Welcome New Readers Stories By Issue Volume 4, Number 1 Volume 3, Number 2 Volume 3, Number 1 Volume 2, Number 5 Volume 2, Number 4 Volume 2, Number 3 Volume 2, Number 2 Volume 2, Number 1 The Roving Gamer's Corner E-mail Us
©1998 by Matthew Strumpf and Mark Christopher

This page last updated Tuesday, 06-Sep-2005 12:28:38 EDT.

Role Playing News

Editorials, Commentaries, and Reviews:

• Editorial: Disruptive Players
  by Mark Christopher
• From the Editors
  by Milton Strumpf
• Commentary: Habits
  by Mark Christopher

Disruptive Players

One problem that gaming groups everywhere may have to tackle is what to do when you have a disruptive player in your midst. By disruptive, I mean anyone who is ruining the game for others in any way.

I've been in groups where there were players who would simply cheat; they'd lie about die rolls, not mark of damage, and other things of that nature. As far as I'm concerned, if you can't play by the rules, don't play at all.

I've also seen players that, when asked by the GM, would say that they were doing something specific, and then try to change their action later on when some undesirable consequences were apparent. Not just once, but all the time. This sort of behavior really irritates me. Role-play is all about playing a role! If you can't deal with facing the consequences, of your actions in a simple game, I don't want you playing with me.

Other times, I've seen players constantly try to impose their version of reality on the GM. Certainly one might occasionally try to get clarification in a given situation, and perhaps even change one's action if one thought "physics" or whatever would work differently, but when a player has a different view of how stuff like magic, economics and such works, and constantly tries to change the way the GM portrays such, it's got to stop. The player should just accept that hey, it's a game! So it may not work like real life, or how one imagines things would work if they were real (i. e. magic); accept it or don't play any more, but don't continually argue. It interrupts the game and destroys the "flow" for everyone else.

If you do have players like this in your group, the best thing to do is probably to buckle down and tell them, when they start to interrupt play, tell them that "that's the way it is. Deal with it." Make sure they know that the rest of the group is not going to brook that kind of behavior. If this doesn't work, it might be best to invite such a person out of the game. They may be great people otherwise, but if they're ruining play for everyone else and don't change, get them out of the game.

Editor's note: RPN welcomes the opinions of its readers. This editorial does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the paper. Comments and rebuttals are encouraged.

From the Editor

You will probably notice that there is a lack of our regular series, When Last We Left Our Heroes... This is not a mistake. As last issue was dominated by Heroes... (over half of the issue in fact) we decided to take a break from writing it. Don't despair. Heroes... will be back our next issue with our continuing adventures. The articles we included stood well on their own and did not need further explanation. You will also note that the Roving Gamers' Corner is missing. Mark just wasn't able to get around to it. He has written several other articles, however, so check out what he has to say.

We have received far more input this time around than last time. I would like to send my thanks out to Tracy Bandy (the Tracy system designer and GM who makes our Heroes... articles possible) and Mark Burgess. Their contributions have taken some of the pressure off the editorial staff to try and write things for inclusion. I am expecting that Tracy and Mark will both continue to contribute to our ongoing success. I also hope that their example will encourage others to write and submit articles and stories. Since taking over the editorial responsibilities, I have grown to understand and appreciate the problems that Matthew, Mark and John had getting issues out when the articles started to peter out. I am confident that we will not have problems in the future such as those.

I would like to thank Matthew for getting our web pages updated quickly and completely. I would also like to thank Mark for looking into alternative to our current ftp site. We may be moving in the near future to one of the locations the editorial staff has been discussing. I expect that our old site will continue to be active regardless. That should be our jump point to any additional locations. I couldn't keep this going without the two of them.

I've rambled enough for this issue and I hope you enjoy Role Playing News.

Habits

Recently in a campaign I'm involved in, I decided to temporarily send my main character off on a mission of his own and created a new, albeit temporary character to use in his place. Now, the character I was taking a respite from is a fantastic one to play; he's a half-human, half-demon psychic vampire, and getting into such a creature's head can be truly liberating. However, I know not only exactly how he thinks and acts, but what he's going to be doing (in a very general sense) for the next few dozen centuries. I needed a break.

The character I came up with was, for me, a pretty standard one. He was a Czinti warrior-ranger (a Czinti is a large feline humanoid; yes, fundamentally based upon the works of Larry Niven) who was traveling with a human ranger (Milton, another player was resting a character, as well). Our characters meshed well and we were able to get into personalities easily. The GM also gave us a good enough reason to join the party, and my Czin (called Hunter) had reason enough of his own to stay with such a group.

What Milton and I found, though, was that we were not just taking new characters into play, but whole new attitudes. Witness this:

The group is at a halfling homestead, looking for a general of the government. Hunter and Clay (Milt's character) decide to scout out the area, and, following various clues, find a huge wooden tower in the middle of a clearing. We go back to inform the others. We all set out the next morning before dawn, Hunter a bit ahead of Clay who is a bit ahead of the rest. Hunter gets a better look at this tower, which is surrounded by three small barracks. He sneaks up to one and, looking inside, finds it full of drunken and sleeping goblins. He starts slaughtering them. Clay sneaks down and, noticing Hunter finishing up, motions that he's going to take the next building, and Hunter takes the last. The rest of the group, meanwhile, has found a pair of enchanted orbs buried on either side of the path a mile back, and try to examine them for 20 minutes while trying to avoid doing anything "dangerous" with them. Learning nothing about them, they carefully skirt around the area of the orbs and head down the path. They come out to the clearing and see the tower and three barracks and hang back, unsure of what to do. Finally, the mentalist of the party realizes that the goblin minds he senses are quickly getting fewer in number, and realizing what this means, walks out to the tower, soon to be followed by the rest.

What I mean to illustrate by this is that we seem to have grown too cautious as a group for particularly fun playing. Suddenly changing mid-campaign into a completely different sort of character freed Milton and I from the mental restraints that held us. Seeing that effect, I would encourage any player of a long-running campaign to try playing a radically different character for a change of pace, as it will do more than anything else to break you of habits you might otherwise not even realize you have.