Quote from: Dumarest;1000579[ATTACH=CONFIG]1772[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]1773[/ATTACH]

Do Ghost Traps work on mummies??

Quote from: Redforce;1000581Do Ghost Traps work on mummies??

There is but one way to find out unless you do your research first.

I'm digging this up again because of a new development in the campaign.

The Golden Child player? He quit because his character was no longer the center of attention. No longer the star of the show.

Nobody lynched him. Nobody did anything to prompt this. It just happened. The GM was stunned by it. I was stunned by it. It came out of nowhere.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1068003I'm digging this up again because of a new development in the campaign.

The Golden Child player? He quit because his character was no longer the center of attention. No longer the star of the show.

Nobody lynched him. Nobody did anything to prompt this. It just happened. The GM was stunned by it. I was stunned by it. It came out of nowhere.

I empathize, but I am honestly not surprised. Often "derived from past PC heroes" PCs tend to draw from attention-whore players. Throw in scheduled world-saving end-game carrot GM-tease and I am stunned it only took a year for his inner diva to come out. I would have expected a long running act at Vegas by at least the second month, which sounds like it was close to truth for this topic's genesis. He was promised his glorioso closing act, he will expect his glorioso closing act.

Never bait and switch your players. "Same page" them ASAP, emphasis on underpromise and overdeliver. Anything else will lead to tears. Follow this way and you might lead to no tears, but there are no promises... tears are common in RPGs lately.

Darrin I'm not surprised I played with someone who acted similar. I refused to allow him in my campaigns as I found him too disruptive and not worth the headache. Another DM who was willing to put up with him loved putting him in his place when he wanted to be the center of attention.

We were playing Torg in the Orrosh setting. Investigating a grave yard for clues on how to defeat a creature. When the player announces he is bored and starts turning over headstones. Myself and the other players looked at each shocked and we had our characters leave like bats out of hell. The player stopped when the DM pointed out "I just wanted to tell you again your in a graveyard...an Orroohan graveyard" suffice to say he put a good fight. Yet was ripped apart by the angry denizens of the graveyard.

No great loss. If he cannot play be the centre of attention and still be part of a gaming group the group as a whole is better for it.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1068030I empathize, but I am honestly not surprised. Often "derived from past PC heroes" PCs tend to draw from attention-whore players. Throw in scheduled world-saving end-game carrot GM-tease and I am stunned it only took a year for his inner diva to come out. I would have expected a long running act at Vegas by at least the second month, which sounds like it was close to truth for this topic's genesis. He was promised his glorioso closing act, he will expect his glorioso closing act.

But that's the thing. We haven't gotten to the closing act yet. We have gotten to the point where the characters are no longer the pursued. Where the characters scored their first most significant victory against the badguys. The campaign is still going to continue.

It seems like he just ran out of patience. While trying to rush everybody to the endgame.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1068051It seems like he just ran out of patience. While trying to rush everybody to the endgame.

I've seen this happen more than once to GMs trying to run a Pathfinder AP.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1068052I've seen this happen more than once to GMs trying to run a Pathfinder AP.

But in my case. it was a player exerting the pressure. Not the GM.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1068053But in my case. it was a player exerting the pressure. Not the GM.

Not everyone wants the same pacing. If he'd stayed, he might not have had fun. Does his departure prevent the others from having fun?

Quote from: HappyDaze;1068062Not everyone wants the same pacing. If he'd stayed, he might not have had fun. Does his departure prevent the others from having fun?

No. His character is being NPC'd. Since many of the group's assets are dependant on it.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1068051But that's the thing. We haven't gotten to the closing act yet. We have gotten to the point where the characters are no longer the pursued. Where the characters scored their first most significant victory against the badguys. The campaign is still going to continue.

It seems like he just ran out of patience. While trying to rush everybody to the endgame.

Yeah, of course he ran out of patience. It was not ALL about him, emphasis on "all." Any mise en scene chase is wasting his glory time because it is a shared experience. He needs to show you his pokemanz, er, power fantasy first and last and always.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1068063No. His character is being NPC'd. Since many of the group's assets are dependant on it.

Hah! And he was set up as a foundational group patron? Mercy me, I am surprised your PCs were not tied down as a captive audience to his Mary Sue/Marty Stu 'Pageant of Success'! Yeah, glaring warning signs; your table is all the better for this loss.

