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AtwasAwamps
2010-06-01, 12:57 PM
I made this thread because I want to complain, and I want to know I’m not alone. What is the most annoying player you have ever DM’d for?

I currently have a player in my games who has the following problems:

1 – He is a self-proclaimed rules lawyer and optimizer who unfortunately does not know many of the rules. Amongst the beautiful gems he has tried to argue with me about have included improved trip (Player: “I don’t need to look in the book. My high-level in fighter in our other game has it and I know it doesn’t give you an extra attack on a successful trip.” DM for High Level Game: “Yes it does.” Player: “I’m telling you it doesn’t!”), what level you can take prestige classes at RE: Skillpoints, what a full attack entails, and that sidestep + robilar’s gambit makes you invincible (rather than just immune to full attacks).

2 – He takes “do not metagame” to the extreme.

Player: “I don’t know where that fiendish centipede that is grappling my opponent came from, so I try to light it on fire.” Wizard: “…I’m standing behind you. I summoned it. And its FIGHTING YOUR ENEMIES.”
Player: “How would I know that?”
Wizard: “BECAUSE I’M STANDING BEHIND YOU!”

Player: “Listen, you were unconscious, you don’t know that the dire lion skeleton that has been animated is on your side.”
Cleric that just woke up: “But...there’s a necromancer on our team and nothing on the opposing team could animate dead so…”
Player: “So you need to attack it!”
Dread Necro: “HEY CLERIC THAT JUST WOKE UP I AM CONTROLLING THE SKELETON DON’T HIT IT.”
Cleric: “…Happy now?”
Player: “I guess…”

3 – He refuses to make the jumps in logic and basic convenience that are necessary for a D&D game.
Cleric: “Okay, so, with this +2 Charisma item, I get an extra turn attempt per day, correct?”
Me (DM): “Yes.”
Player: “Actually, no he doesn’t.”
Me: “…Why?”
Player: “Well, he didn’t state he went to bed with his cloak on so when his turn attempts would refresh, wouldn’t that mean that…”
Me: “I want you to understand that we are friends and will remain friends but I swear to God I am going to beat you to death with this DMG.”
Player: “…I just want to stick to the rules!”
Me: “I’m going to kill you.”

4 – He’s…well, he’s kind of a bad player and he gives terrible advice and unfortunately, people listen to him. He also has an absolute hard-on for the fighter class. What’s worse is that he hangs out with the group more than me (they all live in the same neighborhood, I live a bit outside of it) so they end up coming to each session with me correcting rules misinterpretations and bad advice when they ask me about certain things.

Player: “So, as a fighter, you basically want to have weapon focus and weapon specialization as early as possible.”
Me: “Actually, to be fair, those feats are fairly weak when you’re playing outside of core, compared to other feats such as…”
Player: “Whatever, I know fighters, man.”

Me advising the person trying to play a melee cleric: “You see, with Divine Metamagic, you can eventually persist Divine Power, which grants you full BAB, more strength, more hitpoints…you’re basically a fighter with powerful cleric spells and better class features.”
Player: “See, I never got that…why not just play a fighter? Then you get bonus feats, too.”
Me: “…Because…you…you get cleric casting?”
Player: “Psh, just dip cleric and buy some wands.”

Player: “Never ban evocation as a wizard, it’s your most powerful school.”

::headdesk::

I just wanted to vent. This fellow got very frustrating last week, so I just needed a chance to spit venom for a bit and hopefully see that I’m not the only one with this kind of problem. All in all, I love my group, and this is fairly minor, just ludicrously frustrating.

Machiavellian
2010-06-01, 01:12 PM
Holy crap. This guy's a loser. DO hit him with DMG I & II repeatedly. He's a pain in the butt. I mean, yeah, outside of core, WF and WS isn't great, but it has its uses (PrCs, Feats, ect) plus MANY items give it to you for free. and the Evocation thing, I say this to him: For blasting, Evocation is your bread and butter. But outside of blasting, its crap. Me personally, I used to run a Utterdark Nukromancer (Necromancer specialized in basically Cone of Utterdark Cold essentially) with a few evocation spells. Necromancy has the best though (LOTS of nasty ray and ranged touch spells)

Marriclay
2010-06-01, 01:23 PM
Holy crap. This guy's a loser. DO hit him with DMG I & II repeatedly

I dunno, you just gave me the image of a nerd flying slow motion over a coffee table towards another nerd, dual wielding massive books. It was awesome.

On topic: This guy obviously doesn't know what he's talking about. In general, people are insecure about what they think is correct and so listen to the advice of others to help them shore up their skills. eventually, when they see the reasoning behind it and put it into effect, they gain confidence in the abilities of the thing they just did.

But then, there's guys like these. They don't build up that confidence, they have it inborn and as soon as they think something is awesome, that confidence makes it hard to sway them from that position. These guys are 1 in 1000, just common enough to make them supremely annoying.

Your best bet is to throw some math at him, or challenge his optimizing skills. If he can beat a battle cleric of equal level with a fighter, then you shut up and stop pestering him. If he loses though, he has to start actually listening to you about the way the game works. of course, he'll still throw in some stupid comments but by showing him that he's dead wrong about something it should shake his resolve and make him more receptive. As long as you're not too harsh about it, that should make things ok

Machiavellian
2010-06-01, 01:27 PM
I dunno, you just gave me the image of a nerd flying slow motion over a coffee table towards another nerd, dual wielding massive books. It was awesome.

On topic: This guy obviously doesn't know what he's talking about. In general, people are insecure about what they think is correct and so listen to the advice of others to help them shore up their skills. eventually, when they see the reasoning behind it and put it into effect, they gain confidence in the abilities of the thing they just did.

But then, there's guys like these. They don't build up that confidence, they have it inborn and as soon as they think something is awesome, that confidence makes it hard to sway them from that position. These guys are 1 in 1000, just common enough to make them supremely annoying.

Your best bet is to throw some math at him, or challenge his optimizing skills. If he can beat a battle cleric of equal level with a fighter, then you shut up and stop pestering him. If he loses though, he has to start actually listening to you about the way the game works. of course, he'll still throw in some stupid comments but by showing him that he's dead wrong about something it should shake his resolve and make him more receptive. As long as you're not too harsh about it, that should make things ok

Hello, signature!

I agree with the battle, though tell him to build an Optimized Monk to face an Optimized Wizard.

Hendel
2010-06-01, 01:29 PM
Those are great, you should vent some more and give us a good time with your prose.

Anyway, yes, I have one of those and he drives me crazy as I am the DM in that game right now. He is the opposite of your guy, however.

He metagames all the time and expects the other characters to things for him (or even like him) when he rarely reciprocates. He builds what seem to be optimized characters but he does not fully understand the rules so he stacks stuff that shouldn't stack, etc. When we get to the game, he seems to make every save and his attacks seem to get better on his multiple attacks even with the resulting -5 to each consecutive attack.

In a nutshell, he can be very frustrating but we have endured up until now and may continue to endure for some time. So we all have those types, just practice patience is my advice.

Dusk Eclipse
2010-06-01, 01:53 PM
hmm I don't have such problems concerning rules Lawyering and optimizing in my group (I am the rules layer and optimizaer of my group XP), anyway the youngest player in our group is in LOVE with the Chaotic Stupid aligment whether he is playing CG, CN or CE.

Examples:

CG: The crazy guy of the town, insane bard which kidnap people to tell them stories and then let them free, got pretty upset when the town's guard went to his house (it was his plot hook) and then ruined an carefully planed ambush.

Me: Ok so weI wait hidden here (point square in the map) in wolf form, ready an action to charge and trip the enemy when he passes in front of me. (I was playing Olescamo's Werewolf class)
Druid: Then I cast entangle centered away from you so It affectxs the enemies but not wolfie.
Paladin: And I charge!
Bard:...I shout "HEY DROW!!!! DAZE!!!! (cast Daze at the drow we are trying to ambush)
Me :facepalm

CN: Tried to start a communist rebelion in sharn in an Eberron game, got himself into prison and we lost most of the session trying to get him out.

