Can you turn a bad player into a good player or is it almost always a lost cause?

Can you turn a bad player into a good player or is it almost always a lost cause?

almost nobody starts as a good player

With the right amount of incentive and effort people can change. But trying to push them too hard or the wrong way and you will just entrench them in their ways.

Yes, you can.
It requires more time than effort I've found.
Just little nudges along the way and other good players to help.

Most people start as average players, not bad.

Only if they want to.

I know I was a fucktarded weeaboo when I was in high school and eventually grew out of it. So there is help for anyone.

Only if they have enough of a grasp on narrative tropes and genuine creativity. Ive taken a ton of players from green to grognard and the limiting factor is always how well read they are.

Only if you actually know what are you doing.
A great deal of people come to the table expecting more "BBT's wacky nerd shenanigans" than Dexter Lab's D&D hijinks.
Or animu stuff.
Eventually they'll understand that thing have to work within a setting, and that you can't be Aragorn Cujoh, wielder of Elucidator on Shadowrun.

You want to get them while they're new, still learning the basics, and haven't internalized as many bad habits yet. The newer the better. If you get a fresh-out-the-gate first time roleplayer, then it will be easier to teach that person good habits.

You teach them roleplaying etiquette with the same attitude as teaching them how to write their character sheets; friendly, forgiving, without a giant stick up your ass about it. It's the same idea as teaching the game-rules: these rules are just less strict and are not written down in the manual. Like a houserule, but for both IC and OOC conduct.

When someone slips up on their RP etiquette (metagames, tries PvP, etc) you want to stop them the same way as if they didn't add up their numbers correctly. Assume that they just forgot, or don't realize that they're being an asshole. Briefly remind them what they're doing wrong, why it's not a good idea, and suggest what they can do instead to achieve what they want. Like if they want attention, you can give them some tips for good roleplaying. If they want a fight right now, you can advise them to seek out a quest, have a friendly duel in-character, or try interacting with NPCs until the fight you had planned. Things like that.

If a player wants to do something stupid that violates your ideas of RP etiquette, then you don't let that play out in the game world. You take a pause and talk to the player about it like a reasonable human about it.

I could probably write an essay on RP norms, etiquette, and best practices, but I don't have time so I'll just say to use your best judgement and look the topic up online.

Sometimes, you need to fix yourself.

Every single good player was a shitter at some point.

Experience and the right community.

I was "edge lord, rafters lurking, half dragon, runaway prince" level of trash until enough negative reinforcement taught me to be significantly less trash.

Holy shit.

That story was goddamn amazing.

I need to find the user who was involved in this.

What the fuck is a yellow dragon had me laughing.

>How many servants did your castle have?
Real prodigy, that DM

Depends on what problems they have. If the problem is the player being ignorant, inexperienced, or young then they will usually grow out of whatever stupid habits they have.

What you can't get rid of is a bad personality, if someone is a spiteful asshole, then you're likely not going to change his ways through your once a week game. In such a case it's better to let the poor sod go.

t. asshole

It depends on what kind of bad roleplayer they are and why. Someone who does jerk things just to piss other people at the table off are probably irredeemable, barring a religious conversion of some sort. People who are just new, haven't quite figured the difference between group TTRPG and solo vidya, or have only encountered one way of playing that is incompatible with the way the table is playing generally improve pretty quickly given the chance.

When you get the chance, please write that essay.

Yes, you can. Kill the character, permanently, so he understand that character die. He will take things more seriously.

I spent the whole time trying to figure out if it was an actual reference to Yellow dragons or if they weren't aware that the chromatic equivalent of a Gold Dragon is a Red Dragon.

Depends on the setting

Is that one of those chinese eggs fermented in boy pee?

Now you're a fucktard capeshiter.

Nope, heavily polished piece of shit.

From my experience you can certainly improve them, but I don't know if getting all the way to good is gonna happen in a realistic time frame.

I assumed it was a sneaky reference to the Orb of Aldur.

If you like some of the things they do, such as character concepts, but dislike other things, like there table manners, then you could try adjusting their behavior. If they suck in their entirety, then there's no point.

In my experience this is super untrue. I was a trash player when I started cuz I didn't understand what made a character interesting and just wrote mary-sue's. Same with with LITERALLY every super new player I've met and played with.

Maybe if someone gives them some advice before the game but even then, its often not completely understood.

>exfoliating the giant

kek

Can we first of all classify the terms "bad" and "average" regarding players?

A year ago, I ran a campaign where I had one novice player and two experienced ones.

The novice was flat out better at roleplaying and making character concepts than the more experienced ones on his first ever session, but even by the last session of the campaign (about the 20th), he was still struggling with the core gameplay concepts.

Yes. Now turning a min/maxer into someone who makes a balanced character on the other hand...

