The Rules Lawyer is probably the most reviled problem player after the Munchkin. He constantly questions the GM’s rulings. He complains loudly and constantly when the GM deviates from the printed rules, often causing the game to degenerate into lengthy and heated arguments over whose interpretation of the rules is right. These arguments eat up play time and cause bad feelings among the group.

Some Rules Lawyers simply love to argue. But for many, the driving force behind those arguments is fear. He simply doesn’t trust the GM to act fairly towards his character. After all, if the GM can change rules on a whim, what’s to stop her from suddenly deciding that the Rules Lawyer’s character can no longer use his abilities? If the rules change, how will he know what he can and can’t do in the context of the game?

Most Rules Layers that I’ve encountered have came from games where the players and the GM were at odds. Sticking to the absolute letter of the rules was the only way these players could succeed. Even so, many game sessions still devolved into slightly more sophisticated “Are not! Are too!” arguments.

Actually, the Rules Lawyer’s reactions are quite natural. After all, we spend a lot of time teaching our children to follow the written rules of a game. If they don’t, we tell them they’re cheating. And cheating is bad.

Then they take up roleplaying and suddenly they’re told that rules are just guidelines and can be changed. But only by one person: the GM. If all you’ve ever encountered are board and card games where every player is on a equal footing, having a player who doesn’t need to follow the rules is rather confusing.

Add to it that in the other games they play, they compete against the other players. It’s hard for a Rules Lawyer to lose that sense of competition. After all, every other game has competition. Other games have only a single winner. If the players are to act a single team, that leaves the GM as the only competition.

Rules Lawyers primarily cause problems in two ways:

1. Taking a literal interpretation of the rules, then challenging anyone else’s interpretation,
2. constantly interrupting the game to argue for their interpretation.

Most Rules Lawyers aren’t trying to ruin the game. In fact, they see themselves doing just the opposite. They genuinely believe they’re helping the GM run the game “right”.

How to deal with a Rules Lawyer

1. Listen to the Rules Lawyer—briefly. Let him briefly state his views and listen for anything in his arguments you can agree with. Then tell him you’ve heard what he said, that you agree with points A, B, and C, but in the interest of keeping the game running, you’re making this temporary decision which will last until the end of the current game session. Tell him you’ll consider what he said between game sessions and that you’ll make a final ruling by the beginning of the next session. Then make sure you do.

2. Put house rules in writing. Print them out and pass them out to the players, preferably during character creation or when they first join. If any player wants to argue these rules, consider that a red flag—she may not be a good match for your game.

3. Ask for help. Consulting the Rules Lawyer on mechanics you’re not sure of can help promote the feeling that the two of you are on the same side. You can add to this by asking him to help the other players learn the rules. The Rules Lawyer prides himself on his knowledge of the rules. Make him feel that he and his knowledge are assets to the game and you’ll have gained an ally rather than an opponent.

Basically, it comes down to a matter of trust: your players need to trust you. They need to understand that you all want the same thing–to make the best game possible.

[Photo courtesy of Hatchibombotar via Flickr Creative Commons]

This is an excerpt from The GM’s Field Guide to Players, the up-coming book from rpgGM.com, due to be released this Summer 2012.

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• Rules lawyer (Wikipedia)
• Rules Lawyers (Shirtoid)
• How to handle a rule-lawyer player (Role-Playing Games forum)

I just got most of the manuscript back from my editor (she’s still working on the last few pages, but I expect to have those back in my hands in the next week or so). I’m now starting on the final rewrite before I throw it all into InDesign and make a final product out of it.

I’m going to be posting some more excerpts of the book here, so keep checking back.

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It’s been a while since the last update, so I thought I’d let y’all know the progress of The GM’s Field Guide to Players.

I’ve finally finished the first round of my edits. That means the manuscript goes to my heart sister and editor for the next round. Hopefully, I get the manuscript into her hands later this week, as her editing will take a minimum of a couple of weeks.

At least I’ve gotten the contents settled on. The first part of the book covers player types in detail. I know I included a section of them in The Adventure Creation Handbook, but this book builds on those brief descriptions and provides detailed information about how to use that information in-game. The second part of the book covers how to deal with problem players in general and several common types of problem players specifically.

