those obnoxious party members...

[Shinizak]

So we all have them like that one guy who always min-maxes, or the one that always goes out of his way to screw over the party, or the one who won't shut up about the thing he saw on youtube. Go ahead, let your anger out in here. Share your pain.

[Choco]

Don't forget the one that insists on always playing a chaotic stupid character, and then always throws a fit when the char's stupidity gets him/her/it killed, claiming the DM is out to get him...

Cause ya know, cursing out the Queen in her own court after she ALREADY showed leniency for previous acts of stupidity is apparently not something ya should get executed for.

[Tsotha-lanti]

All my players are mature grown-ups who are there to have fun together, and generally like to get into the spirit and theme of the game, setting, and campaign.

[V'icternus]

All my players are mature grown-ups who are there to have fun together, and generally like to get into the spirit and theme of the game, setting, and campaign.

...You're no fun.

My "friends" like breaking doors unnecesarily, threatening possible allies, and looting the bodies of their fallen comrades before finishing off the enemy that killed them. (Our Dwarven Fighter hates doors. He has some kind of inner loathing for them.)

[raitalin]

Oh, man I think I've got the thread winner right here:

He cheats on his die rolls: He always picks the least visible dice and picks them up to read them.

He cheats on his character sheet: We started making our DM collect character sheets at the end of the session JUST so that he could check this guy's sheet. He routinely has too many skill points (in one epic game he was over by more than 200), and has been over by double digits on his saves.

He tries to min/max, but fails at all but the most basic builds unless he gets the recipes straight off of CharOp.

When playing a spellcaster he spams spells constantly, but cannot remember the details of the spells he uses.

When he's not spamming he holds up the game trying to find some obscure perfect-for-this-situation spell that he just *happens* to have memorized. When the DM forces him to turn in a spell list at the beginning of the session he holds up the game for an hour making it.

He has to recalculate his attacks and save DCs Every.Single.Round.

He never role-plays. I haven't heard him speak IC once. He never moves the story forward, just waits until combat.

He gets upset when he gets hit, or fails a save (which basically only happens when he tells the DM a result thinking its high enough, but it isn't) or doesn't succeed in any action he attempts.

He also likes to lay claim to any magic item that benefits his character, no matter how much it may assist another character. He also doesn't understand stacking rules, leading to his abilities being off-the-charts.

So why does he still play with us, you ask? He's an old friend of the DM, and works at the same place. Me and another player are trying to get the DM to either confront him on his play, as it detracts from the fun for the rest of us, or simply tell him we've stopped playing.

Why do people cheat at a game with no winner?!?!

[V'icternus]

Oh, man I think I've got the thread winner right here:

He cheats on his die rolls: He always picks the least visible dice and picks them up to read them.

He cheats on his character sheet: We started making our DM collect character sheets at the end of the session JUST so that he could check this guy's sheet. He routinely has too many skill points (in one epic game he was over by more than 200), and has been over by double digits on his saves.

He tries to min/max, but fails at all but the most basic builds unless he gets the recipes straight off of CharOp.

When playing a spellcaster he spams spells constantly, but cannot remember the details of the spells he uses.

When he's not spamming he holds up the game trying to find some obscure perfect-for-this-situation spell that he just *happens* to have memorized. When the DM forces him to turn in a spell list at the beginning of the session he holds up the game for an hour making it.

He has to recalculate his attacks and save DCs Every.Single.Round.

He never role-plays. I haven't heard him speak IC once. He never moves the story forward, just waits until combat.

He gets upset when he gets hit, or fails a save (which basically only happens when he tells the DM a result thinking its high enough, but it isn't) or doesn't succeed in any action he attempts.

He also likes to lay claim to any magic item that benefits his character, no matter how much it may assist another character. He also doesn't understand stacking rules, leading to his abilities being off-the-charts.

So why does he still play with us, you ask? He's an old friend of the DM, and works at the same place. Me and another player are trying to get the DM to either confront him on his play, as it detracts from the fun for the rest of us, or simply tell him we've stopped playing.

Why do people cheat at a game with no winner?!?!

Yikes.

I've nudged a die or two in my time, but this guy sounds like he's trying to create Gary Stue.

In an RPG.

I'd suggest rocks falling. Real ones, not RP ones.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I had one guy...

We were converting from 2e to 3.0e. He always demanded to be a golden draconian... despite the fact that the game was not in Dragonlance. But he should be able to be one, and insisted on this every time.

So we compromised by letting him play with a Half-Dragon template. I smiled inwardly, and explained the concept of 'Level Adjustment' that I was grateful the game had put in place.

He ended up storming off because *I* was 'too restrictive' because I wouldn't let him play a half-dragon character without LA.

[Piedmon_Sama]

We just finally "let" a guy leave our group who's been with us for years after he got the party in serious trouble while visiting a town for no reason at all. I'm the DM and I've stretched over backwards to accommodate this guy for more than a year now. His character cares only about fighting challenging opponents and collecting loot; fair enough. He insists his character is Lawful Good, despite never helping anyone without getting something out of it and being needlessly violent in every situation, because she's "true to herself" or something. So rather than have the argument I just threw alignment out of the game. Also because his character can singlehandedly wipe out most towns and villages (the party's 7th/8th level, it's a low-level world with small magic), his character gets her way most of the time instead of being smacked down by the City Guard.

For a while this guy's PC worked well with the more straight-laced party leader (NG Cleric with political ambitions), as the two clashed humorously. But in the last couple of games this guy has been worse, attacking nonthreatening NPCs (a peasant girl and an obviously harmless City Guard recruit). It's like he sensed we were adjusting to his antics and had to go further just to provoke us. Finally, after punching out that guard (see, he still insists he's doing nothing evil because he uses nonlethal damage to assault people) for asking the party to park their wagon somewhere else, the Cleric's cohort (a genuinely LG Fighter 3/Rogue 3) snapped and attacked his character (a Dragonblood-Elf Monk). And now we've left off with the party fighting itself in front of this city, while the Guard is marshaling an emergency response.

We really took too long to tell this guy to straighten up or get out, and when someone finally told him his playstyle was making things difficult for us he left immediately. I've also left out the times he just pretended to be away (we play online) when someone ordered his character to stop wantonly smashing her way and looting through hapless NPCs. He once held up our game for 20 minutes, not responding to any of us until I finally took control of his character. If we weren't all huge passive-aggressive internet nerds I think we should have thrown him out right there.

We're still being incredibly nice to this guy, for my money, by letting him play one last session until his character gets arrested or killed (if she stops the Guard from arresting her, the rest of the party will undoubtedly finish her off). We'd be well within our rights to say he can't come back, especially considering how he blew off a session last week when someone arrived an hour late (we were all prepared to delay that session, but when the guy finally showed up, suddenly Problem Player "doesn't feel ready" and we were all in a bad mood anyway).

It's a shame because this Monk and the Cleric are the only two PCs who survived from the start of this campaign, and I really wanted (for the sake of the story) their partnership to continue, but we should never have tolerated this guy's BS for so long in order to have it. The warning, I guess, is to be firm with your players and do it early unless they start thinking they have the right to dictate the campaign to everyone.

EDIT: Just to ad, I'm like 85% sure this guy was either cheating or using a loaded rolling program. He consistently rolled 17s or higher on pretty much all his attack rolls, skills checks, saves and whatever else. The only reason he didn't steal all the glory from the rest of the party was that even cheating a monk can't outshine a combat-cleric. >_>

[Rhiannon87]

I haven't had any players as bad as what you guys have described. Everyone in the group has their annoying traits, some worse than others. A lot of people have a hard time hearing "no" from the DM, there's one guy who is terribly indecisive and plays spellcasters (slows combat to a damned crawl at times), another guy who min-maxes like crazy, and I personally bug other people by being overly emotionally attached to my character and being overly cautious in combat because of it. (Although every single fraking time I haven't been cautious, my character has ended up dead or close to it. And everyone wonders why I stay the hell out of melee.) Overall, though, we're a pretty good group... especially compared to Cheater McCheaterson and Screw-Your-Rules-I-Want-To-Kill-Stuff.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

I try to cut the min-max problem off at the pass by running high power games. The best number monkeys help the rp focused players create effective builds, and everyone is happy.

