Just kicked THAT GUY

>Just kicked THAT GUY
Ahhh

It's amazing how once you just accept that 'they're sometimes ok' and 'when they're not being a fucking asshat they're really good players' are revealed as flimsy excuses once you take the plunge and tell them to leave and never return

I still feel a little bad because I think the strife they caused was narcissistic personality disorder or full on delusional paranoia and if they could have just NOT BEEN FUCKING CRAZY they could have stayed and been good... but hey- I'm a GM, not a psychiatrist.

Congrats. Sounds like it was something that took a while and a lot of effort to finally do. Sometimes I wish I could dump a problem player definitively instead of just giving reprimands. But when I don't, in hindsight the issues never seem that bad the day after, when everyone's tempers have cooled down.

I hope your game improves though. Agree completely that GMs aren't personal stress balls for you to vent your issues at.

Good on you OP. That kind of thing can be hard to deal with, and it's especially insidious if during their not shitty times they can be a good player.

I had a similar issue a few years back, except they were my boyfriend as well as a player. Shit got real ugly before things finally broke, but goddamn I'm so much better off being rid of them.

are you going to tell us what they did to be "THAT GUY". because thats the interesting part.

Story time.

That guys are one thing, you can just kick them. What about the silent guys? They're not really disturbing the game, so you can't just give them the boot.

I used to be one of these guys. Its going to be different for each person, but letting them contribute at their own pace is generally a good call. Giving ample chances to let them contribute is better than trying to force action from the player. Even if its small, or they rarely find something to do or say besides. "I go to there, I attack ect". At some point they are going to get more comfortable and/or find an aspect of the game they like and it will spark from there.

Or if that takes to long just let them sit and spectate, no biggie. As long as you give them opportunities to try then its on them for choosing not to.

Silent guys are basically supporting cast members you don't have to play. Leave room for them to take more active roles in the game but don't make the story dependent on them or feel guilty you're not sharing the spotlight.

Not everyone is going to be a Thorin Oakenshield, but there's nothing wrong with someone being one of the other dwarves.

I don't think you actually kicked out a thatguy. you just wanted to feel cool.

Honestly it was a slow burn of really shitty behavior that I kept on forgiving the day after due to a situation like
mentioned
>it's especially insidious if during their not shitty times they can be a good player.
and not an ebin story.


1- freaking the FUCK out over cursewords. Like, someone used 'fuckin' for emphasis, not directed at THAT GUY and I got PMs about 'omg this is Sexual harassment' and then THAT GUY sperged out over the abbreviation "F'n" which really struck me as 'this isn't thin skin this is craziness'

2- Throwing a tantrum and slowing down play with meta commentary every time something bad happened to them. Any monster attacking them was a bullshit TPK despite them never losing a character once while most other players were on their 2nd or 3rd.

3- Completely misreading the flow of play and then whining when they got left behind. We're talking fast paced dungeon crawling in which THAT GUY would constantly ask other players what other players said. It was like they took perverse pleasure in everything being repeated 3 times through 'I tell Player X to tell Payer Y what I see...."

3a- Refusing to read the chatlog and autistically copy-pasting their questions about stuff that had already happened over and over until someone answered them to stop the spam. If these inane questions were ignored they'd freak out and send me PM's complaining about how the other players are manipulating me into making the game suck. No, THAT GUY, that's you trying to do that.

But like I said- when they weren't imploding, they weren't bad at all. They were interested in the campaign, they roleplayed, they weren't stupid when it came to combat. But they could not get along with the other players. Like, if it was a solo campaign I bet they would have been fine, but like damn, I have never seen this level of petty bullshit over imagined microaggressions ever before.

>he uses the word m"microagression" unironicaly

>he uses "they" to refer to one person

Holy shit you sure got triggered. It says "imagined microaggressions" fuck tard, i.e. they don't exist. Normally the horseshoe is bullshit but today, just for you, it's true.

>autistically copy-pasting their questions about stuff that had already happened over and over until someone answered them to stop the spam. If these inane questions were ignored they'd freak out
Holy hell that is the worst. I had to kick one of my good friends because he was so damn thin skinned about that. It was for the best, we would have lost other players and he was smack out of line. But it's never fun, even if the actual game runs so much better after.

Still the best campaign I had ever run though.

Maybe they don't know the gender of their player? Otherwise I don't know why they'd bother concealing it. But 'they' as the singular neutral is perfectly acceptable.

