Evil Narrators

[Vaebn]

Has anyone ever been involved in a game where the narrator stops you at every turn and demands you justify every position?
He keeps interrupting saying "I could Captain a ship better than you", so I challenged him. A Spacedock duel with two ships each. Hopefully proving who the greater tactician is. There is not much more I can do, apart from quitting the group which I am hesitant to do. I realise if I lose, I may have to leave anyway, but I doubt winning will really change much anyway. He could probably find something else to criticise.
What do you do with an evil narrator?

[ghosty]

It seems that the GM just has urge to play rather than gamemaster...oh how I know that feeling ...if that's the case, he's still being very silly about it and well you should tell him so. If he wants to be CO let him and you or someone else take over as GM. Otherwise, he just being an utter bastard and you should quit.

[Michael Barratt]

Has this guy narrated often? I find that such events often happen with narrators new to the saddle of game mastering... Could just be growing pains, in which case, hopefully they taper off.

The situation, however, could beg a different solution: round-robin your game mastering/narrating. Ask everyone in the group if they'd mind rotating the narrator position. We did that with my group for a few months, and then we settled on me as narrator (*sigh* I miss playing), but now and then we still do a round-robin sequence, which lets me play a few times.

If it all turns out bad, you can always walk out and start your own group - invite the same people. If they like your game better, they might just tell the other guy that his heavy-handed approach sucks becore they go..

The Doc

[Captain Zymmer]

Diplomacy is always the way to go in a situation like this, IMHO.

But like the other boys say, sounds like a frustrated player turned GM.

Point out your problems, and if he is unforgiving, then maybe you should offer to run him a few times just so he can show you how great he really is

[Admiral Wolf]

Sounds also like this might be the kind of GM who plans out his games the way he-would-play-them, and thus every move you make in a given situation is not the way he-would-have-done-it.

If so, you may need to remind him of two basic things;

1) Your not him, and your playing style is your own.

and

2) We all do this for fun.

Remember, all GM's need players. If he's too much of a pain in the ass, and players start leaving he's not going to have much to do.

[The Highlander]

This sort of narrator gives those of us who have earned the connotation "sick, twisted bastard" (as a term of compliment) from our players a very bad name.

My opinion -- you seriously need to find a new narrator if this sod doesn't get his act together....

Like it was said earlier, we who narrate do this for fun.

[Lancer]

Originally posted by Vaebn
There is not much more I can do, apart from quitting the group which I am hesitant to do.

There is just one other thing you might do. Talk with the other players and if they feel the same way you do then make him leave the group and don't go yourself.

Sometimes it's just better to look for just a new Narrator, a whole new group to play with.

And if that's not your cup of tea, then why not give him a chance to prove that he's right?
As has been suggested here get him to be a player and see if he's really as hot as he thinks he is.

But whatever you do, try to be diplomatic first. Kicking out the Narrator can be done if everybody else agrees, but it shouldn't be your first option.

[ghosty]

Lancer is right...have a talk to the others in the group...if they agree that the GM is being a bastard then talk to him as a group...he can either shape up or ship out.

[Captain Zymmer]

Agrred with the boys

I have inherited more players from other narrators than I care to think about.

And why? Because they thought they were gods...where as I know I am one

Seriously, solidarity is the way to go here, and if he won't listen, show him the door, kick him to the curb and one of you learn how to narrate ::

I know, scary idea but every journey grasshopper

[Balok]

Many years ago, I played in a fantasy game (D&D Rules with admixtures of other stuff). It was a fascinating campaign in a number of ways. But a common scenario would go like this:

- We have to get the McGuffin from some site.

- Local conditions (hazards such as lava or time-limits) more or less require we proceed as quickly as possible through the site, and recover the McGuffin.

- Removing the McGuffin starts events that lead to the destruction of the site, requiring a speedy exit.

- Receive experience -- and a detailed explanation of all the cool stuff we *could have found* "if only we'd looked in some of the side areas".

Eventually, we decided this particular GM had an inferiority complex or something like it. It was important to him to feel he'd "beaten" the players even though they'd "won" by achieving the goal.

He crafted good stories, but his other irritating habits made it hard to be a player in his campaign. We tried a couple of discussions to see if we could fix it, with very little effect.

Finally, sadly, we parted company. We determined that his particular set of problems couldn't be solved by us, and the best course for us was to move on.

First, get together with the other players and see if you all agree. If so, see if you can figure out what the problem is. Then see if you can come up with a way to solve it. When the narrator is the problem, the players must approach a solution as a team. And understand there may be no solution. This person may not be narrator material -- he may be happier running a different sort of game, or as a player.

Good luck!

[ghosty]

Yeah had the experience of GMs who feel that they are "competing" with the players...the more players they killed per game was important to them. It seemed to be point of honour that I killed this person 4 times this session. It pissed off everybody so much so that nobody wants to play with them anymore. Personally I'm not surprised.

[Perrryyy]

Originally posted by ghosty
Yeah had the experience of GMs who feel that they are "competing" with the players...the more players they killed per game was important to them. It seemed to be point of honour that I killed this person 4 times this session. It pissed off everybody so much so that nobody wants to play with them anymore. Personally I'm not surprised.

I used to be like that in my D&D games. Fortunately for me, we stopped playing D&D soon thereafter.

I just never could figure out how to throw plot into "slay the monsters, get the gold, raise up in level & become demigods"

[Phoenix]

I'm with some of the earlyer responses, give him a chance to play. As the replacement GM (never let the GI be a GM, unless you like temporary campaigning, 5 sessions, I think.) I still have a fully developed PC, on occasion one of the other players run the game for a while.

As with the shows, different directors have different flavors.

[Vaebn]

Let battle commence. Two ships each, maximum of 5000 SUs. I have an Akira and a Defiant whilst he has chosen the Prometheus and a Defiant.
I have spoken to the other players in the group, some do have a problem with his behaviour but would not be willing to leave the group. The Narrator, of course, did not agree there was a problem and got quite angry.
In the true spirit of Star Trek, I will not fire the first shot

[Captain Zymmer]

Good luck

Appoint an arbitrary rules narrator...one of the other players.

Don't leave calls of choice up to you two on the rules