Kobold Think Tank
Tabletop RPG advice for little dragons

How to Resolve Most TTRPG Disagreements

by Brandon Gregory

Illustration of a blonde woman and a brunette man mad at each other and looking away

Watching forums and subreddits for Dungeons & Dragons and other table-top RPGs, you see the same sorts of questions pop up over and over again.

“One player’s random antics are derailing the adventure. How do I get them to stop?”

“A power gamer is dominating encounters. How do I get them to stop?”

“A group of male players is disrespecting me, a female player. How do I get them to stop?”

Some responses suggest using the mechanics of the game to punish players for doing things the party doesn’t like. While consequences for player actions should be a consideration, they won’t stop players from doing things that aren’t aligned with the table.

Railroading players will not stop a player who is intentionally creating chaos.

Nerfing the power gamer will not stop them from trying to dominate encounters, or it will destroy their fun.

Punishing male player characters in-game for sexual harassment will not stop the players from disrespecting a female player.

A video on clowning and DMing by Corkboards and Curiosities explains this succinctly:

If a clown is not entertaining kids, they will find ways to entertain themselves using the clown; similarly, if a TTRPG game is not entertaining players, they will find ways to entertain themselves using the characters and setting—no matter how inappropriate that is for the table. If player characters are behaving in a way that the table does not like, there’s a mismatch in what the players and DM are looking for out of the game.

Ideally, topics like this are discussed in a session zero, but that’s not foolproof. Some tables don’t know how to conduct a session zero and are surprised to later find there are disagreements at the table. Even seasoned players will leave things out of a session zero. Whatever level of pre-campaign alignment you had, there may still be gaps and misunderstandings.

Yes, session zero should catch all of these things, but even the most thorough pre-campaign discussions can miss things. When expectations aren’t matching, gameplay mechanics cannot fix that—it will take a conversation.

It’s Never Too Late for a Session Zero

If there are some mismatches with game expectations at your table—whether between players and the DM or just between players—the thing to do is take a step back and talk about it outside of the game. If your session zero didn’t cover something or you didn’t have a session zero, it’s never too late to have those conversations.

If you’re a DM and you notice these problems, schedule some time to talk, but you do not have to be a DM to initiate these conversations. Players can and should keep a finger on the pulse of the game and can often be the first to address these problems head-on rather than try to solve them through in-game mechanics or ignore them.

Common mismatches of expectations include:

It can be hard to broach this topic sometimes because it feels like a confrontation. If there needs to be a confrontation, there might be no getting around that (more on that later); but for most tables, this is a realignment rather than a confrontation. Unless there’s one flagrant problem player, this is a chance to make sure the game is fun for everyone.

So how do you initiate a conversation like this? Try something like these statements.

Conflict can be hard to tackle head-on, but in a lot of cases the instigating player or DM doesn’t know they’re causing problems. I say this as someone who has caused stress at my table—I was relieved when my group asked me to talk about it, and having that conversation improved the game for me as much as anyone else.

That said, there may be times when the mismatch is based on disrespect or causes one player to feel alienated and unsafe. In those cases, the conversation can be much different.

Safety and Mutual Respect Are Not Optional

It’s one thing to disagree on the type of game you’re playing, but it’s another thing entirely to disagree with a player or even the entire table on how much respect a person deserves. If one player’s idea of fun involves harming other players or the DM, that is not OK. Issues of respect or safety should always be addressed, and they should be addressed directly, outside of the game.

Safety tools are important to any table, regardless of how well they think they know each other. Even tables that stay away from controversial topics benefit from them. Safety tools don’t limit what you can do; they allow you to approach controversial content in a way that the table is comfortable with. You also may not know that one player’s abusive father tended to abuse animals too, making animal abuse a much more dangerous topic than you thought.

Some players and DMs are shocked during gameplay to learn that others at their table are fine with graphic violence or sexual assault against NPCs, or even that some player characters are open to violent non-heroic solutions while others are trying to be the heroes. This is fine if your whole table is OK with those things, but the only way to know ahead of time is with safety tools. If the whole table is not OK with those things, then those topics should be off-limits.

If the primary issue is disrespect, safety tools may not be enough. There are times when a player just doesn’t respect another player or the DM, and that can be detrimental to the game. Disrespectful players will often avoid and deflect accusations with common excuses.

While players can voice their concerns, having more confrontational conversations like this usually requires the DM’s support. If the DM is the problem, it may take several players to bring the problem to them. Hopefully, a quick conversation will be all you need to set things right and make sure everyone has fun, but unfortunately, some people have a real problem owning up to their actions.

If it becomes clear, either before or after a conversation, that the table is not going to change and will keep disrespecting or endangering you, your best option is probably to leave the table. If your regular DnD or RPG sessions come with a sense of dread and anxiety, you are under no obligation to continue going. This may ruffle some feathers with friends and family, but the way people treat you at the table is often an early indicator of how they’ll treat you everywhere else, so setting boundaries early can prevent a lot of harm and drama down the road.

When to Adjust Your Expectations

If the entire table seems to have a different idea than you of what kind of game you’re playing, it may be time to adjust your expectations. Again, issues of safety and respect should always be addressed, but sometimes differences aren’t harmful—they’re just different.

This often becomes clear after having a conversation about expectations in-game. You may think that no one at your table wants to have an old-fashioned dungeon crawl like the DM is running, but be surprised to find out that everyone’s having fun except you. In situations like that, you have two options:

  1. Continue to play the type of game your table wants to play
  2. Move on to something else

Neither of these options includes convincing everyone at your table that you’re right and they need to change their minds. It could be that you play the dungeon crawl and request that the next campaign be something more roleplay-oriented—that’s fine. But launching a campaign of passive aggression and complaining will not fix anything.

