Hey there dumpshockers, my group is having a little trouble and we're not quite sure how we're going to resolve is. Our GM has just about hit our nerves. See, we always play Shadowrun in one of two locations. His bedroom, or in my apartment. What's the problem? Well you see, his room is cramped, his house has constant interruptions, and generally nobody wants to play there. However, he insists. If we ask to play in the apartment he asks us for a valid reason, but nomatter what we say he claims it isn't good enough.

The apartment is spacious, has a large round table to play on, it stays cool up here and generally it just feels more comfortable for table top games. His room is small, two or three of us are always forced to sit on his bed, his family members interrupt us constantly, and we play on the floor. It's gotten to the point today that one of the most important members is downright refusing to play and limiting the team now. His campaign is fun and i'd hate to quit, but I may have to. Is there anyway we can resolve this? How do other players deal with their GMs?

Give him the list you provided here. If that doesn't work, consider hitting him over the head with a large trout.

Out of curiosity, has he explained why he prefers a cramped room with constant interruptions, or just refused to accept any arguments that your place would work better?

Put the grievance in writing. Put the solution that the players see as acceptable in writing. Have the entire group sign it and present the document to your gm.

If he refuses to take that seriously...give up on him, and find a new gm.

I'm with HoV here. List the reasons you did above and if he's still being mulish about the whole situation there may not be much you can do. Once he realizes that you've started up a new game at your apartment and you're having fun without him, maybe he'll come around.

Another vote for HoV's approach. One thing, though, is I would definitely ask what his reasons are for wanting to stay in the room. If it's agoraphobia and you try to drag him out of there, things might get ugly.

I vote you just make him want to avoid his room at all costs. Drop a heavy section of ceiling next to his head while he's sleeping, put speakers in his walls to whisper things to him, slip blood squibs behind his wallpaper and blow them up late at night, that sort of thing. A few weeks and he'll be begging to be somewhere else.

~J

That's just mean.

well its easyer to play with out a gm then it is to gm with out players hehe.

I say talk to the group and if all agree tell you gm that the game will be at the larger spot, if he can't give you a convincing reason why he can't gm their just leave him.

I had a situation like this. It's best to bring it up in plain (but non-confrontational language). Some GMs like home field advantage, maybe he has a lot of books on hand or something else entirely.

Could he be afraid of traveling? Is he usually kinda shut-in otherwise?

Offer him incentives to move - Offer a free lift back and forth. Bring snacks (good ones, like brownies or really good chips, or beer) for every game he agrees to play at the apartment, etc. You can ease out of the bribes once he's gotten into the habit of going to the apartment.

I would advise against the "signed petition" thing. Having everyone turn against you sucks, he probably won't take it well and you'll end up losing him.

Thanks for the ideas everybody. The problem was semi solved when we agreed to move to a bigger room of his house, but we still had several interruptions and problems with comfort. We do offer snacks and what not but he refuses them. We can't just up and leave because he is after all a friend and he'd probably freak out and get all pissed. When we told him we might not play this session he like blew up. Seriously, we might just pick a new GM.

I hate to cast aspersions, but it almost sounds like he has a bit more going on than not wanting to change the location of his game.

I hope it works out for you guys.

Yeah, either he is unbalanced - which you'd notice - or he's not telling you what the issue is, and until you've got that sorted I don't think you are likely to get a resolution.

Okay, here are the reasons he's given me: "I don't want to move my stuff when I have it all here". This his silly, considering all his stuff is in a blue bag together, and I literally live down the street from him. He's like two houses down. "I have trouble breathing in your apartment". This was a new one to me. No ones every brought this up to me, this I guess is a good reason to me but everyone else just thought he was being complainy.

I guess the question might be "Why do you want to play at the apartment so bad". Well, quite frankly, it's more fun. We have sodas and snacks, a big round table, chairs and space for everyone. Plus, our Adept is threatening to quit if our GM keeps ignoring us.

As for those of you who think he might have books or secrets pertaining to the campaign at his house, I can already rule that out. He isn't just our GM, he's one of my best friends, and he's not really the sneaky kind of GM either. He even gives us hints as to our next session sometime. Good news is, however, we're playing twice this week. We played today, and we'll be playing friday.

It's more like a scenario then a run. I asked him if I could hack and airfield and put a fighter jet under my name and change it so it was, technically, mine. After that i'll have it transported to another airfield and....have my own jet. I love being a decker.

What's the age group? Could it be a parent placing restrictions on him? Wanting to monitor the childs activities and friends?

This could explain the constant interruptions as the group is checked upon. It would also be embarrassing to a young man - enough to lie about the reasons he can not freely socialize with friends.

