Dealing With the Parasite Or The Unwelcome Player

This is dedicated to my fellow gamemasters everywhere. As any gamemaster for a serious length of time can tell you, sometime you get a player who isn’t welcome and just doesn’t get the message. Meaning that somehow either the player is a significant other, a fly by night player or someone who just doesn’t want to be polite and then after a while just aren’t welcome company or someone who either doesn’t really contribute. This player earns the title of the “Gaming Parasite” which simply means that you have someone who has forced themselves into your gaming group and just proceeds to feed off the group or someone in particular and make life miserable. Whether you invited them or not you have a problem. Now you could be a complete jerk and say hey get the f*ck out of here, but that’s not too tasteful and something most people don’t enjoy. So you ask yourself what can I do. I don’t want to be a complete ass about this and I’m stuck with some moron who I either can’t get rid of or someone who just won’t take a hint. Everyone has dealt with this on some kind of level and unfortunately it’s political and personal. I mean how to tell someone off without making it personal, come let’s be realistic. No matter what someone does someone is going to be hurt and that’s personal no matter how delicately one approaches it.

But this problem has many subtle shades to investigate. Not only is there the problem of a gamemaster with an unwelcome player but what if you’re an established player and some new yokel who’s nothing more than the flavor of the month comes and promptly blasts whatever previous balance to atoms and for whatever reason only knows everyone likes this person and it often seems they like him/her more than you. As a player you've got a few options. One: Wait and see, most groups respond enthusiastically to the "New Blood" factor. Meaning that a new person is just prime to tell all of the old stories to. "You remember the time when Andon killed the chopper pilot with one punch on accident"......., and they may have a style that the group hasn't seen before and they are fascinated by it. Over time this factor loses its luster and things settle down. Two: Make your feelings known and hope the group is willing to compromise. Unfortunately nobody wants to look like the bad guy or run the risk of humiliation, so this isn't too popular. Or lastly Three: Everybody's least favorite—leave and find something else to occupy your time. This for obvious reasons isn't much of a choice at all. But always remember there are other games out there and there's a crew who will be happy to have you.

As a gamemaster the problem becomes much more dangerous in the political sense. Whenever you have more than one person, politics become a reality and as anyone who reads the newspaper or watches the news can tell you it’s a royal pain in the keister. Politics can place you, the gamemaster, in a tricky position. Not only can politics make you look like the bad guy and an all around a$$hole, they can make for uniting factions against you when some person or persons want control of the group as a whole. This is where diplomacy can be used. We’re all supposed to be adults or nearly so. For a change let us act so. Instead of making an expulsion personal and taking its reception personally. If it’s talked about in a rational manner perhaps it won’t be so volatile and explosive and people can part on amiable terms.

Now every gamemaster realizes the above is an ideal way to deal with a unpleasant situation. But let’s face it, it’s not an ideal world and people aren’t likely to take things in such a rational matter. All it takes is for one person to get bent out of shape for a political nightmare to take place. If you’ve read the first few rantings you are well acquainted with how badly politics can spiral out of control and that’s one baseball game I’d rather not see the replays of, so I’d like to try and spare you an inning like that. But other than an attempt at a controlled expulsion what can one do? Well here’s a few suggestions. If the player is just dull and not a pain in the rear make him/her a floater, someone you call up when you’re running short. Like, “Jim” the younger brother of one of my core players. Jim’s a nice kid, but he’s just that—a kid. While teaching the next generation can be viewed as a responsibility it doesn’t require one to make someone a core player in your group. Let the kid float in and out picking things up gradually and when he/she is a bit older give them a full time trial membership. If it works out great, you’ve successfully taught the next generation how to hopefully role-play. If not, neither side is really out anything. Next is just deal with it and hopefully things will improve. After all, everybody is entitled to a bad season. But failing all that as I said before is expulsion. Hopefully it can be done with a modicum of taste and not resort to a slugfest. But if it does remember NightLife’s motto.

“Nuke’em from Orbit it’s the only way to be sure.”