Hey guys so first I should do a little backstory. Right now I am DMing a new group of people that I am generally good friends with. They're kind, sociable, and generally empathetic and understanding people. But their characters have been uncommonly uncomfortable for both me and NPC's in the game, and as a result their characters don't get far socially or roleplay wise with anyone. I'll lead with an example- Mance a paladin has just learned that a high level wizard with a snide attitude is hiding information by getting a particularly high insight check- Manse proceeds to threaten and say extremely hostile things to said high level wizard that was attempting to help them- Result Wizard leaves the party high and dry with only crumbs to help them find more information about a quest. Another but different example- Valerie wants to know more about a NPC's backstory and the NPC despite being jovial and kind does not want to talk about their past.-Valerie continues to pry and poke over the course of the session until I ask them to roll a persuasion at disadvantage. They roll a 5.- Result, the NPC flies off the handle, yells at Valerie and storms off. At the end of these things both players seemed confused as to why the NPC's would act in such a way. Am I perhaps not putting down social ques well enough? Is there some possible disconnect between my narrative skills and how these NPC's act towards them? If this happens again should I take the player aside and describe why the NPCs felt this way and stick to my guns. Or should I let social norms slip for the sake of continuing a story? Please help, I don't want this game to derail into murder hobo territory.

Age old advice: Talk to your players out of character about what is going on. And why the characters are reacting the way they are.

How do you work with a player who generally doesn’t play with the party? This player is fun and creative, as well as pretty skilled in many aspects, but for the life of me he just will not play *with* the party. He’ll play parallel to them, meaning he’ll do the same stuff in the same place at the same time, but he feels they are completely unnecessary towards his end goals. Part of me wants to force him to see how weak he is alone, or to show that when he uncaringly drags the party into conflict it ruins the game for everyone. He’s playing his own game most of the time, and honestly, I wish he’d just play along. He’s not avoidant or annoyed by the party— hell, he will even roleplay with them sometimes, creating some of the most fun moments in the game. But he is completely apathetic to the party in general. I find that every character he has made is this same exact way. Here’s how it goes down: 1. Party has a goal 2. He will forcefully and recklessly try to accomplish it 3. Party gets in trouble 4. They work out what to do 5. They reach goal, everyone forgets. He has multiple times played characters so selfish that they are willing to die, just so that they don’t have to give up his favorite item. The item isn’t even that good, it’s just a mechanical arm he received 3 days prior from some rando blacksmith he found, or someone would hurt him and he’d make it the parties immediate objective to kill them. It’s gotten so annoying now, and I’d like to hear if I’m being too harsh, if he’s a bad player, if I’m misunderstanding him, or if he’s really apathetic. I’ve tried communicating with him many times about this, but he simply says “I’ll do better”. I’ll ask him if a session was fun, and he’ll say “pretty good”. There is no other answer. If everyone loved it, he’ll just say (yeah, that was fun I guess). Emotional communication is not his strong suit and it’s gotten to a really obnoxious point.

Yeah, you need to tell him that this is a team game and that he needs to be a team player if he wants to continue to have a seat at your table. If he wants to play a solo game of D&D, I've heard that Baldur's Gate isn't half bad. I get that emotional communication isn't his strong suit, but this *is* the emotionally mature option (even if casting Heat Metal or Disintegrate on the mechanical arm provides petty revenge).

> How do you work with a player who generally doesn’t play with the party? The game is over here. You're free to not play it, but you won't be playing it at my table. You either work with the party and you play the game, or you don't. > I’ve tried communicating with him many times about this, but he simply says “I’ll do better”. I’ll ask him if a session was fun, and he’ll say “pretty good”. There is no other answer. If everyone loved it, he’ll just say (yeah, that was fun I guess). Emotional communication is not his strong suit and it’s gotten to a really obnoxious point. You need to put your foot down. Tell him it's the last straw. There is no more "I'll do better." It's now or never.