However, there was a player in my past who just got under my skin. He's not a bad guy, but his personality changed when he played a wizard. At level one, he'd spend minutes describing the awesomeness of his magic missle as his character cast it for a d4 and change in damage. It got under the entire group's skin when he'd act like the leader of the party while making one rash call after another. >_< Oi.

[Harperfan7]

There's this one guy we play with who doesn't have a player, blocks all his papers and rolls with a freaking stand-up paper thing, and has the gall to tell us what we can and can't do. He insist I don't understand the game! What a douche!

[Thajocoth]

In this online group, person M brought people R & L. Turns out, L has something against M from when M was GM and L was a player. I don't care to know the specifics, but every time I talk to L, he makes it clear he wants me to want to know the specifics, and he makes snide comments. In RP, he's detrimental to the group. Like, killing a guard mid-interrogation... L & R are a couple. After a few sessions, it finally came out that none of the other players like playing with L or R. We just stopped letting them know when we're playing.

[bobspldbckwrds]

there used to be a guy in the group i play in who used to try to get us to allow things that were strait out of an anime, or video game, and when he didnt get his way he would argue to the point of ending the session. he would dictate how to run the game to our dm, and he would insist that we were being unfair when we insisted on the enforcement of the rules. to top things off, a year after our dm had started a game that ground to a hault (in the first session no less), i mentioned that i would like for our dm to try to run that scenerio again, he got mad and called out dm because he didnt know that that game was a lost cause.

god, that was cathartic.

[Kylarra]

there used to be a guy in the group i play in who used to try to get us to allow things that were strait out of an anime, or video game,You should introduce him to exalted. Seems right up his alley. :smallwink:

[DaltonTrigger]

I know this isn't as bad as some of you have dealt with, but..

I was playing in a group online that was all bright and happy. We're not the best players--most of us are relatively unfamiliar with the D&D rules, and even though another guy and I were the most familiar, even the two of us found ourselves having to consult the rulebook a few times every session. Didn't matter, we were having fun with our mediocre skills.

Another person joined and she wanted to play a bad-attitude character. Fine. The character worked at first and added nice party dynamic, and created some social situations that mandated some in-character development. I thought things would be golden.

We were going to start experimenting with a new game style where we'd take turns DMing. The other guy and I who mostly understood the rules would run small arcs that last a few sessions each and pass the game back and forth, and I was hoping to get some much-needed practice with DMing this way.

When it came my turn to be DM, it was miserable. Every mistake I made she'd be complaining about it. Or even if I didn't make a mistake. She'd heedlessly progress through a dungeon, ignoring the little hints I'm dropping about important things (saying she refuses to be taken by the DM's hand and railroaded) then complain when she supposedly doesn't have an opportunity to win encounters by playing smart instead of simply rolling the attack dice.

ICly she started picking on my character (also a female) a lot--calling her names, giving her attitude and insults, and hitting on her boyfriend right in front of her. Expecting that this is just her character being a jerk, I played along. My character responded by calling her a whore.

Little did I know this person takes their character far too seriously, and actually thinks her character is completely innocent. She started telling me over AIM that I have no reason to call her a whore and that I better keep my attitude in check before she kills my character, and so on.

I put up with this kind of crap for 3-4 sessions, but then I just got fed up and quit. D&D isn't worth enough to me to have to deal with a person flipping out on me over IC arguments, and berating my attempts as a newbie GM when I'm still trying to learn.

[Flickerdart]

I'm playing a human Paladin in a group with a number of players, including two Trolls, a Swordsage, a Ghost and a Drunken Master. The story goes that we've been chosen from a mercenary guild to form an elite tactical team and deal with a number of bandits rallied under the banner of an ex-member of the guild, second in power only to the Guildmaster.
Now, you'd think that there would be some tension between the Trolls and my Paladin, or maybe with the Ghost, undead as it may be. But no, it's been fairly civil all around. The (also human!) Drunken Master's player has, for some reason, decided that he has a personal vendetta against my character.
You see, both background-wise and mechanically, my Paladin is the only one with decent people skills and tactical knowledge. He is also the most vocal (and even has a cape with the country's flag on it), making him the de facto leader of the team. But it's been decided that we pick an actual leader for combat purposes, and that's when the guy pipes up.
Note that he is a street thug who joined the guild to make sure he has enough money to eat. His "strategy" involves everyone running in and hitting things. He has never led anything before. And not only is he trying to disgrace the Paladin in front of the NPCs, he's also egging the other players on against me. It's getting really tiring, but he insists it's "in character" and thus fine.
I intend for this Paladin to fall, though. Hard. And they know it. I guess murder is a good place to start.

[Lupy]

My little brother only plays with us because my Mom asks me to be nice to him and we needed a fifth person (although Mom finally let me swap him for another friend). The reason isn't that he's not a good role player, but that in our low power campaign (the party, except for the Wizard, have the worst builds ever and usually need encounters a level down from the recommended for each difficulty rating) he breaks every character he plays. He made a dual wielding min-maxed fighter (and he always rolls high too), and killed off an entire encounter once with minimal help from everyone else (if he was by himself he'd get level-up encounters). Then that character died, so I got him to be a Warlord, thinking that it would minimize the damage he could cause (as a bandaid/buff machine), but he out melees our Paladin and Fighter, so that was a no-go.

Our party wizard has ADHD, and and the Paladin's player isn't friends with him anyway, but when he takes his medicine they're okay with each other, but when he forgets it the Pally-player goes nuts...

[Berserk Monk]

So we all have them like that one guy who always min-maxes, or the one that always goes out of his way to screw over the party, or the one who won't shut up about the thing he saw on youtube. Go ahead, let your anger out in here. Share your pain.

Hate to break it to you, but I usually am that guy.

[SoD]

I don't have it that bad, the worst I have is one guy whose character stats, individually, are merely quite good. But when you look at allo of them, all are quite good, most have an 18, and all are above average, and nobody watches him roll them.

Solution; everyone rolls stats in the presence of another player.

Oh, and we had one guy who wanted to play a CE character. For this reason; so he could justify killing Captains character. When I asked why he wanted to kill Captains character, he said "Because Captains annoying."

Yeah. He doesn't play with us anymore.

[averagejoe]

There's this one guy we play with who doesn't have a player, blocks all his papers and rolls with a freaking stand-up paper thing, and has the gall to tell us what we can and can't do. He insist I don't understand the game! What a douche!

The GM? :smalltongue:

[Harperfan7]

The GM? :smalltongue:

The what? :smallconfused:

[tcrudisi]

The worst player that I was ever in a game with:

The DM was new to 3.5 (and this was only a few months ago) and, since we were being introduced over the internet (but playing face-to-face), told us to create anything that was legal in 3.5.

What does this guy do? He creates a gestalt character. To go further, he makes it a Shifter (race from Eberron) Druid / Wizard. Even worse, he didn't understand team-work. He was from 1st ed., so he was under this assumption that if you killed it, you got all the xp from it. And of course, he was always the first to loot the bodies and would never share.

Finally, by the 3rd session, I had to know: I asked him if he had ever heard of Pun-Pun. He had. In fact, that's what he was building towards. Yes, the dude, who had never played 3rd edition before, was building Pun-Pun. His friend told him how to make it.

To make it worse, he constantly interrupted everyone, even the DM. He could never wait his turn, and would try to take several combat turns at once, skipping everyone. Needless to say, after that 3rd session, I never went back.

[Lamech]

The DM was new to 3.5 (and this was only a few months ago) and, since we were being introduced over the internet (but playing face-to-face), told us to create anything that was legal in 3.5.
This brings me to my worst experience with a player. DM did basically that. And he didn't bother to ask how we built our characters. Well... he also told us to optimize as much as possible.

So what are the builds? A rouge who sneak attacks for a couple hunderd points of damage. Me a psion who can use extra action tricks, and of course metamorphic transfer B.S. A cleric 2/radiant servent of pelor 10. (energy drain on cleric levels) A ranger who uses multishot and rapid shot. (I don't think thats allowed, but it only did around 300/round) A warblade did around 100 points of damage/round (Along with stun type stuff, but she never used that. New player.) Aaannd... a pixie warmage. (Gestalt with pixie class so level 12 warmage, but still.) Oh and no metamagic tricks. The last one was a new player. Ended up crying because she felt useless and confused... yeah.