Why a large section on player types? Because most types of problem players are simply player types gone to an extreme. It helps to understand the functional version of a player type before dealing with the disfunctional version.

I’m also hoping to have a flowchart to help you diagnose what type of problem player you’re dealing with, though that’s currently giving me some trouble, so time will be the deciding factor with that. If the book is ready for layout before the flowchart is, the flowchart will have to wait for the second edition of the FGP.

The bonus freebies will be a booklet for dealing with cheating players and a second book of general GMing tips from my blog, Evil Machinations, and from this site, laid-out in book format to make them easier to read.

That’s it for now. As always, I’ll keep you up-to-date as progress on the FGP continues.

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Just a quick note today letting everyone know that The Adventure Creation Handbook is now available for the Kindle.

Obviously, I wasn’t able to include the worksheets and the whole book is stripped down to the text information. I did list the worksheet and checklist questions at the end of the Kindle version and anyone who purchases a Kindle copy will be able to download a free PDF copy of the “Adventure Creation Worksheet” from the rpgGM.com website.

Just in case the above link doesn’t work, here’s the actual page address:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Adventure-Creation-Handbook-ebook/dp/B007898QYI/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329168270&sr=1-1

This post talks about Character Actor, the player who lives for being someone else.

Description

There are many types of Character Actors. Some like to play the same type of characters over and over (like the player who only plays elves). Some like to recreate their favorite heroes or cool protagonists from fiction and film. Others tend to create the most tortured existence possible for their characters, and still others just like to “crawl into the heads” of their characters and be someone else for a while.

Many Character Actors love research and will spend hours scouring the Internet and reading books to help them create a character that it “authentic” to the time and location of your game setting. He may even dress like his character would, as best he can. You’ll often find he speaks in his character’s “voice” by using his accent or word choices. He Character Actor I knew created an entire slang vocabulary for her character.

A Character Actor’s in-game actions will be what he believes his character would do, regardless how tactically sound they may (or may not) be. He may have difficulty compromising his character’s actions for the “sake of the game.” When creating characters, he will often pick unusual combinations of abilities or odd powers.

These choices will be based not on what would give his character the best combat or skill advantage, but on what he thinks his character would know and what fits the backstory he’s created for it. It’s not unheard of for a Character Actor to create a PC with high scores in “useless” skills, such as History, Art, or Academics, but without any combat ability . Character Actors often love to create oddball characters, then write a backstory that justifies or explains their choices. Police your Character Actor’s choices as carefully as you would your Power Gamer’s. Remind him that without some combat ability, his PC won’t survive long enough to find his lost brother, discover the history of his family’s cherished artifact or whatever the character’s super-objective¹ is.

A Character Actor is surprisingly easy to accommodate in-game: just give him a chance to be his character for at least a little while each game session. He will likely enjoy a games sessions where the dice don’t even come out of their bags, as long as there is plenty of character interaction, both with NPCs and other PCs. Have the local shopkeeper ask how his younger sister is doing or let some townswoman ask after the health of his pet or animal companion. You may not even need a whole lot of input from the NPC–most Character Actors love to have their PCs talk about themselves. If nothing else, you can always start a conversation with “What’s a nice girl (or boy) like you doing mixed up in a situation like this.” You’re likely to have more difficulty ending a conversation with a Character Actor than starting it.

Things to do and not do.

• Give him a chance to warm up to new players. Character Actors live to talk to people in the game, but many are quite shy in Real Life. It’s likely to take him a while to feel comfortable around new people. Let him interact with the other PCs first; once he’s comfortable with that, he’ll be more comfortable interacting with the other players.
• Use the people from his character background. This is a player who will be thrilled that his PC’s younger brother comes around asking for a loan, or his mother gets word that the PC was wounded in battle and arrives with chicken soup and information about a “nice girl” he can settle down with. Player may not sound thrilled, but usually that’s only because he’s speaking in character. Ask him about it afterwords, and he’ll probably tell you he absolutely loved it.
• Give him frequent chances to roleplay. Allow you Character Actor the chance to take center stage for a little while. Small but frequent “spotlight scenes” tend to work better than occasional longer ones.
• Give some control to the player. The next time he asks what a particular NPC looks like (particularly one that’s not important to the game), say: “You tell me.” Let him be a co-creator within the boundaries you set up and will probably find your minor NPCs become easier for the players to tell apart and remember.