Depends on whether the person GMing is a good GM.

>struggling with the core gameplay concepts

This always baffles me.
Most modern systems, whether realistic or not, have fairly simple mechanics, yet some players cannot seem to get to grips with it, no matter how long they've played.

I have a player that just cannot wrap his head around skill usage. He never tries to do anything, he waits for me to call out skill checks for him rather than take any initiative whatsoever then complains that all he did was stand around and make basic attacks.

Like, fucking, dude. Just do stuff, anything. I can only describe so many rickety rope bridges, barrel pyramids and chandeliers before I give up on you here.

From a beginner I can understand and forgive such a thing. But judging from your story, this guyis at least a seasoned player?

Did he have more "enabling" GMs in the past that could explain this behaviour?

He's been playing in my group for close to four years now, almost every week. This is a consistent problem he has in every game we play.

I think his first system was DnD 4e, so he never quite adapted to the idea that you don't need to be specifically told what cool shit you can do in order to do it.

OP you're essentially asking if people are capable of learning.

It's okay if the narrative is complete ass as long as it doesn't impinge on the fun.

Too bad I have a massive stick up my ass.

I never played D&D 4E, but was it really that structured?

Worse. It had scaling DCs so the same wall you climbed at DC 15 at level 1 is DC 35 at level 20. Nothing has changed about the wall.

It does have quite a bit of structure to it. The trick is learning to bend the rules. Combat related stuff is pretty tight, but with a decent DM, you can attempt anything with skill checks. It all comes down to creativity and a group that is willing to sometimes say "screw the rules, we're doing it like this." Really, you just need some ingenuity.
One problem I've always heard was that there wasn't enough structure in using skills. It's sorta open and left for the DM to handle. As I said, a decent DM would allow a crafty player to use skills in interesting ways. If all the player did was use their AEDU stuff, their abilities, then yeah, he might have a problem adapting and thinking outside the box.

Actually at 20th level it would be DC 31.

This 100% I started a group with 5 complete novices and the one who took theater carried the whole group. He was so outgoing and creative that not only did he improve the other players roleplaying but he improved my storytelling as well.

How odd. What was the rationale behind that?

I've been running a lot of one-shot campaigns to introduce my friends to roleplaying, and I always bring along at least one experienced player to help the others out. It makes a world of difference for both me and for them.

I would read this doctoral thesis

if they genuinely have brain problems, no
otherwise yes

If I get a completely fresh player I love starting them out with a rules light narrative focused system. It's so much better to start out teaching them actual roleplaying, and then worry about mechanics and rules later down the line.

People are kinda misinterpreting what that was about.

In 4e, everyone gets better at everything as they level up. You get better even at skills you don't have.

So, by level 12, calling for a DC 10 check is just a waste of time. DC 10 is easy at 2nd level, and totally trivial at 12th level. If something's a DC 10, you just don't call for a roll. If something's DC 17, they'll make it most of the time. It's to help DMs gauge how hard to make things, or what kind of challenges will actually be challenging.

You should NOT increase the DC of the same damn check. If a rocky hillside is DC 10 to climb, it doesn't become DC 17 at level 12. It just doesn't get rolled for. At level 12, you call for a check when they want to climb an icy cliff, and a DC 21 would be appropriate.

I don't actually like 4e, but this particular problem is just people being dumb.

Virtually all people can be re-educated.
For vast majority it's not worth the necessary amount of effort though, and you're better off just ditching them for somebody who doesn't suck.

It's been 10 years, guys. The books are free online, you can read that section and stop perpetuating this nonsense now.

>The wall gets harder to climb as you level.
It doesn't. To climb an uneven wall (sheer walls can't be climbed with a skill check.), the highest possible DC would be 30, if the bricks are smooth and covered in olive oil. Pic related

They're being willfully ignorant or just trolling. The table posted there is in a section about making up DCs for things the rules don't cover. If it's something that is hard enough that the player should roll a check for it, then the table is there for you to get a quick idea of what DCs are appropriate for the level in question.

...and yet here you are.

>Virtually all people can be re-educated
Tell that to /pol/. Some people are just stuck in their bad beliefs.

No. Veeky Forums is categorically incapable of admitting that words mean things, stopping to define terms, or refraining from tard-screeching in the presence of a classification system.

You answered your own question. Yes anything is possible, but it is almost always a lost cause

Depend what makes the player 'bad'. There are many bad habits a player can have and a player is only really terrible when either A) that bad habit is unbearable or B) they got too many. Some example:

>Lack of focus
Maybe the player just has some attention disorder. Maybe they're just distracted easily by out of game things or maybe once they start babbling about something in which other players are interested they end up derailing the game with out-of-game convo. Maybe they just don't know what they want out of the game (social interaction, RP, combat) and the game isn't providing for them the right incentive to be engaged.

