Back when I used to run a Star Wars RPG campaign, we had a player whose character was a Jawa demolitionist. If you’ve never played with one of those, imagine a three-foot-tall raccoon with access to military-grade explosives and absolutely zero impulse control.
At first, it was hilarious. He’d drop a thermal detonator into an Imperial outpost ventilation shaft and walk away whistling. Chaotic? Yes. Effective? Surprisingly. Until it wasn’t.
One session, the group had finally managed to track down a high-ranking informant hiding out in a cantina. This was a culmination of weeks of game effort. Negotiation. Intel gathering. Actual diplomacy. The party was nervous but optimistic. They walked in ready to talk.
The Jawa rolled a perception check, decided he “didn’t like the bartender’s vibe” and threw a thermal detinator into the kitchen.
The session went to hell immediately. The informant was killed in the blast. The building collapsed. Half the party had to burn Destiny Points to avoid dying. And the rest of the session devolved into stunned silence and awkward laughter. The kind where people aren’t sure whether to stay in character or pack up and go home.
Afterward, I pulled the player aside.
I asked if he could tone it down a bit. Not stop being fun or unpredictable, but maybe dial back the random violence, just a notch. Maybe make sure the rest of the group gets to do something before everything explodes.
He didn’t take it well.
He accused me of limiting his creativity and said I was punishing him for roleplaying. He told me that the rest of the group should adapt if they “weren’t on his level.”
And there it was. The moment every leader eventually faces.
The person who brings energy, ideas and unpredictability, but in a way that derails the team. The person who isn’t bad at what they do, but bad for the group doing it together.
I’ve worked with that Jawa before. Not just at the table, but on actual teams. The coworker who goes rogue on projects without telling anyone. The manger who launches half-baked initiatives and lets everyone else clean up the fallout. The “rock star” who gets praised for bold ideas while leaving collaboration in ruins.
Leading that kind of person is hard because they usually mean well. They think they’re helping. They think the group is holding them back. They think the rules are for less brilliant people.
And that’s what HR doesn’t tell you.
They’ll give you frameworks for communication. Feedback tools. Mediation strategies. But they rarely talk about what happens when someone just likes the chaos. When their motivation isn’t growth, it’s chaos.
Eventually, we wrote the Jawa out of the game. Not because he was evil, but because the rest of the group stopped having fun. The sessions became less about story and more about damage control. And that’s when I knew I’d made the right call.
Leadership isn’t about keeping everyone happy. It’s about protecting the space where the team can actually work.
Sometimes, that means asking someone to step back. Sometimes it means rewriting the party dynamic. And sometimes, it means telling a three-foot-tall demolitionist to take his bombs and roll for retirement.