Major Dilemma

[Undead_Cellist]

I have been DMing for a little over a year, but am still having a few problems, mostly in the players department. I have a player who does really want to adventure (he never tries to do anything), one who tries to break campaigns (he goes out of his way to cause problems in the party), and two who do nothing but joke (one of them tried to make a stick grow i to a tree while it was stuck in his eye, and the other tries to insult everyone they come across). Also, when they aren't in character they throw things around the room and make it hard for everyone else to participate. I am considering kicking them out the group because we are running on the larger side of groups (10+) and there behavior, two birds one stone, but I don't want to hurt our friendships. I have tried talking to them, but it doesn't seem to work. Any help?

[Honest Tiefling]

So what exactly did you say to them? Because if they know they are making this experience unfun for you and continue to do so, are they really your friends? If you tell them outright that they are making it a horrible time for you and keep doing it, just un-invite them. You don't need to waste your time with people like that, or people who throw a fissy hit because they NEED to be present for every game that they know they are ruining.

Another alternative is to see if anyone else is willing to DM a more wacky style game and take the problem players off your hands. With 10 people, I would think someone would want to!

[MarkVIIIMarc]

That is a huge group to get on focus for anything.

[Mastikator]

If you have an abundance of players but not an abundance of good players then absolutely be more picky. I've seen good groups get ruined by a single or few bad apples, don't let it happen. You down owe disrespectful players anything.

[Darth Ultron]

10 plus is a lot of people for one group. You might want to break that up into at least two groups of 5. Even better, pick the ''five best players'' and make a group: it will be worth it.

The player that ''wants to adventure'', but then during the game just sits there and says ''where is the adventure?'', is very common. Really, it is exactly the Ye Old ''person who goes to the pool and dips their toe in the water and stands there and says they want to go swimming''. They literally need a push to get in the water... So the DM often has to do the exact thing...make the adventure come to the character.

The joke or jerk players...well, you might just want to drop them. Sure you ''don't want to hurt friends, or whatever'' , but if you turn that around are not your ''best friends'' hurting you right now? See, real friends don't show up for any social activity and act like jerks...those people are not your friends. But, then too, maybe your jokey friends are just not ''serious gamers'', so maybe they might like a more goofy, silly game. You could just play all goofy and silly, but there are goofy and silly games you might want to try too....