Yup it was online, but I sure as shit wasn't going to bother clarifying this to some triggered fucktard obviously trying to stir shit

This was one of those things that seemed innocuous at first and, hey, we're social creatures and being ignored is no fun so I at first humored them... but they just seemed to get lazier and whinier as i enabled them. I have no sympathy for people who won't read the chatlog in a text-only game. This wasn't 'dredge the chatlog for ancient data' this was 'scroll two fucking inches up you useless piece of trash and read what people say the first time they say it'

Totally acceptable to miss stuff once in while, but to make a habit of it and to start blaming others for your own lack of reading? That was the straw that broke the camel's back.

That's one hell of a run-on sentence.

I think one thing is being a super chatty giga social fucker who is accepted as "extroverted and participant" in contrast to being the shy and silent guy who can roleplay when needed and not engage maniacally on whatever group dynamics are seemingly needed. Am I bad for not being the first type while I still know my shit?

>when That Guy kicks himself

He did it twice, too. But I do admit I disadvantaged him slightly in the process of the game. It was just so easy to do, because he took every single, tiny slight as a personal insult.

But Christ, I invited him to that game by his own request, and then he started bitching and claiming I was making him out to be a stupid cunt to impress my other friends. Mate, we are no longer in kindergarten. Single most obnoxious player I've ever had. Always on a hair trigger about being fucked with while constantly acting like a diva towards the other players.

Faggot legit vandalized a door in the building we both lived in because he was pissed off at the campaign. I didn't rat him out, and he can consider that a courtesy. But he can forget about ever being in any of our campaigns ever again.

microaggressions are real tho

>Playing RPGs online.

what manner of beast is that?

Not 100% sure, some sort of Asian turtle.

Disregard that, I suck cocks. It's a south american turtle called a mata mata

>that constantly injects his latest craze into games
>also ignores PCs and NPCs
>has the memory of a goldfish
>hardly pays attention to what's going
>always asks questions he could easily read in the book or fucking google
>acts like the world is against him when something bad happens
>sometimes even plays games during sessions
I'm doing my best to give him a chance for a few more sessions but goddamn.

Sometimes I feel like a shitty player, then I read threads like this a feel a little better
Granted I'm still probably shit but I'm not the worst, so that's something.

i just joined a group and it has the worst that guy i've ever experienced
>dude playing as a sexpot nymphomaniac female in a standard D&D adventure setting
>from start to finish, is twisting every word the DM says into something sexual
you see a wall with pictures
>"heh, yea, buncha cock and ball pictures i hope"
you slam the goblin with your hammer
>"uhuh, more like he slams my ass xd"
you touch the-
>"HAHA TOUCH"
you
>"SEX"

it was relentless.

>that constantly injects his latest craze into games
fucking hell this. I had a That Guy for a while that would do this in the most retarded hamfisted way. I could practically make his characters for him by reading the cliffsnotes of whatever video game he was interested in at the time. He was also an anger management tard, any time you'd point out his characters were less than original he'd go spare.

What was weird is that this started like, a year into him playing with my group. His first couple characters were compelling, then it's like he ran out of ideas forever.

Congradulation OP. I recently did the same. Its like spring cleaning. Feels great.

>playing over teamspeak
>that guy mutes himself during the session
>only does rolls when directly asked to
>doesn't participate in the game
>eventually when he doesn't respond to a question from me + the other players he keeps himself muted
>have to ask him whats going on
>he doesn't give me a straight answer
>eventually get out of him vague shit like "i didn't like your gming" or "i didn't like the setting"
>ask him specifically whats wrong
>he throws a hissy fit
>he then gets kicked

I still have no idea whats going on but it feels good to not have to deal with bullshit

Mine was similar and attempted effort at first but that didn't last long at all. Any confrontation leads to them acting depressed and being even more "just there".

Sounds like he just wasn't that focused on the game (and was sorely lacking in the etiquette department) and was entertaining himself with other shit. He got defensive when called on his bullshit because he couldn't just say "I'm an asshole who doesn't care about holding up his end of things" and didn't have a specific complaint, so he just got flustered, said some bullshit, then threw a hissy when you kept probing into the issue because there was nothing there to discover.

yeah, it's normal

>kicking that guy saves me between $200-400 and at least a week of planning per year
Kick that guy today, if only for efficiency

Just try the best you can. The best you can is good enough.

Only for people with microballs.

Literally part of the English language, chum.

>b-b-b-but-

No. You don't get to decide. You can try to make a futile Knut-like stand and force the tides of language change back, but you'll fail, just like all the prescriptivists before you.

Reminder that you're speaking Proto-Indo-European incorectly...