¹Super-objective: The over-arching goal of a character that governs his actions and choices; the one goal that the character dedicates his life to completing

This is an excerpt from the GM’s Field Guide to Players, the up-coming book from rpgGM.com.

[Photo courtesy of pinguino via Flickr Creative Commons]

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• Rules-Lawyers: Dealing with the guy who has all the answers (rpggm.com)
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• 13 Ways to Keep Good Players (rpggm.com)
• Cheating Players: 8 Ways to Deal With Character Sheet Cheats (rpggm.com)

One common way players cheat is by using false or misleading character sheets, or by lying about what’s on their sheet. They “forget” their character sheets, or suddenly decide to spend experience points in the middle of session (usually just before combat), or they “misremember” a skill score (always in their favor, of course).

It’s usually a good idea to create some firm rules about character sheets:

1. Require players to use easy-to-read character sheets. You can choose to require everyone to use the same type of character sheet, or you can let players use one of their choosing. You just want to make sure that you can find the information you need on it quickly and easily.
2. Keep a copy of every player’s character. This gives you a couple of advantages: you have PC information at hand when you’re planning the next game session and you have a copy to loan in case a player forgets his.
3. Require all experience and character advancement to be done between game sessions. Or, alternatively, you could set aside part of game session for everyone to up-date their characters at the same time and then start play.
4. Make a firm rule that your copy of the character sheet overrides a player’s. It should be a player’s responsibility to notify you of any changes to her character and to do so between game sessions. Once play starts for a particular session, if it’s not on your copy of her character, it doesn’t count.
5. Require all character changes be approved by you before they’re used in play.
6. Add all static modifiers in advance. Have your players write their static modifiers clearly on their character sheets. Check a player’s math from time to time–one sheet per game session until you’ve checked them all, is a good rule of thumb.
7. Do the math for the players. Have them give you the “raw” die roll result and add all the modifiers yourself.
8. Remind the players of their numbers. At the beginning of each game session, read off the PCs’ critical numbers (initiative, AC, hit points, blood points, etc.) as you currently have them.
9. Watch to see if a player has more than one copy of character sheet. Some players have multiple versions of their characters, each “optimized” (read “fudged”) for different situations. A player may have one copy of his character for combat and another (slightly different) for social situations. If you think a player is using more than one version of a sheet for a single character, ask to see all copies and then make them correspond to your copy.

Of course, all of these are suggestions only and you certainly don’t have to use them all. Pick which ones you think will work best for you and your group and, as always, fold, spindle and mutilate to your heart’s content.

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Truthfully, I knew what I should do; the problem was, I didn’t want to take that route and it took me several weeks to face up to that fact and finally do what I knew needed to be done.

Let me explain.

The basic problem is this: by the time I finished the entire first draft of The GM’s Field Guide to Players (FGP), I realized the durn thing was just too long. I was looking about almost 200 pages of material about dealing with players. It was too big, I knew that. I would have to charge at least $20 for the book and I don’t think many people would be willing to pay that much for a PDF about players.

After all, we’re not talking about core rules here.

While I knew that all the material in the book-to-be would be useful, I knew that one section would be of more interest than any other–the one about how to deal with problem players. The problem was, I’d already promised the readers of this blog that the book would cover more than that. That was the thing that had kept me from cutting out the other material.

I finally realized I was just going to have to do it anyway. I’ve kept the section on player types and all the sections on dealing with problem players. The book will still be called The GM’s Field Guide to Players. The rest of the material (covering finding players, keeping good players, introducing new players to your game, etc.) will appear in either The Campaign Creation Handbook or on my blog, Evil Machinations.

I’m currently about halfway through the first edit of the manuscript, which I’m going (come hell or high water ) to finish this week. Then I’m looking at passing the second draft to my editors for their feedback, then the final rewrite, creating the product layout, typesetting and illustrations… Hopefully, the book will be available mid-February.

