Advice/Help Difficult Roleplayers - How should I handle them?

[Computing Magus]

Uh, quick example:

Spoiler: Dishonorable Exhibit

I was once in a fantasy school rp here some time ago. It's a typical superpower school RP. Students are grouped by types of power (or in that RP's case, students are grouped into what our powers could appropriately be formed and categorized as). My character was grouped with "Archers", students who can manipulate their inner energies to throw their own unique projectiles whether it be fireballs or energy bullets, not necessarily arrows. There were other categories, and they're very similar to "roles" you might see in videogames such as MOBAs or FPS. Us Archers were all attending class, listening to the proffesor, first-time hands on of forming our innate Archer powers (forming energy arrows, balls that split and ricochet, and among others the other RPers formed for their own character), interacting and delightedly showing off to other classmates.

Ahh, good memories.

Anyway, then came the other classes who were simultaneously doing their own lessons in their own classroom. At this point I vaguely remember everything else because I don't read other's events if they don't concern me unless it's interesting. It only took me to find out in OOC that some rather heavy drama was happening at a different class of students. A student spoke up about the inadequacy of the teacher/school/school's system or something, and came to the point the student had to be restrained. The student told them that it was inhumane and some crap and other things. Other students agree, do not agree, don't care, or find it amusing. The RP kinda fell out from there. I'm just so glad that I didn't have to handle that, but all the same felt frustrated on why in the world would an RPer do such things to hinder the kind-of obviously set events, and why would they think anyone or any character would speak up on some relatively trivial matters like that and not just follow what is being told. I know there are Chaotic Neutral characters who won't do as they're told, but this was objectively extreme and the RPer should know that this isn't fun.

How would you take care of all these things? I myself had to deal with all these people in co-operated RPs and even in my own, and is why I don't want to make my own RPs anymore. Why won't they just follow the story instead of treating it as a sandbox or test the GMs patience? I know it may seem sensitive and crazy Lawful [Alignment] of me, but it just riles me up thinkng on how people could do such things.

Posting on mobile, and would have loved to add more examples and explain and fix some wordings better, but I believe this will suffice until I can edit it later.

 

[Spoiled Bread]

I disagree, I think a character showing off about what they thinking about the world around them is not wrong, it's not even cause a major change or canon inconsistency. If the drama moved from IC to OOC then its because immature player or incompetent GM. The player should be considerate of other players and know when to stop pushing their mini-plot when things become rather uncomfortable, the GM should also step up to put things back in track before the RP get derailed.

 

[Computing Magus]

I disagree, I think a character showing off about what they thinking about the world around them is not wrong, it's not even cause a major change or canon inconsistency. If the drama moved from IC to OOC then its because immature player or incompetent GM. The player should be considerate of other players and know when to stop pushing their mini-plot when things become rather uncomfortable, the GM should also step up to put things back in track before the RP get derailed.

Thanks for giving your own input on the case, and I do agree with you. I don't want to restrict anyone or tell anyone to restrict themselves at all, that'd be boring if all you do in an RP is "react" to what the GM puts out all the time (e.g. the adventurers meet someone, then after the layers express their opinion, the GM shoves them to the next scene and have them react to that, and so on). No room for doing what they want to do inside the RP setting. What I just want to put a stop to is those situations that get out of hand and get ahead of themselves. People signed up for a super powered high-school RP, not a constant post-after-post argument on how terrible the GM's setting and lore is for 5+ pages.

 

[rae2nerdy]

So here’s the thing the person doing this is either doing one of three things depending on roleplay experience.

1. They are writing a flamboyant character who is prone to outbursts. In which case the player themselves likely expects you to ignore the outburst and is mostly doing it to showcase their characters personality. I have player such characters and usually tell folks in the OOC to ignore the shenanigans because my character is sprouting impassioned nonsense.

2. The player is attempting to draw attention to their character and control hoe said character is perceived. It’s basically the same as one only from a less experienced writer. I usually just treat these pronouncements like someone just sprouting nonsense for attention and ignore them. If the person gets angry I’ll explain why their actions don’t work in the roleplay.

3. When someone has a problem OOC and they use IC to handle it. This is rarer and is usually the result of interpersonal issues. As the GM I just try pming individuals to see what the problem is and fix it.

 

[Computing Magus]

So here’s the thing the person doing this is either doing one of three things depending on roleplay experience.

