As the summer approaches and I find  myself with a new job looming and more free time, I’ve started thinking about getting together a proper weekend group.  I’m one of the fortunate gamers who has a deep pool of potential players from which to draft.  It makes starting a new group easier, but not completely painless or easy.

While attempting to get together my own group of players I’ve also been talking to others who have been attempting to get any sort of game together at all.  It got me to thinking about strategies for finding other players and ensuring that they’re compatible.

In this age of the internet, finding players is a lot easier than before.  We’re no longer confined to simply posting a little note in the local game shop and hoping someone notices it.  Message boards, social networking sites such as Meetup.com, and plain old fashioned instant messaging all make it a lot easier to find potential players.  While this increased player pool is a real boon for forming groups, it also comes with a big problem.  It’s very impersonal.

Even if you can find several players, you actually haven’t met them face to face.  You also really don’t know them all that well.  What I do (and recommend) is meet potential players at a neutral location.  This being the Pacific Northwest, that location is often a coffee shop.  Once I manage to set up a time I meet the potential player and just sit down and talk.  Generally you can get a good read on someone in about 15 minutes.  If they seem like a good match then I’ll start bringing up the game itself.  If I get a bad vibe, I simply tell them that I don’t think it will work out and politely excuse myself.

This is really the key of finding a good and long lasting group; being picky.  I find that if you have a large enough pool of players it’s fairly easy to pick and choose for the optimal setup.  I try to find players that like similar games and play styles.  That way you have to bend less around several different types of players and you can instead focus on the game itself.

It’s far better to build a group slowly, starting with one really solid player that’s compatible than to grab a huge group and then weed out players that aren’t working.  Of course this isn’t always possible in some areas, but even if you have a tiny pool of players it’s better to stick with a very small section of compatible players than to try and shoehorn disparate styles into one game.

If you’re really stuck with a small player pool, there’s always another option; create more players.  I’ve done all I’ve can to teach folks new to the hobby how to play.  Often this tends to work out really well, as new players are a blank slate of sorts  You can actually train them in your favored style of playing with your favorite system, creating an excellent group from the ground up.

How do you find potential players?  Generally you want to start with folks who have similar interests or friends who have shown at least a little interest.  Don’t pressure anyone, but if someone shows a bit of interest try to show them the ropes slowly.  Really resist the urge to cram an entire game down their throats in your enthusiasm.  And if they say they’re not interested, don’t press the issue.  That just results in bad blood and negative opinions.

So, here I sit dreaming up new game ideas for this summer, gleeful that I have the chance to run for some different folks.  If only half of them hadn’t decided to move away or join other groups I’d be doing good.  As it stands now, I more or less have to start from scratch, just like most of you.

Ah, the Lone Wolf character. Bane of steady plot development, dungeon crawls, and game masters alike. Such characters can derail a game faster than you can say “rocks fall, everyone dies.” You’re all ready to send your players in the Dungeon of Nubile Elves and Deadly Monsters when Bob the Fighter decides that he’d rather not join the party and instead start bar fights. What is a GM to do?

In case you’re confused about my terminology, a Lone Wolf is a character who refuses to join the group and instead goes off on his own little adventures. If you want a literary example, Wolverine from the X-Men is an excellent example. (Coincidentally, many Lone Wolves highly revere Mr. Snikt-Bub). Term thus defined, we continue on our literary and educational journey.

In my experience Lone Wolves generally remove themselves from the group because they think it’s cool or edgy. They think that doing their own thing is totally awesome. A few others just want to hog the spotlight by forcing the GM to focus on them alone when the rest of the characters go off on the real adventure. In either case you have a breakdown in understanding and a problem that needs to be corrected quickly.

As with any other problems, you can attempt to fix it in an out of game manner. The problem with the Lone Wolf is that they are often prone to retreating to the “but I’m just roleplaying my character!” defense. This might actually be true, at least as they imagine their character. If they do this, and the character history does in fact have a backing for such behavior, then I’m afraid the blame rests partially on your shoulders. Part of the job of the GM is to make sure that all the characters will work at least reasonably well together. If mister Trenchcoat McKatana had a background stating that his character didn’t like working with other people, you should have told him to change it before the game started.

Chances are you might have actually informed your player of the problem before play. The player made a show of changing the background and character but immediately reverted to his previous attitude as soon as play started. Now he can’t retreat back into the roleplaying defense and you can inform him to either shape up or ship out. If one of your players won’t acquiesce to such a request then he might just be more trouble than he’s worth anyway. Yet if the player doesn’t change their tune, their are in game ways to change behavior.

What you need is a two-pronged approach; the carrot and the stick. Your cooperative players get the carrot while the lone wolf gets the stick. Give the players who stick together all of the fun adventures and the good rewards. Focus most of your time on the cooperative players, as they’re actually working with you and not against you. Just carry on as normal and cut back to the Lone Wolf once in a while.

As for the Lone Wolf, resist the temptation to overwhelm him with ninjas or robot monkeys. Lone wolves love fighting overwhelming odds (and chances are a lone wolf is also a heavily min-maxed character). Instead fight them with boredom. If they go off to explore old ruins by themselves, they find nothing but moldering old stones. If they decide to stick around town and pick fights in the bar, the patrons just ignore him. In short show the players that whenever you go off alone nothing interesting or fun happens. You get to talk to the boring townsfolk or look at the pretty birdies in the wilderness. No ninja attacks, no bar brawls, just plain ordinary existence.

