Just to clarify, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this guy. Maybe it's me or I'm just hypersensitive or I am really awful! Just looking for ways to be a bit more confident - being my normal not-confident self is definitely not working, and is even worse now that I've shifted to a sandbox game, where the GM must act confidently (since you just made something up and now have to BS to cover a plot hole).

Quote from: PencilBoy99;840277Just to clarify, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this guy. Maybe it's me or I'm just hypersensitive or I am really awful! Just looking for ways to be a bit more confident - being my normal not-confident self is definitely not working, and is even worse now that I've shifted to a sandbox game, where the GM must act confidently (since you just made something up and now have to BS to cover a plot hole).

I guess the issue we are picking up on is his feedback doesn't seem to be having the desired result.

Ask the other players. Don't rely on one source for this kind of criticism. Especially if your confidence is being affected this much.

If this is basically about confidence, I'd say second guessing yourself too much is not the place to start. Being relaxed is where I would begin. Try being relaxed and not worrying so much about outcomes. If this person's feedback is causing you to worry rather than helping you improve then something isn't quite right. He may be a great guy, he may even be correct in his assessment. I just can't help but feel his approach is not working for you (as it seems to be making the issues worse rather than better).

Quote from: PencilBoy99;840163All of the great GM's I know act very confidently - if one of their players gives them a hard time about something, they just ignore it. I'm exactly the opposite - I have a player who (nicely) points out how badly I GM - how dumb/uninteresting plot threads are, how stupid my elder Vampire NPC's are, mistakes I make w/ the canon/setting.

Given that I've already talked to this guy and the other players like having him there, how can I be more confident? (I have 8 gagillion other threads addressing how I can be a better GM to address his concerns).

OK, here's an action plan of things you can do to address what this guy is saying whilst at the same time building your confidence.

1: Take the hard line Old Geezer suggested about criticism during the game. In fact, before your next session, specifically say that you don't mind getting feedback from anyone about how the game is going, but you'd prefer it if people waited until after the session was done before people offered it, just so you can concentrate on what's going on in the session. Your original post wasn't clear on whether or not this guy is piping up during the game, but if he is that's out of order.

2a: On the subject of canon/setting mistakes: whilst you're saying the above, drop something along the lines of "By the way, I know I hadn't necessarily made this clear before, but for the purposes of this campaign I'm not going to use all the official canon - I don't have all the Vampire: the Dark Ages books, I don't have a degree in medieval history, and I don't have the time to read all the canon material out there. If it's been established in the course of the campaign so far that something is true, then it's true, otherwise I reserve the right to change things." If you do want to stick to canon to a certain extent, you might say something like "If it's in (whichever setting books you are using), you can usually rely on it being canon for this campaign, but you can't count on anything beyond that."

Then the next time the guy raises an objection about canon or the setting, just say "Unless I've contradicted something we've established as being true for this campaign, I really don't think it matters."

2b: Of course, if the guy raises canon/setting issues and you realise you have made a contradiction, see my post in your "Running VtM Sandbox Part 2" thread on ways you can deal with that. Ultimately, you want to be able to say to him "Well done for spotting that. Is your character going to spend time looking into it?" If their answer is "yes", then decide on an appropriate IC explanation and let them investigate to discover it. If their answer is "No", then say "Well, then you'll just have to accept that it's a mystery for the time being, won't you?", and come up with an IC explanation for the contradiction anyway, since that might be an interesting source of future events and if they end up running across the explanation then their faith in you will be reinforced.

3: If your player thinks the vampiric elders are stupid, consider that he may be right. Even in the high-pressure modern-day setting, there's scope for elders and princes to be lazy, complacent, and unimaginative; in the Dark Ages setting, most of them can't even imagine what a revolution will look like, let alone feel at any risk.

Either way, tell the player "If you think the elders are idiots, that's fine by me - I'm not going to tell you what your character thinks. You are welcome to go ahead and try to depose them, con them, or otherwise take advantage of their stupidity if you like." Then if the player goes for it, whammo!, suddenly stuff is happening in the campaign and whether they succeed or fail in their plan the results are sure to be interesting.

The caveat here is that if you've declared that the elders are supposed to be super-clever but you've actually been playing them stupid, that might be a contradiction that is hard to resolve. It could be that the elders have higher concerns the PCs don't know about which has forced them to deal with more trivial matters in suboptimal ways. It could be that the PCs don't understand the true web of allegiances and favours amongst the elders. It could be that the elders genuinely are doing the best they can and there's good reasons why they couldn't behave the way the complaining player expects to behave. Either way, in this case it might be worth talking to the other players and see whether they agree with the complaining player's assessment (preferably via e-mail or something so they can say what they think without the objecting player present). If the other players think the elders aren't being notably stupid, you can go back to the complainer and say "Well, yours isn't the only opinion at the table concerning this; maybe you should talk this out with the other PCs IC."

4: If the guy doesn't like your plot threads, again this is probably where you should ask the other players to see if they are similarly bored and what sort of threads they'd prefer to see.

I've already said you should strongly discourage this guy from piping up during sessions with his complaints, but I think you should be especially hard if he's running down plot threads in front of the other players during sessions, because - especially if he has quite a forceful personality - if he's loudly saying "Only a total doofus would want to chase up that plot hook!" then the other players might feel shy about chasing it up as a result because they don't want to look like a doofus in his eyes.

