How do you deal with problem players?

[Lathe Biosas]

First off, I don't have a decent gaming group in my area, so I have to rely on a lot of pick up games.

 

About 97% of the players are semi-decent human beings no weirder than I am. 

 

 Buuuut....

 

I've run into 3 instances, where I'm not sure how to handle the situation. So I thought I'd ask you, my fellow Warhammer afficionados what the appropriate response should be.

 

(The names have been changed to protect the guilty parties... there are no innocent parties here)

 

1. The Amazing Dissappearing Opppoent!

 

I've had this happen to me twice. We've been playing a game and my opponent answers the phone, says, "I gotta take this, I'll be right back," and then dissappears in the ether never to be seen again.

 

I'm not talking about 5, 10 or 20 minutes... I mean like an hour. And they've left all their stuff behind.... dice, books, terribly painted pewter tyranids, etc.

 

I asked someone to watch my stuff for a second and walked out front. Didn't see the guy.

 

How long am I supposed to wait before going to a store employee, telling them someone abandoned their stuff and then moving on with my day?

 

 

2. The Master Puppeteer!

 

I'm playing someone new to the game (since I am patient and can't create armies that win games). I don't mind if they need to look up a rule, or accidentally forget to attack with a unit. It's all a part of learning the game.

 

What I'm having trouble with is the backseat driver that is hanging out next to the new player. The backseat driver is usually a father, a boyfriend, or that annoying kid that no one wants to play against (but he spends so much money at the store that the owners bend over backwards to accommodate him).

 

The backseat driver keeps a running commentary of what the new player is doing wrong, and what they should have done, how to fix it, and, "Move those Infernus Marines 5" not 6!"

 

And as much as I want to yell, "Hey , you're the reason why we have trouble getting new players at the store, why don't you go back to YouTube and post videos about codexes you've never read and armies you've never played and stop bothering our game with your terrible and unwanted advice!"

 

I don't do that... what should I do?

 

 

3. The Quitter!

 

This is my least favorite opponent. 

 

He has 80 bazillion models in his army and it took him half an hour to finish deploying his army.

 

I go first, and in the shooting round I got lucky and obliterated one unit... (I think it was a bunch of guys on horseback)

 

And then he quits.

 

He's done. Can't win. There's no way he can come back. Good Game.

 

He starts picking up all his models and putting them away.

 

When you are almost done putting all your stuff away, he asks, "Want to play again?"

 

I know what I want to say, but it's probably assault in most jurisdictions. What should I say?

 

 

Any advice you can give is most appreciated. 

[gaurdian31]

1. I say give them a 1/2 hour then let the employees know your opponent left their stuff behind. Might not be a bad idea to take pictures of what was left behind after about 10-15 minutes so the person can't claim you took any of their stuff. See if anyone else is around to play and if not pack up and go home, if there is play a new game and if your original opponent shows back up they can look for a new game.

 

2. Ask the new player if the want the backseat driver's advice, if they don't tell that person to leave. Do so sternly but politely. If the person doesn't leave let the employees know they are harassing you and your opponent. If the new player wants the advice then I suggest that you allow it, even if it is frustrating.

 

3. Say good game and let them know that you do not want another game with them and move on, possibly to play another random person or just go home. 

 

I've dealt a decent amount with 1 and 3 (one person at the store I play at does both). 2  I have dealt with less, but when it happens it depends on if the help/advice is wanted or not. With everything I said your results may vary.

[Tawnis]

Humans be weird creatures 

In each instance (though its far easier said than done) I'd try to get communication going.

 

1. It is wild that someone would leave their models unattended for that long, but if you're concerned, just ask before someone leaves how long they think they're going to be. I'd give them a 10 min grace on top of that (unless I had to be somewhere) and then let the store owner know and go about my day. If I ever ran into them again, I'd ask them what the heck happened. 