CE: Barbarian Thri-krinn.
DM (ME) ok, you all enter the shady tavern, the barman is a halfling who is...
BTK: A halflingt?
DM yes a halfling, so as I was saying....
BTK: I Rage, charge him and start eating him!
All: What?:smalleek:
BTK: I hate halflings, so I eat him.
DM: Ok.. make a grapple checks
BTK: For what?
DM: to grapple the halfling
BTK: But I don't want to grapple him, I want to eat him.
DM you need to grapple him before you can eat him.
BTK: oh right (pass grapple checks) now I eat him.
ME :smallsigh:

Jeff240sx
2010-06-01, 02:05 PM
Player: I hide & move silently into the room filled with guards.
Me: Uh. You know all 10 will get a listen check vs. your presence?
Player: Yea, yea. My hide is 36 and MS is 33.
Me: Natural 20.
Player: What?! How the hell!
Me: Statistics says there is a 10 in 20 chance of me rolling a nat20. Or 50%.
Player: WHAAAAAA! *insert moaning about he can never stealth anywhere."

Later in life, playing a published campaign.

Me: There's a door.
Player: I kick the door open.
Me: ??
Player: Well, you don't let me do anything rogue-ish anyway.
Me: Take 12d6 trap damage.
Player: What the hell!!!
Me: *Points at book* This isn't about YOU! This isn't me vs. YOU! *Angrily pokes book with my index finger* STOP BEING STUPID!
Group who just got Fireballed: WTF MAN!

After the dungeon, back in town.

Player: I found these awesome magic pants in some Bastion Press book.
Me: Ok?
Player: Can I buy them?
Me: ... I guess. Do you have a Pants slot for magic items? /sarcasm
Player: WHHHHAAAAAAA! *Insert more moaning about how life is unfair*



That's what I've got going.

crizh
2010-06-01, 02:20 PM
Me: Natural 20.

Umm, so?

Skill checks don't work that way.

Funny story, we have a DM that absolutely refused to let a player take 1 on a skill check and insisted that he roll the dice. We were never able to explain to him why this was a waste of time in such a way that he understood...

InkEyes
2010-06-01, 02:22 PM
One guy in a group I've played in for a long time is more ready and willing to twist the rules (and the lack of 3.5 knowledge the DMs have) to his advantage. He'll talk about people disappearing when they're touched by someone wearing a ring of invisibility as a player, and insist that it takes a half dozen rounds for summoned creatures to show up to a battle as a DM. He also enjoys taking his characters to brothels and meleeing a monster with a quarterstaff. As a wizard. I don't think he'd ever willfully do something that would ruin the party's chances of making a profit (unless he was DMing maybe) and he's an okay guy to talk to, but he's a very obnoxious player.

I have other stories, but most of them revolve around rules disputes and I'm not sure if the history these guys have with older editions of D&D excuses them or not. Still, they've been playing 3.0+3.5 (while using PHBs and DMGs from both versions) for over nine years now. I'm starting to get a bit worried.

Dusk Eclipse
2010-06-01, 02:22 PM
Umm, so?

Skill checks don't work that way.

Funny story, we have a DM that absolutely refused to let a player take 1 on a skill check and insisted that he roll the dice. We were never able to explain to him why this was a waste of time in such a way that he understood...

It is a pretty common housrule (IME) that natural 20 is an automatic success in all rolls

Lin Bayaseda
2010-06-01, 02:23 PM
Player: I hide & move silently into the room filled with guards.
Me: Uh. You know all 10 will get a listen check vs. your presence?
Player: Yea, yea. My hide is 36 and MS is 33.
Me: Natural 20.
Player: What?! How the hell!
Me: Statistics says there is a 10 in 20 chance of me rolling a nat20. Or 50%.
Player: WHAAAAAA! *insert moaning about he can never stealth anywhere."


Unlike with attack rolls and saving throws, a natural roll of 20 on the d20 is not an automatic success, and a natural roll of 1 is not an automatic failure.
If their Listen is less than 13, they can't hear him even on a 20. By RAW, at least. Your RAI may vary.


It is a pretty common housrule (IME) that natural 20 is an automatic success in all rollsThat's harsh. Because then you'd also have to make a natural 1 auto-fail. And then a high-level rogue sneaking past a low-level loser guard would have approximately 10% chance of failing regardless of modifiers (either the rogue rolls 1 or guard rolls 20).

That would really make stealth useless.

Ponce
2010-06-01, 02:25 PM
The probability was also closer to 40%

1 - (0.95)^20

Just_Ice
2010-06-01, 02:25 PM
At least the DM (which I guess is you) won't have to play much catch-up.

Marriclay
2010-06-01, 02:26 PM
Umm, so?

Skill checks don't work that way.

Funny story, we have a DM that absolutely refused to let a player take 1 on a skill check and insisted that he roll the dice. We were never able to explain to him why this was a waste of time in such a way that he understood...

some groups run on the idea that skill checks also have critical success and failure. for many, it is as much a houserule as what the DM lays out in the beginning of the game, and it sometimes actually is

Greenish
2010-06-01, 02:27 PM
Player: I hide & move silently into the room filled with guards.
Me: Uh. You know all 10 will get a listen check vs. your presence?
Player: Yea, yea. My hide is 36 and MS is 33.
Me: Natural 20.
Player: What?! How the hell!
Me: Statistics says there is a 10 in 20 chance of me rolling a nat20. Or 50%.
Player: WHAAAAAA! *insert moaning about he can never stealth anywhere."You should actually roll the skills, and NPCs autosucceeding on skillchecks with nat 20 is just silly. Besides, if he has invested heavily on stealth, you should allow it to work.

Lin Bayaseda
2010-06-01, 02:32 PM
I agree with Greenish. Having 30+ on a skill is a lot. It's above and beyond of what a normal person would be capable of. In fact, it's above and beyond of what a normal person would be capable of imagining. If he managed to get his skills so high, let him use it.

Rather than fight him with a "nya nya 20!", incorporate his amazing stealth exploit into the story somehow.

In fact, I dare say, with a hushed voice, that this was more of a "bad DM" story than a "bad player" story. Sorry for any offense this may cause.

crizh
2010-06-01, 02:34 PM
This is a thread about annoying players, yes?

A player that complains that a major rules-change to the way skills work has nerfed his skill-monkey character could be construed to have a point, yesno?

Asheram
2010-06-01, 02:57 PM
This is a thread about annoying players, yes?

A player that complains that a major rules-change to the way skills work has nerfed his skill-monkey character could be construed to have a point, yesno?

Well... Personally I think that every player has the right to argue a houserule to a lesser extent. Not whine about it, but set up a proper argument.

Lawful_G
2010-06-01, 03:32 PM
I used to have a player that claimed real life expertise in whatever subject was advantageous and then argue with me about things based on reality.

Me: Alright, you can cross the valley on horseback in 2 hours based on it's current speed and the undergrowth.
Him: I've ridden horses through wooded terrain when I was in scouts, there's no way light underbrush would slow a horse and it shouldn't even be encumbered anyway. The encumberance tables are such bull.

On and on and on. He was so consistently an expert at everything I eventually called bull**** on anything.

LibraryOgre
2010-06-01, 03:34 PM
To be fair, the guy is also trying to hide in a room described as "filled with guards". Unless he has HiPS, it's gonna be like holding up a leaf and saying "I'm Hiding!"

However, I've got a few annoying ones.

1) Miss Can't Add. She's got this thing where she doesn't add things up on her sheet. Meaning she adds them, laboriously, each time. She also has a tendency to find a couple modifiers she "forgot" that give her successes on pretty much anything above a 1.

2) I Look For the Back Door. Looking for the back door is a viable strategy... if the rest of your party is in on it. When a good portion of your party is involved in a conversation-turned-combat at the front door, your gimpy dwarven legs should not be running ALL THE WAY AROUND THE BUILDING to see if there's a back door. Every time. It's seldom "Hey, let's investigate the back door." It's "My first action is to run away from combat and find a back door."

Greenish
2010-06-01, 03:37 PM
To be fair, the guy is also trying to hide in a room described as "filled with guards". Unless he has HiPS, it's gonna be like holding up a leaf and saying "I'm Hiding!"I assume the player has HiPS, because otherwise what the guards roll wouldn't matter.

