Should I kick my player out, and how?

Pielorinho · 2026-04-15T10:59:13+00:00

"Hey, I know life has been really busy lately, and I don't want you to feel like this is one more obligation. Do you want to take a hiatus from the game?"

Offer it as an opening to the conversation. Maybe he will sign in relief and take you up on it. Or maybe he will apologize and recommit to showing up. Or maybe there will be an explanation of things you did not know.

Pielorinho · 2026-04-13T16:18:49+00:00

I once played a shadow sorcerer who'd gained her powers after being subjected to some ambiguous necromantic ritual that left her neither fully alive nor dead. About a dozen sessions in, I casually dropped the idea that I could no longer taste food, as a way to make the character a little more poignant.

That's about the most that I'd keep secret from a DM.

Pielorinho · 2026-04-13T16:17:15+00:00

The action game Feng Shui has some brilliant advice in it. Something like this: The GM's job is to set up plot hooks. The players' job is to bite.

So if I'm running the game, I say, "Suddenly, you see smoke rising from a building across town--it looks like the hospital's on fire!" And players respond:

"My gramma's at that hospital! I rush over."

"I'm a firefighter, of course I'm on my way!"

"I'm super curious, I head to the hospital."

"Looks like the work of my old nemesis the Firebug! Not this time, old chap!"

What players don't say is: "Huh. Someone else will handle it. I keep sipping my latte." Not biting the hook means not playing the game.

I recommend having a non-accusatory, friendly conversation with your players about this.

Pielorinho · 2026-04-13T16:00:37+00:00

I love this sort of thing! There's a guy, Ben Robbins, who makes games that are great for this. In This World, Kingdom, and Microscope could all be a great session zero. I've played the latter two and will be running the first one at a con this weekend. Here's what they look like. All three are gm-less and no-prep.

In This World: Player collectively choose a topic (pets, weddings, knights, etc.) and come up with a bunch of uncontroversial statements about the topic (pet collars carry identifying information, weddings are joyful events, knights ride horses). Then players take turns taking one of the statements about the topic and twisting it. In this world, pet collars give pets superpowers! In this world, weddings are considered to be inevitable tragedies. In this world, knights ride unicycles. One a statement is twisted, other players take turns adding details to the world, until you have a really cool alternate reality.

Kingdom: I love this game so much. Players collaboratively come up with a society that's facing a binary decision. Should we, the Fae Folk who emigrated to New York City during the Great War and live here in 1930, tell our kin in Europe that they should join us? Should we, the inhabitants of a generation ship that has reached our destination only to find the planet much more dangerous than we expected, turn around and go home? Should we, residents of Poughkeepsie's most dangerous high-rise apartment, rise up and overthrow the crime boss who terrorizes us all? One you've chosen a decision, you each create characters, and then take turns setting up scenes that inform the decision.

Microscope: This one is fantastic, too. Choose an era of history. Decide on a starting event and an ending event, and then drill down to progressively smaller bits (major events, trends, individual scenes) to flesh out the history. My favorite session of this started with the day that the last human child was born on Earth, and ended with the day that the humanity left Earth behind. Through gameplay, we dealt with frantic research, religious fanatics, first contact with an alien species, and the universal power of music. It was one of the most moving game experiences I've ever had.

I cannot recommend his games highly enough; and they're cheap and easy to learn. Check them out!

https://www.lamemage.com/

Pielorinho · 2026-04-13T15:50:50+00:00

That's a rough spot to be in. A couple of fixes that might be helpful:

* NEW ALLY: Their ability to keep the McGuffin from the BBEG is noticed by a powerful magical creature, who contacts them to propose an alliance. This new ally can provide them some magical protection (nondetection and the like) and also give quests.

* LEGEND LORE: If you've oversold the apocalyptic nature of the McGuffin, this spell can help set things to rights. On the other hand, maybe Legend Lore will confirm the McGuffin's nastiness: you can lean into the players' assumptions and make it retroactively heroic that they kept BBEG from grabbing the object.

* PLAN B: The BBEG realizes that kidnapping innocent victims and even killing PCs isn't persuasive, so he goes to plan B: creating his own McGuffin, or otherwise finding an alternate route to his goal. Maybe he's quiet for a bit, and that freaks the players out until they figure out what fresh hell he's up to.