5: If it becomes apparent that this guy's complaints aren't shared by the others, consider asking him to sit out for this game: it's evident that he doesn't like it, and with his personality away from the table the others might come out of their shell a bit more.

Quote from: cranebump;840222Tell the stupid fucker to run the game himself, then. No excuse for douche baggery of that order. (Why do folks put up with this anti-social shit?)

Ah the irony

I had similar problems with a friend who worked at a Games Workshop store and had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Warhammer Lore (both fantasy and 40K).

He'd mostly argue with other players, but occasionally nitpicked whoever was GMing at the time.

I managed to avoid the worst of it by consulting with him while I prepared plot hooks or NPCs. It worked really, really well! He felt that he was contributing to the quality of the campaign.

I also enlisted him into helping with lore and rules, especially when a player was unsure what their class would do in situation X. He had plenty of helpful suggestions.

So this sort of thing could work out really well.

TL;DR: enlist him as a GM aid to help you create stuff and to help out other players.

Quote from: Spinachcat;840260But most importantly, he told me that DM's aren't there to be the player's bitch.

Key advice for GMs of all ages.

Quote from: jibbajibba;840461Ah the irony

Or Fire with fire.  Letting a douche bag off the hook just encourages more of the same. There's a special kind of dickery that goes on with know-it-alls slipping into their tiny niches. Sometimes we forget this type of knowledge is essentially useless. I mean, shitfire, I know every fuckin' Star Trek episode by name, not to mention tracts of dialogue all over the place. But I don't bother to nitpick someone else's lack thereof, especially if we're both fans.

Dude's being a dick. It doesn't hurt to tell him so.

(Although ignoring said player's douchiness, as has been suggested might also work--good luck!)

Quote from: PencilBoy99;840163All of the great GM's I know act very confidently - if one of their players gives them a hard time about something, they just ignore it. I'm exactly the opposite - I have a player who (nicely) points out how badly I GM - how dumb/uninteresting plot threads are, how stupid my elder Vampire NPC's are, mistakes I make w/ the canon/setting.

Problems with the canon/setting are easy. You are the GM, you have your own version of the setting, with its own canon. Anything that varies is because of your own interpretation of the canon/setting. These are not mistakes, instead they are you own view of the canon/setting. Explain that to the player, very carefully and calmly. If the player doesn't like it, then say that is is tough, that's how you interpret the canon/setting.

Elder Vampires being stupid is easy to explain. Although they are centuries/millennia old, they are set in their ways and assume everyone else is stupid. This makes them do things in a very straightforward, simple way.

Dumb/Uninteresting plot threads are probably connected to the comment about Elder Vampires. Perhaps the player wants really complex, convoluted plots that are hard to untangle. If you don't like that kind of thing, then the two different styles will probably clash. What I tend to do is to have several plots running along merrily in the background, sometimes interacting with the PCs, sometimes running parallel to them. My best trick is when players "see things" that I had not intended to be there, so I run with them and integrate them into the plots, that way the players think they are clever for working something out, they think I'm clever for having through of it and I think they are clever for thinking of that part of the plot, so everyone wins.

How badly you GM - That is purely subjective and might be based on the above points. If everyone else is happy, then it is probably down to the player. The only way to counter that is to take the problems head on and deal with them, one by one. If that means changing your GMing style slightly, then think about it and decide how best to accommodate the player and not to diverge from your natural style too far.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;840163Given that I've already talked to this guy and the other players like having him there, how can I be more confident?

Reading about how other people GM might help, as it gives you an idea of best practice.

However, I am firmly of the opinion that the best way of becoming a better GM is by being a GM more often. The more you do it, the better you get.

Confidence is a bit different, you have it or you don't. There are ways of building your confidence - Reading about other GMs; Asking for advice about GMing; Learning how to cope with difficult players or difficult situations. But the best way is by GMing.

Stick with it and you will, hopefully, feel more confident as time goes on.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;840163(I have 8 gagillion other threads addressing how I can be a better GM to address his concerns).

I noticed!

Asking for advice is all very well, and can help a lot, but the best way to become a more confident GM is to GM more.

It sounds as though you really have a problem with this player. It also sounds as though the actual problems are the player and not you.

In fact, from your posts, you seem to be a sensitive, thoughtful GM, trying your very best to be a better GM and improve the players' experience.

It's a pity the same can't be said about that particular player.

Quote from: Old Geezer;840254If you ask him to hold his criticism until after the game, and he does and discusses it with you, he's genuinely trying to be helpful and you should listen to him.

Yes. Anyone who is willing to provide advice privately might be actually helpful.

Quote from: Old Geezer;840254If he does not, and continues to bullyrag you while you're gaming, he's an asshole, and you should say (assuming you've asked him to hold it until later as above) "Shut the fuck up during the game," and if he refuses, quit running the game.  He's being an assmunch and should be treated accordingly.

Oh hells no! No way should you give up running for a table of good players because of one asshole.  Kick that player away from your table and resume having a good time.

I would definitely tell a player in the OP set up to go fuck himself.  But of course, I have a big waiting list for people wanting to join my games.

thanks for the great advice!

Quote from: PencilBoy99;840163Given that I've already talked to this guy and the other players like having him there, how can I be more confident? (I have 8 gagillion other threads addressing how I can be a better GM to address his concerns).

Tell him/her to wait until after a game session to vent issues they were having.

I was about to put my two cents in, but I can't think of a single damn thing that other posters haven't said in duplicate.  A lot of good advice floating around.