Irreverent Fool
2010-06-01, 03:38 PM
To be fair, the guy is also trying to hide in a room described as "filled with guards". Unless he has HiPS, it's gonna be like holding up a leaf and saying "I'm Hiding!"

Isn't that how Hide in Plain Sight works?

Greenish
2010-06-01, 03:49 PM
Isn't that how Hide in Plain Sight works?If you have the stronger version of HiPS, you don't need the leaf.

cattoy
2010-06-01, 03:54 PM
that guy who used to lie about his die rolls - he's not playing anymore.

Thajocoth
2010-06-01, 04:49 PM
I had a player that decided he wouldn't like playing before we even started, rolled up the the most MAD character he could, and made constant suboptimal choices for major things, like taking a 1d6 weapon instead of a 2d6 Brutal 1 weapon because the blade on the 1d6 weapon was curved, and he worshiped a moon god... In a class who's damage dealing assumes they're wielding a very big weapon. A better weapon can still have a moon inscribed on it.

He found all the ways, short of making a Hybrid character, to have an unplayably bad character in 4e. He's still convinced, obviously, that 4e sucks. To humor him though, I tried out a 3.5e game he DMed. I didn't assume anything either. After wandering aimlessly for a couple months without a single plot hook and seeing the same 4 monsters repeatedly, everyone in that game just left... Ogres, Orcs, Kobolds and Humans happened to be indigenous to the area, so there WAS nothing else. And a plot hook walking up to us wasn't realistic, so we had to find one ourselves, which was impossible.

-----

I had another that lasted for 2 sessions... Was constantly trying to send everyone lewd sketches of their female Dwarf... And two others at around the same time that both didn't understand the concepts of "You're in a party. Even if you just got here, if someone else in the party needs help, you help." and "You're in a party. You know stuff, you tell everyone else." The latter taught me not to use the whisper feature ever...

-----

All in all, I learned simply to never play D&D over the internet.

Hzurr
2010-06-01, 05:01 PM
1) Miss Can't Add. She's got this thing where she doesn't add things up on her sheet. Meaning she adds them, laboriously, each time. She also has a tendency to find a couple modifiers she "forgot" that give her successes on pretty much anything above a 1.

Yeah...given that she's using the character builder, the amount of math she does is amazing. That being said, the skill she does have, she has ridiculously high values in, so I doubt she's ever cheating about her ridiculous rolls (I don't think she cares enough about it to cheat)




2) I Look For the Back Door. Looking for the back door is a viable strategy... if the rest of your party is in on it. When a good portion of your party is involved in a conversation-turned-combat at the front door, your gimpy dwarven legs should not be running ALL THE WAY AROUND THE BUILDING to see if there's a back door. Every time. It's seldom "Hey, let's investigate the back door." It's "My first action is to run away from combat and find a back door."

He's also a bit tired of his current character, and may be trying to get him killed. That being said, his combat logic is...weak.

LibraryOgre
2010-06-01, 05:24 PM
Yeah...given that she's using the character builder, the amount of math she does is amazing. That being said, the skill she does have, she has ridiculously high values in, so I doubt she's ever cheating about her ridiculous rolls (I don't think she cares enough about it to cheat)

Actually, that one's for my other gaming group. The Wife does pretty well, but she'll also announce that she's failed... sometimes many, many, many times in a single combat. You won't hear me complain about The Wife (except, maybe, her taste in men... but given that she hangs around with all of us, I think we can safely say she's just horrifically handicapped in that department. :smallwink:)


He's also a bit tired of his current character, and may be trying to get him killed. That being said, his combat logic is...weak.

I can understand wanting to switch characters. I can hardly fault someone for that (I'm on character number what now? 7?). He's just convinced that he has this awesome plan... that never works, and he doesn't bother to share with the rest of us.

AslanCross
2010-06-01, 06:01 PM
I dunno, you just gave me the image of a nerd flying slow motion over a coffee table towards another nerd, dual wielding massive books. It was awesome.


Sir, you have made my day. That was indeed an awesome image. Mind if I sig? :smallwink:

My most annoying player is nowhere near this guy's level. Our guy tries to optimize and whines when I recommend "suboptimal" choices, but it seems he can't do much better.

He also combs CharOp forums and these forums a lot and uses really strange homebrew combinations. He's the primary reason I typically do not allow homebrew---not because they're broken or imba or anything, but because he just gets so annoying when he brings up all sorts of character concepts I have neither the time nor patience to interpret.

That said, once parameters have been properly set, he does come up with some fairly interesting builds.

PId6
2010-06-01, 06:02 PM
It is a pretty common housrule (IME) that natural 20 is an automatic success in all rolls
That leads to many absurd situations though. Taking 20 means you auto-succeed at pretty much anything, for example. A halfling with -5 Jump can keep trying and eventually Jump to the moon with this houserule. :smallannoyed:

Ravens_cry
2010-06-01, 06:07 PM
That leads to many absurd situations though. Taking 20 means you auto-succeed at pretty much anything, for example. A halfling with -5 Jump can keep trying and eventually Jump to the moon with this houserule. :smallannoyed:
Ah, so you have heard of NAHA, the National Airborne Halfling Administration.:smalltongue:

Boci
2010-06-01, 06:13 PM
I agree with Greenish. Having 30+ on a skill is a lot. It's above and beyond of what a normal person would be capable of. In fact, it's above and beyond of what a normal person would be capable of imagining. If he managed to get his skills so high, let him use it.
[/SIZE]

Plus it makes a crowd of commoners really good security measures. One of them is going to roll a natural 20. Or a crowd of 1 hd skeletons for a necromancer.

Marriclay
2010-06-01, 06:14 PM
Sir, you have made my day. That was indeed an awesome image. Mind if I sig? :smallwink:

Absolutely! If my words can bring pleasure to the masses, who am I to stop it?

Ormagoden
2010-06-01, 06:15 PM
I dunno, you just gave me the image of a nerd flying slow motion over a coffee table towards another nerd, dual wielding massive books. It was awesome.

<snip>

Also in the background was this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt0UuNpUqK4)...


(Note: It's ALWAYS in the background of nerd duels.)

Il_Vec
2010-06-01, 06:15 PM
It is a pretty common housrule (IME) that natural 20 is an automatic success in all rolls

In my group, a Nat 20 on skills is treated as 30, and Nat 1 is -10. Keeps people from rolling till they find a 20, but keeps the feeling that sometimes you can do really difficult things, or fumble at something you are (moderatly) well trained at.

Critical
2010-06-01, 06:30 PM
Ah, so you have heard of NAHA, the National Airborne Halfling Administration.:smalltongue:
"Don't Jump to the Moon, Kids!"

Lev
2010-06-01, 06:34 PM
I'd say that the worst "brand" of players I get are ones who simply do not understand how things work.
I don't cater to these people since I don't allow complaining or upsets to chance the course of a game.

But seriously, get your players together and go off on some real life adventures, camping or something, to at least make sure you guys work together as a team and that your players start to get a sense of which way is up and how heavy a backpack is =P

Seems like all this mmorpg nonsense is messing with people's noodles.

Dusk Eclipse
2010-06-01, 06:36 PM
That leads to many absurd situations though. Taking 20 means you auto-succeed at pretty much anything, for example. A halfling with -5 Jump can keep trying and eventually Jump to the moon with this houserule. :smallannoyed:

Well, the house rule doesn't allow for such ridiculous things such as jumping to the moon, but otherwise yes.

And I am definetly going to suggest treating nat 20 as 30 and nat 1 as -10 the next time we play, seems more reasonable

Boci
2010-06-01, 06:44 PM
But seriously, get your players together and go off on some real life adventures, camping or something, to at least make sure you guys work together as a team and that your players start to get a sense of which way is up and how heavy a backpack is =P

When going camping, always remember to pack a mallet and a plastic sheet, so you can kill and dispose of the person who suggested going camping.

Greenish
2010-06-01, 06:53 PM
When going camping, always remember to pack a mallet and a plastic sheet, so you can kill and dispose of the person who suggested going camping.Camping is fun until you run out of alcohol.

Jeff240sx
2010-06-01, 07:01 PM
Sorry.. Guess I didn't mention.

