Ok let's get some backstory, there are 4 players and then me, the DM, we'll call the players Y, W, B and S. Y & W are playing D&D for the first time. B has played a lot of D&D over several years. S was playing D&D for the first time, then went off on a trip with friends after our 2nd session and did 2 weeks of playing almost nothing but D&D for 8 hours a day. And they played D&D pretty much -every- day.
I've played D&D Pathfinder a little bit and I've never DM'd before. Ok I'm a new DM, I've only DM'd 4 sessions ever with this group.
Our session is a premade campaign (Lost Mine of Phandelver) and it has sort of evolved into teaching Y & W how to play D&D and teaching me how to DM entertainingly. B was there mainly to help set up character sheets and advise on how I should operate as a DM at the start, but ultimately left it up to me.
However, since S has come back he rerolled his character from a Bard into a Sorcerer and it's sort of thrown a wrench in the campaign because he's suddenly able to overcome any of the challenges with a slew of new abilities which just make his character sound like some silly comic book hero power fantasy, such as having a familiar that can shapeshift into anything, the familiar being able to turn invisible and immaterial to pass through walls, and said familiar able to cast any of his spells as well as telepathically communicate with him - at infinite range. He said that the trade-off to this would be being less strong in combat but he still dishes out a very good amount of damage.
Additionally he'll debunk any threat that comes their way. I described and sort of hyped up a bugbear to be the main boss of a dungeon, and he immediately downplayed the threat by saying to the rest of the group "Oh that's not a problem, bugbears are easy to deal with". Even though I artificially inflated its stats, hp, and abilities during the encounter to try and make it seem more challenging, I feel like it's taking away from the experience of Y & W - that they're not being challenged at all because S seems to just asspull his way through each situation and the fact that I don't know what's applicable means it feels like he's just bullshitting his way through. Because of his extra game knowledge he's also being doing things like rolling to figure out what armour the enemy is wearing and flat out demanding the AC value that enemy had - something I wasn't happy with telling him.
B has been rping his barbarian character and trying to encourage Y & W to tackle the objectives to learn more but it almost feels like they're playing second fiddle to S.
I don't want to discourage S's behaviour because this is simply how he is. This is how he wants to play, and I want to be accomodating of it, but I don't know how to entertain him and his character separately (if I should do that at all), I don't know how I can give his character adequate challenges without overburdening Y and W.
Should I add harder challenges that are specifically catered to S and encourage B, Y and W to do the other challenges? Or is this just something that will get easier with more experience? I just don't know how to make something interesting for all involved considering the gap in experience between the players and me, the DM.
Daniel Hernandez
TL;DR: I'm a novice DM, S player was a novice player, played D&D hardcore for 2 weeks and became an expert, his newfound advanced knowledge means I can't provide decent challenges in the campaign, how do I provide decent challenges that accomodate S but don't disconnect two novice players from the campaign?
Joseph Davis
It sounds like he's making shit up and being That Guy. Be rid of him. >Demanding to know AC No, he's just walking over you because of your inexperience.
Give him two choices. Either he uses his greater system knowledge to run, or, he fucks off.
Charles Turner
Tell him to cut the shit or leave, he can not demand to know creature stats from you, also tell him he is ruining the game for other players, he needs to reign himself in so they can learn, also make sure you know what spells be has access to and when he changes them, I have had issues in the past of people adding spells on the fly or swapping them that made me need to do that.
Brayden Sullivan
What level is the party? It doesn't sound right that his familiar would be able to do all of those things if the dungeon boss is a bugbear.
If you're having trouble balancing encounters then the DMG has a handy set of tables to help you gauge how big/strong the bad guy forces are. If that's set up for "deadly" and he's still wiping the floor with things single handed then it's likely he's got something wrong on his character. I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and say he has likely misread/misinterpreted some part of the sorcerer's abilities. I recommend having B take a look at S's stuff and make sure everything is right.
Also; there is no check in the game that can force you to spill character stats to your players except for a specific fighter ability and even then you're supposed to be vague.
