Ok, so I've got one player in my group who is basically an attention hog. He pretty much tries to take over every encounter or appoint his character group leader, and frequently jumps in to a situation before allowing the GM to finish describing the scene (this is eventually going to get his character killed if he keeps doing it). It's starting to bother some of the other players that they aren't able to get an equal amount of time. To make this more complicated this is a guy we've all known for years, he's a pretty good friend so despite some of his annoying gaming traits we probably won't go as far as disinviting him to play. So I'm wondering has anyone else had a player like this and what have you done to manage them?

Oh BTW my first action is going to be to talk to him and see if he is even aware that he's doing this, I really suspect he's just a little clueless on the group dynamics thing. Still if anyone has tips on managing this kind of player I'd like to hear them.

Take him out back, shoot him, and sell his organs.

Barring that, talk with him like you're going to and then be a little more willing to let his character get killed if he jumps in without looking again.

~J

If your talk fails, then you have all sorts of options-I guess it just depends on how far you're willing to go with it, whether you need him to play in the group or not, whether your friends or not, etcetera...

Have any of the other players noticed this trend or said anything? Sometimes a reminder from Mr. Johnson, or another player in character can be subtle enough and not directly hurt/offend the player, since it was done for RP of course.

Don't absolutley kill his initiative though, leadership in SR is a GOOD THING, because otherwise the players just mill around like sheep (or at least mine do. mindless fraggers.)

Baaaaah!

My wife does that regularly. Have you tried keeping a water bottle on hand and squirting him when he gets uppity? No, it really doesn't work for me either.

Do talk with him about it OOC. Also, perhaps you shold work on emphasizing his role in other areas so he doesn't feel compelled to take over the spotlight every available moment. After all, he plays for an outlet. If he doesn't have an appropriate outlet, it'll spill over into other aspects of play, so give him that outlet in advance (and then feel free to make sure he's aware that other people need THEIR outlets too).

Depending on the type of character he's playing, it should be pretty easy to give the other players a chance to be in the spotlight. Make lots of legwork necessary, and keep it specialized. Have contacts want to meet to hand over info (and they don't want to meet with a lot of people at one time). It won't solve the problem, but coupled with other solutions, it should help out.

I don't think I want to go in to LDS*



*Large Dildo Soultion, what did you think I meant?

Take some chili peppers, remove the seeds, chop the seeds up real fine, and mix it in the water. That'll do the trick.

~J

While these suggestions (except the holy water. What do you think I breed with anyway??), I suspect they would work, but I don't think I'd like to deal with the consequences. While it's pretty close, I do prefer sex over SR. (It goes without saying, sex AND SR is best.)

I can't believe that someone is complaining about a PC actually voluntarily taking a leadership role and taking initiative. Usually the problem is that the PCs just sit around and wait for things to fall into their laps.

Nevertheless, if you feel he's being a little too domineering, there's a number of things you can do.

1.) If he leaps into action before you're done with the description just say, "Please wait till I've finished my description."
2.) If you want the rest of the team to play a meaningful role just rachet up the danger level of the missions such that each encounter will require good team tactics from the PCs. The guy who goes out in Rambo mode is more likely to be killed. This is more fun anyway for the GM.

I remember once I had a player who was always sneaking off to snipe at NPCs and in so doing disrupting everyone else's plan. So that was fine. Thing is by going off and taking shots he created a situation where all the NPCs would target him and him alone. The PC was quickly captured and humiliatingly bound with firecrackers which the rest of the party then set off when they attacked the compund later flinging grenades.

So, yeah, let him do things all by himself. Let him get captured and then use the suggestions in this thread to put him in his place: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=11874

I mean, honestly dude...let him be tarred and feathered.

There are also in character options. In an SR2 game I took Stun Touch just to counteract our "Follow Me! I Know the Way!" sammie. A few impromptu nap times and he became much more of a team player.

Lawndart

You've got the right idea. Start with the talk. It may be that he tried to make a too well-rounded character, who doesn't have a clear idea what his role in the group is. Help him find his niche.

Next step would be (no, not the LDS) to talk to the other players, and see if they have any suggestions. Perhaps they can come up with some in-character solutions that will help steer him in the right direction. (And Johnsons always enjoy 'runners squabbling over who gets to hold the data-disk)

Finally, KILL HIM, KILL HIM DEAD! EAT HIS FLESH, GRIND HIS BONES, SKIN HIM AND MAKE A PRETTY HAT... ummm... errr... nothing, never mind... nothing to see here, move along.

One suggestion could be some IC tips. In one of my games, I had the teams main fixer give them a list of do's and do-nots, similar to the spliel from Matador in Fields of Fire. Basically a primer on professionalism. Make sure that everyone has an assigned role ,and that everyone fills that role.

Another option is to split up the group some. Some groups, especially groups that play a lot of D&D , avoid this like the plague, as it means death in some types of games. But this'll give the other characters a chance to stretch their RPing muscles, and hopefully the problem-player will notice and appreciate.