Level 10 characters and level 10 NPCs, I give random NPCs 1 rank for every level they have.

The houserule we roll with is a natural 20 is treated as a 25, as opposed to an auto-success. Precisely because we don't think a Commoner should hear the God of Stealth on a natural 20, yet we still wanted to show a 'perfect' skillcheck for PC/npcs
This has lasted through 3 DMs, and about 5 years of play.

Guess I should have clarified.

sofawall
2010-06-01, 07:03 PM
Sorry.. Guess I didn't mention.

Level 10 characters and level 10 NPCs, I give random NPCs 1 rank for every level they have.

The houserule we roll with is a natural 20 is treated as a 25, as opposed to an auto-success a 20. Precisely because we don't think a Commoner should hear the God of Stealth on a natural 20, yet we still wanted to show a 'perfect' skillcheck for PC/npcs
This has lasted through 3 DMs, and about 5 years of play.

Guess I should have clarified.

Fixed it for you.

Greenish
2010-06-01, 07:04 PM
Sorry.. Guess I didn't mention.

Level 10 characters and level 10 NPCs, I give random NPCs 1 rank for every level they have.

The houserule we roll with is a natural 20 is treated as a 25, as opposed to an auto-success. Precisely because we don't think a Commoner should hear the God of Stealth on a natural 20, yet we still wanted to show a 'perfect' skillcheck for PC/npcs
This has lasted through 3 DMs, and about 5 years of play.

Guess I should have clarified.Hmm, so all your NPCs have just about maxed listen/spot, and your rogue is feeling that you won't let him do roguey stuff… might there be a connection, somewhere?

Jeff240sx
2010-06-01, 07:06 PM
Hmm, so all your NPCs have just about maxed listen/spot, and your rogue is feeling that you won't let him do roguey stuff… might there be a connection, somewhere?

Yea.. when they're *guards* and their job is to *guard* things.. listen/spot are great to have. Especially at level 10.

I skipped out on the Aid Another cheese, feat cheese, item cheese, and everything else. Level 10 guard? 10 ranks in guard-type skillchecks.

Drakevarg
2010-06-01, 07:10 PM
My worst player is definitely my cousin. His two annoying tendancies include getting bored with a character and making a new one midway through the campaign, and doing suicidally irrational things. For example:

In one incident, the party was hunting for an evil Druid in a cave, that had been sending wolves to attack travelers. While searching the cave, he comes across a sleeping bear. Being a Level 1 character, he does to obvious thing: he attacks the bear.

Long story short, TPK within 5 rounds.

In a different campaign, he was wandering the streets of a large city doing god-knows-what, when on a whim he decides to tackle a random passerby. Naturally, a guard comes to arrest him for assault, and he runs, resulting in a rooftop chase that ends with the guard missing a leap across an alleyway and breaking his leg. The player heads back to the inn and calls it a night.

The next morning, he realizes that he's almost certaintly got wanted posters of him out by now. Fortunately due to the way his character was designed, he wore a horned tribal mask at all times. He gets the brilliant idea to simply not wear it on his face, and he's home free, since it was dark at the time of the chase and that was by far his most identifiying feature.

Unfortunately, where does he hide the mask? On his shoulder, hidden under his cloak. The horns show up pretty obviously and when the guards seach him its found and he's arrested. As a direct result he's in prison for the entire duration of the first quest and an extremely important piece of exposition.

Those are the two most obvious incidents from my DMing sessions, but his brother often DMs for us as well, so I'll see if I can remember any incidents from that.

Jeff240sx
2010-06-01, 07:11 PM
Hmm, so all your NPCs have just about maxed listen/spot, and your rogue is feeling that you won't let him do roguey stuff… might there be a connection, somewhere?

You're so right... it must be horrible to have things with less-than max ranks, no WIS bonus, no synergy bonus, no bonuses at all,
versus
Rogue with +6 DEX, +13 ranks, +feat/class/item/synergy boosts.

Yea, when he rolls a 4 or 8 or whatever it was, with a ton of boosts, against a Nat20 (25) + level in ranks, I don't feel bad at all about it.

Boci
2010-06-01, 07:13 PM
Camping is fun until you run out of alcohol.

With enough alcohol anything can be fun. I wonder how many vodka shots it takes to enjoy having your tooth trilled. (Just pray the dentist is sober.)


You're so right... it must be horrible to have things with less-than max ranks, no WIS bonus, no synergy bonus, no bonuses at all,
versus
Rogue with +6 DEX, +13 ranks, +feat/class/item/synergy boosts.

Yea, when he rolls a 4 or 8 or whatever it was, with a ton of boosts, against a Nat20 (25) + level in ranks, I don't feel bad at all about it.

But as others have pointed out, your maths was off. 20 guards do not have a 50% chance of rolling one 20.

KillianHawkeye
2010-06-01, 07:16 PM
The players in my old Star Wars game kept trying to capture or kidnap the plot-important NPCs that they were supposed to be investigating covertly. :smallsigh:

Jeff240sx
2010-06-01, 07:17 PM
For example:

In one incident, the party was hunting for an evil Druid in a cave, that had been sending wolves to attack travelers. While searching the cave, he comes across a sleeping bear. Being a Level 1 character, he does to obvious thing: he attacks the bear.

Long story short, TPK within 5 rounds.


LOL! I know a party (mine!) who will find a caster for their True Resurrection - and then debate killing him in order to get their money back. I'm like "Guys! What level spell did you just buy??"

The Glyphstone
2010-06-01, 07:17 PM
You're so right... it must be horrible to have things with less-than max ranks, no WIS bonus, no synergy bonus, no bonuses at all,
versus
Rogue with +6 DEX, +13 ranks, +feat/class/item/synergy boosts.

Yea, when he rolls a 4 or 8 or whatever it was, with a ton of boosts, against a Nat20 (25) + level in ranks, I don't feel bad at all about it.

Actually, Aid Another cheese is very close to what you actually did. You skipped rolling individual checks for the guards (which they were unlikely to succeed on) and rolled one super-check for the entire group (which was much more likely to succeed). For that matter, you misinterpreted statistics - 10 guards each with a 5% chance of success is a little bit higher than 40% chance to get a 20 (40.13% specifically), not 50%.

So, the end point is that you did give him the short end of the stick, both mathematically and logically. If that was the only time you did so, and he proceeded to passive-aggressive-retaliate for every other rogue-related task through the game, he still belongs here. But he did have a reasonable beef for the first incident.

Jeff240sx
2010-06-01, 07:18 PM
But as others have pointed out, your maths was off. 20 guards do not have a 50% chance of rolling one 20.

... good thing I rolled 10d20 rather than 1d2?

WTF is the point of correcting my quick-and-easy math?

Jeff240sx
2010-06-01, 07:19 PM
Actually, Aid Another cheese is very close to what you actually did. You skipped rolling individual checks for the guards (which they were unlikely to succeed on) and rolled one super-check for the entire group (which was much more likely to succeed). For that matter, you misinterpreted statistics - 10 guards each with a 5% chance of success is a little bit higher than 40% chance to get a 20 (40.13% specifically), not 50%.



Dude? Where the hell are you getting this from?

That was my EXPLAINATION! Not my METHOD!

Was I *that bad* in conveying what I did vs said?

Boci
2010-06-01, 07:20 PM
... good thing I rolled 10d20 rather than 1d2?

Okay, it just sounded like you did the latter.


WTF is the point of correcting my quick-and-easy math?

Just pointing out what appeared to be flawed.


Was I *that bad* in conveying what I did vs said?

By saying 50% you implied that was how you calculated it.

lyko555
2010-06-01, 07:22 PM
When going camping, always remember to pack a mallet and a plastic sheet, so you can kill and dispose of the person who suggested going camping.

I can 100% support this as my dnd group decided to go camping last week.

Mystic Muse
2010-06-01, 07:24 PM
I'm always afraid that I'm this person to other people.:smallfrown:

My most annoying player asks for really unreasonable stuff. I don't even remember exactly what but it was really broken for 4e.

Drakevarg
2010-06-01, 07:25 PM
I can 100% support this as my dnd group decided to go camping last week.