Maybe he's just obsessive compulsive in some way and isn't comfortable in that apartment.

His refusal to move when everyone else is happier in your place is odd. I would ask about the 'can't breath' thing. That sounds like he has problems that do not have anything to do with gaming.

If the problem at his place is constant interuptions, this will not change by changing rooms.

DO NOT do the written thing. Think how you would feel if the group did that to you.

Trouble breathing in the apartment could also come from a previously unknown allergy to pet dander.

Best of luck sorting this out. If you're in the Greater San Diego area, let me know. I'm still looking for a stable SR group...

Is he otherwise comfortable being at your place? Should be with friends living in the same street.

I have a friend whose cat I am allergic too. Anytime we'd game at his place I'd have to load up on allergy medication to get through the night which was pretty interesting because I also drank a lot at those sessions.

I vote with HoV, but add my two nuyen;

Speak to the GM, but in a calm, intelligent manner: take him asdie & ask what (the f*ck) is going on, because he's starting to piss off the group. If he refuses to elaborate, finish off the campaign as smoothly as possible, then ask him to step down as GM for a while. Call it a 'GM rotation'. If he refuses, he knows where the door is.
As the old gaming addage goes, The GM may be God, but a god is nothing without worshippers.

EDIT: spelling mistakes already fixed.

It's kind of hard to confront him as a person because he's easily agitated, and tends to state things as if it was some unchangeable fact and he's right and you aren't. He claims he can't breath up here, so we set up some more ventilation and hope that'll fix it. He claims he has weak lungs or something, but he never complained about the apartment until recently, it used to be the big hang out spot of our friends. We're also running a "long campaign" so just waiting it out and switching GM isn't an easy option.

I currently live in Athens, TN, so i'm a little bit far away from you to invite you too are campaign, though at the moment we're a bit full. We have a main group of me, an adept, a troll, and a shapeshifter. Then we have a few people who show up now and then to play, a elven mage and a full mage human sniper who helps us out.



At this point, most of us in the group have come to the conclusion that he's simply being a bitch. It's kind of sad really.

I hate to be the voice of dissent (that's actually a lie, but for the sake of argument...), but just knowing how hard it is to find a GM for SR locally in a city with a fairly strong gaming scene considering, and a good one being almost impossible, there's a part of me thinking you just suck it up and be grateful you've got someone who actually wants to run something for you. And it's entirely possible that's EXACTLY the reason he's resisting so much. He's doing you a favour and you're hassling him on how he should do it.

Ofcourse if you've got another potential GM, and you'll lose a player over it if things don't change, then by all means cut your GM loose. If a player is going to quit, and you're going to lose someone either way, it may aswell be the GM that's causing the problem in the first place.

I know this sounds contradictory, but I'm just assuming everyone is equally at fault (or atleast everyone involved is equally convinced someone else is at fault), and as talking about it doesn't seem to have helped, it simply becomes a matter of how much do you want to keep this guy in your group versus how much you want to play in your apartment.

Well, we've be friends for a long time, and we got into Shadowrun via the SNES games. He began pursuing the pen and paper game and I thought very little of it, though when he asked us to play we got into it. By no means is he doing us a favor, considering it's just as hard for us to find players then a GM. We're not just a Shadowrun group, we're a group of friends, and a tightly closed one at that. Not to mention it's not that big of a town, which is why I don't want to lose anyone. You see? I don't want to cut the GM either, but it's uncomfortable and cramped in his room.

Here, let me paint you a picture. The room fits no more then a bed, one large chair, and computer desk, and his tv stand, and it's still crowded. There are six of us in this room. With him in the computer chair thats two on the big chair and two on his bed, and then at least one of us is sitting on his floor. We're shoulder to shoulder and we can barely move. Every hour, at least, a relative of his barges in and wants something to the point I almost beat the living crap out of his little brother cause I was tired of it.

Well, we might all just have to accept it after this but sooner or later he's gonna start losing players like flies.


P.S: One more thing, though this is really just an odd coincidence. Whenever we play at his house it's semi chaotic. Everyones distracted, making jokes, playing with things they find laying around, and it gets to the point where you can't hear yourself think.

You're working real hard to defend this guy.

He's your friend.

The outsiders perspective you sought by bringing the issue to this forum is pretty much unanimous. Your game would be improved by shifting to the apartment with the big table.

Anything else is just emotional attachments that you have to decide if they are more important than what you get from a good game.

I still favor the trout response.

There are some great ideas here so I would take as many of these as you can and combine them...except for the written form, unless you jsut use it for reference.