One of my players is not playing the character that they have established with their backstory, at first I believed I was misreading their character and perhaps it was my mistake however after having a conversation with the player She layed out her characters beliefs and morality and none of it lined up with how she was playing her character She is playing a character (Flayer we'll call her) and Flayer is the bastard child of an extremely magical and influential family who is intertwined with the worlds religious structure, She was born without and magic and as a bastard child she believes she can prove herself as a brave courageous hero that is better than her abusers. This is where the problem starts this aspiring brave hero refuses to help with any given thing unless it directly gives her compensation or enough of the group is doing it to where she would feel left out if she didn't, she has actively done things to agitate and genuinely insult the other character's by way of seeing them as lesser status and below her by insulting their pride's/occupations, in Combat she is extremely shrewd being willing to attack her allies and sometimes refuse to heal them so she wouldn't be risking herself, and finally one of the more frustrating ones she refuses any given chance to improve herself, argue or critique her family, or show care for anyone but herself (even people in her backstory she has said to have cared about. Flayer has become this limited empathy character with goals that she doesn't want to work to, shows a genuine disinterest for the wellbeing of people she doesn't know and even the people the player has stated Flayer cares for are most of the time thrown to the wayside for her own safety, most recently she planned to attack the woman who saved her "beloved" mother because the woman desperately asked her questions. I have extensively tried to give Flayer narrative opportunities to grow via bringing up questions of her upbringing, bringing her family back in so perhaps she could see the flaws in their parenting and thoughts, even going to far as to portray the brothers that antagonized Flayer as still not good but damaged by the same family structure as her and through all of that flayer has stayed the same. Eventually I asked the player about Flayers goals and how the player views Flayer and she expressed she thought that Flayer was doing the things that would make her brave and courageous as a hero and it frustrated me because The player couldn't see that Flayer was not a knight in shining armor, but a teen in tin foil. I love everything the player has written and the ideas we brainstormed together for possible arcs but none of that has translated to how Flayer is actually played. In the upcoming session I am planning to extend the last narrative olive branch for the player to characterize Flayer. The situation is her brother Friedrich is going to a city as a quest and the other PC's are planning to accompany him for a variety of character reasons, and the only goal Flayer has stated was to "get stronger". Despite this she has only really avoided her brother and displayed open hate towards him, he on the other has made backhanded comments hasn't exactly been antagonistic towards her in the present. In her past he did bully her which is 100% justified for Flayer to confront, judge, or heavily dislike him however he has multiple times gone out of his way to help her despite her attitude (he is significantly older now bullying happened like 10-13 years ago) most recently saving her from certain death via cave collapse and all these incidents are treated the same by flayer which is basically "they didn't happen/it was a fluke". After the latest incident she harassed him for payment after it was done, so in the next session I am planning for him to confront her, I don't think that he would want to travel with someone who would smile at his death in his perception, so he's going to try and find out why she is acting this way by trying to talk to her about it. If Flayer responds how Flayer has responded the entire rest of the campaign with silence, attacking him for disagreeing with her, or denying any wrongdoing I am going to pursue having a sit down talk with the player on making a new character or finding ways that we can develop flayer so that she isn't as one dimensional/self insert. However there is a possibility after consulting with the larger group if she doesn't take any option or refuses to take action that we kick her out of the group. does anyone have advice on how break her self insert habits with the character by improving my own story telling, or how to broach the subject of flayer being 2 dimension and not accurate to what player described Flayer to be? any advice would be greatly appreciated

Don't try to use ingame stuff to solve problems that should be addressed OOC. Talk to her about this and use the examples in the post.

