Working with players

[thanatos]

I'm so proud of my players! I've mentioned in a couple of other threads that the zombies have been winning every game since we started playing (we had only played about 4 games at that point). Over the weekend, the heroes won their first scenario, and they are now on a four-game winning streak.

I've become the resident "ZM," as the other players tend to prefer playing heroes (and preferred it even when the zombies were winning every time...my players like a challenge). At first, I was ZMing with my wife, but she has since gone living.

The heroes' first victory came on the Burn 'em Out scenario thanks to a mistake I made as the ZM, and that's the game I want to talk about, but I'll get into it in a moment. The other three victories came when one of our heroes had to drop out and my partner in ZMing went hero, leading to a victory in Die, Zombie, Die, and 2 victories in Flying Frog's web scenario, All Hallow's Eve.

It's my heroes' first victory that I wanted to get some advice on. I mentioned my being the "ZM," and I really am approaching the game that way - trying to turn it into a miniature, light-hearted RPG (even down to inserting funny dialogue when the heroes failed their interrogations in All Hallows Eve, such as Jeb saying, "Neckernomicon? Nah, but I gots me a neckerchief."), and I'm doing it in such a way that the players are driving the experience (I've had some heavy-handed DMs in my day - did not like), but even so, I'm running into some of the same issues I've seen DMs run into in more traditional pen-and-paper RPGs.

I'll give a bit of a play-by-play of our "Burn 'Em Out" game: the heroes were doing fairly well - they started with Jenny, Becky, Sheriff Anderson, and Jake (we don't have Growing Hunger, so we're limited to core characters and scenarios). Player 1 ran the ladies, player 2 the men.

Jake got a gas can and made it to a spawning pit fairly early in the scenario, but died on the turn after he destroyed the pit.

Jenny got the other gas can and hightailed it across the map, but she was already wounded and lost another fight while attempting to blow the pit, so she dropped the gas at the pit.

Becky picked up TNT and tried to make it to a nearby spawning pit, but had the misfortune of a trifecta of bad effects played on her: Haunted by the Past, I Don't Trust 'Em, and Overconfidence, effectively trapping her at the door to the Plant spawning pit, unable to search and unable to go anywhere else.

Here is where the player problem came in. Player 2 brought the Sheriff into the same space as Becky to defend her, and they both managed to get through the door of the Plant, but there was a large enough horde spawned (or moving that way) that they could get no further. Since I wanted to see a hero victory, I mentioned to the heroes that time was counting down (although I think there were 10 turns left at this point), and it might be a better idea for the Sherrif to run across the board to the gas can that Jenny had dropped so he could take out a pit for himself. Player 2 decided, instead, to take control of both his and player 1's heroes and wasted 7 turns milling hero cards trying to get the other dynamite for himself. Player 1 was getting visibly upset at being told how to play his turn each time.

Finally, with 3 turns left before the heroes lost the game, Player 2 made a break for it (they had managed to destroy Overconfidence to get Becky to her spawning pit). Player 2 managed two amazing rolls (a six and a five), taking him clear across the board to the spawning pit where Jenny died, and he was able to sacrifice his last turn to destroy the pit. I have a bad habit of playing with my Zombie cards face-down, so I forgot that I had Locked Door in my hand. Thanks to Player 2's attempts at controlling his fellow hero, he would have cost them the victory if I had actually remembered what was in my hand, as all it would have taken would have been slamming a single door in his face and he would have been out of time. Had Player 2 not been a problem in the scenario, I probably would have "fudged the dice," so to speak, and just let him through the door even if I had remembered that I had the card, but because of the way he was trying to over-rule everything Player 1 wanted to do, I REALLY regret my forgetting that I had the Locked Door card, because it would have given me altogether too much satisfaction to have slammed the door in his face after such a perfect roll just to make him lose because he did not move sooner.

The problem in the scenario was not, of course, that the heroes ignored my advice (although I mentioned several more times that time was running out to try to get him moving). They're free to play as they want to play. The problem came from the fact that this particular player has that bit of hubris that sometimes makes it difficult to play games with a person - namely the conceit that he always knows the best strategy, and it very nearly ruined that playthrough for Player 1 (not the game as a whole - he's addicted hook, line, and sinker). When they had dealt with Overconfidence, Player 2 still tried to make Player 1 mill with Becky for several more turns, and Player 1 acquiesced simply to keep from causing a fight in my house, but his face was getting darker every turn that player 2 tried to impose his will.

In our previous games, much the same issue had occurred - whenever player 2 came up with any sort of strategy, he did not think to discuss it with player 1, he simply commanded player 1 to do X. As I mentioned, before that last game, they had lost every single game. Had I remembered what was in my hand, they would have lost the Burn 'Em Out scenario, too.

The next night we played, my partner in Zombies took over Player 2's vacated hero seat and actually worked cooperatively with Player 1, rather than trying to control him. They were downright devious, discussing strategies back and forth, countering my ploys, and using all their heroes to the fullest, and they played a beautiful game. I don't think they lost a single hero in DZD OR in All Hallow's Eve. More importantly, we all had fun. The next night we played Player 2 was back, but he bowed out because he had an early day the next day, and, again, we had an absolute blast playing another round of All Hallow's Eve, which the heroes managed to win with 2 turns remaining (this time they were pushing the whole time, not just pointlessly milling)

My dilemma is this: in a normal gaming group, we could simply disinvite Player 2, but he happens to be my roommate, which means disinviting him could be awkward, given that he will usually be present on game nights. I've never really DM'ed before, and in those pen-and-paper RPGs I've played where a player has tried to hijack the game, the DM can usually punish the player subtly by either making more monsters target him, fudging dice rolls against him, or otherwise "tweaking" things invisibly. Had I remembered my cards, of course, I could have very easily punished Player 2, but I would have had no other option "in-game" to do so. What is the best way, in your experience, to go about dealing with a player like this outside of kicking him out of the group entirely?