I actually quite like doing this. Though I might be one of those crazy guys (no, really?) that actually enjoys camping. As long as you don't get smoke up your eyes, the scenery is awesome for setting the mood for a campaign.

The Glyphstone
2010-06-01, 07:25 PM
Dude? Where the hell are you getting this from?

That was my EXPLAINATION! Not my METHOD!

Was I *that bad* in conveying what I did vs said?

Apparently so, considering at least two or three other people in this thread also interpreted what you said the exact same way I did.

This is the internet. You've been criticized. It's not the end of the world.:smallconfused:

Zanatos777
2010-06-01, 07:31 PM
Those are great, you should vent some more and give us a good time with your prose.

Anyway, yes, I have one of those and he drives me crazy as I am the DM in that game right now. He is the opposite of your guy, however.

He metagames all the time and expects the other characters to things for him (or even like him) when he rarely reciprocates. He builds what seem to be optimized characters but he does not fully understand the rules so he stacks stuff that shouldn't stack, etc. When we get to the game, he seems to make every save and his attacks seem to get better on his multiple attacks even with the resulting -5 to each consecutive attack.

In a nutshell, he can be very frustrating but we have endured up until now and may continue to endure for some time. So we all have those types, just practice patience is my advice.

I've got this one too. He makes characters who are completely unreasonable and believe they are right in all things. Generally they have one really defining feature: either hating whoever or whatever killed him last or hating the party leader. Further they try to be the most important thing going on all the time. They almost always have very high stats, lots of magic items (cause he's making new characters so I let him have his full wealth, oddly the party almost never loots his corpse). I am certain he fudges rolls often but don't care because he is so ineffective. He dies a lot (not always by my hand), though sometimes the characters leave for stupid reasons. Usually because he does something incredibly stupid. These are all the same game. All the same player. The other players collectively have died or changed characters as much as him...maybe less. The player is male but most of the character are female and elves.

Angela the Crusader
He was once killed by level 1 guards (five of them, the basic ones in Cityscape) while he was a level 5 crusader. The reason for the battle? They wanted to confiscate his weapons (none of which were magic) after he ran through the streets threatening another PC. It took only three rounds. It was also the second or third time I had killed him in a game with enemies he totally outclassed thus some of the players started taking bets on how long he would last.

Bard whose name I forgot
His next character was a member of the minority he knew some of the PCs were violently opposed to, died the next session (beaten to death in the night after allowing himself to knocked unconscious). He faked sleeping and was then knocked out without a fight by one PC (an evil slaver, whose boss will appear later) and then beaten to death by another PC (who eventually became one the main villains).

...I don't have the character sheets with me as I type this
Next was an elven Paladin with a 9 constitution but still had hit points comparable to the warblade, melted by a black dragon. I was rather annoyed when I did the math on the character and realized he couldn't have rolled lower than 8 on any of his 8 or 9 levels, which would have been excusable if every single character (of his) had ridiculous stats.

Vanera, this one is long, also longest running character
The next character was brutally enslaved by slavers after failing to get all the hints he was picking a fight far out of his league (rendered unconscious with a chicken leg). She had a revenge subplot which I think was supposed to give him a whole self-righteous high as he completed it in an epic battle but I looked at the circumstances and elected to go the morally ambiguous road (the circle of revenge is sort of a theme as is that damage it does in my games). I put the character she was hunting in a war camp the party was going to expecting (given the player) that he would run into the character and immediately kill him.
Instead she started to question the righteousness of the whole party's quest (ready the great empire for war against the evil goddess in the south) and wanted to find out how to contact said goddess and get her side. The earlier mentioned slaver PC (who was only slightly subtle about his evil at this point cause the party felt they needed him, his manipulations not mine) secretly worked for another (and actually evil) god and captured and executed her, after questioning her (the player was trying to find a reason to not kill her, he had no sense motive). I then revealed that the revenge subplot was supposed to be wrapped up in the war camp, four hours of in game travel away the party collectively asked me to move the interrogation to the next night so the subplot could be finished.
This was fantastic I thought so they went on to the war camp. Vanera hunts down the blacksmith expecting an epic battle only to find...a blacksmith. Further he didn't deny doing the deed but went further and justified it saying that Vanera's master had killed his father (all over an artifact sword the party would fetch later and for completely different reasons). Suddenly Vanera decides that she must know the truth and marches out of the tent and grabs...some kid (his decision was to grab some kid and have them find the party bard for some reason). Soldiers in the camp did not take kindly to someone doing this and while the players were gearing up to see Angela 2.0 (epic mooks as they call them) the evil slaver stepped in and brought Vanera to see his (very, very dangerous) boss. This character attempts to have a conversation with her only to be eventually attacked. The slaver boss knocks her out and decides that she would make a good slave. Recently the character was killed ironically by the artifact sword which started the whole thing (wielded by the character she lost her powers for attacking no less) then used as a shield to close the distance with the slaver boss (which ultimately killed him, stupid archers in melee).

...Yeah there are more
The next character a cleric of Athena hunted down the party looking for the father of her child. The party's cleric of Dionysus was the father (the player was not entirely comfortable with this idea at first, the Dionysus cleric's player I mean). This character lasted a couple sessions, long enough for two of the party members to betray the party for their own reasons. Then she gave custody of her daughter to a powerful anarchist who she had known for about 6 hours (5 of which she was sleeping). The other party members game the player grief about it because it made even less sense in context. Then she went on to loss much of her powers for trying to kill another party member who she disliked because he made fun of her, the combination of these circumstances made the character leave to find her daughter again. Did I mention that she had a really creepy stalker...I want to say subtext but it really wasn't subtle.

Dervish who came out of nowhere and made no sense
Next, was a dervish who dedicated herself to a "god" (one of the party members who may or may not be a god) of peace and community, with no prompting and confusing the heck out of the whole party as she was very violent. When her village was met with destruction and it was blamed indirectly on the "god" character turned to the bad guys and gained superpowers to defeat him. She utterly failed, instead loosing all her weapons as they broke upon his vow of peace and was taken in by a goddess who said she would help her recover from her corruption. He elected not to play the character after that.

And now for Evil
Next was an evil paladin who wanted only power and murder. He quickly drew the ire of the characters (if for no other reason that trying to pick a fight with a really powerful and really well liked NPC) and got his arm burned off by an artifact. The aforementioned goddess gave him a new arm which he could only use while doing righteous deeds (defending his allies counted). He ended up mind controlled (by one of the main bad guys) and killed by the eternal blade and rogue.

The Druid (don't remember the name too short lived)
The next character was a druid who appeared and as her opening act had her snake animal companion bite a prisoner who grabbed her with venomfire. This one I admit made me angry as I observe some basic edict. You don't pull out the super spells and neither will I. I won't use death magic until the party does for instance (well main villains do cause their jerks). I had already decided that this particular prisoner was very powerful and had only been imprisoned by prophesying the danger he posed in the first place. He died soon after this encounter. In my defense the character who actually killed him (former PC who became evil, the one who beat the Bard to death actually and earlier mentioned warblade) was explicitly stated to have been hunting druids to make the party druid suffer knowing that it was her fault.

His deaths have actually become a joke in our group. My players quickly learn that NPCs are people too, he has not.
I also think I should take a moment to note that I don't hate this guy. I am merely annoyed when he sucks up huge amounts of time over very minor things.

Lev
2010-06-01, 07:46 PM
When going camping, always remember to pack a mallet and a plastic sheet, so you can kill and dispose of the person who suggested going camping.
If your group can't have fun just adventuring even in tough times, seek better friends.
Also, there are always better friends.

Boci
2010-06-01, 08:04 PM
If your group can't have fun just adventuring even in tough times, seek better friends.
Also, there are always better friends.

I actually don't mind camping, as long as I have something to write with, I was just quoting 8 out of 10 cats.

I have some fond memories of camping with my GCSE class. Nastasja, who brought her credit card, triped over a the tent cabals twice and swore she would not use the toilet until she got home. Even better, Dijana, who wanted to bring her hair dryer (when asked where she would plug it in, answered "I don't care, but I need to have it"), left the tent flap open with a half eaten choclate bar at the entrance, then was startled by the ants and when asked her mother to take her home, her mother responded "Sure thing sweetie, what is gthe name of the hotel are you in?" (the mother than then sent Dijana's baby sitter on the 1.5 hour car drive to pick her up).

