Reddit reviews Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior

This sounds like something that has to be addressed out of character, and preferably not in the middle of a game session.

As someone who's not great at initiating this kind of conversation, here's a book I've found helpful:

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Confrontations-Resolving-Promises-Expectations/dp/0071446524/

Attitude

There are two keys to suaveness, in general:

• Abundance. The first thing you should ask yourself is, what would I do if I had all of the abundance in the world? How would I feel about this situation if I had five beautiful Victoria Secret models waiting anxiously for me at home and didn't need this social situation in the slightest? Most of the time, the answer is: you'd probably relax and say "who the hell cares what happens here?"
  
• Giving to give. You should be focused on how you can help other people. In this specific situation, where there's an asshole ruining everyone's fun time, you should strive to help everyone by defusing the situation in a way that the asshole doesn't lose face at all.
  
  Okay, great. So how do you do that?
  
  Actions
  
  
• Don't try to "beat" him. When you try to beat another guy, you just lose frame. Frame goes to the person who claims it for himself and never lets go. If you don't believe me, watch Donald Trump in every debate. He assumes control and then simply refuses to give it up. Everyone else arguing with him is clearly trying to get an edge, when they should have assumed frame from the beginning. The key: you're not going to beat him and outfight him. This only gets his resistance. You have to win frame without resistance. That's your new goal.
  
• To set a good frame, be the king, not the jester. See Nick Sparks' Amsterdam story for how he defused everything and got the girl. He subtly set himself up as the "king" by first giving validation and slowly withdrawing it. This is a bit manipulative, so focus instead on keeping that "king" mindset. Think about it this way: have you ever been in a situation where someone was crossing the line so much that you completely withdrew your validation from them? In that situation, you had no doubt that your frame was the correct one. And no matter how big an asshole the person was being, they'll figure out that you're withdrawing your validation and will start to feel it. Oftentimes, they'll apologize and start acting right. Remember: there are no frame battles, there is only your frame. What is your frame? As you correctly suspected, you gave away your frame in this situation.
  
• So what to you do? You focus on how you feel. You might think "this is weird." It starts to show in your body language. Other people pick up on it. Because you're so focused on your frame, anyone else in the room who's 5% focused on other peoples' frames more than their own will feel it, and they'll give their frame to you. They'll think, "wow, look at his reaction...I guess this IS kind of weird."
  
• Give the guy an out. We want to Give to Give here, so even though the guy might not deserve it, give him the opportunity to save face. Belligerent people generally need to feel validated. So if things get awkward at a bar, you might say "Hey buddy, here, let me buy you a drink." You validate him, defuse the situation, and everybody wins. The key is only to do this after your frame has won out, otherwise it will come across as an attempt to win frame and will be met with resistance.
  
  Practice
  
  Here's what no one else does: practice.
  
  You can practice anything you want to practice. Want to do better next time? Practice it on your own. This is why 99% of an NFL player's life is practice and only 1% of it is the actual game.
  
  Visualize this happening again, and visualize yourself doing everything the right way. Really, sit down for like 15-20 minutes and write down how you think it would go in a situation where you could get everybody to win. Think about what you'd have to do and say. Then practice saying that.
  
  You don't want to repeat anything verbatim when the situation arises again in real life, but you do want the feeling of having been there before.
  
  Finally, take my own advice with a grain of salt; I might not have gotten your specific situation correct. It happens. Read Crucial Confrontations and really bone up on this if you want to handle it right next time. http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Confrontations-Resolving-Promises-Expectations/dp/0071446524
  
  

There are two sides to every conversation. Sometimes it's important to understand the conversation from the listeners viewpoint. Here are a couple of books that have been useful to me. They are from the perspective of reaching understanding in personal and professional relationships, possibly less useful from a pure rhetoric perspective.

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High and

Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving broken promises, violated expectations, and bad behavior

I read this book about ten years ago, and it made me realize that I had some really bad communication habits within a relationship. (and some other parts of my life) It became quite clear that I had terrible role models, and I wished it had been available another decade sooner.

The book is evidence-based and focused on management, but it also relates to your personal life.

I have fundamentally changed the way I interact with people, and my life is significantly better for it. I recommend it to people all the time, and I regularly buy copies because I end up giving them away.