1. They are writing a flamboyant character who is prone to outbursts. In which case the player themselves likely expects you to ignore the outburst and is mostly doing it to showcase their characters personality. I have player such characters and usually tell folks in the OOC to ignore the shenanigans because my character is sprouting impassioned nonsense.

2. The player is attempting to draw attention to their character and control hoe said character is perceived. It’s basically the same as one only from a less experienced writer. I usually just treat these pronouncements like someone just sprouting nonsense for attention and ignore them. If the person gets angry I’ll explain why their actions don’t work in the roleplay.

3. When someone has a problem OOC and they use IC to handle it. This is rarer and is usually the result of interpersonal issues. As the GM I just try pming individuals to see what the problem is and fix it.

I believe the student in that particular example that I provided would happen to be 2, where they attempted to draw attention to themselves. They said something, and the NPC teacher answered back, the student continued instead of saying "fine" or "whatever", however, and it continued from there until the NPC teacher said that the student needed to stop so they can continue the lesson. The student wouldn't. I believe. I really don't remember too much now, but it really did went such a fashion that they did get restrained.

 

[ConfirmedLurker]

I mean the GM should just treat it realistically. If they don’t wanna be there, why let them? Their characters should just be kicked out, no? And if restraint is necessary, do it. The GM should not let themselves be trampled on.

 

[Computing Magus]

I mean the GM should just treat it realistically. If they don’t wanna be there, why let them? Their characters should just be kicked out, no? And if restraint is necessary, do it. The GM should not let themselves be trampled on.

Exactly. They decided they wanted to be in this RP to... complain about it?

Spoiler: This one time...

There was this over the top student in my magic school RP who had the ability to disintegrate anything they touch and lacked any feelings. The character's concept simply had nothing to do with my RP, and the way the player put things raised red flags about their cooperation and the kind of player they'd be that would sour the mood. At that point, I just decided not to accept that character but allowed them to make a different one. They didn't, and even raised some points about the rules of my RP on why his edgy character doesn't break any of the established rules, "but whatever."

Another player at the same RP fooled me with their bashful use of ellipses and the "kawaii"-ness of their writing and character convinced me they'd play nice despite something off about their character regarding their personality. Note that this wasn't a joyful setting either like you'd think this was because of all the edginess hate I keep pointing out, it's like a Harry Potter setting; realistically dark but still novel entertainment. Anyway, once they start off, however, they literally wrote only one line every other irl days, that goes along the lines of "This school is boring/wow that's boring, sulky sulky." when I was, such as, revealing the training area with magic crystal platforms and such. Like, were they even reading at all. It's like the character was just made to lowkey comment on whatever I put out, and it just felt terrible. I can't call them out on it since they've only replied twice or thrice at that point and have yet to show more character for me to rightfully judge. The player never replied again.

Regarding the xampe in the first spoiler, the GM never did manage to kick them out, since that would just be unfair if it's just starting. It'd also make the GM seem bossy for not having their player's character act the way they want. They weren't necessarily breaking any rules as I recall but were definitely spoiling the moment.

Spoiler: Sorry for all the examples, I just like teaching through them!

One of my future space faring RP has all player characters in a hangar with all of their unique ships and alien characters, and I put out an NPC who wanted to give them a job for a "measly" 20,000$. At that point, I think the job payed well, and at this point one of the players trudged away, while everyone else silently nodded to accept the job.

Player 1: Hey aren't you coming, [Furious Player]?
FP: 20,000$!? For rescuing a stranded space ship!? What'd I get from that!?

FP was not an edgy space mercenary Han Solo, he was one of the more civil characters really, but never did it occur to me about the future's economy. I just kinda went "eh" at this point, but they kept arguing about everyone accepting the mission and, somehow, unrealistically argued with four characters at once.

It's kind of a problem in written RPs, where realistically you'd just cave in to many arguing with you simultaneously to join the mission, but he wrote it out to absolutely counter-argue with each character one by one with their own paragraph. Like, I felt it was obvious that everyone wasn't taking turns talking sense with this dude to just enjoy the ride. It predictably soured the mood with all of that player's space knowledge that I myself didn't establish in that universe, and he didn't stop 'til the player had the last arguement for each character. No one went OOC to just tell him to shut up and continue. I would, but all's said and done. And then the RP just didn't continue. The FP I think kinda realized that he should at least continue with this obvious plot hook, but no one bothered anymore.