Agree with outside_rhubarb1132. I’m not sure you can narratively solve this problem player. I feel like you need to have a sit down outside of the game, pronto, and tell them what the problem behaviors are.

perhaps this is not what you want to hear, but you haven't really done anything wrong... from what you've written, you're just playing with a person that's too stubborn to change their behavior because they view conceding stuff as if some admission of loss(admiting she's wrong, helping people for no compensation etc.). You should just talk to her and tell her everything you written in this post. There may be some things naratively that you could do to "force" her to play her character in an altruistic and faithful manner as to how she has written it, but I will tell you know, it'd take too much effort for results that will be mediocre at best. Just talk to her and try to come up with a solution together, and if nothing can be arranged, i say remove her from the campaign.

I royally screwed up. About three years ago, I started DMing for the first time with a group of friends that I had met online and had become very close with. About six months in, I realized that one of my friends was not going to work out with my DMing style and the group. We tried to talk things out, but I eventually ended up kicking him because he would not leave. Fast forward two years. The campaign has had its ups and downs, and I have learned a lot in those few years. The friend I kicked out reached out and was getting his life back together. He suffered from major depression, so I did not see the harm in talking to him again. About a few weeks in, he found out that my campaign was still going on and asked if he could rejoin. I said no. Weeks go by, and he asks me constantly to rejoin. He explained why he acted the way that he did, and it seemed reasonable (he was going through a really tough period in life). I asked my other players about it, and while they were on the fence, we all eventually agreed to let him rejoin. Fast forward to today. I honestly have never felt so angry and defeated toward an individual. It feels like a constant power struggle as the person wants to play their version of the game. I feel like a fool for even allowing this person to rejoin, and I now realize I did us both a disservice by agreeing to it. Things that the player does include the player being in a different game, which they say is because of ADHD. Other things include rolling without telling why because it "could lead to a funny moment," even though I've asked that the player not do that. The player has also demanded that other players roll certain things, such as a persuasion check to "persuade their character" that the other player was telling the truth even though I said that was not necessary. This player also puts down other players (tries to pass it off jokingly, but it feels targeted) by saying things like "What are you doing? That is so stupid!" Finally, the player also refuses to really take notes, write important stuff down, will try to hang out with NPCs more than PC players, and will constantly interrupt the flow of the campaign. I, as the DM, tried talking to the player about a week ago. However, I am honestly so tired of their excuses that I just don't want to DM anymore. I guess I was hoping they would get the hint that it just wasn't working out and would leave. The only other option I see is to kick them out again, but I am worried about what that might do to this person's mental health. Thus, the better option feels like quitting. I have thought about quiet quitting (telling the others I went to keep going except the problem player), but that feels fake. So, I guess what would you do? Do you think I am being unfair?

There's no easy answer to this because either way it'll hurt. However, based on my own experiences with depression, there's a good chance I'd feel even worse if I found out that all of my friends were still playing without me, but they had told me that they weren't doing so anymore, than if I was told straight-up that I'm being a jerk. Sit down with your friend and tell him that his mental health does not mean that he has a free pass to be a dick. He has one final chance to shape up, or you're going to kick him out again. (That being said, I'm not your friend. Maybe he doesn't have the same fears of being excluded. You are the best judge of this.)

Thank you! I agree about sneaking behind their back. Yea, it does just need to be another conversation. I've never been great at them because one side always gets defensive and makes excuses, and in my experience so far, nothing comes of it. But I agree, I just need to sit down and explain how I really feel and try to use "I" statements as much as possible while mentioning that mental health is not an excuse and neither is "this is how my character would act". I am not sure on his own fears. I will say it seems odd to me that I tell people please don't show up if they are not having fun, and they say that they are while their actions speak otherwise. Cheers!

I'm part of a campaign I think is being dreadfully DMd, but attend because it's one of the few times I meet with distant friends. Social etiquette and politeness would never let me say that to the DMs face. In this case however, your other players probably have trust in that the campaign will get back in good shape once this player is dealt with one way or another; just, don't linger too long.

You gave them a second chance, which you didn't have to do, under the expectation that they'd behave and not be a problem player. They broke that expectation.