Meanwhile, keep checking back here for more updates as the FGP progresses. I’m also going to be doing an update of The Adventure Creation Handbook and I’ve started researching for The Campaign Creation Handbook, which will be rpgGM’s third book.

I’m also considering offering an on-line adventure creation class, but I’m not sure how many people would be interested in and willing to pay for it. It’s looking at being around $50 minimum, with lessons delivered directly to your email and a password-protected blog or forum for posting homework. The class would be self-paced, with the goal of actually producing a finished adventure. If this is something that would interest you, please leave me a comment below. I’m just at the beginning stages of putting this together, so I’m not sure when it would be available.

Keep looking here for the FGP and other product updates and excerpts.

Related articles on this site

• Rules-Lawyers: Dealing with the guy who has all the answers (rpggm.com)
• Dealing with Problem Players: The Munchkin (rpggm.com)
• 13 Ways to Keep Good Players (rpggm.com)
• Dealing with the Socialite: a Casual Player Type (rpggm.com)
• How to Talk to a Problem Player (rpggm.com)

Socialites aren’t necessarily new players who are still trying to get a handle on this “roleplaying thing” (though they might be). Many of them have been playing for years, always in the shadows, often paying more attention to the contents of your book shelves than to the game itself. They just want to hang out with the group and since the group likes to game, well, here they are. Usually you don’t have to worry much about these players; just let them maintain their backseat position and they’ll be happy.

Unintentionally, this player type may make you feel like a bad GM. No matter what you do, you can’t get him engaged with the group or game. He doesn’t mean to cause problems—in fact, causing problems is the last thing this player type wants to do. Rest assured–it’s not you or your game; the Socialite is only here for the company. You may wonder where you’re going wrong when, in truth, nothing you do or don’t do will make him more involved in the game. If your Socialite keeps showing up game after game, no matter how much of a wallflower he is, your game is probably just fine.

If you have any doubts, a quick conversation with the Socialite will usually put your mind at ease. If not, you’re dealing with a frustrated player of another type, rather than a true Socialite.

This is the easiest type of player to deal with on-the-spot. Just leave him alone. Let him peruse his comic book or stack dice, or just listen to what’s going on. Touch base with him occasionally throughout the session: have him make a skill check, or just ask what his character is doing in that particular scene. Just don’t get upset if he responds minimally. While it can feel like your GMing isn’t reaching him, it’s more likely he’s just here for the company, especially if he only contributes minimally when invited to do more. Let him do some dice rolling, but don’t force him into role-playing a scene or taking a major part in a complex operation. With this player type, you’ll only make him uncomfortable by trying to get him more involved.

Virtues and Flaws

Virtues

You’ll never hear a Socialite complain about feeling left-out or upstaged by another player. He’s not going to get into a rules argument with you. And he can often round out the party with a needed character type no one else wants to play. You’ll also never hear him complain if him character dies. He’ll happily take over an NPC or create a new PC, especially if one of the other players helps him.

Flaws

The biggest problem you’ll have to deal with this player type is the distraction factor. Having some at the table reading can draw other players’ attentions. Socialites have  tendency to start side conversations on non-game-related topics. He may also frustrate you  and the other players by needing constant reminders about where the party is and what dice he should be rolling now. Don’t expect a Socialite to spend any time or effort learning the rules.

Dealing with a Socialite

Out of character

Let him slip into the background. Don’t try to force this player type into the lime-light. To help speed up play and avoid you  having to tell the Socialite how to roll for initiative for the seventh time tonight, pair him up with another (patient) player. Pick someone who can guide him through the game with suggestions about what his character could do in a given situation and what dice to roll when. You may need to rotate this job among a handful of players, so no one gets stuck “babysitting” all the time.

Socialites make good reality checks. If the group gets into a heated argument over something related to the game, this player type can often be the voice of reason, providing a calm, reasoned opinion or observation that puts the whole issue into perspective.

He may be also willing to role-play NPCs or party henchmen/companions, if needed. Most Socialites I’ve known don’t mind switch-hitting to play a character other than his own. He generally has no emotional investment in his character, which means he’ll also be more than happy to round out the party by playing a needed character type no one else wants to play.