Am I really just unlucky with all of these uncooperative RP players or should I be more open-minded with all their views on the matter ;-; (not that all are pessimistic. Just those that are of a different opinion). It's kinda of what's been stopping me from participating in stranger group RPs for my entire time here, but never did stop me from joining those I'm interested in anyway.

 

[rae2nerdy]

I see so what these sound like is not a player issue at all but a GM issue.

A GM is like a work manager. At the end of the day their job is to keep the roleplay progressing and to monitor interpersonal issues. This also means that they must feel comfortable taking control of a situation and disciplining those people who are ruining the fun for others. Don’t be afraid to seem “mean” or “harsh”.

Therefore if one person is attempting to take over the narrative the GM’s job is to prevent that. First by speaking to the individual privately by informing them how they (the player) are being disruptive and must stop. If they don’t just kick the person out until they learn to play well with others.

If you have no rules in place to fall back on that would allow you to do this than employ time skips that assume the action you need taken.

In the first example, just time skip to the end of class with the assumption that the disruptive student was discplined in some way. (Ex. expelled, given detention, sent to the principal, etc.)

 

[Idea]

Once upon a time, I ran a roleplay called Peace Sign Academia, one of my biggest successes and the result of the great melting pot of players I got, and I suppose a bit of my extensive work put into the RP. However, while that RP did show many of my strengths as a GM, it was also a place for many lessons. Trying to restrict the player's ability to make characters that act outside of how you'd hope a typical character in that setting would act is not something that can be done without putting way more restrictions on things than make sense. At the the point where you truly avoid that, you've begun utterly railroading your playerbase.

In other words, it's not recommended.

It is also not really necessary- while I wasn't there to say, your examples thus far (with one exception) just seem like cases of a player that happened to want to play a certain type of character, and the handling of that character, by the player, the GM or both, was poor. In the first example, for instance, it seems like a very common case for that kind of ability training, for the students to protest their training. Is it rational/sensical? Nope, but a character doesn't have to be, and these characters are so common that frankly I'd think most GMs would see them coming. Of course, the character may have very well been handled poorly by the player too, by not providing suitable reasons for their own character to go along with the plot, which is a player's responsibility.

The second example definitely seems like it was a case of both, while the last case is mostly the player's responsiblity, with again the uncertainty that I'm not seeing. The unrealism of the player answering all the people is just the dilation of time phenomenon, which is not just typical but pretty accepted in group RPs.

In the end though, I would say the issues you are showing is not players being unreliable, but a combination of players making poor character choices and the GMs being unable to properly filter through those. A player agrees to a plot when they join that RP- therefore, it is their job that at least as far as the premsie goes the player themselves works with a character that they are capable of justifying their presence in the RP with and moving the character in the RP. If I'm not able to justify why an "emotionless" character would actively strive to do whatever the characters are supposed to do as per the RP's premise, then I shouldn't make such a character. If I'm not good at doing solo posts and at getting my character to take the innitiative in interactions despite them not wanting to, or in finding ways of getting that character moving without relying on interactions from others, then I shouldn't be roleplaying character who are lone wolves or extremely shy, because simply put I don't have the necessary skills to roleplay those kinds of characters.

A GM, however, also has to know that certain characters don't work well in their RPs. This doesn't mean they have to reject those characters outright, but if they spot such a character they are also responsible for at least checking that the player is capable of working them into the story, not necessarily by skill either (that is very, very hard to measure, if at all possible) but in at least knowing that if an aspect of a character is at direct odds with the fundamental aspects of the roleplay...then at least the player has a plan to deal with that regarding their own character.


When it comes to situations when the character is already in, I'd say the GM should, as others have already brought up, work with what happened, IC. It's an unexpected event, and if a player caused their character to go down that route, then the the character should face the consequences of such a thing. If things escalate into the OOC...well, at that point things become more chaotic and outside of an area where I can really advice anyone on.

Anyways, I hope this is helpful. Best of luck and happy RPing!

 

[Computing Magus]

Thank you all for your take on the case. This problem has almost always plagued me in every group RP, and next rime I guess I'll try keeping everyone in line instead of hoping for the best, especially as the GM.

...

To be honest, and I know I won't settle without a more thorough understanding, how would these be a GM issue if the intrepid player is the one who begins to step out of line? Is it because it's just expected that there will be that player who does whatever they want at the expense of everyone else's time and happiness that it's just automatic that it all falls to a GM to handle them? I however do accept your advice on personally handling a player, and that I will not hesitate to deliver an appropriate IC consequence, so thank you for advising a GM be able to handle these things appropriately, but I still somewhat fail to see how one can put these all as a GM issue, at least some examples I've put here are indeed part of a GM's fault, but not strictly entirely a GM's wrongdoing.