MachineWraith
2010-06-01, 08:13 PM
I had a player who actually tried to sneak Pun-Pun into my game. Problem was, nobody in our group was much of an optimizer, and I had no reason to suspect shenanigans. He told me he was playing a Kobold sorcerer, and I took this at face value (stupid me :smallfrown:). That was fun.

He was a massive optimizer in a game where nobody really optimized much beyond getting some minor synergies between classes. On top of that, he always argued over any rule that he didn't like. It didn't matter if it was RAW or RAI or a houserule or anything. If what I was doing wasn't beneficial to him, he'd argue. If I went against RAW, he'd use RAW against me. If I went with RAW or RAI and it was detrimental to him, he'd argue "That's stupid, the rules are wrong, it should be like this."

Very frustrating individual.

crizh
2010-06-01, 08:14 PM
Rogue with +6 DEX, +13 ranks, +feat/class/item/synergy boosts.

Yea, when he rolls a 4 or 8 or whatever it was, with a ton of boosts, against a Nat20 (25) + level in ranks, I don't feel bad at all about it.

Yeah, well at that level if he doesn't have Skill Mastery he's got nothing to complain about.

It's not like this is difficult math. If max spot/listen for mooks is CR+25 then at CR10 he only needs a skill of 26 to be a total ghost if he takes 10.

You're right, he's an idiot.

(would have been easier to understand if you'd explained the house rules in the first place... :smallbiggrin: )

Greenish
2010-06-01, 08:18 PM
It's not like this is difficult math. If max spot/listen for mooks is CR+25 then at CR10 he only needs a skill of 26 to be a total ghost if he takes 10.Yeah, idiot rogue for not having 26+ skill mod on hide and move silently on level 10… wait, what?

Lev
2010-06-01, 08:22 PM
I actually don't mind camping, as long as I have something to write with, I was just quoting 8 out of 10 cats.

I have some fond memories of camping with my GCSE class. Nastasja, who brought her credit card, triped over a the tent cabals twice and swore she would not use the toilet until she got home. Even better, Dijana, who wanted to bring her hair dryer (when asked where she would plug it in, answered "I don't care, but I need to have it"), left the tent flap open with a half eaten choclate bar at the entrance, then was startled by the ants and when asked her mother to take her home, her mother responded "Sure thing sweetie, what is gthe name of the hotel are you in?" (the mother than then sent Dijana's baby sitter on the 1.5 hour car drive to pick her up).
See? It's a good filter!

Il_Vec
2010-06-01, 08:23 PM
Yeah, idiot rogue for not having 26+ skill mod on hide and move silently on level 10… wait, what?

13 ranks + 6 Dex + 7 from items = 26 and is higly doable for level 10 WBL.

Drakevarg
2010-06-01, 08:24 PM
13 ranks + 6 Dex + 7 from items = 26 and is higly doable for level 10 WBL.

Assuming you have access to whatever magic items you fancy, which is not always the case.

Gralamin
2010-06-01, 08:31 PM
Me: Statistics says there is a 10 in 20 chance of me rolling a nat20. Or 50%.


The chance of rolling at least 1 natural 20 in 10 rolls is actually 40.1%.



The probability was also closer to 40%

1 - (0.95)^20

Oh hey, someone else got it right. But that should be (1 - (0.95)^10). and is at least 1 natural 20. Which is the probability you stated, but not what you wrote down :smalltongue:

---

Luckily for me its easy to plan around what my most annoying player is likely to do, and be ready for his stupidity. Luckily as well, I tend to game with mature people and don't actually suffer problems.

Greenish
2010-06-01, 08:35 PM
13 ranks + 6 Dex + 7 from items = 26 and is higly doable for level 10 WBL.So you need custom masterwork items and cloak/boots of elvenkind to be able to reliably sneak past standard NPCs.

MachineWraith
2010-06-01, 08:39 PM
So you need custom masterwork items and cloak/boots of elvenkind to be able to reliably sneak past standard NPCs.

No, to be guaranteed to sneak past standard NPCs.

Boci
2010-06-01, 08:42 PM
See? It's a good filter!

What do you mean by filter?

For Valor
2010-06-01, 08:43 PM
I play with a guy who insists on the power of the monk, using some characters he created. 1) Shadow Sun Ninja PrC + Monk. He got it by switching into the prestige class ASAP... he can teleport once per encounter through shadows and shoots of 4d6 light damage when someone hits him... (Will save 1/2 damage) at level 15. 2) Tatooed Monk PrC + Monk. He switched into the PrC ASAP as well, and also changed out the Monk feats for shifter feats (he played the Shifter race). DR of X/anything could stop him.

Apparently that makes monks good. wtf.

Also, I DM-ed with a guy who anheroed/killed his party at every available opportunity. Needless to say, we no longer play together.

Il_Vec
2010-06-01, 08:50 PM
So you need custom masterwork items and cloak/boots of elvenkind to be able to reliably sneak past standard NPCs.

So you need custom masterwork items and cloak/boots of elvenkind to be able to autosucess sneaking past standard level 10 NPCs. If you're able to take 10.

What I meant is, if he is the rogue and expect pulling that sort of thing out, he should put his money there. Or in wands. Level 10 wbl is 49,000 GP. A competency bonus of + 10 costs 10,000. Wand of greater invis is 21.000. Skillmonkeys should have the needed contacts to find such items.If he didn't specialize in his proposed role, he shouldn't complain. These were not level 1 mooks. It was a room full of level 10 watchers.

James the Dark
2010-06-01, 08:54 PM
Most annoying player? My best friend for quite a few years definitely qualifies.

First of all, he's needlessly antagonistic. Both in games where we were both playing and in the ones which I ran, he took the most insignificant slights as a reason to ignite a blood-feud. In nWoD Werewolf, his white Japanophile Rahu (yeah, he was bad for that, too) almost killed my POLICE OFFICER because I called him on breaking the law. He also picked a fight with Tartarus and called the essense of Death itself 'a coward' because Tartarus naturally kills all mere mortals in its presence. Picked a fight with a daughter of Hades because she just happened to be on the opposite side of a confrontation which ended without a drop of blood spilt, and she made no hostile move against him. He picked a fight with an obviously more powerful villian who had taken over a town he established, just because the villian wouldn't agree to be his lackey.

Next, he's prone to insanely... I don't want to say ill-thought-out. Rather, he just utilizes Insane Troll Logic to make his decisions, sometimes. When I was running Scion for him, I made a sheet of paper and entitled it "Crap **** has done to completely derail the session for no purpose". He keeps trying to get some guns and rob the Mafia. He tried to assemble a cannon in a post office, claiming 'it wasn't illegal'. FWI, creating a device which puts those in the viscinity in mortal peril is against the law. We had to talk him down from robbing a fortress' worth of dwarves, of the belongings of their honored dead. Not smart.

Great guy, just a bit difficult to deal with, sometimes.

Galileo
2010-06-01, 09:25 PM
One of my friends insists that Fighters are equal to Wizards. He genuinely believes that you can build a fighter equal to a wizard. It's gotten to the point where our next session will kick off with a showdown between me as a sorceror 20 and him playing a fighter 20. I think I may be looking forward to this too much.

He also likes doing moronic things for no reason. For example, after we freed a town from a demon summoning cult and persuaded them to give us a ship so we could get back to the mainland, he took a dislike to them. I can't remember what he did, but it ended up with us hiding him in the hold and telling the angry mob he'd gone and hid out in the forest.

Mystic Muse
2010-06-01, 09:32 PM
One of my friends insists that Fighters are equal to Wizards. He genuinely believes that you can build a fighter equal to a wizard. It's gotten to the point where our next session will kick off with a showdown between me as a sorceror 20 and him playing a fighter 20. I think I may be looking forward to this too much.

He also likes doing moronic things for no reason. For example, after we freed a town from a demon summoning cult and persuaded them to give us a ship so we could get back to the mainland, he took a dislike to them. I can't remember what he did, but it ended up with us hiding him in the hold and telling the angry mob he'd gone and hid out in the forest.