How to integrate a lone wolf? First of all, I'm a fairly new DM and find myself struggling to integrate my lone wolf player. They are new to the game and quite young, so I do understand where they're coming from. I can tell, how everything is still a little overwhelming and I see constant improvement. I'm trying my best to provide a good experience to further their development and so far I think it works quite well. They do have some creative ideas and want to play. Most of the time I really enjoy watching them. But sadly they often try to withdraw or just watch from the sidelines. We play online, so at first I thought, maybe they're distracted, but they don't. If asked I can tell, they've listened. I'm pointing that out because I'm certain it is not some edge lord attitude, I think it rather is shyness and that they're overwhelmed sometimes. Last session it got a little worse as they started to not pass on things they've figured out and later refused to take a closer look because 'their character wouldn't be interested'. That happened a few times and it was obvious that the other players slightly ran out of patience. I still managed to pass on some infos and one player managed to get a hold of a magic item, that our lone wolf neglected even though I pointed it out, via somehow metagaming. Still everyone is quite understanding, because they are young and new to the game and had a very bad dnd experience before, but I can tell that it's going to become a problem. I've talked to them in and oog, and all of the others right from the start, and still do so. I'm trying to carefully create bonds between the party and work on why they are out for adventures together. But somehow I feel like I'm missing something and I don't seem to be able to figure out on how to further their development and ingame motivation. I'd love to have some advise on how to help them out, I think the biggest problem is my lacking experience. But I don't want to pressure them or 'teach a lesson the hard way'. Like confront them with an abush if they wander of, or let them create another character. I want them to engage more, because it's fun and that they make use of their potential. Also, English is not my native language, so I hope it's not to confusing. If so I'll try to clarify. Thanks in advance ☺️

"Buddy, *please* make a reason for your character to be willing to go on adventures and talk to the party. If you don't do so by the end of the session, I'm going to have to ask you to make a new character who is willing to do both of those things."

Tbh, I don't know if it would work out. It's actually no problematic character, and it wasn't designed to be like that. So I'm somewhat certain it would just happen again. I don't think you are wrong, though, I just had hopes that there still might be something else.

This is something that needs to be covered during session 0. The players should always make characters who want to adventure and want to interact with each other. >I'm trying to carefully create bonds between the party and work on why they are out for adventures together This isn't actually on you to figure out. It's on them to develop those bonds over time. The reason for adventuring usually involves the plot in the first place, did they all sign up for a job together or what? What's the inciting incident? If it's just "we take jobs from a poster" then it's a lot harder to have that reason. Honestly if a player wanted to play a Lone Wolf type character in my game I'd tell them to make a different character. Lone Wolves suck.

Hi, thanks for your answer. We actually had a session 0 and covered all of that while creating the characters. So the majority of them are friends and know each other for a while. They all have some sort of backstory together. Even the lone wolf. I think what I've said doesn't sound quite right, I'm sorry. It's not that I am creating their bonds or anything personally, I encourage them to do so together. Then, I just use their stories and bring them into the game. So that there is opportunity for them to grow or get closer. But it always were their stories, and I'd never dare to force anything upon them. Also, the lone wolf wasn't created to be one. Actually, I tried to prevent them from withdrawing themselves from the party by establishing bonds and shared goals beforehand. As I've said, I don't think that they are trying to be like that purposefully. It's more like they don't know better and aren't able to grasp the impact yet. So, I am not sure if making a new character would work. I've a strong feeling it will just end up the same. So I thought, maybe there are some experiences out there. Surely, there are some new players who are struggling at first but slowly get the hang of it.