I'm the type of person that tries to take charge if no one else has, becuase it seems like someone should be in charge, and sometimes I do exactly the things your describing. Usually a subtle reminder from my wife (if hitting me in the arm is subtle where your from) is enough to remind me. But if someone else is getting in to the flow of things really well, ilike to sit back and watch.

Try a run or two that puts the emphasis on a particular character. Not so much a character type, like "this is a run where the decker is going to shine", but something where one of the characters has more direct roleplaying time. Preferablly someone that doens't get to do as much of it. It usually has some interesting results. And if it's someone that doesn't usually shine, your spot light hog will probably take a break for a minute at least to see what happens. Especially if their character isn't present.

i used to have this problem in that i was the guy with the smallest ability in negotiating but would always jump in on it. my group finally broke me of that by whenever i would start to try and do something to "aid" in the negotiation someone would actually knock me upside the back of the head in RL. Nowadays i do most of the talking up until its time to do the haggling over money then i let our trained negotiator handle it.

I can definately understand what you're going through, we had a player like that also. Hovewer it ended with him being kicked from the group, but before that we had tried a lot of other things too which may also help you guys out.

One thing that the DM would do is go around the table after any description, to hear what each person has to say either in game our out of game. Looking directly at that person and responding only to them until they had said their mind, then moving to the next person.

Our DM would also just continue on with his discription over the top of the guy if he started talking before the DM was done.

We did talk to him about it (he didn't get it though).

And finally, splitting up the group in game and the "you can't tell him what to do, you aren't there" phrase.

Hopefully your friend is more receptive than ours was! Good luck!

Emphasize out his screw ups. I was in a game where one guy was like a guy running through a dungeon opening every door he came to for a quick peek. Eventually he would find trouble and the entire group would have to bail him out. He was the center of attention, didn't have many useful skills, but always found the primo loot because of this tactic.

One night, he says "I open the door and look." or some thing and I quickly say, "I enter the room behind him." The GM says there's a horde of nasties in the room. The guy says, "I shut the door and go to the next one." like he usually did, and the game goes on with him opening doors until he gets into trouble. The group is looking like here we go again, when the GM asks me what I'm going to do. I ask him what all the horde ten rooms back is doing because thats where dufus shut me in with them. The group bailed me out and his character got trashed. The guy never came back.

Another group, a shorter story. Guy playing a 14 year old ork with maxxed clubs and shotgun skills. We are stealthing along in an underground tunnel. Along come some critters. He jumps in immediately with "I shoot each with a burst of my shotgun!" The other players are all carrying silenced weapons. He totally kills the critters. I mention so much for stealth, maybe we should come back another day.

Same guy with ork, I could not stand how he would use OoC knowledge (uneducated 14 year old) all the time. I mentioned it to the GM and his wife after gaming one day. They noticed, too. She suggested just letting it slide and imagining that some of the newer, less SR savvy players' characters were promoting his ideas. The other PCs had the skills, but the players didn't realize how to exploit them. (not like they were going to learn given the situation...) At least that relieved some of my frustration and holding my tongue while trying to stay IC.

When I reflect again on this thread I realize that few things are funnier than letting the headstrong guy plunge headlong into disaster.

How did the guy describe his character?

Outgoing? Extrovert?

Does he have the skills to go with it?

if not, hit him the only place it'll hurt.

In karma.

karma should also reflect how well a character was roleplayed imo.

If his character was not described that way at all, he isn't roleplaying.

If he did describe him that way, make sure that it reflects in-game.

Alot of people don't like people who are too forward, loud, etc

Show him that not everyone likes a smartass/loudmouth/etc

regards

bladepoet

COWS FROM SPACE! COWS FROM SPACE!

Friends don't let friends ruin Shadowrun games.

Put the party in situations that the player is completely incapable of handling or managing that the others can get through with ease. Keep doing this until he shuts up.

So what happened in the end?

I always wait for an opportunity to let him/her walk right into their own ego when things like this happen. But I do it in a way that is in good humour.

For example:

A mean bunch of Sprawl Gangers come careering into town. They make a public announcement:
"The green demons..." (the name of the shadowrun group that particular ego centric gave his group) "...have caused us too many fracking problems, time we made an example of 'em. Help us track them down and we'll not trash your pretty little town. Give us their loud mouthed leader and we let the rest of 'em keep their spleens!"

funnily enough, the instead of the rest of the team jumping up and saying "You'll have to go through us first!" they all started looking at their nails and wall paper and let the gang rip his character to shreds! He is still alive of course, albeit with a few more cyber limbs. And he seems to have taken the hint now. Heh!

I had a similar problem recently with a player that ended with some of the players leaving the game. In this instance, the problems quickly degenerated into OOC arguments. One player had missed the first few sessions and still expected to be the leader to a group that had been working together for 4 sessions. He didn't try to earn the role, but instead tried to bully the others. I tried talking to him, but he tried to blame the problem on me the GM and the other players and the tone of the game, and apparently the fact that he'd made his character a few years older than the others entitled him to be leader.

It sounds like your problem isn't as problematic, so I agree that talking to the player seems like the best option. I also try to make sure that I have some thing planned for each player/character per session to encourage the quiet ones to speak up and get face time. Again, not all characters will run as far.