Game WISH 94: Obnoxious Characters

This week's Game WISH is about Obnoxious Characters

How do you handle an obnoxious character who has habits that annoy other PCs? What do you do as a fellow player/GM? What has worked and not worked for you?

Obnoxious characters are a different issue from obnoxious players, although the two can be related. When it comes to obnoxious players, the worst case I've had to deal with was the time I had to expel a player from an online game for making unprovoked random attacks on other PCs. But that's more an immature "Player Killer" type of player than an issue about the character; there was nothing indicating "psychopathic killer" on her character sheet. But I digress; that's not really the question.

I don't have much experience of dealing with obnoxious characters from 'good' players as a GM. My definition of a good player is one who doesn't disrupt the game in a way that spoils things for other players. The ones that have given me problems as a GM in the past haven't so much been those who are rude and insulting to other PCs, but the ones who's background, goals and motivations just don't mesh with any of the other PCs in the game. They have often ended up wandering off on their own in what effectively becomes a solo game. This increases my workload, since the 'main game' needs a critical mass of PCs to work, and any independent 'solo' PC doesn't form part of that critical mass.

When it comes to rude and insulting characters, I find I really enjoy playing them as NPCs when I GM. I'm not sure what that says about me. A favourite example in my online game was a sarcastic racist kandar NPC called Dhymerdh, who I had endlessly taunting a group of human PCs about how useless he thought humans were; I even tempted the powerful psychokinetic by having him sit on the windowsill of an open second story window while delivering these tirades. She resisted the temptation to defenestrate him, but she did move his chair just before he sat down.

Going back to the original subject, some conflict between PCs can give rise to good roleplaying. After all, it's a common trope in fiction to throw incompatible character types together and force them cooperate. For instance, one of the pre-generated PCs I've created for a GURPS convention scenario has the disadvantages Bully and Callous. One of the others (the party's combat specialist) has Pacifism: Cannot Harm Innocents; this is a recipe for conflict within the party, something the team leader (a third PC) will have to resolve.

To sum up, the definition of what makes an obnoxious PC is very subjective; I find a disruptive PC to be a very bad thing, but obnoxious is not the same thing as disruptive