In character

The best way to deal with a Socialite in-character is don’t. That sounds harsh and I don’t mean you should ignore him completely. For example, combat’s breaking out and you’re going around the table asking people what their characters are doing. Don’t skip the Socialite as well, even if he’s leafing through a magazine. On the other hand, don’t make plot line that features his character.You’ll just make him uncomfortable and he may even stop playing all together.

Socialite Sub-classes

The Merry Lark

The merry lark is usually an engaged member of the game group. You probably won’t even realize she’s a Socialite—until something bad happens to the PCs. Then you find out the Merry Lark can’t take the game seriously. TPK? The Merry Lark will laugh and make a comment like “Well, that was a hoot, wasn’t it? Anyone up for Munchkin?” To her, it’s just a game—she’ll approach roleplaying with the same emotional investment she would a game of Crazy 8’s. She honestly won’t understand why the rest of the players are so worked up about it.

The Wisecrack

This is player who just can’t stop cracking jokes during the game. Frequently, this takes the form of puns, but may just as frequently be sexual innuendo or other form of humor. While every game needs a good laugh now and then, the Wisecrack takes it too far. At the funeral of a good and much-beloved king, the punster will be the guy dancing around with the lampshade on his head, trying to get people to “lighten up.”

They often view the game as one long setup to a punchline, which they’re happy to provide if no one else does. If you call him to task about it, he’ll say something along the lines of “Aw,cummon, it’s a game, right? It’s supposed to be fun.” He just can’t see that after awhile, the constant joking wears really thin.

[This is an excerpt from the GM’s Field Guide to Players, the up-coming book from rpgGM.coml.]

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1. Make every player feel like their PC is your favorite character. Focus on each PC in the party for a set period of time: one session, one month, one adventure. The length of time doesn’t matter as much as making sure that every PC gets the same amount of time.
2.  Read what your players give you. It’s important to them, or they wouldn’t have given it to you in the first place. Find a way to incorporate something from that information into your game, even if it’s just having the character run into a college roommate and say “Hi.”
3. Try to give every player the same amount of attention every game session. You don’t need to set a timer for exactly 10 minutes (though you certainly can, if it makes it easier); just rotate your attention on a regular basis. If circumstances cause you to spend a greater amount of time in one session with one or more players, try to give the same amount of time to the other players over the course of the next few sessions.
4. Listen to your players, in and out of character. Players are great sources of inspiration. Treat them with respect by actually paying attention when they’re talking to you.
5.  Let the PCs have a lasting and real effect on the game world. Reward creativity and good thinking with more than gold and experience points. Have a grateful city name a street after the party, let one of the PC’s songs become a popular hit, have the party overhear bards telling stories of their latest acts of heroism, etc.
6. Never tell a player how her character feels about something. Unless the PC is under mental influence from an outside source (Charm spell, Dominate discipline, etc.), the player alone controls the character’s feelings and actions. Tell them what happens, don’t tell them how to feel about it.
7. The same goes for PC actions. Unless the PC is under some type of compulsion, never tell a player what their character does in a particular circumstance. Similarly, try to avoid telling a player that they can’t do something. Let him make an attempt. Give him an impossibly low chance of succeeding, but let him try. Use common sense with this; most players would be okay with you telling them that their normal human character can’t pick up the Empire State Building or fly unaided.
8. Make sure helpful NPCs are there to help the characters, not to do things for them. It’s okay to have an NPC participate in a party’s victory, just make sure that the crucial actions are performed by the PCs. Helpful NPCs should stay in the background in support roles.
9. Don’t get bogged down in mechanics during the game session. Make a ruling and move on, unless the players want you to look something up. Include you players in this by asking one of them to look up the mechanic in question.
10. Respect your players’ time. Show up on time to game sessions and try to avoid canceling on at the last minute. Understand when non-game obligations interfere with play. After all, most players have jobs, spouses, kids that will sometimes take precedence over play. Real Life™ always trumps game.
11. Be organized. That doesn’t mean your game notebook needs to look like it came out of DayTimer ad. Just be sure you can find what information you need when you need it. Be particularly careful not to lose information your players give you.
12. Keep control of the game. Don’t let players bully you into making decisions you don’t like. If you have to boot a player to keep the game fun for everyone else, do so politely. Cut off rules discussions that threaten to become arguments. Stop the session and/or separate players when they start to argue or get angry with one another (out of character).
13. Be a gracious guest. If you’re not hosting the game, treat your host’s home and family better than you would treat your own.