Also, I guess another problem about arguing in IC is that they can put out the perfect comeback no matter what because of all the time and research they can do to come up with something behind a screen. I guess I'm being stubborn with how it unrealistic things are, but I make my characters not win or get the last laugh at every argument because I know that's unrealistic especially counting their personality. In turn, unfortunately, I don't remember the last time winning an argument in IC :p

 

[rae2nerdy]

Well the thing is as I said the GM is in charge of keeping things on task and making sure players get along. That is their purpose in the roleplay. It's why having a GM that is well organized and plans for these sorts of situations is so important. Because how exactly is another player supposed to fix a problem? Are they supposed to tell the person they don't like that they can't take part in the roleplay anymore? Should they have the power to do that?

I'll tell you now, absolutely not. Because if you give ONE player that than all the players have to have it. And then you will just create an unhealthy dynamic in your OOC where players will attempt to run people off who are acting in a way that they don't approve of. I have actually had this happen before where I was essentially kicked out of roleplays because other players didn't like me/my character/my writing style and thus got the GM to kick me out. It was always incredibly frustrating and left me with a bad taste for that individual GM and whichever players I was aware of doing that kind of shady work.

So I think in the interest of fairness you have to leave handling player disturbances solely in the hands of the GM. As they are the only person who can be seen as unbiased and the person who has ultimate authority because it is their world/idea. And as the Site Rules say, they ultimately have control over who can and can't stay on in their game.

So this is why I think we're all saying this is a GM issue. The GM is the person who has to make sure that no one player takes over the roleplay and impedes on the enjoyment of others. To achieve that they can use a variety of tools such as time skips, warnings, clear rules, etc. It sort of depends on the individual and their particular idea what works.

 

[Computing Magus]

Well the thing is as I said the GM is in charge of keeping things on task and making sure players get along. That is their purpose in the roleplay. It's why having a GM that is well organized and plans for these sorts of situations is so important. Because how exactly is another player supposed to fix a problem? Are they supposed to tell the person they don't like that they can't take part in the roleplay anymore? Should they have the power to do that?

I'll tell you now, absolutely not. Because if you give ONE player that than all the players have to have it. And then you will just create an unhealthy dynamic in your OOC where players will attempt to run people off who are acting in a way that they don't approve of. I have actually had this happen before where I was essentially kicked out of roleplays because other players didn't like me/my character/my writing style and thus got the GM to kick me out. It was always incredibly frustrating and left me with a bad taste for that individual GM and whichever players I was aware of doing that kind of shady work.

So I think in the interest of fairness you have to leave handling player disturbances solely in the hands of the GM. As they are the only person who can be seen as unbiased and the person who has ultimate authority because it is their world/idea. And as the Site Rules say, they ultimately have control over who can and can't stay on in their game.

So this is why I think we're all saying this is a GM issue. The GM is the person who has to make sure that no one player takes over the roleplay and impedes on the enjoyment of others. To achieve that they can use a variety of tools such as time skips, warnings, clear rules, etc. It sort of depends on the individual and their particular idea what works.

Ooh, I really like that part about not letting the players have a say about the player disturbing the RP and leave it to the unbiased GM to handle the problem. Never thougt of that particular way before. Thanks for explaining more thoroughly with me.

I do hope to keep this thread open for more advice on handling difficult roleplayers. Just to get an idea of how others would handle it. Not that what's already said is lacking

I really appreciate the input y'all. It such a good load off being vocal of my problems.

 

[Idea]

To be honest, and I know I won't settle without a more thorough understanding, how would these be a GM issue if the intrepid player is the one who begins to step out of line? Is it because it's just expected that there will be that player who does whatever they want at the expense of everyone else's time and happiness that it's just automatic that it all falls to a GM to handle them?

First, I want to mention a point that I forgot to in my earlier post, that being that I'm assuming here one of two scenarios, as they appeared to be what you were describing. This being that, in the situations described, the personality of the problematic character did not contradict the character sheet, either by being in line with it or by there not being anything to contradict in regards to those traits at least.