 

2. If it's a friend or family member that's coaching them, I'd personally leave it be. From experience, I know my wife would have trouble with something as daunting as trying to learn a game she barely knows around a bunch of strangers she perceives as experts, it's really intimidating for her, and lots of people feel like that in a new situation. It may be annoying to you if they are a bad and/or controlling coach/mentor, but that is beyond your control. HOWEVER, if it was just some rando at the store, I'd politely tell them to back off and let us play our game. If they persisted, I'd go tell the store manager and if they didn't do anything about it, I'd talk to my opponent about calling it for the day (more on principal than literally not being able to play in that situation as the store owners need to know that people like that drive business away.) either that, or if we had the time, I'd ask my opponent to put a pause on the game until the unwelcome party finally scrammed. 

 

3. I'd honestly ask them, why they think I would want to. We played 1 turn, and then you just quit. I didn't have fun, you clearly didn't have fun, why do you think I'd want to go through that again? 

People like this (especially the last one) often don't understand how much what they are doing bugs people because they don't see anything outside of their little box and it seems so obvious to everyone else that no one has ever bothered to show them. It often won't work and/or they wont listen, but sometimes it does, and when it does those people are very grateful because they also end up having a better experience in the hobby going forward. 

[Rain]

17 minutes ago, Tawnis said:

People like this (especially the last one) often don't understand how much what they are doing bugs people because they don't see anything outside of their little box and it seems so obvious to everyone else that no one has ever bothered to show them. It often won't work and/or they wont listen, but sometimes it does, and when it does those people are very grateful because they also end up having a better experience in the hobby going forward. 

 

This is a very good point. A lot of people into games like this do not have the best social skills, and are sometimes "on the spectrum" as it were. This can lead to difficulty in modeling how ones behavior is perceived by others. Now, granted, many people have defense mechanisms around this, and, if called out directly, will call you a powergamer when they lose, or cope some other way, but this isn't always the case.

 

For example, and, pertaining to your point 2, if I am learning a game, I like having a more experienced friend coach me, explain mistakes, make suggestions, explain the logic behind what makes for good moves vs. bad ones, what the macro plan in the game should be, etc. at least during the learning process. Because I like this, I tend to also do it when I am the "more experienced friend" but not everyone likes being coached in this way, and it can easily be taken as condescending. When I was younger, I used to do this a lot, and, in retrospect, I'm sure I annoyed quite a few people who thought I was being a know it all. So, while I do this because I genuinely want to help, it can be misinterpreted, and, when not wanted, sometimes the person just needs to be asked by the person being "coached" to let them have at it without outside input.

[Ahzek451]

11 minutes ago, Tawnis said:

Humans be weird creatures 

In each instance (though its far easier said than done) I'd try to get communication going.

 

1. It is wild that someone would leave their models unattended for that long, 

You would think so, but then again I thought it was wild in my early gaming days when my opponent would physically and aggressively shove there models in a shoe box and break something every time. Then proceed to moan when they move to the next table because they need to sit and glue an arm or whatnot. This actually happened a lot....even back in early 2000 prices it still makes me wince when I think about it. 


1.  In store pick-up casual games, I suppose that depends on you. Your patience or how much you care to wait. Do you mind just hanging out or is your time valuable. If it were me and I didn't have the time to spare I would probably let the store owner know after 20-30 min and move on. Otherwise playing casually in-store usually means its beer and pretzels time. Slow, fun, light-hearted games with multiple pause breaks to shoot the :cuss: with other gamers and my opponent. Just depends on the environment and what you want out of it. 

2.  Depends on who and how it is done. If its a decent enough person just hanging out giving advice to a newer player...I don't care. If fairly high on the obnoxious scale, I would politely ask them to give us space. If snark is returned...well...I have better things to do with my time. 

 

3. I would just be politely honest. If they were a nice enough chap but gets easily bummed out in opening stages, I would say that normally yes I would do another game, but I prefer to finish out my games instead of ending them partway through. I would be willing to go again if you promise me to not do that again. Burn me twice though....never again. . How new are they? Age? Are they willing to be coached a bit? How bad was the opening salvo? The higher up on the unbelievable luck scale it goes, the more willing I am to do a re-do (depending if they are a nice enough person).