I've avoided such problems by establishing ground rules for my games. It was hard to have many ground rules when I started playing in the 80s (I was just a teenager then), but once I got out of the house and had my own place, they worked just fine.

Before I start GMing a new group, I sit down with them and explain the requirements I feel will make the sessions better. (Notice I quantifiy this with I feel).

1) A large enough area for everyone to be comfortable.

2) No children (unless it can't be avoided).

3) No non-players (unless they're interested in learning the game).

I developed these criteria long ago because there have been enough problems I've encountered because of one or the other. Some of these won't apply for every group, some children play well without adult supervision, some spouses remain separate from the game...etc, etc.

As a group, we decide where the best place is that meets these criteria. 9 times out of 10, there will be a single guy in the group that has a place. These decisions have to involve the entire group or else it just won't work.

If this person is as good a friend as you say, then he/she will listen to what you have to say, though they may not like it.

It is good that you feel some responsibility to your friend but it is pretty clear you are not having a good time and the games are having trouble if you are uncomfortable. His claim of trouble breathing is really lame unless he is a bubble boy. It is more likely he likes the control of people having to come to him. Your comment about how he tries to paint things black and white with you in the wrong seems to move that way too.

My daughter tries that, and we do not give in. You should probably just take it as a given that you need to shift to your place and tell him that's where you are meeting and you hope he shows. Maybe someone else can GM for a few sessions while he acclimates. that also will make him see he is not irreplaceable.

Before a session at his house, have all the players gather and load up on White Castle hamburgers, beans, hot dogs... you know... food with report! If he thinks he can't breathe in your apartment, just you wait.

Raw spinach, and garlic.

I still favor the trout... then again I favor just about any zany response in this thread. Especially the gassing tactic.

On an aside, and I am assuming, I bet he likes the smell of ass on his sheets (since you guys have to sit on his bed), doubly if any of his players forgets to wipe, or wipes badly.

Disclaimer: Not a personal attack, I'm just thinking like an idiot and I haven't read every post.
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Personally, I stopped hosting games at my house because everyone was either watching TV, using the wireless internet, eating, or talking rather loudly OUT of game/character. That D&D campaign died faster than you can say "doohickey".

Gauge your sessions. If it takes you the whole day just to go through the meet with Johnson, then you're not really playing much. You're just hanging out at his room and, y'know, hanging out. Oh, and the Shadowrun...

I rightly don't think its fair that he blinds himself to the playing conditions. I've abandoned far too many games on accounts of crummy gming, poor playing conditions, and the other gamers. Believe me when I say, it isn't worth it sticking with the game just because you're well into it.

Just switch to IRC gaming, it's what I do.

Not much to ruin a game session on IRC besides unreliable players, and those can be weeded out -- with plenty more willing and eager to take their place in the group.

...Well, that and crazy netsplits.

I do not know if this has been said yet, but I am guessing the GM simply does not want to commute to the apartment. How far away is your apartment from his house? That will certainly aid us in what the best decision is here.

The prevalence of Asperger syndrome is, last I checked, unknown—I'd advise against claiming that "many" have it until that has actually been established.

~J

However you decide what toppings will be on your pizza, just do it that way (and if you just have everyone get individual small pizzas, you're doing it wrong).

But seriously, a petition is a bit too much, a simple vote will do. And you might get an air filter or a humidifer or something just to be accommodating to his respiratory needs (ask him why it is difficult to breath in your apartment, what it feels like) he might actually be mildly alergic to something in your air.

I say just suck it up and move the game to your house. If he doesn't come, and refuses to understand, then someone else will just have to pick up the reigns of the GM role.

just got here
was there any resolution yet on this?
does the gm have asthma? Maybe you might consider getting one of those filters for the air? Or is it people smoke at your place?
I also wonder about the age thing like someone else mentioned. This almost sounds like parental pressure. Granted I've known people in their 20's and up who bow to parental pressure, even ones who don't still live at home.

Hey, sorry guys I figured this thread was dead. Theres been....kind of a resolution. I cleaned up the apartment, swept, vacuumed, moved shit around, and spent like a day and a half workin on it and he says it's not as stuffy anymore. I'm not quite sure he was telling the truth about it being stuffy in the first place but I have no grounds to claim it wasn't true. We haven't played up here yet, and whenever I mention it I get a maybe and "it depends" instead of a no, so I think he's giving in. Anyway, thanks for all the tips everyone. To answer your alls questions though:

He dosn't have asthma or anything, though he claims to have "weak lungs", and he probably does. So it may have been the reason, but I find it odd that he never mentioned it before and instead gave other excuses, like not wanting to walk there or that his room was more comfortable. None the less, hopfully it'll all calm down.