This is an excerpt from the GM’s Field Guide to Players, the up-coming book from rpgGM.com, due to be released late fall.

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Step 1: Arrange a time to meet him out side of the game session. You don’t want to deal with problem issues during game time. Not only does it put the player on the spot, but it makes him very defensive, which means he’ll be less likely to hear what you have to say. I also recommend you do this on “neutral” territory. Go to coffee, or meet for lunch.

Step 2: Talk to the player one-on-one. Describe the specific behavior  and why it’s a problem. The best format for this I’ve seen is to phrase the problem like so:

“When you do [specific problem], I feel [description of the effect the specific problem has on you]. I need you to [specific action that will help solve the problem] because [reason action will help].”

Here’s a example:
“When you arrive a half-hour late to the game, I feel caught between you and the rest of the players. I don’t know whether to wait longer for you, cutting into playing time, or to start without you, which means I maybe short a crucial player. I need to you to call me if you’re going to be more than 5 or 10 minutes late because then we can talk about what your character would do if I start the game without you so that the rest of the players don’t have waste time sitting around.”

[I got this formula from a book called Joint Custody with a Jerk. Even if you’re not dealing with divorce and custody issues, I highly recommend reading it. It’s got a lot of good information about dealing with problem people can apply to many areas of life.]

This formula is great because it helps you focus on specifics and give a constructive solution. Don’t let the player distract you in the middle of this, or it weakens the statement. Finish the statement, then  address any questions, excuses, reasons, etc.

In my experience, this formula throws the player a little off-balance, which means he’ll actually listen to what you’re saying, rather than sit there formulating their “argument”. People tune out criticism. This focuses the conversation on what they can do, rather than on how bad they are.

Often a player doesn’t realize he’s causing a problem. Once he does, usually he’ll be happy to try and correct it, especially if you’ve given him an idea of a specific step he can take to solve the problem.

Step 3: Set up a trial period. If it’s a problem that’s been going on for awhile,The player’s not going to be able to fix it over night.  Habits are hard to break–doing so requires consistent practice. If the problem isn’t severe, set up a trial period to see if the behavior improves.

One thing you can do is to work out a code word or hand signal that you can flash to the player when he starts repeating the problem behavior. It can be small or subtle, so you don’t have to call attention to the issue with the other players. It should be meaningful to you and the player, but doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else.

For example, my son has ADD. When we play together and he starts to get distracted, I can say “shiny” and he’ll realize that he needs to come back and refocus. I use “shiny” with him because we call his tendency to get distracted the “Shiny Effect”, as in: “I’m going to test this chest for tra….oooh, shiny.”

Don’t drag out this trial period. It usually takes less than a handful of sessions to realize whether or not the player is sincere in his promise to change. If he’s putting in great effort and you can see improvements, no matter how small, you may decide to let him remain, as long as he continues to work towards improvement.

On the other hand, some players will promise you anything to end the difficult conversation, then make no effort to change. Or they’ll make a token effort, then stop when they achieve the outcome they want (usually to remain in the game). In these cases, you’ll need to move on to the next step in the process—holding the player accountable for his actions with the rest of the group.

These suggestions assume that the problem is still at “annoyance level”. If a problem is serious or your other players have reached the point where they want the problem player gone right now, you’ll need to sit down and talk to the group about what they want to see happen.

If a player’s actions are many any member of the group feel unsafe (even you), even if you can’t point to a specific reason, you need to remove the player from the game immediately. Always trust your gut instincts when dealing with other people. They’re usually right.

This is an excerpt from the GM’s Field Guide to Players, the up-coming book from rpgGM.com, due to be released this fall.

[Photo courtesy of Between a Rock via Flickr Creative Commons]

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• Being A Better Player from RPG Musings (rpgmusings.com)
• My Players Really Want To Kill Each Other (dicemonkey.net)
• How Not to Rise to the Challenge from Age of Ravens (ageofravens.blogspot.com)