And the DM somehow expected under CR'd monsters to last more than a round against that party. As in CR 7-9 crap. I guess we we're all the min-maxer's.

Moral of the story: Don't tell people everything goes and look at everyone's builds.

[Zain]

i've got nothing compaired to some of these but One player, a Merelf, fighter (I ruled that merelives can breath air), in a group i DM, In a setting i had wrighten for them dicied to be CN and do anything that he wanted to, his reason being that hes CN. In the end the cleric(water Domain) disided to try controling him, and i ruled that he could do it, so whene ever the player said "i attack the person next to me" the cleric said "i control you"

The merelf then learned to play his charter not is Alliment

[Justin B.]

I'm currently in a game with my girlfriend, her father, and a group of his friends. Most of the players are totally awesome. We have a few young kids with us who didn't really know the game very well, but they are getting the hang of it and it's really working.

The only problem is one of the older players who my DM decided to invite. They invited him under the assumption that he would not be staying long because his track record for commitment is apparently pretty terrible.

The first session he shows up late, which is fine because he lives a few hours away. However, he shows up with a near carbon-copy of my own character in appearance and attibutes (if not build, he was pure ranger, I was Ranger 1/ Cleric 3 who did all the Ranger-y things like sneaking and hunting). While I thought we might run into issues of stepping on each others toes, I soon found out that it wasn't going to be a problem because the character had no real grasp of what a Ranger might be doing. He was constantly dropping to 0 hit points, he never rolled a single hide or move silent check, and you could forget about him scouting.

So, this Ranger, who was incidentally built for archery, decides to go suicidal in the middle of a battle, and ends up dying. I felt kind of sorry for him. However, in talking to my DM later on, I learned that my DM thought that he had hated the character, and wanted to build something more simple. His characters have previously all been Dwarf Barbarians. The next session, this player shows up with a Half-Orc Barbarian. No one was surprised.

During the first few sessions with the Ranger, the player was annoying as all hell. He still is, to a much lesser extent. But his unfunny jokes and poor comedic timing are less grating now than they were before. Now, he just simply sits and waits for combat to start up, which is fine, I don't really want him interacting in any way with NPC's, it'll just make my job as the party leader that much harder.

He's also an extremely rude cheater. He uses difficult to see dice and always picks them up to read them, and rather quickly after they've hit the table. He's terrible about interrupting, and the other night he simply walked away from the table for a whole damned hour to talk on the phone. It was unimaginably rude and irritating, because it just happened to be right in the middle of a combat where a second tank would have been perfect.

As well, as the person most knowledgable with the system at the table, I'm constantly being forced to check his math and add up his buffs for him at the table. I am the most qualified, and nobody wants to see him cheating. His poor math skills have lead to huge modifiers for things before.

Overall, not a very good player, but I'm seeing some change in him about the dice rolling and the character buffs, so if we can just get him to stop pestering me every five seconds and walking away from the table, we may be alright.

[Chiron]

There was one guy we used to RP with. Never managed to play the same thing for more than two sessions because he always badgered the DM into doing things HIS way and thus solve any and all problems with much shooting and violence in about 10 seconds. The sort of forceful personality who would be better off BEHIND the screen than in front of it; and you could tell, that was where he wanted to be, but he also hated not being the one busting heads, so usually when he did DM, players died, lots (No, we weren't playing Paranoia).

Maxminning was always the aim of the game, and it really used to tire me out something awful. I'd usually just take a CC of someone else's character because I couldn't be bothered spending fifteen hours going through sourcebooks to create a 9th level character that could kill a god in two rounds.

One particular session we were playing Warhammer Fantasy, and another member of the party was suffering from a case of mistaken identity, and a bunch of embezzlers had mistaken him for their missing leader and had passed along details of where they'd hidden their ill-gotten gold. Now. This character was well within his rights (doubly so considering the way he'd been treated by the rest of the party) to just pocket the loot and be done with it. But, our problem player decided to berate this guy for half an hour until he was on the verge of tears and caved in under threat of the game being called off, for good, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Things finally took a turn for the better when the problem player decided to get REALLY annoying and start dating the DM's ex and describe to him in graphic detail the minutiae of their relationship. There were fisticuffs, there were broken friendships, and we are much happier for it. Still, that guy is the reason I took an extra five years to get back into DMing.

He is also the reason I appreciate my current group so much.
We have a couple of 17-year-old max-minners who go through characters like underwear. One of them is mostly okay, but when he's in the presence of his friend they're both a handful, and we've butted heads more than once IC, but thankfully it stays IC. We get along fine away from the table, but when he's in character I just want to slap him sometimes. So, one incident involved me, the wizard, sticking a bar of Lye soap between his buttocks (of the filthy, dirty, unwashed druid who liked to live in garbage) and then having a group of sailors he'd angered earlier in the evening dump him in a barrel of rainwater but-first. In retalliation his character stole the wizard's spell-book which left the wizard ready to kill him (but for his poor attack roll). It was at that point I decided I'm not going to indulge him so much when he's being obnoxious.

I am somewhat worried about how he's going to behave in the upcoming campaign, as the practice of arcane magic is punishable by death and we already have a confirmed sorcerer for the party. I just know his character backstory is going to be: "I hate all arcanists because my family was killed by them. I like to collect their ears." *sigh* I'm going to enjoy using Rule #0 on that one.
I do have contingencies however. When he inevitably DOES try and turn the sorcerer in, there will be a few scenes of stygian horror, and the inquisition will reward his devotion to the church of the prophet by putting him under a compulsion to spy for them, with the knowledge that he will be made a 'seer' when his servitude is completed (which involves stripping away his personality and turning him into a monster in an excruciatingly painful process that takes about a week).

Myself, I have been a problem player at times, but rarely with any form of consistency.

[Halaster]

Well, it seems I'm one of the luckier guys here, but then I'm pretty relaxed and don't mind a lot of issues I've read about here.

For example, there's a player in my most frequent group right now, who does absolutely no roleplaying, except for his character getting drunk whenever he's bored (i. e. not fighting). I don't mind though, since his character is an axe-wielding, dumb, drunk Viking-equivalent anyway, and he doesn't really bother anyone.

The last thing that really got on my nerves was a D&D 3.0 group, which consisted mostly of inexperienced D&D players, 3 of those, all with previous experience in other systems, me (experienced, but not a rules freak) and our paladin player (total rules freak). So we agreed that said paladin player should advise the noobs with character creation and drop the occasional strategy hint, particularly in combat. What he did though, was to dictate anyone's actions, even mine, though I knew my options and just felt that roleplaying-wise the most optimal one wasn't always what my character would do. One of the noobs quickly noted the same problem - as he learned what his character could do, he got a feel for what he liked to do and did that. The pally player was all over him in no time, telling him what to do all the time and really riling him. We used the first opportunity we had (another player leaving for job reasons) to call off that game.

[Mr.Bookworm]

The what? :smallconfused:

It's this optional rule where you let some random idiot control the entire game. Usually fails miserably.

[TomKatt]

Ive got a player who apon something not to his liking happening likes to threaten every one in game with his overpowered psionic mind blast thingy... saddly this is the second char hes had in this campaing and the last one was a gnome mage it was fun having my kobold butt heads with him, i didnt even have to kill him he did it to himself.

The stupid part isd he just killed of his GF's char moron prolly wont get any for a week... but the Kobold LIKED the NG cleric... and doesnt like the C/N almost evil pysionic, ive already swapped overpowered attacks with him... YAY for 6d8 breath weapon, unlike him though every time i get my antics messed up i dont threaten the party with acid breath.... i incidently won that one and dropped him to -3 mwhaha and now im just going to trap his gear and wait till he gets paralyzed by a needle trap in his backpack and then coup de grace

[pasko77]

The what? :smallconfused:

lol, that made me laugh hard!

[woodenbandman]

I had a fairly standard obnoxious party member that I no longer game with (well, my group doesn't, but I see him in games sometimes).

He was your basic guy who cheated. He often added up insane numbers and then denied it when I caught him cheating. And it was always me who caught him cheating.