Matthew Nguyen
I believe Veeky Forums is somewhat divided on Adam Koebel as a GM, but he did tackle this particular question in one of his GM advice streams. (note the time stamp, this is where this particular question is brought up). Of note is that, by his own admission, he turns into That Particular Kinda Guy when playing D&D, specifically. youtu.be/a5UCB7jWpIo?t=19m57s
Camden Ramirez
Also to answer:
>how do I provide decent challenges that accomodate S but don't disconnect two novice players from the campaign?
The way you handle this is to have your NPCs use proper fighting tactics. If handled properly a small tribe of kobolds can feasibly take out even a mid-high level party in 5e.
Julian Bell
>Non-warlock Familiar >Polymorphing, >Turning invisible >Phasing through physical matter >Casting any spells other than touch-ranged >Communicating telepathically beyond 100' of distance
It seems to me that part of the solution involves you, as the DM, actually knowing what your players should be capable of. I'm assuming he has Ritual Caster, since sorcerers can't get familiars otherwise, in which case you should read the spell description.
As for him demanding to know a monster's AC, just say no. People who do that generally want to fudge their rolls to make sure they hit. Don't make battles specifically for him; in fact, do the opposite. Have something kill his familiar or negate magic, giving the others time in the spotlight, too.
Gavin Rivera
I thought the same thing, has Pathfinder really gotten this retarded?
Jeremiah Evans
>Pathfinder Read the OP. It's D&D 5e. And no, 5e is not this retarded; the player in question is simply walking all over the GM because he doesn't know how to say "no."
Jose King
I haven't even touched 5e yet but this sounds right. Op keep the character sheets in between sessions. Read his sheet then look through the players guide and see if he is breaking rules because it a lot of what he is doing sounds like bullshit.
Robert Harris
B told me that he can't actually demand the AC of a mob after that session. Now I just give him descriptions of the armour that NPC is wearing.
Pretty much the entire thread says "talk to the fucker and make him cut the shit out" and "make sure he's not BS'ing in his character sheet". I'll make sure to do both of those.
I consider myself a generally honest person so I took most of what they said as their abilities to be true and at face value, but I guess I'll have to root through the abilities and individual rules to make sure it's all straightened out.
The bugbear encounter was at level 1. He got his familiar after the encounter and was still a Bard at this point. The whole party is level 3 now.
This actually helps a lot and describes him pretty much to a tee. He gives some great parallels with other games. He seems alright (from that 1 question). I agree with him in saying this isn't necessarily a "bad thing" because he is playing to win, and he is definitely the type of person that metagames and tries to find the most optimal build.
That sounds good. I like playing around with different tactics for the benefit or hindrance of the party.
I messed up. He is actually a Warlock. He's got a Quasit familiar. This is the page he showed me. To be fair I can't see anything about immaterialness or being able to go through walls in it.
He is kinda walking over me and I'm steadily trying to keep him in check by saying "no" to some things. He was suggesting "hey maybe that mob could drop this?" and then showed me some random magic item called Deck of Many Things.
Thanks for all the responses by the way
Elijah Reyes
Whatever you do just remember that he is your friend. So if he picked up a few bad habits in rpgs it isn't that big of a deal. Just be assertive.
Thomas James
>Deck of Many Things No. No, no, no. Hell No. HELL NO. Listen to me, OP. A random-effect magical item will obliterate or destabilize a low-level party. Don't give it to him.
Austin Cook
Yeah kinda like in the video I'm probably portraying him as a bit of an asshole but he's not really. He's just the kind of person that can be very dedicated. It just so happens that he isn't reined in for the newer players in this game.
Camden Miller
I had a suspicion it was something like that when he brought it up so I said no from the get go.
Carter Gonzalez
Thank god.
Thomas Williams
>Deck of Many Things
Jesus Christ, OP. We used to have entire threads on how fucked this thing is.
Holy shit, just never cave in. This thing WILL fuck up your game HARD.
Caleb Smith
>Don't make battles specifically for him; in fact, do the opposite. Have something kill his familiar or negate magic, giving the others time in the spotlight, too. Do this, OP. Tweak monster stats if you need to or give them something they're not supposed to have. If he says anything along the lines of >that's not supposed to be able to do that then you shrug and tell him that this one can.
Zachary Bennett
>Deck of Many Things
You could give it to him and rig it so he draws the void card. It would effectively kill his character and solve your problem.