I've got kind of the opposite problem. We had a THAT GUY who was
a) loud and obnoxious
b) didn't understand the rules
c) didn't understand the campaign
d) would wander off in the middle of a game (this actually wasn't so bad)
e) awful at roleplaying
f) very quick to anger
g) carried a knife and would pull it
Now, problem g showed up after a couple years and ended up being the straw that broke the camel's back. But he really should have been dropped long ago.

But now one of the players is trying to get him back in the game. No. Fuck no. Even before he started pulling knifes, puncturing people's tires, and going to jail he was a detriment to the game. The only benefit was that his stupidity was occasionally funny (one of my favorites was when a new campaign was starting. Monster of the Week in a high school setting. He was a couple hours late and the GM and I were discussing the fact that he ALWAYS wanted to play ninja type characters. We'd been mentioning it the entire game, but the minute he walks in he says, "I want my guy to be like a ninja". We just busted out laughing and he never understood why).

And the people he fucks over the most are the ones most eager to defend him. The guy who tried to get him back in the group (call him Rick) had THAT GUY mooch off of him for months while Rick was struggling to make ends meet. Now THAT GUY came into a lump sum of welfare and refuses to help Rick at all and talks shit about him all the time on Facebook.

Cut all the infected. You'll be better off for it, user.

>nu males trying to justify their genderless pronouns with a shaky understanding of language
Y-yeah, buddy. Y-you too.

>somehow inferring a queer agenda in the completely normal practice of using "they" for an unidentified person whose gender is both unspecified and irrelevant

/pol/ needs to go and stay go

People use "they" to refer to a single person sometimes as a gender neutral pronoun. This is useful especially in situations where somebody is talking about a person in the hypothetical. Like if somebody says, "A person walks into a bar and they notice something."

It's a perfectly fine way to speak and it is used by plenty of people who have no connection with weird gender bullshit and who are entirely unaware of weird gender bullshit.

Is there any good reason for gendered pronouns? The point of pronouns is to be as general as possible. Why is it so crucial to know a person's gender when you're referring to them in the third person?

>it's really cumbersome to use the grammatically correct he or she in everyday conversation
>people have always used they as a shorthand

>fucking libcuck numales hahaha

I mean you still got that it was a turtle.

The point of a pronoun is not to be general, it's to refer to an individual. If you're referring to a male, you use he. If you're referring to a female, you use she. If you're referring to an object, you'd use it.

>/pol/fag out of his league
>has to retreat to his buzzword-filled psychological safe space

LMAO so fucken triggered :)

What do you use if you're referring to a tall gentleman? What about someone of higher social status? What about someone's age?

You have a very shallow and insular grasp on linguistics and culture. That means I'm saying you're stupid. I'm calling you stupid, stupid. Stay mad.

wow you sure dunked him, haha he'll have to reconsider his views now

I think I'd emphasize the whole "pulling a fucking knife!" angle when explaining to your player why you don't want to bring the other guy back.

I've yet to encounter a That Guy but when the day comes I hope I can take all worthwhile advice I have read here and apply it quickly before such a reprobate damages the group's enjoyment.

>The point of a pronoun is not to be general, it's to refer to an individual.
"we" is a pronoun too, though

We are not amused.

Jesus, that sounds fucking obnoxious

>I still feel a little bad
But actually you wish you'd done it a long time ago, right?

A wild That Guy ACTUALLY APPEARS IN THE THREAD
>That Guy uses Smug!
>It's not very effective...

That last post isn't actually wrong though. It's smug, but the point is sound from a linguistics point of view. Gendered pronouns are no more a necessary or universal feature of language than pronouns that mark for respect/social class. IIRC Malay makes a distinction between inclusive vs exclusive 1st person plural pronouns, ie. "Us and not you" vs "Us and you as well." Somehow we manage without that distinction, because context is a powerful tool. Likewise others manage without a pair of he/she gendered 3rd person pronouns, and in English "they" for a single person is more or less completely grammatically accepted. Only stubborn prescrpitivists who are desperately trying to appear smart, or people with a political axe to grind really get upset about it. It's a convention that's existed for centuries at least.

Yeah, dude really buried the lede on that one.

I don't give a fuck about the subject of your idiotic debate over the English language, but I object to your Knut metaphor. He sat in the sea, and commanded it to stop, just to prove that even Kings are subject to the wishes of God, and cannot change the facts of nature. He did this because his subject lords began to believe that he was somehow greater than a normal man in spiritual or magical power. The "Knut actually tried to stop the sea" thing is tired and misinformed.