Usually this will result in the Lone Wolf seeking out the party as quick as they can, especially when the dice start rolling. Don’t let them show up right away, maybe even force them to sit out a fight or three while they catch up with the group. It only takes one or two instances of this before the lone wolf becomes a team player.

As with most things, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The best thing you can do is make sure that your characters have a clear cut reason for working together and that all of the characters actually want or need to work with others. If a player wants to make a character who likes working alone, make sure you indicate that they need a good reason to stick with the group. They might not be happy about it, but they should realize that they can’t do things on their own and they’ll need the other characters.

Finally, if you’re a lone wolf player yourself: stop it. There’s nothing wrong with the edgy lone wolf in the trench coat and dark sunglasses in a novel, but in a roleplaying game it’s just counter productive. You’re stealing valuable time away from the GM and the rest of the players to focus on you alone. It’s selfish and not very much fun at all. If you must have a guy who likes to work alone, find a reason for him to work with others. After all, even Batman worked with the Justice League quite often.

Most of us have been there: you’re running a wonderful game with great players when it becomes clear that one of the characters is clearly superior in almost every way to the rest of the group.  Perhaps one of the players actually set out to design a really powerful character using the rules in creative ways (commonly known as Min-Maxing or Powergaming).  Maybe you gave out a powerful item or boon that granted a power to a character far beyond what you expected.  Or you might not even know how this problem sprang to life.  Regardless of how it happened, you’re still in a bind.  You have this powerful character who is clearly overshadowing the other characters.  For most games, this is very much undesirable and needs to be dealt with quickly and fairly.

Why worry about this type of problem?  Simply put, it can quickly ruin the fun for everyone else at the table.  As the GM, you either have to design encounters that challenge the Superman but then become deadly or impossible for the other characters or keep going as normal, letting the Superman wade through all of your challenges with ease while the rest of the characters sit by and watch.  You basically start tailoring the entire game around a single character, which can lead to deep feelings of resentment and bring the level of fun down.  Your other players will rightfully feel slighted and may even loose interest in the game as they simply let the Superman deal with everything.

It can quickly become a dire problem that might even destroy your game and lead to the breakup of your group.  (Okay, this is the worst case scenario, but it can and does happen).  If you need to deal with this problem but you’re not sure how to go about it, the rest of this article is for you.

Method One: Talking It Out
The first, and possibly easiest, method is simply sitting down with the players and explaining the problem.  Tell your players about your perceived problem and explain the situation.  Try to point out specific examples, as the player of the Superman may not see the problem himself.  Let them know that you’d like to rectify the situation as soon as possible.

Let everyone talk; you can’t do this by raw GM fiat; this has to be a cooperative process.  Ask everyone if they perceive the same problem, encouraging them to be honest.  If you discover that you do indeed have a problem, take steps to fix it.  You can either do this in an out of game manner and simply re-write the game history so that the new situation is how it’s always been (which can be a big problem with many players) or by working out with the group a method in which the Superman will lose his powers in the game itself.  If at all possible, the Superman should get a final last heroic stand, giving up his power in a desperate struggle to save his friends or country.  Let him shine like the sun one last time before he’s brought back down to the level of the other characters.

This method is probably the best.  You speak honestly with your players, let them know that there’s a problem, then take steps to fix it with their help.  This generally works the best in the long term, as everyone can remain mostly happy.  But it only works if you have players who are all cooperating with you.  If you don’t, then you have to use different methods.

Method Two: The Superman Challenge
A different method is actually letting the Superman stay as he is and changing how you design your encounters.  Basically you set up two encounters, one for the Superman and one for the rest of the group.  This can be incredibly hard, as it doubles your work load and you have to immediately show the players who belongs where.  Frankly, I’ve never really been able to get it to work very well beyond the first one or two times.  It can work, but it takes a dedicated GM and some player buy in.  I’d really only use this as a stop-gap method before you use the first method.

Method Three: The Hard Sacrifice
The third method you can use is offering the Superman a hard choice; let him choose between his power or the survival of the party/nation/world/etc.   This can work, even without talking with the players beforehand (though it works better if your players are colluding).  You set up a situation where the Superman either has to give up his life, a significant portion of his power, his super magic item, or whatever else made him so powerful in the first place.  In return for this great sacrifice, the Superman gets to save something important to him from certain doom.

This method works fairly well, and if you set it up carefully the player of the Superman character will probably not even mind so much.  He got to trade his power of his own free will for the continued survival of something or someone.  They got to be a big damn hero, which when you get down to it is why a lot of us play in the first place.  Again, this works best when you’ve talked to the players and stated just why the character has to make this choice.

Method Four: Forceful Downgrade
All of the above methods work well if your players are cooperating with you.  If the player of the Superman really likes being more powerful than everyone else and won’t change, you have a real problem.  If he won’t give up his power, you have to become the “bad guy.”  For the good of the game you either have to find a way to occupy his character while the rest of the characters have fun or simply kill off the problem character.  It’s not nice, but you’re the GM and you wear the viking hat.  You have to buckle down and get rid of the problem character quickly.

Really, though, if your player won’t give up his Superman then you might have deeper problems.  If this player is more concerned with the power of his character than in the fun of the game, it might be time to let him go.  If you have to kill of his character and he throws a snit, let him go.  You’ll probably be better off without him.

In closing, this can be a sticky problem.  Usually, with a good group, you can deal with it swiftly and with a minimum of hurt feelings.  Your biggest challenge is going to be recognizing the problem and communicating to your players why it has to be fixed.  It’s a tough job, but you volunteered to handle stuff like this when you put on the GM hat.  Good luck.