>'Um, what do I roll again?'
Some players are just new or maybe are very slow to learn new systems. Others are bad at remembering more than one and this can be an issue if they are in more than one game. It can slow down the game if they always forget what to roll.

>Accidental(?) cheater
Maybe he just fucked up the maths when making/leveling his character. Maybe he just misread and ended up miscalculating something. Or maybe he's cheating but keep in mind sometimes new players (or people new to a system) can misread something and screw up their sheets.

>Bad manners
Some people are just spergy, smelly socially inept neckbeards. A lot of people who got into RPG before hipsters decided it was 'cool to be nerdy' were usually weirdo and outcast. That doesn't always make them bad people, sometimes they just need some gentle push to fix some bad habits. And sometimes they don't want to change and stay that way.

>Poor team playing
Some people are just bad team players. Maybe some got an ego and like to only do things their own way and think the rest of the group can go fuck itself. It's 'their way or the highway'. As with many bad behaviors, some people are capable of changing and improving. Just keep those guys away from chaotic or evil aligned characters.

>The political landmine
Maybe he's a whiny total wimpo who think the female barbarian character is misogynist due to not being completely covered or played by a man (even if the character is cool, badass and everyone like her and her player). Maybe he's a maladjusted crusty /pol/lack who is mad at a female character having more than 8 STR and CON. Or maybe half your group vote Democrat and the other half Republican (which I doubt happen nowadays). Maybe you should all try to act like reasonable adults and agree that discussing politics when you are there to kill goblins isn't the best of time and you should focus on what make the group come together, not their differences.

>The phone addict
Tell him to get off his fucking phone. It's not hard! Or if he badly need his phone, make him use it to roll his stuff on there so he can fulfill his electronic addiction.

>The LOLSORANDUMB GUY
Unless you're running Toon, he's probably not the best guy to have at a table.

At low levels you roll swimming to get through a particularly vigorous stream. At high levels you roll swimming to bench press whirlpools.

You can't fix people. People have to fix themselves. This is true for just about anything concerning a person.

I once did dorodango after watching that mythbusters episode and i must say it was the most quiet and peaceful week of my life

Depends on why they are a bad player. In almost all cases yes, though some require much more work than others. However with some people there are actual mental issues involved, and I'm pretty sure most of us are not qualified to deal with those.

I see absolutely no reason that could not be a shadowrun character assuming it was a somewhat tongue in cheek game. We had a literal god damn street samurai in ours, and he kicked ass.

Are you stupid? The DC scales because the challenge is supposed to scale. You're not rolling to climb up a regular ass cliff face at level 17 because its that damn easy to you, you're rolling to scale the unbreakable glass walls of the Palace of Fuk Yhu the Lich. A regular cliff face is a moderate challenge to a level 1 party and isn't a challenge to a level 7 party. The DC of that cliff face doesn't change at all regardless of level, you as a DM should be throwing more dangerous cliff faces at them instead.

I think the best way to classify good and bad players is by whether the game is more fun by them being there. An average player will be at least a little fun because as a group game socialization with people on your wavelength tends to be a good experience, just like most multiplayer vidya games can be fun if you're with fun people. A good player brings in a greater net quantity of fun by playing an interesting/enjoyable character, treating the other people with food, or just by being a good person, while a bad player will actively drain fun away from everyone else.

I'm not sure to what degree you could shift someone from a bad to good player. I don't think it's impossible since some people are just new or misguided, but a real shithead is probably going to stay that way and might be best if purged from the group.

It also gets tricky since fun is super subjective. Someone playing Urist McAleaxe the dorf stereotype might be fun for one group but actively annoy another.

Doesn't even have to be that tongue-in-cheek. I can't imagine Shadowrunner street names are a hell of a lot better than forum names on the whole anyway.

usualy those who are making some special snowflakes and mary sues as characters are those who always had that idea without really expressing it, so it just stayed there and started rotting away.
Once they get to play it until they are satisfied, there is suddenly new room for better ideas.

either that, or they are obsessed with it and play the same shit all over again.

some people get fucking upset over stuff like this though.
And then it's a good friend you just can not just throw out of the group, mostly because many first-time players feel the same way, making you the bad guy in the end

If someone asked me to roll to climb a ladder, I would look at them very long and hard, before picking up that dice.
I mean, unless you're being shot at or something

Scaling a ladder quickly while under duress may call for a roll, but it shouldn't be a particularily hard DC unless there are other environmental hazards.

