil).    I usually think of Chaotic Neutral like Libertarianism (as it was meant to be in theory), and treat it as such in games I run.

Tell him that randomness for the sake of randomness does not exempt you from evil acts, and that being a "free spirit" does not make you immune to alignment change.  Deciding to become an iron-fisted tyrant and kill random innocents on a whim makes you evil.

Also tell him that that there's no need to rub his rules mastery in everybody's faces.  It's like a rich guy with an awesome deck playing Yu-Gi-Oh against 10-year-olds.  He's not doing it for the fun of the game so much as to stroke his own ego.  If he's a good optimizer, then he'd certainly have no problem helping out the new guys.

[Halinn]

Tell him that randomness for the sake of randomness does not exempt you from evil acts, and that being a "free spirit" does not make you immune to alignment change.  Deciding to become an iron-fisted tyrant and kill random innocents on a whim makes you evil.

Iron-fisted tyrants are more likely to be LE, aren't they?

Also tell him that that there's no need to rub his rules mastery in everybody's faces.  It's like a rich guy with an awesome deck playing Yu-Gi-Oh against 10-year-olds.

[10d10]

Chaotic Neutral people don't go out of their way to protect (Chaotic Good) or oppress others (Chaotic Evil).    I usually think of Chaotic Neutral like Libertarianism (as it was meant to be in theory), and treat it as such in games I run.

Oh those pretty good alignment examples!

I know (from experience and from what I read out there) that its really easy to find misinterpretation over this. Even the lawful good character sometimes get pushed into a jerk behavior from this or that player... and many times the chaotic turns into "I'll do whatever I want because I'm so chaotic. Lets rape babies!"

Is there any topic here on the boards related to alignment discussion?

[Libertad]

"I'll do whatever I want" is Chaotic Evil, especially when it relates to sadistic torture.  The problem isn't with Chaotic Neutral so much as players using that alignment to justify sick fantasies.

But that's just an extreme example.

Here's a good thread discussing the flaws in the alignment system.

You also need to spell out what alignment means, whether you're a player or DM.  If you're a player, ask the DM.

It's a good idea to be aware of the contradictions in alignment.  Oddly enough, Barbarians and Druids are considered "closer to nature," yet both have different alignment restrictions.  Barbarians can't be lawful "because they're wild at heart," while Druids have to be any neutral "in order to preserve the balance of nature."  And Chaotic people can have their own personal code of conduct, while Ember the Monk is considered lawful due to a personal code of conduct.

Example: Chaotic alignment is associated with anti-authoritarianism, insanity, unpredictability, and individualism.  Lawful alignment is associated with authoritarianism, collectivism, order, and dedication to a code of conduct.  Many of these things are not associated together. 

A Libertarian is an anti-authoritarian individualist, but he's predictable in that he almost always opposes expansive government control and growth.  Many are also are dedicated to a code of conduct ("do what you want as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of another").  What alignment do you think this covers?  What alignment does your DM think this covers?

[10d10]

You also need to spell out what alignment means, whether you're a player or DM.  If you're a player, ask the DM.

It's a good idea to be aware of the contradictions in alignment.  Oddly enough, Barbarians and Druids are considered "closer to nature," yet both have different alignment restrictions.  Barbarians can't be lawful "because they're wild at heart," while Druids have to be any neutral "in order to preserve the balance of nature."  And Chaotic people can have their own personal code of conduct, while Ember the Monk is considered lawful due to a personal code of conduct.

Example: Chaotic alignment is associated with anti-authoritarianism, insanity, unpredictability, and individualism.  Lawful alignment is associated with authoritarianism, collectivism, order, and dedication to a code of conduct.  Many of these things are not associated together. 

A Libertarian is an anti-authoritarian individualist, but he's predictable in that he's almost always opposes expansive government control and growth.  Many are also are dedicated to a code of conduct ("do what you want as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of another").  What alignment do you think this covers?  What alignment does your DM think this covers?

"do what you want as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of another" sounds like chaotic good, maybe chaotic neutral?

I'll check the alignment post, but from all I gather here about the problem in our group, the main issue should be solved by the DM having a steady and firm hand while talking to the player... and asking nicely to stop the Ruler Lawyer thing, because sometimes the roleplaying part ends up being more important than "who knows what best".

[veekie]

"do what you want as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of another" sounds like chaotic good, maybe chaotic neutral?

Chaotic Neutral. The non-intervention clause(does not infringe) seals it.
Chaotic Evil would not care about others rights(and in fact, infringing others rights may be considered a bonus factor for a total sociopath).
Chaotic Good would not be doing what they want, but what is best for everyone, in the way they think best.