Lemme 'splain something about cheating: I'm the offficial group min/maxer. People come to me, or the DM for advice. It's mostly me. I love min/maxing, and I think it's extremely fun. I like it when I make my characters the best that they can be. So when some stupid ******* tries to cheat his way to power, I get more than a little bit mad.

His IC and OOC actions eventually led him to quit in this humorous and pitiful exchange between him, the DM, and a third player.

"Okay, I glue myself to artanis and try to read the explosive runes."
"...what?"
"I use the Stick spell to stick myself to Artanis."
"You...can't do that."
"Why?"
"Because the spell doesn't work that way."
"Hey, dude, why did you do that?"
"BECAUSE YOU INSULTED MY CHARACTERS"
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it in that way, I was just asking a question. Don't get so mad."
"You know what, make a will save."
"What?"
"Make a will save."
"Do you really want to do this?"
"Make a will save."
"This is extremely childish, man"
"MAKE A WILL SAVE. PICK UP THE GODDAMN DICE AND ROLL A ****ING WILL SAVE!"
"FINE!"
*Succeeds*
"Okay, you take 1 point of int and charisma damage" (not how the spell actually works)
"Fine, make a will save."
"Oh, COME ON, it's just a single point!"
"No, make a will save."
"Okay."
*Fails*
"Okay, you take 12 points of charisma damage" (actually how the psionic power works.)
"Okay, I have 4 charisma left" (he didn't)
"Well, make another will save"
*Fails*
*Brutally murdered by me (IC, we were friends once).*

The somewhat tragic part of this whole thing is that he thought that everyone hated him except me, when in reality, the guy who he had it out with IC was the guy who pushed to give him another chance on several occasions, because he didn't want to put him through what had happened to him. I was actually the one who voted to ostracize him first. He wasn't really even invited into our group of friends, he kinda invited himself. That's actually how I got into this group, too, but it worked out with me, 'cuz I'm still here and they like me.

[DeathQuaker]

Generally, I've been pretty lucky with the players I've played with... sure we've had a few drama queens and such and slightly twinky people. Biggest problem I've had is a few "veteran" players telling "newbs" how to play their characters... when the "newbs" were doing just fine and would have learned to play the game even better if they didn't have powergamers constantly nagging them on what they should be doing.

But there is a player I don't play with anymore (he's still a friend, but I'd rather not play in an RPG with him).... that in addition to the above grievance,... well, I will spoiler for TLDR Very typical twink, builds insanely powerful borderline-cheating character builds, and the second-to-last one I saw him build, he cheated on how much equipment he should have (he halved the price of his magic items because he said he made them himself, missing the point of "equivalent wealth") and used classes and feats the GM wasn't familiar with so to keep the GM off guard (though this was the GM's fault for not saying "no," though the guy has a way of badgering until you give into him), and insisted on using 3.0 Haste to the point of throwing a hissy fit when we wanted to use the non-broken version. He's also the kind of guy that if he finds any way to interpret rules to his advantage or exploit loopholes he will, and will complain endlessly if the GM calls him on it.

Then here's the crazy thing... with the insane build in the party, the GM needed to throw stuff at us that was still challenging. We fought some particularly nasty creatures, but worked well together, and survived. But the player ranted and raved about how unfair the combat was.... you know why?

Because we took damage (I KNOW. Characters taking damage in D&D during combat. What will they think of next!?). And particularly, because HE took a fair amount of damage, but all of us did. I still remember this comment after the fight:

Him: You used like a 3rd of your spells on healing!
Me: Yes. I'm playing the cleric. That's what I'm supposed to do.

(And note that for the rest of the session, I only used, like, 2 more spells, so still had over half my spell list untouched.)

I also remember he kept badgering me to keep my character out of combat (because he was the melee star and wanted to shine). My character was a fighter-cleric, designed to be a "holy warrior" type good at close combat. She didn't kick major melee ass (well, unless I cast Righteous Might), but the idea was that she could stand on the front lines with the tanks, provide flanking and extra hits, and then when the tanks got hurt, she could easily sidestep to heal/buff them as need be. Not letting me get close to the tanks needing healing was sort of belying the point of the character. The best one was when the party was fighting a "boneyard," some kind of massive undead thing, with damage reduction and all kinds of nasty stuff. He kept yelling at me to stay back, despite me saying, "But I'm a CLERIC with disruption on my quarterstaff," but I did what I was told at first, shooting searing light and "protecting" the sorcerer who wasn't even being attacked. Finally, he and the other meleer (a monk) were getting hurt and having trouble damaging the thing, so despite his protests, I ran up and hit it. Not only was my actual damage roll quite good..... the boneyard failed its saving throw from the disruption staff. Bam. Instantly gone. And so the sorcerer and I were out several spellslots for nothing.

But in all honesty, one twinky guy (he at least could roleplay well when he wasn't telling other people how to play their characters) is pretty lucky.

[BloodyAngel]

Ugh. My normal group is fine. Not too much drama, or all that. But I've had the joy of playing with two other groups that have... issues.

The first has a particularly twinky player, who is proud of it, even. He has once said, in full view of everyone, that cany game he can't break and ruin for everyone isn't worth playing. That seems to be, sort of the thing you DON'T say out loud. Honestly. The odd part is, he used to be a fine player. Now it's nothing but show-stealing and min/maxing and trying to take everyone else's place in the group. Also, he likes to play a lot of nubile young women. Not certain if that's got anything to do with it.

My group before that was far worse though. We had the guy with the anger issues, who would skulk like a small child if he wasn't getting what he thought was his due. We had the stubborn guy... forever refusing to listen to anyone's advice on anything, and always insisting he knew what he was doing... and making inane characters that couldn't accomplish much. But the cake-taker (it MIGHT be a real word!) was a guy who had screwed us over several times in real life.

God only knows why we hung out with him as long as we did. He was snide and bossy... one of those people who always had to be right, and who would argue you for weeks until you admitted to how awesome he was. He seemed to think that breaking something to be invincible and unbeatable proved he was better than everyone else, when it really just annoyed the DM. Sad thing was, despite all of it, he would also cheat. Creatively "interpreting" rules in ways that made him invincible, and arguing for hours that it was how they really worked. He was also infamous for being one of THE worst sports I've ever met, who would either stomp you into the ground at whatever you were playing... or complain about how his poor luck or the game's faulty whatever was responsible for his loss. No no... the person he's playing could never just have played well. He was also infamous for "forgetting" rules or the like that would help anyone but himself, until his turn up... at which point, he would smash you in the face with them and declare victory. I've seen this guy turn people off of games, just by playing them once.

But then... this guy caused my bf and I no end of real world grief, so I can't really say I'm shocked. Had he not been one of the only people we knew in the area, I wouldn't have let him come around at all. He never brought a thing, or helped out with much of anything... assuming his mere presence was enough reward enough. He ate all our food, complaining several times that we didn't have anything to snack on... Which was mostly due to our poor financial situation at the time. Just a self-centered jerk, really. I'm glad we don't see that guy anymore.

[ShadowFighter15]

While I don't have any stories to contribute (still a newbie), reading this thread has given me a lot of ideas on what to do if I ever decide to DM a face-to-face game.

Firstly with (possibly draconian) character sheet rules; like listing which book each spell and feat is from & limiting choices to only some books, to prevent anyone bringing an overpowered spell or ability they found in and ruining the game as well as making sure prepared casters write down what spells they have prepared and (in the case of wizards and such) a list of what spells are in their spellbook.

Any other problems beyond character building I'd handle as it comes up or just use obvious rules (like ignoring any player-made roll that the rest of the group doesn't/can't see and to avoid people abusing this for free rerolls; if you make three rolls that aren't seen by the other players, then it counts as a natural 1). Like with the example of one player telling the others what to do; I'd pretty much say something like "Oi! You play your character, let him/her play his/hers!"

If they claim that it was just a suggestion, I point out that it didn't sound like one and that if he still had a problem with my decision; we'd discuss it after the session. Lets them know they've done something wrong from the point-of-view of myself and the other players, keeps them from doing it again (if they do, then I'll repeat myself) and doesn't hold up the game for too long. I would point out that their character is perfectly capable of shouting tactical advice to the other characters, and that the other characters are free to follow or ignore it (just in-case the disruptive player thought I was stopping all forms of tactical discussion).