>writes in all caps
>criticizes someone's tone instead of their argument
>>tumblr
fucking disgusting brainlets make me sick

>>it's really cumbersome to use the grammatically correct he or she in everyday conversation
>cumbersome
>less than 1% the population.
user i know folks who intentionally go out of their way to be called they just because they like having power over people.
It's like a mind game for some of those folks.
I don't even get the they bullshit either, if i grant trans folk that they are what they believe themselves to be (and i have on occasion). Then i should be able to spot why they are trying to be and refer to them as such. It's only hard to spot when they are intentionally androgynous, or when they are fucked.
it just seems so assbackwards, and considering who I've had to deal with on campus I'm fairly certain it's all just to sate thuggish narcissists and sociopaths who want to feel some sense of control over other people.

>presciptivism
>in ENGLISH

Look at him

post stories user

I don't have anymore but I'm going to put that guy to the test and if he fails I'm gonna talk to him about it. Looking back at my first post I must've been more annoyed than I thought, I dropped so many words.

I once had a guy in my group who would always bring an empty two litre bottle with him. He would unzip his pants at the table and start pissing in it. He would stare you right in the eye and say "saves time doesn't it" whenever you looked at him with disgust.

Also sometimes it is just social dynamics. I have a relative new female player who is very intimidated by two older players but really shines when those two are not around (in reality OR ingame).

You've posted this a hell of a lot in the last month. Every time you do, we get a bit more bored with it. If you want a big reaction, ration it out a bit more carefully.

Yep sure sounds like it.

Anyways i know this guy since 6 years so this was a big blow to me and still is. Don't think im gonna take him back because that kinda disrespect towards the game doesn't fly

>g) carried a knife and would pull it
What the fuck

They were probably just a slow reader, and the chat was moving too quickly for them.

Interesting how you call them "they" yet also say "THAT GUY" instead of "THAT PERSON"

Most likely. However, in my experience, a surprising number of people for some reason mostly use "they/them" to refer to obviously female women, while referring to men as "he/him". Like, I feel it's slowly mutating into just some sort of new uberpolite way to refer to women.

Why not? Language isn't engineering, its beauty is in doing things that aren't always 100% pragmatic and necessary. I'm not arguing against a neutral "they" btw, I'm just saying "he" and "she" are a staple of most languages and a part of their aesthetics.

Why shouldn't Malay people use that pronoun? Just because English-speaking people don't have it? In fact, it sounds like quite a useful prounoun imo

>using long words
>not being able to spell them

The rest of the world is not responsible for your autism.

Depends on what version of the story you're reading. The earlier ones had Knut legit expecting the tide to obey his commands, and then being surprised when they didn't.

"They" doesn't apply to less than 1% of the population, it applies to 100% of the population. That's the whole point, dumbass. It's an ambiguous pronoun that can be used to refer to someone whose gender you're uncertain of.

And do you seriously think that narcissists are suddenly going to become friendly and reasonable people just because you made a minor language tweak?

What an insightful rebuttal! Now I see the error of my ways

Knut teaches his sycophantic courtiers a lesson
>pretends to be retarded to drive his point home
>now no one is sure if he actually was retarded
Guys could king Knut be /ourguy/?

My That Guy did this, too. Basically made a character exactly like his Diablo III character, and then got so protective on him that he wouldn't want to put him anywhere near combat. And just you try getting it through that thick skull that there's nothing intimidating or hardcore about a grimdark, morally grey character who gets his panties in a twist over 1 hp worth of damage.

Is ok to kick a dude because he isn't doing his job in the game? We have this bard, he wanted to be the bard, he wanted to be the buffer/debuffer and shit on every other player who wanted to go that direction...well, turns out he neither buffs (beyond inspire courage) neither debuff (beyond using a whip to aid in combat), rest of his turns is using a normal heavy crossbow (which even if he hits wouldn't matter shit because we're 9th level and he deals 1d10 period with it). Last combat we told him to do something, even haste would be enough, nope, whip and crossbow, nothing else. We already underwent an almost TPK and the fucker survived because invisibility because he didn't do his job. We tried to talk to him, but he's grasping to "what my character would do" even though he's CG

So, is ok to kick him?

I did that...introduced a sexy Russian monk lady into the game and spoke with her accent. I went into combat though, a lot, sadly game died too soon.

>g) carried a knife and would pull it

You know what irks me about this shit? This guy reads like exactly the sort of faggot that gets fresh with people who give him the benefit of the doubt because he knows het gets to push them around with zero risk. Because he's willing to drop more courtesy than they are.

If you pull this stunt with the wrong person, you're going home with a fresh hole in you at the very least.

I didn't realize Zarya had already been in Diablo III.