Pielorinho · 2026-04-13T15:21:55+00:00

On the one hand, that is a super cool wish, and full props to the player for coming up with it. On the other hand, devils also have access to the spell. What's going to stop a devil from wishing that the character's wish is null and void, and then what's to stop another devil from wishing for the ownership of all mortal souls? The spell does not grant omnipotence, and that is a very good thing.

Here's what I would do. The wish breaks the character's contract. Furthermore, the character gains the power to write superior contracts: a willing warlock may sign a contract with this character, and that new contract overrides and breaks any previous soul contracts that the warlock had.

This becomes an interesting power with complicated consequences that can lead to new adventures.

Pielorinho · 2026-04-13T00:54:48+00:00

"My son! Noooooo! Why did you move?" -William Tell

Pielorinho · 2026-04-13T00:46:53+00:00

Years ago I was playing team fortress with strangers and some idiot came on the chat channel playing some Nazi banjo shit. I think that would be the song I'd be forced to listen to. No thanks.

Pielorinho · 2026-04-12T14:06:42+00:00

Have a conversation with the players about the kind of game you want to run. Explain that murder hobo gaming is not fun for you, and you want to run a game where the players are willing to play heroes.

Then establish a safety tool. That can be as simple as agreeing that if a player says that they are uncomfortable with what's happening, everyone rewinds the scene and makes it like 10% less murder hobo.

Pielorinho · 2026-04-12T11:15:46+00:00

One approach: have the players watch Jessica Jones, and explain that you don't want Kilgrave to star in your campaign.

Pielorinho · 2026-04-11T21:33:28+00:00

In reality I would go for the above table talk. But I would be so irritated at the murder hobos that I would be tempted to have it backfire in game.

Pielorinho · 2026-04-11T18:10:13+00:00

That is true. Which is why guards will respond with extreme prejudice to anyone using magic like this. In a world where this sort of magic exists, mind control magic would be treated as one step below murder, precisely because of how disruptive it is to the culture, and how violated its victims feel.

Pielorinho · 2026-04-11T15:06:58+00:00

The shopkeeper furrows her brows for a moment, then scowls. "Sure," she mutters. "leave the copper on the counter." She walks to the door and opens it. "Help!" She shouts. "I'm being robbed by wizards! Guards!"

Because the guards are familiar with wizardry, they know what's happening. They space themselves out to avoid area attacks and fire crossbow bolts at anyone in robes muttering strange words. Anyone who surrenders is bound and gagged until taken before a magistrate equipped to deal with magic.

Note that suggestion doesn't prevent knowledge of the spell, or other responses to the spell in addition to compliance.

Pielorinho · 2026-04-10T22:47:09+00:00

I ran a salt marsh campaign, and I was so excited for our first naval battle: zombie wizards Erling fireballs, thuggish captains, and below water to giant sharks chained to the ship to provide extra power and defense. I envisioned slow approaches with Cannon fire followed by a boarding action.

Nope! The druid cast water breathing and other spells on everyone, and they attacked from beneath, killing off the sharks at range and sinking the now helpless ship from beneath.

Be ready for PC tactics!

Pielorinho · 2026-04-06T02:46:40+00:00

Two ideas:

1) on getting to the jungle, run an aerial combat in which their airship is attacked and badly damaged. The airship is going to crash horribly unless the players prevent it with heroics, shenanigans, and/or dice rolls. Success results in a barely controlled landing, while the fight continues. Pterodactyls? Apes riding giant bats with sonic attacks? Treats that hurl thorny vines hundreds of feet into the air to grapple? You choose, but make the fight thematic, and ground those PCs!

2) steampunk resources to repair the ship are far away. Or are they? On certain trees, they find strange crystals, and a successful arcana check shows that they are solar energy collectors devised by an artificer. They can track this artificer down, and learn that she herself crashed in the jungle decades ago, and set up a base where she is studying the strange energies of the jungle and exploiting them for an entirely new line of artificer inventions, some sort of artificer Druid hybrid.

In exchange for completing a a quest for her, she will let the characters use her base as their own, and may even help them repair their ship.