While it is true the RPer may the one getting out of line, a GM often has preventive measures, which while they don't guarantee this will happen can help to severely reduce the number and/or likelihood. A lot of GM's just don't put the proper care when looking into people's CSs, I can't tell you how many times important details have been skimmed over to the point where it seemed the GM didn't actually read the CS. Even more commonly, they are often taken at face value, without the implications being considered. The short of this is that if a filter is necessary, then the GM has to be the one to impose that filter, and if a character doesn't work for the kind of roleplay it's being inserted into, then something must be done about it (doesn't necessarily have to kick the player out, in fact I generally recommend working with them to improve the character, while retaining the core concept).

That was how the GM has a degree of blame for the incident, but if the question is why they are the ones that have to solve it, it boils down to one thing: reliable authority. The GM is the authority in what happens in the roleplay, so they are the only ones a player necessarily HAS to listen to. Perhaps even more importantly though, a GM's authority can establish rules, and if you don't want things to devolve into chaos, then I cannot stress enough how important it is to tie the enforcement of punishment with the breaking or keeping of concrete rules.

Ironically enough, rules represent a player's freedom. If you have rules in a game, it essentially means "as long as you stay the written aspect of these rules, and their spirit, then you can do as you like". If you have rules (or if you have none) then enforcing rules that aren't there sends the message "do something I don't like and your hard work and contribution will be punished", so players that really want to take the innitiative, bring more life to the roleplay and so on will hesitate if not give up on attempting any wild ideas they may have, being bold and unique, after all whose to say there won't be something there that will without warning destroy all their hard work? On the other hand, enforce the rules too little and those few instances of bad roleplay conduct escalate, often just by means of other players needing to also "cheat" to not be left behind by the advantage or spotlight others gain.

So now picture throwing the power to do something about players to people who do not use a concrete criteria as a collective, but personal biases, mob mentality, etc... Maybe it wil work from time to time, but running an RP is like defending a castle, nomatter how long you succeed for, one mistake can mean ultimately failing.

 

[BrokenWorldsStoryteller]

We try and make sure new characters are grounded and make sense within the lore, but after that it's up to the players, unless they break the rules.

 

[Bells of Nevermore]

I am a bit of a hardliner as a GM. I've been running games, online and off, for a very, very long time. My first tabletop D&D game was back in 1978, and the first play-by-message thing I did was in the late 80s, old BBS systems. I've seen so. much. crap in all that time.

I always have a clearly-detailed set of rules, that tend to be the first 'test', as it were, of a player wanting to come into the campaign. If they balk at the rules, they will probably not be a good match for the game. I also set forth very clearly why these rules exist, because no one likes to be told 'You can't play a demon' without understanding the reason behind it (in this case, demons were the main antagonist and were GM-only creatures).

I make it very clear that Wheaton's Law is also our prime directive: to wit, don't be a dick. Playing in a disruptive or gamebreaking manner counts as being a dick, even if the specific dickery is not covered exactly in the rules. That said, I always, always, ALWAYS take the person aside in private to talk to them about what they are doing and why it's not okay, long before I do something like remove them from the game.

 

[Gowi]

A student spoke up about the inadequacy of the teacher/school/school's system or something, and came to the point the student had to be restrained. The student told them that it was inhumane and some crap and other things.

I fail to see how this is the product of a difficult player. If a more uppity student mouths off to a teacher, that's a testament to the characterization and if people agree with what the character is saying [IC or OOC] then people agree with what they are saying. I'm not sure why the teacher decided to restrain the student without context, but everyone should've reacted to the event before the GM ultimately moved from the scene.

 

[Computing Magus]

I fail to see how this is the product of a difficult player. If a more uppity student mouths off to a teacher, that's a testament to the characterization and if people agree with what the character is saying [IC or OOC] then people agree with what they are saying. I'm not sure why the teacher decided to restrain the student without context, but everyone should've reacted to the event before the GM ultimately moved from the scene.

That's an excellent insight. If they have something to say, they should. This thread is a bit old though :p, goes for the two before this as well. Anyway, I'm no longer sure of any details at this point in time. Perhaps the goal of the RP was just to have fun and not realistic matters. *I guess* a student was disruptive and wouldn't back down to continue the RP in an orderly matter. Or the GM wanted it over with.

Darn, I had thought of something good while typing this and forgot.

Anyway, one thing I guess was that they moved on without waiting since it'd take long. The restraining action is definitely, well, restricting of a person who just wanted to RP. Whether they deserved it to such a point, I don't particularly remember ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

 

[Gowi]

I didn't notice the date of the thread, lol.

Oops.