I have resisted writing this for a long time, but after the events of my game last Friday I am to tired to care anymore. I am a good Game Master! I dont say that to brag, but to point out that I put time and effort into making good stories for my players. I try hard to center the story around their backgrounds, and create challenges that they will enjoy. On average I spend several hours a week working on creating good stories for my players, and for the most part they seem to enjoy them. Last week however I had put in a great deal of time creating a dungeon filled with traps and mysteries. I spent several hours working out the details of the dungeon, and even went out and spent money on some VERY nice dungeon tiles. The night of the game came, and I was super excited! The night did not start out well when half of my players showed up almost an hour late. Once we were all there and settled we started to game. I carefully presented them with the story, and was disappointed that they seemed HELL BENT on doing what they wanted to do despite all the consequences. The players wanted to go talk to this VERY powerful spirit, and had it in their head that this spirit was going to spill the beans on everything going on around them (he wont), and give them direction on where to go next (he might). Reading up on this spirit I found he had a side to him that would make him want to have people prove themselves to him. So a nice dungeon with traps and pitfalls seemed like a fun idea. I was wrong! As i carefully guided them to the dungeon one of my players continually kept challenging me, and pushing me to abandon my story line and just bee line them to this great and powerful spirit. I was patient and held my ground. Even though I was holding my ground she made it clear she was not happy about the direction the story was taking. Once we got into the dungeon she was so beligerent and rude about the whole affair, that I lost track of what the other players were feeling or doing. My attention and anger was so geared toward this friend of mine that I lost sight of the main goal of the adventure.

Instead of being a fun, mysterious, maze of traps and pitfalls it turned into a giant pile of crap. I couldn’t concentrate, and I was having a hard time remembering the maze I had created. Finally this player looked me dead in the face and said “Why are we doing this? This is so…D&Dish (add A LOT of negative tonal inflections on that last part)”. That was it I had had enough. I straight shotted them to the end of the maze, and was so glad to see the night was over and I could go home. I gathered my things and took off before anyone else. I was SO angry at this friend and player that I needed to get the hell out of there before I exploded!

So what do you do when you have a player who HAS to be the center of attention, and constantly makes negative remarks about your story? I find often times that people forget that the game is also about making sure the GM has fun too. Many times players start to think its all about them. This is a mistake. The game should be fun for everyone. So what do you do with such a player?