Some players are more assertive than others, as every DM quickly learns. Some players sit quietly waiting for their turn to speak, while the “Face,” like his A-Team counterpart, never misses a chance to go to town. Before you know it, the party is down another rabbit hole or skipping through a conversation without anyone else getting a chance to participate.
Or, as this week’s listener question asks: “How do you get the “Face” to STFU?
To be fair, none of us actually recommends telling a player to shut up. But every group deals with some variation of this issue, and while the Face can be entertaining, none of your other players wants to play Robin to their Batman. Worse, you have other players in your group who want to contribute just as much as the Face, but they can’t get a word in edgewise. What’s a DM to do?
In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave talk about how they handle the more dominant role players in their groups (especially when it’s one of them) and the tricks they use to make sure everyone gets to roleplay the way they want to.
If you don’t see the episode player below, click here to listen to the podcast.
1:00 A reader question about balancing the personalities in your game that really hits home
6:00 As a player: Have you made your point? Have you started repeating yourself? Then stop talking
8:00 Turns matter outside of combat, too: Don’t let one player take more than a turn’s worth of actions or advance the conversation to a new topic without letting everyone have a chance to do something
13:00 How our games are becoming more roleplay-focused, which can make the “Face” problem worse
16:00 An example of turn-based roleplaying in our games and tricks we use to make sure everyone gets to talk and act
27:00 Pros and cons of handling single-character vignettes outside of the game vs. at the table
36:00 Chaos in Marvel Town: An example of a couple characters jumping the gun and pushing the whole party into a God fight (a fight Thorin swears he didn’t start…)
55:00 How to rein in the Face if they’re still disrupting the game
60:00 Final thoughts