This can be particularly difficult if you’re the DM. If you’re running a game and the players all want to play a different game, they’re going to play the game they want regardless of what you put in front of them. Adjusting the campaign to what the players want is going to make everyone, including the DM, happier and more engaged with the game.

If you’ve begun with a wildly different idea of what kind of game you’re playing, that might mean taking a step back and picking a different adventure. If you’re trying to run an intrigue campaign and your players are ready to fight everyone you put in front of them, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Players could need some guidance on what to do, but they might just want to play a different game than you had planned. In situations like that, you face the same two options above: you either play the type of game your table wants to play, or you move on to something else.

The important thing to remember is that TTRPGs are a group activity and that sometimes means compromise. Everyone is probably going to have things they like and dislike about the current campaign, and that’s fine. Trying to change the table’s mind on what you’re doing should be approached with caution—if you don’t like the kind of game that’s being played, don’t fight a losing battle trying to change it after everyone else has bought in.

The Power of No

When the table agrees on the type of game and the expectations around it, what do you do when individual choices and actions conflict with that? Whether intentional or not, sometimes the rules and norms have to be enforced, and the best way to do that is often a single powerful word: no.

If you’ve agreed to play a game full of scoundrels with chaotic or evil alignments but set the ground rule that players cannot take harmful actions against each other, what do you do if a player casually asks to steal another player’s possessions during a rest? If it’s already been determined that the table does not want that, it’s alright to say something like, “No, that’s not the kind of game we’re running. Do something else.”

If you’ve gone through proper safety tools but stumble across something unexpected that triggers some traumatic memories for you, it’s alright to tell the party that what’s happening in-game is affecting you out of the game and you need to skip over this content. People are complicated and trauma even more so, so don’t feel guilty about saying no if something like this pops up. Even if it derails the whole campaign, safety is something that needs to be addressed.

If a player does something as a joke that you as the DM know is going to have massive campaign-ending (or player-killing) consequences, it’s alright to simply say, “No, that’s going to have serious consequences. Do something else.” The player may not have fully thought through their actions, or they may have done something they thought the other players would like but accidentally overstepped. In those cases, saying no is the best thing to keep the campaign going.

Saying no can still happen when the answer in the past has been yes. If you allow a player to bend a rule and find that it completely trivializes encounters or makes the game less fun for other players, it’s fine to go back and say that the impact was far greater than you anticipated and you’re changing your mind on the ruling. Sometimes, the full impact of a decision is not clear until after it’s played out a few times, and decisions can be changed when new data comes to light.

Saying no like this needs to come from a place of mutual agreement on the type of game you’re playing, so it can be hard to have a conversation like this without first having the conversations from the sections above. But if the DM and players have agreed on the type of game you’re all playing, saying no when things deviate from that idea helps ensure that all players continue having fun.

When to Part Ways

If a player (or the DM) has expectations about the game that don’t match up with the rest of the table and they can’t adjust their expectations to align with everyone else’s, it may be time to part ways. This can be a hard conversation to have, but it’s better than the lingering disappointment that comes out in every session. If someone just isn’t a fit for the table but there seems to be no movement—for example, they keep requesting that things change, but it’s clear that nothing is going to change—it’s usually better to remove that person from the group than to try to manage constant conflict.

Ideally, this is done after all options above have been exhausted, but let’s be honest: sometimes it’s immediately clear that a person doesn’t fit with the group and conversations won’t fix it. There’s value in trying to reset expectations through conversation, but sometimes a no is a hard no.

Confrontation is hard, but when it’s clear to both parties that one person’s discontent is not going to get any better, the choice can be mutual. Try saying something like this:

“It seems you’re unhappy with this. The table has aligned on this, though, and it won’t be changing. Do you want to stay with the group as it is, knowing this won’t change, or do you want to move on to something else?”

There might be some argument, but be firm in those two choices: either they accept that things will not change and re-integrate into the table, or they move on. If the argument is about anything else, it’s fine to say, “It sounds like we’re at an impasse. If you’re not on board with the type of game we’re playing, you should look for something else.”

Conversations like this can seem very personal, and they often are, so it’s important to focus on outcomes instead of intentions. It’s easy to talk about something that has happened, but it’s much harder to talk about why it happened. People seldom do things for no reason, and the person you’re talking to will probably have several reasons why they think they’re right. We don’t know what other people are thinking, so don’t try to guess—focus on what happened and how it affected others. It’s not about right vs wrong, or fair vs unfair—it’s about how the table is playing, and whether that person wants to be a part of it.

Fun for Everyone

Dungeons & Dragons and other TTRPGs are vastly different from video games, books, and movies because they involve several people working together to create the story. For this to work, players and the DM need to be spending as much time helping other players tell their stories as they do telling their own. The “story” of a TTRPG is everyone’s story, not just a single plotline, and that takes some collaboration—and some compromise.

TTRPGs work best when everyone at the table has the same goal: everyone at the table should be having fun. If a player or DM only wants to experience their own story, other mediums (video games and books) can be much better for that. Playing with someone who just wants to be writing a book can be an awful experience for everyone at the table. Playing together means working together on that collaborative story, and that means more fun for everyone.

About the Author

Brandon Gregory

Photo of Brandon Gregory

Brandon Gregory is a web developer and writer in the Kansas City area. He's been playing TTRPGs since 2020 and is involved in the disability-related TTRPG podcast Tales from the Crips. He's into classic movies, mental health, and, of course, DnD. Also, he's in a band. One time, they rocked so hard it killed a man.