Problem with this guy was that it was so blatantly tone deaf with the rest of the campaign. And he was very upset about anything that might make his character uncool. Instead of actually playing his character in a cool way. To me, it's still the best example of videogame logic I've ever seen in P&P.

>It's an ambiguous pronoun that can be used to refer to someone whose gender you're uncertain of.
and how often do you find yourself truly unsure?
Unless they are up on the gender bullshit folks tend to look like what sex they look like.
Unless it's a new fashion to dress and look like both where you live, i doubt it would be any different. "they" only effects a certain group of people whom it is especially hard to determine.

>And do you seriously think that narcissists are suddenly going to become friendly and reasonable people just because you made a minor language tweak?
no.
that was my point.
I dislike them, they dislike everyone up to a point and they are going to force you to do anything they want when they can. this includes changing your speech patterns.
That gets my hackles up, i do not want to submit to the whim of another who demands it in bad faith.
I'm a human being god damnit. My life had value.

>I dislike them, they dislike everyone up to a point and they are going to force you to do anything they want when they can. this includes changing your speech patterns.

This. If some person wants me to change my speechpatterns that i don't know they can fuck right off.

If they're someone i like maybe i might for when i'm with them

>go to university
>have to do gender studies because reasons
>forced to change speech patterns
>say no
>they want to give me a worse grade because of that - even though its pretty much illegal to do that where i live
>i do as i want and they can't do anything about it

>and how often do you find yourself truly unsure?

On the internet? All the goddamn time.

>I dislike them, they dislike everyone up to a point and they are going to force you to do anything they want when they can. this includes changing your speech patterns.

That is unambiguously exactly what you're doing right now. Nobody asked you to start using "they" when gender is ambiguous. You started bitching when other people did.

>Problem with this guy was that it was so blatantly tone deaf with the rest of the campaign
That's exactly the problem with mine. They mimic the character, as best as they can, to the point where it ruined a chance to uncover some plot because 'I like killing and blood~' etc etc. I thought about making a little side plot point where some npc's would confront them, but they'd ignore it and fuck off from the rest of the group like they every time I dare include them in the spotlight.

The hardest things are when you are friends with that guy outside the game, it's only during the game they seem to turn shitty

I had the mistake of playing a forum game once. One player would constantly ignore my PC because I posted right away after him and he only checked in once per day. He simply could not be bothered to read all ten posts that happened that time.

Worse, I found him actively looking for more games to "play" at the same time. People who say they want to play but refuse to read/listen are the worst.

Everything about that is super annoying and grounds for an ultimatum talk. I get that you don't want to kick him though, since he's just a poor player rather than aggressively terrible.

>he wanted to be the buffer/debuffer and shit on every other player who wanted to go that direction
If the ultimatum talk doesn't help and you still don't want to kick him, this is a good place to start. Hire an NPC or have another character sidegrade into this. If he complains tell him it's because he's not doing his job.

Some people are observers. I wish they'd be honest about it up front, though.

>On the internet? All the goddamn time.
Everyone on the internet is a guy, even if they're a girl.

The reason people refrain from gendered pronouns on Veeky Forums is that if you tell a story with a girl in it people will freak out regardless of the stories actual content. Just look at this thread, someone figures that the story was about a girl, entire thread derailed, politics, impotent rage, etc...
Some people, myself included have just been conditioned to feel like it's bragging that you've had interactions with females at worst, superfluous information at best.

On the internet, no one knows you're a dog.

>On the internet? All the goddamn time.
I suppose this is a fair point, though usually when talking about people in the net i use the catcher shorthand for user names. Or user. because in general one doesn't really don't have use they at all.

>That is unambiguously exactly what you're doing right now.
the fuck do you figure that genius?
Am i telling people what to do no.
you can do whatever the fuck you want, i am expressingly my reasoning for why i dislike doing it in my personal life. nothing more.

>Nobody asked you to start using "they" when gender is ambiguous.
you are objectively wrong.
people have on both an institutional and interpersonal level asked me to do so. numerous times, in person and i have done so because it's hard to fight your government, work and friends.

>You started bitching when other people did.
so?

>ITT:

>What I expected: OP to be revealed as the true That Guy

>What I got: OP manages to reveal a nest of hidden /pol/tards with his innocent use of the singular "they"

Laffs were had irregardless.

>asshat
Goon detected

I've never even been on SA and I use that term.

It's distinctly possible.

Threads like this are a diamond dozen.

Did you mean a dime a dozen?

>innocent use of the singular "they"
Nothing innocent about it, the communist mind virus got to him.