[Zaggab]

There was this player who used to play with us before who the rest of the gaming group blames for prematurely ending like 3-4 campaigns (more, if you count his own attempts at GM:ing). Let's call him B.

In the first campaign I ever DM:ed, he was playing a favoured soul. He was passive most of the time because he claimed his character was worthless (although it wasn't). He's the reason we now have the rule "everyone sits up during games", because he had a habit of lying down in the sofa/armchair/bed/floor during games.
Almost the only thing he did was wave his hand lazily and say "I heal him", even though he had a other options, like attacking, buffs, and offensive spells (altough he claimed he didn't). And then he accused the other players for not describing what they did enough. When the other players started describing their actions in more detail (much more detail, sometimes more than was practical), he still accused them for not describing anything at all. It was however B who NEVER described any of his actions.

In several other campaigns, he have tried to hurt, kill or steal from other players. Then, in another campaign, he was being a complete ass (this time in character, though), and one of the players let loose a crossbow bolt in his general direction out of shear frustration (IC), he halted the game to start a discussion of "proper conduct" and "silent agreements" and things like that, because doing anything against another player is unacceptable.

Then, in the last campaign I GM:ed (who died out largely because of B (though, to be fair, not completely)), he was playing a druid. For some reason he decided his character didn't have any reason to do anything other than sit in the forest with his animal companion carving wood. Despite the fact that some of the other PC:s were his childhood friends, who had repeatedly asked him to come along because they needed him, his father (druid elder) had told him to help, and the enemies they were investigating seemed to have the power to turn an apple tree (for example) into a demonic, bile-spewing abomination that killed anything that got close to it, and that could contaminate large areas if they weren't stopped.

Then he started violating the "sit up while during games"-rule. I asked him (several times) if he could consider ever-so-slightly altering his character so that it would participate, or create a new character, since he was obviously bored. He didn't want to, since he loved his character. After a few sessions like that, I asked him why he even came to the games as he was practically sleeping the whole time. It was obvious that he was bored out of his mind, and didn't do anything by himself to change it. Then he said what made me decide to not want to have him in future games. The exact words escape me, but it was basically "No, it's fine. I'm not bored now. I was at first, but now I have gone beyond bored so that it's now something else. It's like when it's so bad it's good, but with boredom". Only, the way he said made it clear that he was blaming me for being a bad DM.

I could go on (about other players, as well), and I could mention all the times he tried to GM anything (he is technically a good DM, except... not), but I have already written too much.

[Steward]

"No, it's fine. I'm not bored now. I was at first, but now I have gone beyond bored so that it's now something else. It's like when it's so bad it's good, but with boredom". Only, the way he said made it clear that he was blaming me for being a bad DM

How can he really mean that? He basically just admitted that your game was so awesome that it transcends the usual "fun"/"boring" dichotomies and exists in a parallel philosophical universe entirely on its own.

[Halaster]

Oh, now I remember one I had almost managed to suppress. It's one of those things where it's really hard to tell whose fault it was.

I was playing a noble, knightly and somewhat arrogant character. He had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and while he acknowledged his responsibilities, he also insisted on his rights.
The other player involved was playing a thief, chaotic neutral, you know the type.
So, this thief was always the first to get to any treasure, because my character and the third guy (a bard) weren't really that eager to be faster. So she always took undue amounts for herself (a shiny gem here, a potion there, nothing really big). Now I as a player found that intolerable, but neither the player nor the GM were listening to my complaints. I decided my character would see such behaviour in a rather dim light too, and that it was pretty obivous that this character had more money than she ought to (she didn't bury it or something, she spent it), so I had him add two and two together, and, after an especially blatant incident, my character demanded to see the contents of her saddlebags. She refused, and he just grabbed those bags, and emptied them onto the ground. She claimed, and the GM believed her, that she had hidden her loot elsewhere. So, while my character was in the process of telling her he had her number, she tried to hit him with a sword for touching her stuff. I thought this wasn't worth it and rode away. She took out her longbow, so I finally had it up to here. One lance charge later the thief was no more, and the game was over too. I tried to explain that she had it coming, that I handled it IC, because OOC had failed, and it had become unignorable IC, and that it was totally normal for my character (lawful good and all) to act that way. She still claimed I was being obnoxious, my character had no right IC to do this to her character (possible, but irrelevant), that my character couldn't have known, because she was such a cool thief and whatnot.
The rest of the group had me pegged as the troublemaker, after all I had brought things to a head here. The bard player is a rather conflict-averse person and would just have let it go rather than argue, after all, who was hurt by the thief always having the best items and stuff? And the GM had sided with her, apparently because he felt sneaky actions were OK, but openly accosting another PC was rude.

So, I still think I did the right thing, but maybe for once, I was that guy. Who knows?

[Zhalath]

Well, for a really long time, I had some terrible players.
There was:
1. One-Role Guy: everything he made was a catfolk ranger. Every character was described the same way, with black fur, dual wielding elven thinblades. He played this same character through different campaigns for 2 years. Eventually, he tried some other stuff, and now, he plays a variety of things.

2. Crazy Undead Guy: tended towards spellcasting, tended to try to become undead. Why? Because he played Crazy Stupid Evil. His reaction to anything that popped out was "kill it and loot", which gets real old when you're trying to roleplay. He was also somewhat of a powergamer, minmaxing some of his undead stuff with feats and spells.

3. I Don't Know The Rules Guy: We made his character for him. 5 times. He had no idea what to do, got distracted easily, and never remembered any rules at all. We even lent him a Player's Handbook, for a month, for him to familiarize himself. He never even opened it. Eventually, he quit, and now calls us all "nerds".

4. Too Busy Guy: showed up once, we thought he was a good player, but because of his stupid "schedule" (I swear, he started making up stuff he was doing), he never showed up again.

5. Never Show Up Girl: She never showed up. Ever.

6. Minmaxer Man: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh. This guy was terrible. His splat? Human knight. Strategy? Power Attack charge with a Large greatsword. He completely missed the point of the class, and didn't try to roleplay at all. Practically played Chaotic Neutral, even though he wrote Lawful Good on his sheet. Also, he was a Rules Lawyer, and liked to swoop down and try to correct me. Except he'd have it wrong, most of the time, or, he'd have it right, but used it wrong. Eventually, he left, started his own group, where he became a terrible DM (according to myself and my friends, who tried playing with him). Mostly because he tended to mock players who didn't do what he said they should ("Didn't take sleep? Well, these hobgoblins, you could've cast sleep on them, and we could have avoided half the party dying.")

7. Shapeshifter Guy: Changed his character every game, mostly because he kept losing his sheet. He went from an Elan Lurk to a Hobgoblin Ardent to a Spellscale Bard to a Tiefling Beguiler, in 4 games.

[Quietus]

6. Minmaxer Man: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh. This guy was terrible. His splat? Human knight. Strategy? Power Attack charge with a Large greatsword. He completely missed the point of the class, and didn't try to roleplay at all. Practically played Chaotic Neutral, even though he wrote Lawful Good on his sheet. Also, he was a Rules Lawyer, and liked to swoop down and try to correct me. Except he'd have it wrong, most of the time, or, he'd have it right, but used it wrong. Eventually, he left, started his own group, where he became a terrible DM (according to myself and my friends, who tried playing with him). Mostly because he tended to mock players who didn't do what he said they should ("Didn't take sleep? Well, these hobgoblins, you could've cast sleep on them, and we could have avoided half the party dying.")

I had this guy in one of my very first games... a few years back. Always insisted he knew the rules better than I did (which he didn't, but that didn't stop him from wasting a good hour or so of any session in five-to-ten minute increments with rule disputes), and when he DID get to DM, he created unique classes for his DMPC and his brother's PC, both of which were overpowered for the level of optimization we were capable of. Both were melee brutes. The PrC he came up with (after toning it down on my suggestion) was essentially a straight combination of Cavalier and Dragon Disciple (with the full power of both), accessible as a straight Paladin + Spirited Charge. Oh, and it advanced Paladin abilities. All of them. Except spellcasting.