 

Personally, if my opponent has a wicked good opening and I get my army trounced.....well..in my head I know I'm very likely to lose. But, then it just turns into a new opportunity to play on hard mode. Maybe spin that to your opponent. Say hey....these things happen. But instead of packing it in and denying good learning opportunities, you stick it out and level up a bit. It's a great way to get better. 

[Xenith]

5 hours ago, Lathe Biosas said:

3. The Quitter!

Play them again. Let them go first. Let them kill a unit. Then quit. Say you can't win so calling it a draw and scoop your models. 

[SpecialIssue]

Exposure therapy for the quitters is to play an alternating player turn game where you can't micromanage a plan and outcome each turn for your entire army, and have to see how a game unfolds as it goes. Or random activation games like Bolt Action etc etc.

 

Seriously, IGOUGO needs to go. There are so many better games out there than 40k now...

[Antarius]

In my experience quitters will quit when things start going against them, no matter the activation system. With all due respect, I also think it's a little beside the point whether there are better games out there, as the OP clearly wants to play 40K.

In my group (who are all really nice people with varying levels of dysfunctionality) quitting after the first or second turn was a bit of a trend for a while. We managed to turn that around by talking about a) that if you quit as soon as things don't go well, you never get to experience things turning around and you don't learn how to cope with something not going exactly to plan (this probably only works if the player in question sees themselves as someone who wants to get better at the game and/or at handling adversity, but I think most people do) and b) that it's not a lot of fun for your opponent if things aren't allowed to go well for them, with a little bit of "how would you feel if someone else quit if you had a good turn?" (this probably only works if people are able and willing to put themselves in others' shoes, but honestly, you probably don't want to play someone who isn't)
Ironically, we ended up with the opposite problem for a while, where people would play to the bitter end, despite not having a lot of fun. That's probably not a big risk, though.

As for phonecalls/people who otherwise disappear, I'd say it depends on context. If possible, asking them how long they expect it to take is good of course, as that gives you something to go by. If not, I'd say it depends a lot on how well you know them, how much time you have and what else is going on at the store.
In any case, there might be a really good reason for them disappearing, there might even be some sort of emergency, but you have no way of knowing that and no responsibility towards them, apart from seeing if you can make sure their models aren't left unattended (I'd talk to the store personnel about this, they might also know whether the guy is known for this kind of thing). Realistically speaking, I'd give them 15 minutes and then, depending on how I felt on the day, I would start doing something else while I waited or I'd move on to another game or simply leave.

When it comes to advice, I think it depends on which of the scenarios we're talking about. If it's a stranger, they need to be told that they shouldn't give unsolicited advice, for both their own sake as well as for the greater good, because it can be super annoying and chances are they're doing it all the time (and oftentimes, this is not something they do to be annoying, although they might not take being told well). If it's an SO or family member, things are a little more tricky, but the key is whether the person you're playing wants them to give advice or not. If they do, I don't think there's a lot you can/should do, unless they're extremely annoying about it. If you get the impression that the person you're playing would rather learn on their own, find some way of communicating to the interferer that it might be easier for your opponent to learn without too much advice, potentially letting the decision appear to be yours (in case the person in question is feeling a little timid about asking their SO/family member to not butt in). Depending on the interferer's personality, they might or might not take it well, but you can't really control that, unfortunately.

What all these problems have in common is that there's no "magic bullet" solution that will avoid a potentially uncomfortable social situation, even if people are rarely doing these things maliciously (which they rarely are; even people who do much more annoying things are rarely aware of their behavious being unacceptable), but that doesn't mean it's necessarily fun to interact with them and it's not your responsibility to "fix" their behaviour if you'd rather not spend your time and energy on it. I just think that's important to remember; unless you're being an ass about it, you're not an ass for simply declining to play with these people in the future.

Edited yesterday at 06:45 AM by Antarius