So, I’ve got a Champions RPG campaign I’ve been running for about a year now. We meet once a week, hang out, and have fun. The game’s hosted at the house belonging to a woman who I’ve known and been gaming with for over a decade. Things are good, and I seem to have found a group of people who despite being gamers have good social skills and hygine.
Yesterday when I got to the game one of the players told me this would be his last session, as the hosts’s boyfreind told him that he wasn’t welcome there anymore. These two have been living together for several years; he calls himself her fiencee although they have no plans to ever actually get married. Other than her, nobody seems to like this guy.
Why did he decide to kick one of my players out? He says it’s because he was “too loud” (actually, he’s not the loudest at the group by far) and spilled something on the kitchen floor last week (and promptly cleaned it up, of course). I suspect it has more to do with the fiencee simply taking a personal dislike to the player in question, as well as not wanting the game to be held in the house at all. He’s made no secret of the fact that he’d rather the host not have her freinds over on a weekly basis.
Now I’ve got a choice. One of the other players in my game offered to host the game at his house instead. Problem is, the host of the game, who is an old dear freind and I don’t get to see any other time, can only go to the game if it’s at her house. She has a daughter from a previous marrige, who isn’t old enough to be left on her own yet, and doesn’t want to hire a babysitter just so she can go out and play in a RPG once a week. The guy who lives with her works late that night most weeks, so he can’t look after her.
So, I can keep the game there, have to lose a player who I’d rather keep and probably suffer additional sabotage from the pissheaded live-in boyfreind, or move the game and lose a player who’s an old freind I never get to see otherwise. Really, it just sucks either way.
And just the other week I was thinking that maybe my freind’s fiencee wasn’t such a bad guy and that I had perhaps misjudged him.
Personally, I’d mention the situation to the present host. Let her say whether the player can stay. But it isn’t her boyfriend/fiancee’s place to say who can and can’t play the game. Or perhaps she can bring her kid to the new location. She must be keeping an eye on the kid while you play now, so she can bring the kid and some toys and do the same at a new location. But it definately isn’t fair to kick this blameless guy out of the game.
Have you spoken to the lady about this situation? I’ve lived with roommates who were gamer-hostile, and they just kept pretty much to themselves. Since she’s the one who will have to drop out if the game loses, she has a vested interest in getting her boyfriend to be reasonable.
Oh, by the way, who’s paying rent on the place? Her or the boyfriend?
Could the other players take care of the kid in their off-phases? (sorry, Champions humor. Arr arr arr)
Could you have the banished player buy the odious boyfriend a case of beer as a consolation gift, thus buying his way back into the house? Sets an ugly precedent by giving the boyfriend lotsa rope to hang himself with.
Could you have two games going? One meets at the lady’s house without the banished guy, one meets at the other guy’s house without the lady? That way you could start a campaign set in a different city, and have the characters travel back and forth between the two groups from time to time (crossover plots).
So, umm… where do you guys live? Got room for another player?
Wow, that boyfriend is really pissy. I would tell your actual host what happened and go to a new place. Tell her that she is more than welcome to attend. Personally I don’t see a problem with her bringing her kid. When I used to play regularly, if the host’s spouse said we couldn’t play there anymore we simply moved on. (This happened twice.) We told the player that he/she was welcome to continue coming but they inevitably dropped out. One of the two places we moved out of eventually got the spouse into the game. After that we were welcome there on an alternating schedule. We tended to rotate places where we would play to not wear too thin on our host.
StGermain - we’re considering having the host bring her kid to the new site of the game when her fiencee isn’t home to take care of her. She’d probably have to leave the game early on those days to get her kid home and in bed on time though.
Ethilrist - I don’t know who’s paying how much of the rent. They were living together before they moved into the new place, so it’s possible that the place is jointly owned, or even in his name. I don’t know, not really my place to ask. Either way I’m probably going to move the game, as I don’t care to have it in the prescence of someone who doesn’t want it there and is willing to do petty little things to sabotage it.
Oh, and we run the game in central NJ, every wednesday night. Don’t have room, unless we end up loosing a player over this mess, in case there will be room for one more. Oh, and the monday night game I also play in does have room.
I’d move to the other player’s house for one main reason: How do you know this won’t happen again, and lose you more players as the host’s SO decides to dislike more players?