And then he'd do things like.. when I wanted my Sorcerer (Super-good-aligned, all kinds of Exalted feats) to have his Fireballs that were buffed with two different Exalted metamagic feats become white rather than red, it would've taken a DC 30+ Spellcraft check. To change the *color* of a fireball. Or when animal-intelligence beasties leapt out from some bushes at the party, they jumped on my character and my buddy's necromancer, with pounce, taking both of us to under half hit points each. And he got angry when both of us said "Dimension door, 500 feet up", then proceeded to drop Fireballs on our way down. He was PARTICULARLY angry that I wasn't bothering to avoid catching them in the blast radius of my Exalted, Doesn't-Hurt-Good-Aligned fireballs, despite the fact that they were, in fact, Good aligned.

Then he had some bear-worshipping orcs somehow manage to take out ALL of my dozen or so Prying Eyes, without a single one noticing despite them having a decent Spot mod (Command was "Return to me as soon as you find other creatures), who then snuck up on the party, taking us by surprise, and capturing us. Then subjecting us to a "Test of manhood", which was a melee-only arena in which we weren't allowed to so much as pre-buff Mage Armor. Then he got upset with us for spending four or five rounds casting buff spells while they fought three targets in melee. And then got MORE upset when we rolled in with Mage Armor, Shield, False Life, Polymorph (young red dragon, I think), and mirror image up, and wiped out the encounter.

And then he was surprised when, at a later point, he ambushed the party, targetted me, dropped me to below -10 from full in a single attack, and I said "Okay, it's been fun, but I'm just gonna go ahead and go home now. Later guys.", and started packing up. Surprise surprise, he found some "incorrect math" that only left me bleeding out, not dead.

[Rhiannon87]

Well, for a really long time, I had some terrible players.
There was:
1. One-Role Guy: everything he made was a catfolk ranger. Every character was described the same way, with black fur, dual wielding elven thinblades. He played this same character through different campaigns for 2 years. Eventually, he tried some other stuff, and now, he plays a variety of things.



Ohhhh man, that guy. The second group I was in had that guy. Always insisted on playing a drow rogue/shadowdancer. I have no idea what alignment he went with; chaotic stupid, I guess. And he'd always try to pull of stupid things. Like one time, we were exploring a dungeon, and got to a T-hallway, where we were coming up the vertical part of the T. There's a door directly across from us. My character (fighter in armor) takes a step out, DM calls for a reflex save, I barely make it. Turns out the hallway is set up like a see-saw, and walking on it without disabling the trap will tilt the floor over and dump whoever is on it down a couple levels (kind of a cool trap, IMO). So we start looking around the area, trying to figure out how to disable it, and the drow's player goes "oh, I run across to the doors." Insert five-minute long argument about how being an elf (low body weight) with a high DEX should allow him to do this. Finally the DM lets him make a reflex save to run across it, he fails (I suspect the DM had set the DC especially high at that point... this guy was really obnoxious), and drops down thirty feet. We never did get back to that campaign.

This is the same guy who pitched a fit when our DM decided to try out randomized characters for a one-shot (you roll for EVERYTHING-- race, class, alignment, etc.), and he got saddled with an NG dwarf bard. He left the group after that.

[Lupy]

The what? :smallconfused:

:smallbiggrin:

[Steward]

I had this guy in one of my very first games... a few years back.

What are the odds that this same guy was in all your D&D groups?

[Dagren]

What are the odds that this same guy was in all your D&D groups?Talking about the archetype?

[Zhalath]

This is the same guy who pitched a fit when our DM decided to try out randomized characters for a one-shot (you roll for EVERYTHING-- race, class, alignment, etc.), and he got saddled with an NG dwarf bard. He left the group after that.

I actually played a character exactly like that, and I loved it.
My battle strategy was to start singing dwarven epics whenever enemies popped up, while the rest of the party rushed in. It got better when I started making them about the fight itself.
"Oh, the monk did crack a goblin skull."
"Or did he crack 'bout ten?"
"Der's too many corpses, I can't count right."
"He's the best there's ever been."

Oh, another irritating player I've had
8. Real Guy: Mr Realism, all the time. First had him in a d20 Modern game (only way I could get him to try). Involving zombies.
Besides those arguments about the transmission method, and the sharpness of zombie teeth, we also had all the gun arguments. You see, he was a gun nut, and liked to argue with me about the "realism of the guns". His requests went from the acceptable (flashbang grenades), to the unreasonable (X3 to all gun ranges, extra dice to grenade damage).

[Choco]

8. Real Guy: Mr Realism, all the time. First had him in a d20 Modern game (only way I could get him to try). Involving zombies.
Besides those arguments about the transmission method, and the sharpness of zombie teeth, we also had all the gun arguments. You see, he was a gun nut, and liked to argue with me about the "realism of the guns". His requests went from the acceptable (flashbang grenades), to the unreasonable (X3 to all gun ranges, extra dice to grenade damage).

I love it when ya see that guy in a FANTASY game... shooting fireballs out your hands is OK, but it's too unrealistic to be able to carry 4 suits of armor on you and still be able to fight.

[Zhalath]

I love it when ya see that guy in a FANTASY game... shooting fireballs out your hands is OK, but it's too unrealistic to be able to carry 4 suits of armor on you and still be able to fight.

He's in my fantasy game now, and it's not as much of an issue. My only problem now is his commando style of play. Ex:
"Alright, so you've tied up the prisoners."
"Let's ask them where the base is."
"They refuse."
"I hit them."
"They refuse."
"That's unrealistic. They should be folding."

[AslanCross]

Worst ever was one beginner player who never really read the rules, never really understood what her spells did, and in general never cared much about the party, but only her own character. She just really wanted to play a dragon, but since we were starting at Level 5, I didn't let her. In the end I just told her that playing a sorcerer would be a good start into taking the underwhelming Dragon Disciple, but she really wanted it, so...

To make things worse, she didn't make any character choices until the situation called for it (so she spontaneously would gain ranks in Open Lock).

This player said her character liked "manipulating others," so in a party with no Rogue, she deliberately didn't tell anyone that she could actually open locked doors. The party's monk decided to just break open the door. He succeeded, but the exploding door summoned a group of hobgoblins who cornered them into the now open room. The party was furious. In the end, we decided to politely ask her to either cooperate or leave. Coincidentally, her grades started failing, so she voluntarily left.

There's one guy whom I've played with who always optimizes. No problem with that, but his characters are either rips from Yugioh (with flashy movements and calling out of attacks which, while funny, gets cloying after a while), or laid-back, unaffected people with no personality other than "easy-going." Even worse, is that he has build ADD. In one Eberron game, he couldn't make up his mind whether he wanted to go straight melee rogue, straight sniper rogue, Rogue/Swordsage, Rogue/Invisible Blade/Master Thrower, Rogue/Master Thrower, or some bizarre Rogue/Warblade/Swordsage multiclass that uses the homebrew Black Rain discipline with guns, then when the DM said firearms don't exist in the campaign world, he said he'd dual wield hand crossbows. In the end, we convinced him that GunKata doesn't really work well in D&D, so he stuck to straight Rogue. Putting up with his whining outside of the game stretched the limits of my patience, though.

By far, the most annoying thing about him is that he SOMEHOW always managed to get really high stat rolls on everything (Typically he has nothing below 14, and has at least 2 18s). I learned that he rolls d6s "when he's bored," archives those results, and just cherry picks from them when he builds a character. Sometimes he even uses a die roller on his cell phone, which ALWAYS rolls high.
I dealt with this by specifically banning any form of rolling not done with my dice in my presence, and then just gave some really generous reroll rules (reroll any result below 8, and one free reroll for any of your ability scores). He almost cried when he got his results (16, 16, 14, 14, 14, 12), saying they were "low," but I just told him to suck it up.

He never got to join the game.

[derfos]

I had this one player who was nuts. He went into a village of orcs and after he killed them, he made a weird speech and started slaughtering the babies (like 2 month old) of said orcs. Then he took their heads and put them on spikes to show everybody off. This would have been OK, except that while he was telling us what his character would do, he was standing up with a fake sword in his hand swinging it around. He almost hit us, and eventually it got stuck in a wall. I think it's still stuck there.
:smallsmile:

[ghost_warlock]

Oh, man I think I've got the thread winner right here:

*snip*

Why do people cheat at a game with no winner?!?!

