Ever have a player "rage quit" a game?
Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2018 1:57 pm
So, for a little back story;
Our group initially consisted of 4 players. One eventually quit the game due to living 50+ miles away, and started our group and stuck with it for 4 game sessions, till our player #s were up.
One other moved out of state recently. A third of the initial core group had a pair of family deaths, that caused him to drop out of gaming entirely for now.
However, over the months, we've had over 8 other players come in to the group, some have stayed, some left after 2 or so sessions (were used to path finder/5e DND, so didn't really feel comfortable with 2e's rules set). Eventually we got to a 'standard' of 3 players (the last of the core 4, and 2 of the new-joins). This gave us (between active/inactive and deceased characters) a total pool of 25 over-all, though some had been totally rendered 'retired' due to the player of them only being in the group for one total session (when he quit due to finding out that we use a rule he totally despises, which was a GROUP consensus), and 2 others left (after not feeling this older edition). Including henchmen the group's had over the time, we actually come close to hitting 30 characters who've been around.
OF that, 17 have been fighters, either single or multi class. And of those, 6 (inc 3 of the henchmen, 2 who were made using the point build option of cha generation), have had % str. All the other 10, have had a 17 (OR LOWER) in strength.
Heck one even has only a 12 str (but was built up as an archer, due to his 17 Dex)..
Recently (back in late Jan) that last of the core 4, moved up to Michigan for work, dropping us down to 2. However, one of the other 'drop out's came back, bringing us back up to 3. So i asked that initial drop out player, to also come back if he could, for a little while, till our numbers re-settled' (had 2 potential new players, but medical issues kept one out for a while, and 2 others who were interested, but have yet to make a showing).
Because of how the game's proceeded, we (due to having a weekend our core group was put on "Time out") made up a "B-team" of adventurers 5 strong, which included the two starting PC's of that guy i asked to come back, and 3 of the inactivated pcs, two picked up by another player, and one assigned as a DMPC (group henchmen in effect)..
So far, the "Active group consists of two L6 fighters, a L5/4 Ftr/mage, a L5 fighter, a L3 mage (training to L4), the new player's character of a L3 fighter, a L5/4 priest/mage, a L5/5 fighter/priest, and a L5 priest, and a Henchman of the Cl/Mage who's a L3 fighter.
Our back up team has a L2 fighter, a L3 ranger, a L3 priest, a L4/4 fighter/priest, and a l2//4 fighter dualed into thief..
Now, one of my house rules, is that Each player makes up 2 characters (a primary, and a back up). They can rotate playing either/or, if our # of players are 5 or more, but if 4 or lower, they can actually play both at the same time. This is to keep the # of active characters in the group, above 5.
The guy i asked to come back, took over one of the two L6 fighters, and the L5 fighter (the one who has a 17 Str).
Last Sat's game session, ended with his L6 fighter being magically held (and getting ready to get killed, once the Shaman who held him fishes popping off spells to keep his leader in the fight), while his other character (the L5 fighter), kept rolling so poorly, out of over a dozen attacks, he HIT ONLY once..
So after we called the game for the night, and were in process of clean up/pack up, that player kind of moaned about how 'useless' his L5 character is, and why doesn't he just die..
Later in the night, i got an email from him, mentioning how he is going to skip Next session, because of how 'useless he feels his two characters are, and how i just "DUMPED them into his lap, especially in the fact HE feels the lower fighter, "Just isn't properly made to be uber effective in any area.. He's just too 'well rounded'...
Going back and forth in the emails, it almost looks to ME, like this player is threatening to rage-quit the game, unless i allow him to Re-tool his PC.. Even though NEITHER of the other players asked, have ever felt the character sucks, is under valued/incompetent etc..
Now as i have never let a player, after a game's been running 20+ sessions, re-tool a character before, SHOULD i start now, just to keep this player? Or should i let him go?
Our group initially consisted of 4 players. One eventually quit the game due to living 50+ miles away, and started our group and stuck with it for 4 game sessions, till our player #s were up.
One other moved out of state recently. A third of the initial core group had a pair of family deaths, that caused him to drop out of gaming entirely for now.
However, over the months, we've had over 8 other players come in to the group, some have stayed, some left after 2 or so sessions (were used to path finder/5e DND, so didn't really feel comfortable with 2e's rules set). Eventually we got to a 'standard' of 3 players (the last of the core 4, and 2 of the new-joins). This gave us (between active/inactive and deceased characters) a total pool of 25 over-all, though some had been totally rendered 'retired' due to the player of them only being in the group for one total session (when he quit due to finding out that we use a rule he totally despises, which was a GROUP consensus), and 2 others left (after not feeling this older edition). Including henchmen the group's had over the time, we actually come close to hitting 30 characters who've been around.
OF that, 17 have been fighters, either single or multi class. And of those, 6 (inc 3 of the henchmen, 2 who were made using the point build option of cha generation), have had % str. All the other 10, have had a 17 (OR LOWER) in strength.
Heck one even has only a 12 str (but was built up as an archer, due to his 17 Dex)..
Recently (back in late Jan) that last of the core 4, moved up to Michigan for work, dropping us down to 2. However, one of the other 'drop out's came back, bringing us back up to 3. So i asked that initial drop out player, to also come back if he could, for a little while, till our numbers re-settled' (had 2 potential new players, but medical issues kept one out for a while, and 2 others who were interested, but have yet to make a showing).
Because of how the game's proceeded, we (due to having a weekend our core group was put on "Time out") made up a "B-team" of adventurers 5 strong, which included the two starting PC's of that guy i asked to come back, and 3 of the inactivated pcs, two picked up by another player, and one assigned as a DMPC (group henchmen in effect)..
So far, the "Active group consists of two L6 fighters, a L5/4 Ftr/mage, a L5 fighter, a L3 mage (training to L4), the new player's character of a L3 fighter, a L5/4 priest/mage, a L5/5 fighter/priest, and a L5 priest, and a Henchman of the Cl/Mage who's a L3 fighter.
Our back up team has a L2 fighter, a L3 ranger, a L3 priest, a L4/4 fighter/priest, and a l2//4 fighter dualed into thief..
Now, one of my house rules, is that Each player makes up 2 characters (a primary, and a back up). They can rotate playing either/or, if our # of players are 5 or more, but if 4 or lower, they can actually play both at the same time. This is to keep the # of active characters in the group, above 5.
The guy i asked to come back, took over one of the two L6 fighters, and the L5 fighter (the one who has a 17 Str).
Last Sat's game session, ended with his L6 fighter being magically held (and getting ready to get killed, once the Shaman who held him fishes popping off spells to keep his leader in the fight), while his other character (the L5 fighter), kept rolling so poorly, out of over a dozen attacks, he HIT ONLY once..
So after we called the game for the night, and were in process of clean up/pack up, that player kind of moaned about how 'useless' his L5 character is, and why doesn't he just die..
Later in the night, i got an email from him, mentioning how he is going to skip Next session, because of how 'useless he feels his two characters are, and how i just "DUMPED them into his lap, especially in the fact HE feels the lower fighter, "Just isn't properly made to be uber effective in any area.. He's just too 'well rounded'...
Going back and forth in the emails, it almost looks to ME, like this player is threatening to rage-quit the game, unless i allow him to Re-tool his PC.. Even though NEITHER of the other players asked, have ever felt the character sucks, is under valued/incompetent etc..
Now as i have never let a player, after a game's been running 20+ sessions, re-tool a character before, SHOULD i start now, just to keep this player? Or should i let him go?