Make sure you set it up so that it's in his favor and use only core spells. It'll be so much more satisfying.

Enervation and energy drain are nice spells. Of course there are a bunch of other really nice spells you can kill him with in core.

Also make sure you know any rules of the battle before hand so the judge (if there is one) doesn't say "Sorry, summoned monsters don't obey you. The Balor attacks you instead of the fighter" or something.

Lin Bayaseda
2010-06-01, 09:47 PM
One of my friends insists that Fighters are equal to Wizards. He genuinely believes that you can build a fighter equal to a wizard.To be honest, we all went through this stage once.

Private-Prinny
2010-06-01, 09:55 PM
To be honest, we all went through this stage once.

I didn't do it in the traditional way. My first Wizard was a specialist Evoker, and I was still outpacing the party Fighter.


One of my friends insists that Fighters are equal to Wizards. He genuinely believes that you can build a fighter equal to a wizard. It's gotten to the point where our next session will kick off with a showdown between me as a sorceror 20 and him playing a fighter 20. I think I may be looking forward to this too much.

Start on the defensive. Counter his every move while making none of your own, making sure that every blow he tries to land is just barely averted. Then, when he thinks he has a chance of beating you if he just stalls and runs down your slots, speak the two words that will turn his fight into a living nightmare. "Arcane. Spellsurge."

The Glyphstone
2010-06-01, 10:02 PM
I'd suggest the 'panoply of options' beatdown. Choose your spells known to be capable of crushing him in as many different ways as possible, and after each loss, offer to fight him again with the same build but different tactics.

i.e: First battle, Enervation spam him to death. 1 4th level spell known.
Second battle, Summon Monster VIII and deluge him with hordes of summoned beasties. Only takes an 8th level slot.
Third battle, Shapechange into something ridiculous after self-buffing and take him on in melee. 1 9th level spell known, probably a couple 2nd levels.
Fourth battle, burn him down with horrific amounts of direct damage, in multiple energy types.

This is to stop him from saying that you just got lucky, or that those spells are overpowered - when you beat him every time with completely different spells, it gets the point across better.

lyko555
2010-06-01, 10:09 PM
I actually quite like doing this. Though I might be one of those crazy guys (no, really?) that actually enjoys camping. As long as you don't get smoke up your eyes, the scenery is awesome for setting the mood for a campaign.

do your camping trips involve 7 year old children screamin daddy daddy daddy at 6 in the morning after said dad was told "dont bring your kid or dont come."

Drakevarg
2010-06-01, 10:17 PM
do your camping trips involve 7 year old children screamin daddy daddy daddy at 6 in the morning after said dad was told "dont bring your kid or dont come."

Admittedly, no. They don't involve being set on fire either, but I generally don't account for extenuating circumstances when deciding whether or not I enjoy an activity.

Moofaa
2010-06-01, 10:19 PM
My best friend is often a terrible player.

1.) First, he alway tries to make the exact same type of character no matter what rules system we use. Hes always a rogue, theif, smuggler, or assassin type of character. Not once in 15 years can I recall him playing anything else, other than one time being a fighter. (this includes PC games, as he played a rogue only when we played WoW together)

2.) He never keeps track of anything. No matter how many times I update his character sheet, he always has to ask what equipment he has.

3.) His characters never have any history. He won't even develop a satisfactory description of their appearance. I usually have to do it for him.

4.) He pays little attention to his own skills/feats/abilities. I have a homebrew fantasy campaign using my own version of the ToB. He always forgets he can do more than just announce an attack and roll a d20.

5.) He requires railroading. In order to really get him to do anything I always have to basically light a fire under his bum. This is especially true if there is any investigating/ROLE-playing/Conversation type of quest to be done. Basically he wants NPCs/other players to do all that, and he just steals/kills things. Since hes about the only person I know that is available for gaming with my wierd work hours, this basically leaves me running games where I feel like I am the only player.

Its not all that bad. He did recently switch to playing a fighter in my fantasy campaign (I was shocked), although he still forgets he has abilities aside from rolling a d20 for an attack. He also has taken some actual interest in the campaign outside of "what am I supposed to be fighting next?". I take credit for this last part since I created his whole backstory and have created an adventure that finally got his interest.

Saint GoH
2010-06-01, 10:24 PM
Hrmmm.... I have one player that refuses to tell what he does with his characters, claiming he's "protecting" his secrets. Then he does 16 touch attacks a round at level 6. :smallsigh: I don't really play with him anymore.

Annnd we all have a Miss Can't Add. Except some are worse then others. Like Miss Can't Add But Does Anyhow Apparently Adding Ridiculous Numbers Like Getting +20 To Attack and Damage With a Horrible Unoptimized BARD (of all things) At Level 3.

Lastly we have basically everyone else at the table. At least once after key levels, I always hear a "Oh, I still need to pick feats!":furious:

Ponce
2010-06-01, 10:46 PM
Oh hey, someone else got it right. But that should be (1 - (0.95)^10). and is at least 1 natural 20. Which is the probability you stated, but not what you wrote down :smalltongue:

Yes the 20 should be the number of guards (my bad), but in retrospect each guard gets both a listen and a spot check, meaning you have 20 chances to roll a natural 20, since either one is sufficient to detect him (I'm guessing). Thus in reality the guards had around a 64% chance of finding out something was up (though again this relies on the idea that a natural 20 somehow is an auto-win).

Hendel
2010-06-01, 11:01 PM
To be honest, we all went through this stage once.

I generally still go through it at levels 1 to 7 (as my casters are running on empty half way through the adventure), but once my caster gets into the groove, I always recall why I like casters better.

Rauthiss
2010-06-01, 11:28 PM
I've got this one too. He makes characters who are completely unreasonable and believe they are right in all things. Generally they have one really defining feature: either hating whoever or whatever killed him last or hating the party leader. Further they try to be the most important thing going on all the time. They almost always have very high stats, lots of magic items (cause he's making new characters so I let him have his full wealth, oddly the party almost never loots his corpse).

I have this player too. Probably the most memorable occasion was when I was running a quasi-intrigue campaign where the PCs were formerly brainwashed slaves. Of course, he has to create a character who refuses to lie. :smallsigh: That game died fast.

The other player I've really disliked was also a DM for a time. Normally, I'm fine with DMPCs, mainly because I understand that playing is often as fun as DMing, in addition to the fact that, if done well, it can lead to easier plot hooks and stuff. That said, this guy played a DMPC the TEXTBOOK WRONG way.
To start things off, he was a LE character in a good party. This was understandable, as he was bound to his "partner in crime", A CG character, as a PLOT POINT. However, the first thing his partner (CG, remember) and him tried to do was get the rest of the party violently addicted to a drug accessible only by the CG one... who refused to give us any.
This would have been bad enough, but he proceeded to make himself the most powerful character in the party by giving himself a number of powerful magic items, supposedly rolled for randomly.
And, to top it all off, his character decided to give us a plot summary. Cool, right? Makes things easier for everybody, including me. (Who had joined in halfway through the campaign) Turns out the whole thing was a lie, and none of us got a sense motive.
Needless to say, I never played with him again. :smallsigh:

Gralamin
2010-06-01, 11:34 PM
Yes the 20 should be the number of guards (my bad), but in retrospect each guard gets both a listen and a spot check, meaning you have 20 chances to roll a natural 20, since either one is sufficient to detect him (I'm guessing). Thus in reality the guards had around a 64% chance of finding out something was up (though again this relies on the idea that a natural 20 somehow is an auto-win).

Oh right, 3e splits it for some reason. I'm way to used to playing with a "Stealth" and "Perception" skill :smallwink:

Dairun Cates
2010-06-01, 11:50 PM
One of my friends insists that Fighters are equal to Wizards. He genuinely believes that you can build a fighter equal to a wizard. It's gotten to the point where our next session will kick off with a showdown between me as a sorceror 20 and him playing a fighter 20. I think I may be looking forward to this too much.