Hm. Do you live in Nevada? Because I think I know this guy... We kicked him out of our group.

I'd share my story, but what I'd have to say is pretty much exactly what raitalin already said.

[Zhalath]

He almost cried when he got his results (16, 16, 14, 14, 14, 12), saying they were "low," but I just told him to suck it up.



That is especially saddening to me, because I now give an array like that to my players, and they absolutely love it, for allowing them to play really strong characters.

[The Tygre]

Reading some of these... it's like looking at my life from the outside. Now, let's see where to start with my players. I guess I'll begin with my good players.

Immediately coming to mind is this one character who was an uber-incubus. He taught me a valuable lesson; never let your players use Savage Species. EVER. He was incredibly powerful, with purely insane attack and AC. He'd badger me constantly to let him put anime elements in the game, he had ADD, he was constantly making sex quips, whine whenever systems dealt him damage or otherwise didn't go his way, didn't RP, and seemed to find always the right way to be inappropriate. In a Call of Cthulhu game, he played a dual glock wielding 'ghetto priest' who was the group's tank. The tank. In Call of Cthulhu. Prompt comments of WTF are necessary here. You don't play a 'tank' tank in CoC! I guess. If anything, you play a SAN tank; probably like a para-psychologist or a tax lawyer or something like that.

The other problem player is a purely no-show guy. He barely shows up. What's more, he's not just a no-show, he's a Schrodinger's player. I send out the invitation for D&D and ask for a response. Everyone responds. EXCEPT FOR HIM. It's as if the simple act of getting on the computer and giving an answer is some Herculean feat. Will he show up? Will he not? You don't know, it Schrodinger's player! Telling you he won't be there twenty minutes before the session starts is just the way he rolls!

But God help me, I love 'em.

It's a weird thing, but I can't imagine my group without them. Whenever I picture my group, these two are always there. Whenever I go shopping for supplements, I'm always thinking of them too. Like the incubus. I can't honestly see the group without him. Most of the time, I want to strangle him, but I don't think I could have a group without him. Some part of me is probably unconsciously seeking a power-gamer, I guess. And the thing is, it's because he's a great guy. Time to time, he's funny and comes up with plausible plans. You know those wacky players that do something so stupid or game-breaking it becomes legend within your group? He was that guy. Not only that, but he knew the rules inside and out, and I used him to look something up more than the PHB by a longshot. And the thing is, he was usually right. And if he was wrong, he just rolled with it. And he actually helped me as a DM; when he saw that I thought that another was over-powered, he conveniently 'forgot' some rules about sneak attack that would have made the other guy stronger. But this is the kicker; he actually doesn't want his Incubus anymore, and wants to play a more balanced character. And what it really boils down to is that I've got no one to blame but myself. I"m the one who gave him Savage Species, I'm didn't give him any back-story, I'm the one who passed out the treasure and rolled his stats. And I acted like a **** because of it. I should kick my own ass...:smallfrown:

As for Schrodinger's... he's just got bad luck, man. His work schedule is brutal, and his step-mother is the bitch queen of all harpies. Now, I don't say that from his hear-say, but from actual experience. She literally makes his work-schedule for him, complaining about whatever days he tries to take off, and, I kid you not, watched him go clothes-shopping so he would 'get the right thing'. Mind you, this is all while he's at the tender ripe age of... 18. Yikes.

But enough self-pity. I'll just have to man-up, apologize, and beg him back. Like I said, these two are some of my -good- players. In the course of the game, I've rolled through at least half a dozen players, with a few just being absolute loads of crap in the rough.

* For starts, there was T. T was, in every and any sense of the word, obnoxious. Nobody liked him. No one. Mind you, he was autistic, but we didn't know that until after we started playing. He attacked NPCs at random, had no characterization, and frequently just went ape-**** insane. There was some more crap, but I try to suppress the memories and have put him on my list of people never to mention by name. One time, it was just me, the incubus, and T. Three hours later, after he had left, me and the incubus both agreed that that was the single worst session we had ever been through.

*L was...marginally better. At least he roleplayed and followed the rules. Our main problem with him was that he was something of a know-it-all, and generally back seat DMed. My breaking point was when he played a dragon hatchling and sold his own body parts for spare GP.

*D was pathetic. We played in Books A' Million with him once. He just kind of drifted through the game, and once left mid-combat to go watch someone play Yugioh. Killing his character brought me some mild satisfaction.

All in all, though, I'd say I've been pretty lucky when it comes to players.

[Evil the Cat]

My group includes people matching many of these descriptions, but fortunately, they're generally not extreme enough to become too big of a problem.

A) I have the guy who always seems to roll 17+ on anything important (which means almost all will /fort saves). At least it's balanced out by the fact that his characters are almost all built to be sub-par. He's generally quite good during the RP, but tends to take forever during his action in combat. From what I can tell, he isn't even trying to come up with an idea for his action until it actually gets to his action.

B) I have one player who creates more tangents and distractions than everybody else combined. I know that tangents and side discussions are natural in D&D, but I have to work constantly to keep from losing the entire game session to his tangents. He's also somewhat random in personality. Sometimes he's great and I'm really glad to have him in the game. Sometimes he's working as hard as he can to disrupt the game and cause problems.

C) One player used to go out of his way to try to make any game he was in fall apart, by driving the group apart. Fortunately, that has toned down over the years, and while I still see some of it, it's now relatively minor and mostly just makes for interesting RP.

D) One player (my roommate), from what I can tell, ignores 90% of the game. Often times, he spends 1/2 the game falling asleep and snoring very loudly. I know he has a medical condition that causes it, but he's had it for years and won't go to a doctor, so at this point I kind of have to blame him. Sometimes he even lies down to make it easier to sleep, and refuses to sit up when asked to. He only has 2 or 3 different characters that he plays, but he still almost never RPs them, and when he does, every single one suddenly becomes the same "ditzy blonde" style ultra-low wisdom character. They also seem to know everything the player does (even if its something that in no way fits a medieval character).

That's most of my current group. A: generally isn't extreme enough to be a problem, though I do get annoyed by his mystical ability to roll 17+ on 90% of his important rolls. B: When he isn't on one of his "bad" days, is actually a very good player, and an excellent GM when he isn't distracted by his computer and causing tangents. C: Used to bother me back when he was more extreme, but now I'm glad to have him in the group most of the time. Though he is annoyed that in my game world, high level characters and magic are rare, so there aren't any "magic item shops." D: Because of work had to leave most games. He's a nice guy IRL, and a good friend, but I was very glad he left my game.

[ocato]

I try really hard not to be this guy, but my group is a little lax on rules/understanding. Not "DM makes a ruling and that's how we play" lax (I always go with what the DM wants to do), but "oh hey, did you know that minions don't take damage on a miss?" lax. "Wait, I get +what to my roll?" lax.

I get accused of 'helping' a little too much (although some of the players seem to like it when I point out that their 18 STR L6 character has more than +5 to hit). It's just that sometimes someone blasts a zombie with poison and I go "Huh, I thought they were immune to that" or someone pushes an enemy over a precipice and I go "what, no save?" In my defense, I try to point out beneficial and non beneficial things in equal amounts so that I don't come off as a cheater/whatever.

I'm trying hard to be good, I promise.

[Rhiannon87]

I try really hard not to be this guy, but my group is a little lax on rules/understanding. Not "DM makes a ruling and that's how we play" lax (I always go with what the DM wants to do), but "oh hey, did you know that minions don't take damage on a miss?" lax. "Wait, I get +what to my roll?" lax.

I get accused of 'helping' a little too much (although some of the players seem to like it when I point out that their 18 STR L6 character has more than +5 to hit). It's just that sometimes someone blasts a zombie with poison and I go "Huh, I thought they were immune to that" or someone pushes an enemy over a precipice and I go "what, no save?" In my defense, I try to point out beneficial and non beneficial things in equal amounts so that I don't come off as a cheater/whatever.

I'm trying hard to be good, I promise.

