Roster Revisions

There comes a time in every GM’s career that he has to remove the deadwood from his/her campaign. This means to remove unnecessary PCs from play: i.e., the ones who haven’t bothered to show up or communicate with the GM or the ones who make it difficult for the rest to play the game.

We’ll talk about the latter first: abusive players. Let me illustrate a couple examples of abusive players. I had a guy who was playing a combat mage straight out of the book. When he found out he could crunch another one out better with a calculator and a few net compilations, he made this new combat mage, Ronin. This new combat mage had all of the previous one’s contacts and a boatload of spells and concentrations. As one of the character’s contacts he took his old character. He decided to hand over to her, his original magi’s force five weapons focus. A 2.5 million NuYen item! Not bad for a measly 5000 NuYen investment. This is clearly an abuse of the contact system and an insult to GMs.

Another slight variation of this theme is the people who can’t stick with one character. I’ll illustrate again. Had a guy who wanted to play a mage but didn’t know the system. So for a quick and logical way into the group he was given a sorcery adept who was a Catholic priest, for a couple of reasons. One, in the original story concept, this role was going to be integral to the plot line for support. Kind of like that Steve Martin movie where a preacher finds out he performed an actual miracle. Two, he was Catholic because it made sense for the group because they were all Catholic anyway. Well, he didn’t like this character because it was Catholic and limited by a moral code. It came time to get rid of the character when in a situation the priest wanted to throw down a fireball into a group of unknowns. For a while we tried a Bayou Dwarf as a role-playing lesson, next came an entertainment mage (Ala an AD&D illusionist). O.K. Fine just as long as it’s not another combat mage. Later he would lose an arm in a random game incident. O.K., you go on, medical science will give it back to you as soon as you can afford it. Well, for one he doesn’t acknowledge the loss of the arm for one and two it has to be cloned from his own DNA, not a type O clonal which he could afford. Later the game progresses to a point where they meet a very powerful entity (actually it was the whale from a challenge module). The whale asks if there is anything you can do for this. Hmm, I think to myself. A change to a shaman might be fun and a role-playing experience.

So I say, “Will you accept the mother of all life as your god?” (Me)

Yes. (Him)

Will you accept the Sea as the giver of all life?

Yes.

Is she the giver of your life?

Yes.

Then let it be so.

The power of this new totem filling him with her energy and a new arm grew in place of the lost one. One that was blue and scaly resembling that of a fish. It had five fingers and all but it was scaly and needed to be soaked in salt water every so often. A mark from the Sea, a reminder of his oath to her. Well, he completely ignored the precepts of the totem and went about his daily life as if nothing had happened except for moving to a warehouse near the outlet to the Gulf of Mexico. So we go until he doesn’t want to deal with the Horrors of the Unknown (Ala CoC and Dark Conspiracy) so he ups and quits. Yea, Yippee, Big Deal. Later in my competition’s game I find out he’s playing a dark elf combat mage who specializes in fireballs. Funny, he had an AD&D mage just like that.

The next type of deadwood is people who don’t bother to show up or communicate with the GM. I’ll go into detail here. A little before that something happened to my group. Check out my first two lessons for what went on after that player left. I hadn’t heard from him or his compatriots for three months. No contact, no e-mail, no phone calls. Nothing but second hand bullshit and rumors. Well, his character became deadwood. Not too long ago I conceived of a plotline that basically went nowhere as another player was involved who didn’t have a clue. Recently I decided to resurrect it and put a new face on it. Believing the player had moved out of state—another piece of deadwood—I felt free to do what I wished with his character and the old story. The story was basically as follows (I can’t go into great detail because it’s not over so here goes): The character involved had a period of missing time and had disappeared off the face of the planet for this time. Well, during this time he did something that gave him a chance to steal some very sensitive information. Later on, the owners decide they want it back. So to scare the hell out of my players I start by having operatives in black outfits attack the players and scream about a disk. After they are beaten into submission, I removed all the deadwood and killed off every single unnecessary character presently unattached to a player. Which was a great success, all of my players are now scared out of their minds and they fled the state where they lived in for another to regroup.

Now later the guy involved in the original story comes back, hears about being killed off and complains a little at the time, but understands. Later the buddy, one of the dead guys (the one that just upped and disappeared because of his wife) gets pissed and I get the following:

You know you shouldn’t have killed them all off, they might have come back. (Him)

I haven’t heard from them in three months. (Me)

Doesn’t matter, they still might have come back!

Hey, I haven’t received so much as a phone call from these guys in three months, they were deadwood and it served a story purpose.

Doesn’t matter, they still might have come back.

Hey, it’s a piece of paper.

Doesn’t matter, they still might have come back.

As far as I knew they were never coming back, so this problem is irrelevant.

Doesn’t matter, they still might have come back.

O.K.. If they come back I might do something. But

Well, I heard that one of your players (let’s call him Mike and the guy from Lessons #1 and #2 Steve.) Mike is pissed, and Steve is pissed too, because of what you did.

Ummm so what. Last time I talked to Mike as of twenty seconds ago he wasn’t pissed and I haven’t spoken to Steve in three months. So I don’t care.

Well, they’re pissed. Oh well, have you talked to Larry (he’s the guy I believed to have moved away.) he’s pissed also.

Yeah well I’m getting pissed. I’ll call you later. Bye.

So I call up Mike and ask him if he’s pissed at me for what I did and if he doesn’t like the current story line.

I’ve got to ask you a couple of questions, so tell me the truth. (Me)

O.K.. (Mike)

Are you pissed at me?

Nope.

Do you like the story line so far?

It’s O.K. and it’s interesting? Why?

Well one of the guys said you were pissed at me along with Steve and Larry who are mad too.

I’m supposed to be mad? Gee I have to call Steve and find out why?

So you’re not mad?

No.

He called me to get a phone number.

O.K. That’s all I wanted to know. Thanks, bye.

Now if this sounds like a bad Soap Opera, well it damn near is. Now the player’s buddy was only repeating what he heard from Steve so I can’t blame him. But I can damn well make sure this doesn’t happen again. Which brings me back to the original point. When deadwood accumulates, you, the GM, have the right to remove it as you see fit. When somebody hasn’t bothered to show or call they become deadwood. The simplest ways to get rid of this brand of wood is to kill off all of the unplayed characters. But you’ll catch a lot of flack from the buddies of these players. If somebody hasn’t shown any interest in your campaign for more than three months I’d advise you to off them because having them around gives the PCs an unfair group of contacts that they shouldn’t be able to draw upon. If their buddies can’t take it, let them leave and replace them with better people.

The second kind of deadwood, the abusive player, is something more difficult to deal with. Sometimes other people like them and won’t stick around if their buddy’s gone. Well, TS, they can be replaced and it’s sometimes better to get rid of the clique altogether. Secondly, no GM enjoys this, so they might be tempted to hang onto an abusive player when they should have let them go a long time ago. I learned that the hard way, don’t repeat my mistake. The best way to manage this is the baseball method: three strikes and you’re out of here. Don’t be lured by their buddies to hang onto them. They’re not worth it, and they cause more trouble than they’re worth, so cut them off and replace them with a better caliber of players.

Next time I’ll write a happier article, but I’m torked and this makes me feel a lot better.