Ethan Walker
>Deck of Many Things
Henry Anderson
Recruit him to your side. That is what one of my GMs did.
I was very much the "Lore Guy" of the group. It had gotten to the point where the rest of the group constantly followed my lead in the meta-sense of "user knows this shit better than anyone else, we should do what he says."
So after my PC died and I was going to make a new one we came up with a hilarious idea to mess with the group. I'd play a character that was a Know-it-all but was actually pretty incompetent. We worked out a set of signals to know when I actually knew what I was talking about and when I was talking out my ass. The rest of the group had no clue and just thought the GM was changing up the lore to keep me from dominating whenever I got something wrong.
Eventually someone caught a "failed" roll and we got into a big IC argument about it that eventually ended up with the GM laughing so hard that the jig was up. When the rest of the group saw what was happening at first they were upset then started laughing as the entire campaign had degenerated into a sort of Keystone Cops vs Evil Cultists because of my PC's gross incompetence.
Parker Ward
>then you shrug and tell him that this one can. This My favorite thing to do when a player calls me out on either changing something or screwing something up is to say something along the lines of "That does seem odd, doesn't it?" Like when 1 player successfully ignited a keg of wine and it exploded. Another player points out that wine would never do that. "That does seem odd doesn't it?" Suddenly there's a subplot about the bartender hiding rare and valuable Dwarven ale and labeling it as wine.
Isaiah Evans
I'm not sure how DnD 5th edition works but I am well aware that many of the spellcasting classes are much more flexible now and spells are no longer as limited as they used to be.
Still I've been DMing for a while.so I can give you some pointers.
1. Sit down with the rule book and really learn it, that's the only way you'll counter S's power plays. Also double check his work to see if he's made an error in his favor (or if he's flat out cheating)
2. Learn to be more assertive. If you aren't comfortable giving out the AC values of enemies, DON'T GIVE OUT THIS INFORMATION. Give vague hints instead.
3. Don't be afraid to take off the kid gloves now and then. No matter how powerful someone is, at some point they will have to eat their humble pie. Don't be afraid to counter pick. S has built a heavily optimized spellcaster? Put him up against a Golem. They still have spell immunity, don't they? Next time he talks down an enemy, have that enemy make a beeline for his character and lay on the smack down.
Ryan Bailey
I started skimming a little but I think I agree with most of what's been said already. I don't really agree that there's only one way to play DnD, like that guy in the vid ( ) suggests. In fact, you should be able to find a section in the DMG that says you can award exp for roleplaying, meeting mission goals, and story goals.
S should not be asking for magical items as loot. Especially artifacts. It sounds to me like he's trying to bend you. Don't cave in to anything that sounds unreasonable.
(random pic)
Hudson Allen
>then you shrug and tell him that this one can.
Doing this to players who think they are hot shit for meta gaming gives me a huge fucking boner.
Eli Phillips
Have you tried not playing D&D?
Eli Reyes
>because he's suddenly able to overcome any of the challenges with a slew of new abilities which just make his character sound like some silly comic book hero power fantasy
As with many others, I think you really need to take a look at his character sheet and look over the rulebook - hard - in regards to his class. As far as I know, there is no class in 5e that does this. That is, makes a mockery of all encounters and totally over powers other classes.
If his character is doing this then the most likely he is misinterpreting his characters abilities, adding shit, and likely fudging dice roles as well.
Start from the beginning with his character, if you want to allow him to switch classes that is fine. But I strongly recommend that you disallow multi-classing. Especially if he is powergaming shit.
Then go over to the 5e general, give us his character stats, and let us talk it through.
Bentley Bailey
I should add that, if you haven't already, try involving some roleplay into the story and get the other players invested in interactions with NPCs. There doesn't need to be skill checks for everything either, and remember that a natural 20 or a natural 1 does not always mean an auto success/failure or a critical when it comes to skill/stat checks. If the players run up to you waving their hands and saying that they rolled a (insert your choice of number here) on whatever skill, asking for results, you don't have to give it to them. Especially if you didn't ask them to make a roll. You can also ask them what their characters say instead of them hand waving and throwing some dice. Sometimes this will modify their results in a good or bad way.
A nod to the social aspect of gaming, do try to play responsibly and respectfully.