Who's accusing you of 'helping' too much? 'Cause to me that sounds like a group of people who don't know the rules very well at all and missing out on major advantages because of it. Not being able to calculate your own BAB is a serious problem for this game. I mean, that's one of the most basic concepts of D&D. If it's other players getting annoyed, that just strikes me as weird, and if it's the DM, then maybe he/she is exploiting the lack of knowledge? Unless the DM doesn't know the rules that well either. In any case, sounds like your group could use some time sitting down and reading the PHB.

[/soapbox]

[Canadian]

People who can't keep the dice on the table. Come on folks the table is large enough.

[Choco]

People who can't keep the dice on the table. Come on folks the table is large enough.

I second that, can't believe I forgot about that one, as only me and one other person in our group seem to know how to roll a SINGLE d20 without it ending up on the floor.. But then again I also play Warhammer 40k, where rolling 40+ d6's isn't all that uncommon, so I guess I got practice...

Oh got another one too, the guy who gets the group sidetracked, then complains that they aren't getting back into the game fast enough (which is usually when he has an idea and/or wants to do something in game), and even blames another group member for keeping everyone sidetracked...

[Rapidwhirl]

Heh, this brings back memories. I used to be the same Elven Warrior every single game. I didn't roleplay, instead waiting for combat. My battle strategy was "hit things with a sword until it dies, then take its stuff". I didn't know about optimization, and once I became upset that I died for doing something incredibly stupid. That was nine years ago.... I'm glad I got past that phase.

[Zhalath]

I seem to be seeing the same archetypes in people's stories.
The Schrodinger: never shows up, hard to contact
The Cheater
The One-Character
The Permanent New Guy
The Diversion
The Jerk

Any other archetypes? I swear, these stories are starting to have something in common.

[Korivan]

Ok this ones gonna be long. Have one freind that ive been playing with since 2nd edition. First is how he plays...
First, always CN, uses this to justify anything anytime, no need to RP.
100% of the time, its always a cleric with some thief thrown in, no originality, no diversity.
Usually Kills a party member in about every 2nd or 3rd session on random grounds like "he was becoming to powerfull"
Little group interation, likes to wonder off when party is in danger, then demands XP
Hungry for XP, wants XP for every little action and immediatly
Brings sex in once every couple of sessions, has his character do that instead of helping, example, we were protecting a town, and earlier revived a woman from being turned to stone, he extorted sex from her while we undead up dying from seige...fled and demanded XP
Anti-social behavior ingame and out
Has to be the strongest member in group, wont be leader, but wont be seconed fidle to anyone
Always has GREAT STATS

As a DM
No room to manuver, if you dont go to this, this, then that room, you cant win...period
No clues as to the aforementioned rooms
Loves to give rings of wishes to new players, then pervert the wishes. i.e. we were getting out buts handed to us, so we wished to be back at the taveren, we arive and its on fire, we die shortly after.

Thankfully he's getting out of D&D for "religious" reasons, which is great cause it saves me the trouble of not inviting him. Ok, i know at times i min/max, and nudge dice rolls as DM, but D&D is a game of good vs. evil. Its about the PC's fighting the darkness, encouraging greatness in others by action. Not a game to bring your sick fantasy's and ruin other people's time.

[ocato]

Who's accusing you of 'helping' too much? 'Cause to me that sounds like a group of people who don't know the rules very well at all and missing out on major advantages because of it. Not being able to calculate your own BAB is a serious problem for this game. I mean, that's one of the most basic concepts of D&D. If it's other players getting annoyed, that just strikes me as weird, and if it's the DM, then maybe he/she is exploiting the lack of knowledge? Unless the DM doesn't know the rules that well either. In any case, sounds like your group could use some time sitting down and reading the PHB.

[/soapbox]

Well, I try to point out these things both in favor of us and in favor of the DM, so when the Cleric clears the minions with turn undead, and I point out that the ones he missed don't take damage, I'm "helping". I also might just be 'that guy' in my own mind, but it bothers me nonetheless.

[LemonSkye]

Oy. Aside from the "fluid character" (the one player who completely reinvents his character concept every session), the standard "powergamer" conundrum hasn't really affected any of the groups I've been in, mostly because everyone I tend to play with is one to some extent.

The one player I consistently have trouble with, I have trouble with both in and out of game. The group I currently play with meets once or twice a week, with three of us rotating both games and DM duties (I'm running two D&D games, another is running two D&D games and is about to start a V:tM game, and the third is running a GURPS game and a d20 Modern game). The player in question, thus far, is problematic across all of the systems, but it's the D&D games that seem to get it the worst.

Simply put, she's a bully. Every time anyone does something she doesn't agree with, she throws a fit until she gets her way, which always seems to happen eventually (but especially when her boyfriend is running his games) because no one wants to deal with her when she gets like that.

Examples: Her original character concept for the Vampire game was a werewolf. She plays the only morally grey character in the otherwise good party, and the only exalted good character in the otherwise morally grey party. I threw a challenging encounter at the latter party, and she was upset because her (vastly overpowered) archer wasn't one-shot killing all of the opponents. In another game, she plays a gestalt Truenamer/Archivist (both spellcasting classes, for those unaware), and gets upset when she rushes into melee and doesn't do any damage (and heaven help you if she actually takes any damage...>_<). She complains that her stats are too low unless she rolls all 18s. We can't even discuss zombies without her getting upset because she doesn't like them...you get the picture. And with every one of her outbursts, she ends up essentially holding the game hostage until someone acquiesces to her demands. I'd have stopped playing with her if not for the fact that we play at her house, so it's kind of a package deal.

It's frustrating. When she's in a good mood, she's actually a decent player who helps contribute. When she isn't, she's a complete bear to deal with. The other DM (the one who isn't her boyfriend) and I want to stop giving in to all of her demands (because it's really starting to affect the games to an obscene degree), but we've already done so to such an amount that it'll be difficult to enforce, not to mention the fact that we don't want to lose her boyfriend as a player, friend and DM (because other than the constant spoiling of his girlfriend, we have no issues with him), which will likely happen if she feels that we're turning on her. >_<

[Korivan]

Just got done playing a 3.5 game earlier this week and i have one for the boards. The EPIC SLOW PLAYER! Yes, everyone has one occasionaly, if not more. The player that takes 3 hours to make a character when everyone is ready, the one who takes forever to calculate thier attack roll, even if you tell them thier roll of 17 hits naturally. Despite having only select spells avalible or memerized, needs to look through each one each different round before selecting one or switching to melee. Now this is a good friend of mine, but it gets old when an entire night encompases only 1-2 fights and 5 minutes in town!??!

[Rhiannon87]

Just got done playing a 3.5 game earlier this week and i have one for the boards. The EPIC SLOW PLAYER! Yes, everyone has one occasionaly, if not more. The player that takes 3 hours to make a character when everyone is ready, the one who takes forever to calculate thier attack roll, even if you tell them thier roll of 17 hits naturally. Despite having only select spells avalible or memerized, needs to look through each one each different round before selecting one or switching to melee. Now this is a good friend of mine, but it gets old when an entire night encompases only 1-2 fights and 5 minutes in town!??!

See if your DM can start enforcing a time limit in combat. This does mean it'll have to be applied to everyone, though, which might make other people snippy. Have the DM announce that you have 30 seconds to decide what action you're taking in combat. If you don't decide within the 30 seconds, you're holding your action. Now, this doesn't really deal with the whole "well I wanna see what my total is even though my 17 die roll hits" issue, but it'll help with some of the speed issues. We have a couple players in our group who struggle with decision-making in combat-- one's playing a summoner so she often is shuffling through papers trying to figure out what creature to drop, the other is just chronically slow no matter what-- and having a time limit has helped considerably.

[Assassin89]

I know someone whose first character when joining a campaign was a sixth level Hound Archon monk. The two problem with this character?
1. Inappropriately leveled.
2. Monks are overpowered. And yes, that is what the DM thinks.

His second character was a randomly rolled female elf scout, but he hindered a different campaign by causing the group to take three hours to explore three rooms by searching one room constantly (I was not present at the session). He also rushed in without thinking despite not being a class suited for such tactics. This made him on the kill list of several people, including the DM.

As for me, I'm just someone who does not know when to stop talking or what I should talk about. I also played a LN half-elf cleric who acted like a paladin despite being.