Thursday, July 10, 2008

Back from the Con II

Okay, so there was this kid and my character kicked his character in the ass.

He didn't want to write down the damage, but the DM insisted, so the kid grabbed his stuff and stormed out.

Couple of things I want to mention before going on:

1) The DM. He didn't take any sides in this matter; he was completely impartial. But I think he kinda got what was going on and approved of it. He's not the kind of DM to ever try to tell people how to play their character, but I know he gets frustrated when nobody listens to him.

2) The kid's brother. Another player in the game, and a few years older, this guy rides the kid frequently. He has him get him food, tells him to shut up, rags on him, etc. Fairly standard older brother behavior, but this kid is extending this to everybody, including me.

Hey, if you wanna hate me for something, make it for something I did, okay? And not because I remind you of somebody else.

So, if the kid wants to hate me for kicking his character in the ass, fine. But only for that.

Now, about half an hour, forty-five minutes later, the kid comes slinking back into the room, sets up his stuff, continues on like nothing happened.

Okay; it's that kind of game. He can do that.

The following day, the kid is talking but nobody's listening, so he calls out "Guys!" Okay, so now I'm listening -- and he stops talking. So I told him to go ahead.

He didn't, so I called him on it. You were talking, but you didn't get our attention, so I was ignoring you. Then you get our attention, but stop talking.

And then I said: "I say this as a friend."

Boy, he didn't know what to think of that!

"But you hate me!"

"No, I don't hate you. I was pissed off for something you did, so I dealt with it. But that's that. It's over."

I went on to explain that he had some good ideas, and was potentially a very good player. But he had to get his act together, and stop pissing people off, or they'd never find out if he was any good becasue they wouldn't want to play in the same game as him.


I'm not saying I single-handedly reformed the guy, but he was doing a lot better, socially, on the last day of the con. I think I really got him to think about what he was doing.


And the game was fun, too. Overall, I had a good con.

2 comments:

Sham aka Dave said...

Sometimes nothing can quite get the message across like a good old fashioned ass-kicking. Well done :-)

Will Douglas said...

Thanks!

Y'know, the whole point of the post was to say that parties need to be self-policing, but I completely lost the thread and just waffled on.

Ah, well.