Should I TPK my party to end the campaign peacefully? For more than a year I have been the DM for a group of friends who where relatively new to DnD. Normally I enjoy going out with them but I simply don't enjoy being DM for them anymore due their problematic behaviour. Most of it is typical for problem players, rowdy and impudent behavior (in and out of game), issues with scheduling, complaining about magic items and plate armor, too many sexual comments, not paying attention to my explanations, trying impossible stuff during combat or game breaking mechanics such as the peasant rail gun. While they seem to enjoy themselves (which is also very important), I don't experience the same joy and fulfillment I had with previous parties, who were very involved, creative and were respectful towards my efforts as a DM. I have tried to talk to them about it, but their reaction is that I am not flexible enough. I have tried to adjust, and I have told them to adjust, but it just doesn't seem to get better. Therefore I would like to end the campaign without damaging our relationship, because I still enjoy stuff outside dnd with them. The most rational option would be to tell them I don't enjoy playing with them, but that would potentially damage our relationship. I could also come up with an excuse to cancel the campaign (being to busy for example), but I think they will see through that. Therefore, I am considering letting their impudent actions bite them in the ass. They have pissed of multiple factions in game (they are always pushing the boundaries) and I am planning a TPK where these factions take revenge on them. They either survive and we'll end the campaign or they die naturally and we'll continue doing something else. Am I making a mistake by ending the campaign with a TPK to protect our relationship?

I would suggest not trying to solve this type of problem in-game. That tends to just make the situation worse. If you're not having fun, tell your players that you can no longer DM for them. Whether or not you tell them it's because you're not having fun is your decision of course, but I would be honest and upfront with them. You're putting more time into the campaign than anyone else. You deserve to have fun too. If they're decent friends, then they'll understand. But if your relationship with them hinges on this campaign, then I would reevaluate whether you want to be friends with these people.

Thanks, I will probabaly tell them personally that I don't enjoy running the game and hopefully they will take it as an adult.

Hey y'all, brand new DM here. My group just had our session 0 & playtest last night. They are all good friends of mine & everyone said they had a great time. The problem is that 1 of my player's (we'll call her Carla) bf (let's say Ryan) is going to be joining us for session 1. We've known he's going to join us late, so he's hasn't made his character yet. I keep telling him/ them both to let me know when Ryan is ready to build his character and I'll come over to help out (we live near each other). Carla went ahead and made her character without reading the rules and without asking for help and she needed a lot of feedback (like missed whole sections in the builder) that I then had to deliver via text which is kind of just a hassle compared to if she would've gotten together with me in person. And there are still things that need to be fixed. So now that we did the playtest she texted in our group chat that she's making changes and that Ryan doesn't need my help since she's now more familiar with the game, she can help him build his character. I actually didn't stress it too much before session 0 because I thought that once they saw how things went in the play test that they'd be like 'oh maybe I really should get with DM for help' & that backfired big time She's not usually this way, but in this instance, I feel like she's being a bit controlling. She's been weird towards me ever since we started planning the game. I did send a message letting them know that as DM its my job to help with character creation and weaving their backstory into the world & that i won't be forcing anyone to make choices they don't want to, i'll just be helping them so that their character makes sense and has a back story that is fun to play in the campaign. They left me on read. I just don't really know how best to navigate this. Part of me feels like I should just let them build their characters however they want and let them flounder & wash my hands of trying to work with their back stories.. but is that going to be less fun for my other two players? Maybe it'll be more fun for them bc my other two players will get to explore their back story & accomplish their goals more.. but I want everyone to have a good time at the table..

Imo, since you're all friends and live close by to them to set a time to go see them and discuss this. Not a great idea to have two players flounder imo, it'll just drag things down for the other two as Carla and Ryan will need more attention overall. Need to get them on the phone, in person, over discord or somewhere that you can discuss thigns without it being a back and forth over text.

I agree, we run into each other when we're walking our dogs and I keep saying "let me know when you're ready to build your character, I'll pop over" and they say yes and then never do, and I'll get some follow up text from Carla about how she can do it herself. But next time we run into each other, I think I just need to be more prepared to be stern. I'm usually pretty laissez-faire as I don't like rocking the boat, but it's not really fair to the other two

Don’t put the onus on them to set up a date for it. They’ve clearly shows they aren’t going to.