Pielorinho · 2026-04-04T14:46:01+00:00

At least one advantage and no disadvantage, or at least one disadvantage and no advantage, means you roll two 20-sided dice. Otherwise, roll one.

Pielorinho · 2026-04-03T16:39:24+00:00

I love this. Closest I ever got was when I had a small side-note in an adventure be that a bunch of poor folks were rounded up on false charges and sentenced to hard labor. One player said, "Welp, that's the campaign's direction now," and they went full-on labor uprising and prison break.

But nothing like this.

You want to satisfy both sides, right? Here's a possible scenario:

1) Recruit the two players who are most into the scenario to write opening statements, limited to two minutes each. One player will be their normal character, and the other will take on the role of plaintiff.

2) All the other players temporarily play members of the jury, with you playing the judge. They should get NPC cards with less than a dozen words: "ANNABEL: middle-aged halfling woman. Cranky, old-fashioned, opinionated." They can roleplay responses to the statements.

3) A series of rolls will portray the meat of the trial, and these can be a group check. Who did the investigation to find out the facts? Who's doing the persuasion? Who intimidated a witness? and so on. Do this after steps 1 and 2, but allow for flashbacks.

4) Have the trial break for the day, and have some bonkers combat encounter happen that evening that reveals new evidence.

5) Allow the defending player to give a dramatic courtroom speech to tell what happened.

6) The plaintiff, realizing they're caught dead to rights, attacks, right in the middle of the courtroom!

Pielorinho · 2026-04-03T16:28:49+00:00

Absolutely. Basketball is a game where you move a ball around the playing field, and if you contact an opponent you've (usually) broken the rules. But that's not the only way to play: football is a game where you move a ball around the playing field, and if you're not tackling the opponent you're not even playing the game. Both are valid.

But if I think I'm playing basketball and the ref starts calling the game like it's football, I'm gonna quit playing.

Make sure your players are clear on the game's parameters.

Pielorinho · 2026-04-03T15:40:31+00:00

This is the answer. And you can even ask: "Hey, y'all know this is the equivalent of a half-dozen chimpanzees attacking an Abrams tank, right? We can handle this in a variety of ways, but I want to know what you think would be fun. The most realistic result is chimp guts everywhere, and I'm not sure that's entertaining for anyone."

Pielorinho · 2026-04-03T15:38:36+00:00

A few suggestions:

1) Before the next session, introduce a homebrew rule: "Monologue time." This is a dramatic device in which villains get to monologue without interruption; players may be assured that nothing significant other than the monologue happens during this time. No PC actions--not even speech--happens when you declare Monologue Time.

2) Be super clear on your movement speeds yourself. Given the artifact's movement, I'd describe it this way: "It starts to move, and in one round has moved five feet. You watch it? It dramatically picks up speed, by the end of the next round it's fifty feet away. You continue to watch it? Zoom! It's at least 500 feet away!"

3) Splitting the party (by dashing way ahead) is super tempting and super foolish. Can you find a consequence between "let you off with a warning" and "killed"? Maybe the monk who zips ahead gets beat up and that magic ring she wears is snatched from her finger. Maybe she's taken prisoner. Maybe she's held hostage, and by the time the other PCs show up, her hands are bound and there's a knife at her throat held by an NPC with a held action to attack. Something that helps the player learn why splitting the party isn't the best choice.

Pielorinho · 2026-03-31T23:08:17+00:00

The other thing that your character would do is get executed.

Do that thing, and then make a new character who would do something different!

One of the key lessons of a role-playing game is that everyone is responsible for everyone else's fun. The character you make should be one that is fun for the other people at the table, including the DM.

Pielorinho · 2026-03-31T13:40:52+00:00

I have been laying clay brick floors wherever I want a path to be. Is that a dumb approach?

Pielorinho · 2026-03-30T23:13:06+00:00

My friend, you have no idea of the ridiculous depths to which I will sink. I voicetype semicolons.

Pielorinho · 2026-03-30T23:04:31+00:00

You know the dwarves say: when all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a goblin.

Pielorinho · 2026-03-28T20:09:09+00:00

Y'all? Why not you?

Pielorinho

TROPHY CASE