In the two campaigns I DM I have three sort of challenging players altogether. The rest are mostly great.
>1: Lolrandumb 1st. time player
- She plays an elven ranger, and just does a lot of shit "for lulz" with zero thought for consequences. That's pretty standard for new players, and I am slowly (and succesfully, I think) weaning her off that behaviour.
She stole a magic artifact from a "magic" shop in the 1st session, and rather than have some big fight or shit, the shopkeeper alerted the guards, and asked around town for the highly recognizable elf.
Now she carries an essentially useless, unidentified artifact around, scared shitless of losing it, because she thinks returning it is her only way to not get murdered by a mage-shopkeeper. It's actually been kinda fun.

>2: WHY ISN'T THINGS GOING HOW I WANT?
- Probably the one of my players I'm most stumped about. He gets upset / angry and directs it at me, when situations play out differently than he wants them too.
Whether reasonable or not (I'm not a perfect GM by any stretch) it just phases me. I did crack, last session, and actually snarled back at him, when he raised his voice at me.
I'm not quite sure what to do. He's a good RP'er, and understands the rules well, but he argues with my rulings constantly.

>3: Powergaming? Me?
This guy is the closest I have had to a "That Guy" - every character, in every system we have played for 4 years now, has been some kind of powerbuild.
To top it off, he is really challenged with the roleplaying aspect.
He has been getting consistenly better at roleplaying, more focused, and able to participate even when the spotlight is elsewhere. - And if the part of the game that he really enjoys is kicking ass, then I'm inclined to just let him ride along, and enjoy that, since the other stuff doesn't come easily to him.

Sorry, but not all of us treat our tabletops like a damn video game. Contrary to popular belief people don't build giant spikey fortresses just because they're a scarier bad guy than the last one the party fought.

>This always baffles me.
>Most modern systems, whether realistic or not, have fairly simple mechanics, yet some players cannot seem to get to grips with it, no matter how long they've played.

I give you pretty good odds they're dyslexic. That's the common theme among people like that I've played with.

They probably can't even decipher their character sheet, let alone remember that their attack bonus is 6 instead of 9.

1. Seems fun and can definitely be salvaged.

2. Kill him and find a new person, he seems more interested in writing a book.

3. On the right track, just takes time.

Where there is a will, there's a way.

What game? You can teach/train someone to do/be pretty much everything, but the amount of work required varies. Teaching someone basic tactics and probabilistic assessment is pretty easy, they just have to want to learn.

This is a great story, but clearly never happened.
This DM and player weren't even that bad, the player just had an awful taste in fantasy, and the DM allowed too much bullshit.

But the way the DM allowed them to crush the giant's toe, rewarding their players for being clever, or the way he didn't continue the fight with the dragons, a bad DM would never allow their huge invincible monsters too... lose. Even less chance of tying the story in a nice little bow with the dragons coming back to reward the players.
The player also only threatened OP, never attacked him like a true edgelord would do.

This DM is as good constructing a narrative as the user who wrote the story, and this is the most obvious give away that it's just a writefag.

Bump

This

Not in my experience. My entire group was the most cancerous, murder hoboey, borderline magical realm shit you've ever experienced when we started out. Many years down the road they're all pretty good players, and I'd like to think I'm a decent GM. So yes, you definitely can improve a bad player.

Although to be fair we were a group of 13 year old school friends who started playing 3.5 together, so that might have contributed to the cancer.

Depends on how set in their ways they are.

Is this their first campaign? First few? How long have they played? Early enough they can be salvaged.

If they've been playing RPGs for 10 years and are still an incorigible THAT GUY then it is a lost cause

>Can you turn a bad player into a good player
No.

Bad players are bad because of some fundamental misunderstanding of how the game is supposed to function, or some basic fault in their ability to interact with others socially. You can't change those things.

You can groom inexperienced players, sometimes, and shape their play style to a certain degree, but as in all other things, people are guided by very root personality traits and motives. They will always conform to their nature. Passive and timid people will always be passive and timid. People who are charming and boisterous will always behave that way. Assholes cannot stop themselves being assholes. I've been playing a lot of years and I've met tons of players, and I've never met one who I couldn't determine within an hour if they were going to be fun to play with or a pile of shit. And even years and thousands of hours of playtime later, none of them has ever substantially changed.

So if you find a player who is adrift and confused, but seems to have potential, nurture it, because odds are they can be helped to improve and become a solid player. Maybe even a great one. If they seem like a dick, or like they can't play well with others, or like they don't really care about the game, just drop them and stay away. They will always be like that. And odds are the better you get to know them, the worse they will turn out to be.

>yellow dragon
Was afraid it was gonna be the magical realm there for a sec

But user, where do you think rain comes from, if not pissing dragons?

You can polish a turd all you like, but at the end of the day?
It's still a turd, just with a shine to it and maybe a coating of wax.

>all this misplaced misanthropy
>"leopard dun change his spots" fallacy

There's no way you can have gone through multiple decades of living and still believe people can never change. I bet you don't even play, either. Just another cancerous shitposter making shit up.