That said, I expect a rematch in a year or so when you guys get closer to his "ending cut scene." (Psst, never get there! Fail hard if you have to, suffer death or "level drain" if you must. It avoids the drama entirely. The GM is good buddies with him, I presume, so this will return.)

Quote from: Opaopajr;1068109Yeah, of course he ran out of patience. It was not ALL about him, emphasis on "all." Any mise en scene chase is wasting his glory time because it is a shared experience. He needs to show you his pokemanz, er, power fantasy first and last and always.

Yes. And I got tired of that early on. So much that I was seriously thinking of hanging it up completely. When it comes to face to face game groups.

QuoteHah! And he was set up as a foundational group patron? Mercy me, I am surprised your PCs were not tied down as a captive audience to his Mary Sue/Marty Stu 'Pageant of Success'! Yeah, glaring warning signs; your table is all the better for this loss.

Oh it was a lot worse than that. The other characters have been played as puppets by that character since the campaign started. Lied to and manipulated into this quest. A quest that was entirely based on the infighting of two factions of that character's family. Who happened to be a past PC group.

QuoteThat said, I expect a rematch in a year or so when you guys get closer to his "ending cut scene." (Psst, never get there! Fail hard if you have to, suffer death or "level drain" if you must. It avoids the drama entirely. The GM is good buddies with him, I presume, so this will return.)

One of the things that I'm afraid of? That the player will come back, swoop in, and try to steal the victory/glory from the rest of the group after we do all of the actual work getting there. That would suck unbelievably.

Even worse patronage, you say? Machiavellian puppeteering of PCs to NPCs,  you say? Yeah, go so far tangential and actively do nothing towards his "win condition" that he has no reason to return. Fail a few quests and run away as necessary.

I sense the GM is so thoroughly cowed that he/she may have conceded more behind the scenes instead of run the campaign as a neutral arbitrating adult. Yeah it's me metagaming personalities, but I don't think an adult table talk will accomplish anything here if it started this egregious. Have fun, pick a few of the better players for a future home game, and use this freetime to have a fun interview process.

This will come up again and it will all be "plans within plans" illusionism that got the Marty Stu his glory anyway. Have a fun side-game experience in the meanwhile.

well it's almost a year later. And two of the players gave the group the brush off. The special snowflake player who made the game all about him. And his ride. Who is actually having real family medical issues preventing his attendance.

The GM got sick of the waiting and the excuses. And invited me and another player to continue the campaign. We are the second session in. Of game that was delayed almost 3/4the of a year. Waiting on that one player.

And since he was the ride of Mr. Special Snowflake. Well they are both gone.

The players with the group are getting along. Teamwork is pretty much absolute. Since the characters are very well established as a team. And the game is going well. We have a new session next week. That's going to be three weeks in a row of really good solid gaming. The group is absolutely jamming along. With no troubles in sight.

I think the GM has finally had it with Mr. Special Snowflake. Nobody wants him invited back. And it's good riddence in my opinion.

At this point, we are set to make up the missing months worth of sessions before Halloween. We are playing every week. Instead of merely, maybe, once a month. And the GM is focused on making up for lost time. So we are good.

Between the last two sessions. We have been working on utterly shedding ourselves the resources Mr. Special Snowflake manipulated us into being dependant on. Our characters are finding their own way and creating their own resources to fall back on.

So when Mr. Special Snowflake eventually tries to come back. The rest of us will tell him to piss off.

So I guess this is a happy ending to this story.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;999294The character itself is overpowered. Has access to powerful things that generally blow the capabilities of the other characters away.

It makes the rest of the characters seem to be the sidekicks or just minions of that one. And that just adds to the frustration of the situation. The characters definitely do not feel like genuine peers of each other.

I find myself in the campaign at times asking myself: Does my character really have a role here?

Ok. Totally agree. That is a problem.

Question then. Why is the character like that? How did they start off with so much? What system? Sounds like something youd see in Gurps with a player gaming the system?

Sounds like the player is grandstanding and the DM is allowing it?

One of the reasons I tend to play wizards and other smart types is I tend to DM alot and thus know a little about various monsters. But not all of them and I never look it up in the MM when playing. If the player is reffing the rulebooks or MM to game the system then one thing to do is disallow it.

Problem I see is if the DM is allowing something to get out of hand then it can sometimes be hard to get them to curb a player.

Best you can do is talk it out and failing that. Walk or tough it out. I have walked out on grandstanding before after trying to talk it out and failing. Annoying but such is how the dice fall sometimes.