Daily poll

[teaotter]

This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Sunday to midnight (8pm Eastern Time) on Monday.

Poll #27025 Daily poll

This poll is closed.
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 40

How are you doing?

I am okay
26 (65.0%)

I am not okay, but I don't need help right now
13 (32.5%)

I could use some help
1 (2.5%)

How many other humans live with you?

I am living single
16 (41.0%)

One other human
19 (48.7%)

More than one other human
4 (10.3%)

Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.

Comments

[lexin]

The help...I play RPGs, mostly D&D and Call of Cthulhu. I'm a GM for both.

I have never previously encountered someone who is actively cheating. But I believe one of my players has read the scenario I'm running in advance and is taking advantage of that knowledge.

I have no idea what to do, other than to boot him out.

[teaotter]

Most of my ttrpg experience is with a stable friends group, and I've only ever run pre-published scenarios at events. So take my advice with a grain of salt.

First: ask yourself if their behavior is making the game less fun for other people. (This includes whether it's less fun for you.) I had a player who could frequently guess a plot right away, but what they chose to do about it was usually highly entertaining anyway. As long as things are still fun, I'd let any potential cheating slide.

If not, then that's the problem, more even than whether they've read the scenario. Making choices that derail the fun is a problem in a player, regardless of the reason for those choices.

You can try taking them aside and warning them that they're making things less fun for the rest of you, and you'll boot them if they don't change behavior. Or if you feel they've had sufficient warning, you can just boot them.

A third option is to make changes to the scenario, depending on how far along you are in the story and how comfortable you are with that. If their right-according-to-how-it-was-written "guess" goes horribly wrong, it may shake them up enough to get the game back into more-fun territory.

Good luck!

[lexin]

Their behaviour is making the game less fun for the others - they don't get to explore the whole of any dungeon, for example.

Plus, it's making me ill. I have mental health difficulties and this is really not helping - I wrote my note above at 3am, and have spent the day curled up in a miserable heap.

[teaotter]

Then yeah, I'd say it's time to boot them. I'm sorry you have to deal with this.