Annoying Player Habit

[adamsmith]

I was wondering whether anyone here could help me out.  One of the players in our game has the habit of singing phrases of what has just been said to the melodies of show tunes.

I've asked him politely to desist, but he claims it's an unconscious habit. How do I get this (otherwise decent player) to stop?

[Bill Cook]

It's a negative attention thing.  He's Bart Simpson, and he can't distinguish praise from punishment.  Plus he's probably nervous or bored or both.

Actually, this reminds me of a player in my group that plays a bard who sings 80's singles, except he's freaking hilarious.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Welcome, and tell me more. This might seem like quite a barrage, but it helps me a lot in deciding what to say.

How many people are playing in the group? What game are you playing, and how long have you been together as a role-playing group? What's the age range? Are there any siblings in your group? How about romantic couples?

And finally, what do you want to accomplish with this person? After all, the first step is going to be to recognize that you can't make him do anything. Demoting character awards won't do it. Ignoring his play-announcements won't do it. No "punishment" mechanism or game-rule will do it.

Best,
Ron

[Matt Wilson]

Hey Adam:

How much discussion has gone on among you and the other players about it? I would assume that if you're posting here about it it's bugging you a lot, but what about the other players? Are they all really irritated by it?

Is it bad enough that you would consider asking him to leave the game?


There's always the possibility that he's unhappy with the way the game is going and is being passive aggressive about it rather than just speaking up.

On the other hand, it might be as simple as telling the guy that what he's doing is interfering with your enjoyment of the game, and could he try to keep it under control.

[Callan S.]

Dunno. Try bio feedback?

Just throw a piece of paper in the middle of the table and every time he does it, ask him to put a dash on it.

It doesn't matter what it tallies to, nothing happens. Except he gets feedback on how often it happens this way.

You might see the number go down slowly over sessions.

[adamsmith]

That's actually a pretty good idea, I might try it.

To Ron's questions:
There's myself (GM) and four players. We've been playing as a group for nearly six years and are all guys in our late twenties/early thirties.
We're also all friends.  We're playing a Rolemaster based homebrew with elements from TROS thrown in.

This habit annoys everyone, but to be fair it annoys me the most (not a fan of South Pacific, I guess).  It's also a fairly recent change, and has only been going on for the last six months.

I'm also going to try and observe frequency and situation next session, to see if it's a 'the focus isn't on my character, I'm bored, I had better amuse myself' type of thing.

I wouldn't consider asking him to leave, not just because we're friends of long standing, but also because he makes a real contribution to play.

Thanks for the feedback thus far, everyone!

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

Huh - what strikes me is how recent the behavior is. So we're not talking about someone with some kind of neurological condition or Rogers & Hammerstein version of Tourette's Syndrome. It really is something that this otherwise- and previously-nonmusical person has just started to do.

This is a little abstract and maybe a bit too on-the-couch, but have you considered that a group of folks who started role-playing (or doing anything social and fun) together when they were 23 or so, were operating in a completely different social context than they are now, six years later? Most people undergo some pretty major changes in lifestyle in that period.

By "social context," I'm talking about how role-playing relates to the rest of the people they know, and how it factors into their social status and interactions with everyone else.

I don't want to go into this in major detail, or go into tangents. What I'm driving at is this: maybe role-playing isn't the activity that this guy wants to do any more. He might like hanging with the rest of you as friends, and a habit is a habit, but perhaps the activity simply isn't going to be worth enough to be sustained relative to everything else he does. Even if the role-playing, per se, is just as "good" or "fun" as it always was, or even better.

But I could be way wrong. Disregard if it rings no bells.

Best,
Ron

[Garbanzo]

You've been playing for six years, this absurdly stupid habit been going on for six months...

When did you introduce the TROS elements, (what are they,) and how has he reacted to the changes?

-Matt

[adamsmith]

We threw in a version of spiritual attributes, which has added enormously to the player input levels. I hadn't considered that this could possibly be a cause. Our play has been evolving for a while, but we're all Amber veterans so I wouldn't have thought it would be that hard to adapt to.

[cognizantchance]

i see 2 possibilites that havent been mentioned

The first is that this is a humorous shtick that he picked up six months ago or so, that people found amusing, more importantly it amused him even more. One would think that he started this outside of your game. By now, it's just a bad habit. These things can really stick with you. You will occassionally notice whole social groups essentially poisoned by conversational quirks that have worn thin but become the familiar and automatic response among the group. In essence this view, regards it as a bad habit unconnected to the game.

The second is that he's mocking the game. Have the spiritual atrributes changed the tone and tenor of the game?

WHen you say the changes have increased player input, have they increased it across the board or more or less for him than the others.

How often does this happen within an hour? Frankly, I find that inappropriate player behavior is best handled by the other players than the GM. This is not always possible however.

Joe Preston
Cognizant Chance