Micro-Player Rant

By the topic you might be thinking that I'm going to be talking about really small players; but no, that is not the case.  I'm talking about all those players that micromanage (when they're not the manager: DM or GM) your RPG games.  This type of player (unless your group is entirely comprised of them and you as DM or GM are one of them) ruins campaigns.  They ruin campaigns quicker than the DM/GM shouting, "Because I said so... ok fine, God shot down fifty f#@&ing lightning bolts and you're all f#@&ing dead!!!  Now what?!"

Don't you just hate it when you're running an adventure and to keep things flowing at a good pace you omit some useless bogged down rules and one of your players (always the same one every time) says, "Oh, but what about this rule on page 136, paragraph 3, line 13?"

Then you try to explain to them that you don't always need every rule and sometimes some of them get in the way.  They never understand though.  Oh, and never, EVER forget about a rule.  That always prompts this kind of player to immediately point out how you forgot something (usually only after they have calculated to take advantage of you forgetting about it) and then after the situation is over say something like, "A DM that doesn't know the rules; that's funny!"

Actually what's funny would be me planting a d20 up your flared nostril!  The problem is, short of shutting down a campaign and never inviting this person again, it is very hard to deal with this.

If the person can handle this kind of confrontation (which most should be able to) I would suggest talking to them about it.  Sit them down, without everyone else there, and just explain how their behaviour is getting in the way of the game.  Explain that it's nothing against them personally, and you understand that they feel that they're just helping (and you appreciate the intent), but it is really getting in the way of the other players and you doing your job.

If the above does not work, or you know it won't work, I suggest the following:

Kill their character!  This is fairly easy and does not shut down the campaign.  This of course does not solve the problem if you are playing a campaign where people can just create another character.  Might I suggest my favourite: the falling stone block of doom trap, now with bait!  Have a crude stone block 10'x10' (really big and heavy) suspended from the ceiling in a 10' wide passage way right infront of a door leading to a room.  The trap should be discovered (either have the party's rogue discover it, or make it bloody obvious).  Now, in the room beyond this, put an amazing, obviously magical and obviously priceless item in plain sight lit by torches either side of it.  Before the party can decide how to disarm the trap, announce that whatever baddies are in your adventure are about to take the Item of Awesome away!  Oh no!  FYI, this type of player always wants the best of everything and to have the most coinage so they WILL fall for this bait.  Announce that anyone wanting to go for the treasure can attempt to jump underneath the stone block with the motion sensor trigger to get the treasure.  It should be only the micromanager that jumps.  Of course the difficulty to survive this si very hard.  They will fail the roll, and they will die.  This is enough to kill any character short of immortals.  Should they roll something immaculate, you can always fall back on the baddies seeing the adventurers and shutting the door just as the character jumps... headbutt into the door and a stone block falling on his/her head!  Problem solved.