You know. I never understood this "party has to kill each other" gladiator combat that seems to emerge from basic disagreements. D&D's designed for people to work as a team. Team killing seems like kind of a waste of time for the other players involved and seems to serve no purpose other than ultimately rubbing it in someone's face. I honestly can't see a situation where this doesn't end up poorly for someone. Doing it on the side as a test, sure, but in the actual campaign. Seems to be just a bad idea in general.

Of course, I also don't typically get the point of starting a campaign at a level higher than 10 and going beyond 20th level. So, maybe I'm crazy.

BUT I digress...

I'm mostly fortunate. Most of my players are well-behaved, and the few times they act up, it's usually funnier rather than game halting. My players have actually probably broken Pirates vs. Ninjas as hard as it can be broken (doing 150 damage a turn without a crit, putting a forge in a mobile vehicle so the craftsman can use his level 5 all the time, replacing seduction with just about every skill check, and building a rock wall character so invincible he forced an enemy squad to kill themselves out of shame). Nothing that isn't amusing, and it definitely allows me to balance some of the worse problems with the system.

Of course, I occasionally get the player that acts up. Nothing too serious though. Refusing to build a character with the GM and then complaining when there's a massive oversight in their character that makes the character unplayable, absolutely refusing to go along with any adventure hooks until the party drags them kicking and screaming, not going along with any parts of the session meant for them to shine and then complaining about a lack of "face time". Things like that. I think we've all got that guy somewhere. Everyone has moments where they're hard to work with.

Matter of fact, I think truly the worst I've managed is one of players actually trying to argue that his witch hunter that interrogates completely innocent peasants at knife point and kills them when they genuinely don't know anything was a LAWFUL GOOD character. Why? Because he's hunting witches (which weren't all evil in this universe) and he had a code (kill all witches and anything he suspects might be a witch... which was half the NPCs). Pretty ridiculous, but nothing that 7 years of GM'ing didn't allow me to keep from destroying the game.

PersonMan
2010-06-01, 11:54 PM
You know. I never understood this "party has to kill each other" gladiator combat that seems to emerge from basic disagreements. D&D's designed for people to work as a team. Team killing seems like kind of a waste of time for the other players involved and seems to serve no purpose other than ultimately rubbing it in someone's face. I honestly can't see a situation where this doesn't end up poorly for someone. Doing it on the side as a test, sure, but in the actual campaign. Seems to be just a bad idea in general.

I'm fairly certain that these battles are never in the actual campaign. And at times, showing that you are right beyond a shadow of a doubt is the only way to end a long-standing disagreement, which can be quite annoying at times.

chaos_redefined
2010-06-02, 12:23 AM
Worst player: The DM in this game started us seperately with the intention of getting us together with relative speed. 3 of us got together by essentially letting the DM railroad us. (Hey, it was a relatively new idea for him, and he needed all the help he could get.) This player went off on a tangent for any possible reason he could. His character had been isolated from society since egyptian times, so he was stopping and playing with any form of technology, while we were all waiting for him to catch up. But this isn't the worst thing that someone has done for a game, and I'm surprised noone has done something similar.

Worst DM: He starts a new game for me and a couple of mates that we were introducing to D&D. He said he'd play whichever was more popular: 3.5 or 4. Since they were new, I gave them the quick rundown, but it may have been more favoured to 3.5 (my experiences with 4e at that stage were a very short-lived level 1st level game that we collectively said "Screw this, let's go back to 3.5"). He says that's fine, and he prefers it since he's more familiar with 3.5. So, to demonstrate this, I make my character and one of the new players (we'll call him Mr. S) while he makes the other new players (we'll call him Mr B.) Mr S says he wants a rogue, so I start working through it with him. To help move things quickly, I write up a list of feats and describe what each of them does, and he selects from that. That was the closest to railroading that I did. In the meantime, the DM had asked Mr B whether he wanted melee or ranged, Mr B said melee, so he was getting a paladin. Because, apparently, everyone who wants to be a melee guy wants a paladin... The paladin is so underpowered it's not funny. He has an AC 1 higher than the rogue, 10 more HP (at level 10), and no offense to speak of. The rogue was pwning everything (although this may have had something to do with my beguiler casting improved invisibility)

A couple of weeks later, the DM decides he'd prefer 4e, so he has us switch over. He tells me this in advance and I say "As long as I can still play an illusionist, whatever." And he says this is fine. So, I come along to the session ready to make an illusionist, and I get told that the nearest thing to an illusionist is a blaster mage. I ask him something along the lines of "So, they got rid of all the fun and interesting spells in 3.5 and left behind the blaster c**p?" He says yes. Eventually, I find out that he has lied and that illusionists are in the game, but I figured that it was a noob mistake, since he had said that he was new to 4e. Later on, I say to him something like "Look, I'm sorry, I hate blaster mages, and have done so for ages. Can I switch over to something I might enjoy?" It turns out that, without actually asking me anything to determine this, he had decided that it was impossible for me to enjoy illusionists, and that it was a definite that I would enjoy strikers. Even though I had said that I found blaster spells boring...

One of the last sessions before we stopped speaking to him, I was on 1 HP with a druid and in melee with an enemy. So, I try to shift out and get out of harm's way. He starts calling me a coward. I point out that I'm on 1 hp and that staying in melee on one hp isn't bravery, it's plain stupidity. So he "accidentally" misreads the rules for being dazed, gives the creature threatening reach, and does whatever he can to make it so I can't move out of it's grasp. Surprise surprise, I end up 2 points short of permanent death. He does not see why I might be annoyed with those events.

Dairun Cates
2010-06-02, 12:33 AM
I'm fairly certain that these battles are never in the actual campaign. And at times, showing that you are right beyond a shadow of a doubt is the only way to end a long-standing disagreement, which can be quite annoying at times.

1. People killing other party members without being evil characters does happen in campaign. There's certainly enough threads about this kind of stuff (from both the "look how awesome it was" side of things and the "what's wrong with my players" side of things). And I have seen in campaigns GM'ed by other people (either where I was the player or just sitting on the sidelines) where people so obsessed with who has a better character actually interrupt a session to fight on the spot. USUALLY the GM stops them, but there have been stories on the boards of characters killing another character to show they could. Not common, but not unheard of.

2. In the scenario ACTUALLY shown, you only prove that your character can kill the other. It does not prove effectiveness as a character in the campaign itself (unless the entirety of combat is with other PCs), and does not prove your character's ability to defeat other characters of the same class. This is something that can only be proven with an extensive amount of testing to remove as much margin of error as possible.

3. No one ever wins an arguments. Differences of opinion, minor disputes, and ideas, maybe. But if the other person cares about their opinion, anything you do to prove it wrong will be seen as an attack and shut down. If the player really is as annoying about his opinion as the original post suggests, then if the Sorceror wins, the fight player will call luck or loss by some other extenuating circumstance. If the Sorceror loses, then the Sorceror's player will do the same. One victory does not guarantee a side will give up. If anything, it usually motivates them.

So, I honestly can't believe that a 1 on 1 fight is going to prove anything. The best you can hope for is winning your argument and feeling better, but the other person isn't just going to bow down to you. That's not how people work.

This is also why I really don't let people get into this kind of thing unless it's for FUN and not an argument. If two people want to spar to see who would win and there's not a bit of hurt feelings going on, then yeah, I'll let them, but if this happens because of an argument where names and insults have been flung, I'll stop it.

And seeing as the original poster has already listed said player as "clearly wrong and annoying", I don't think this is in 100% good jest. So, ultimately, this is doomed to cause more problems.

"Quarrels would not last so long if the fault lay only on one side." -Francois De La Rochefoucauld

hawkingbird
2010-06-02, 12:43 AM
In the group I play with, we tend not to optimise too much. that is, we use only the core rulebooks and tend not to multi-class. Most of us focus on making interesting characters, ones who have some personality, except one guy. When it comes to ability scores (using point buy system), this guy dumps everything he doesn't need (eg, no points to str or wis, barely anything into con and int for a gnome sorcerer, all to start with 16 dex and 18 cha). In the same game, he also had a fighter since we only had 3 players, so each person got 2. The guy is a bit of a damage whore, and disliked anything which didn't do damage (fighter used a greatsword and had massive str).

My main concern with him is that he doesn't understand that there is an element of D&D which ISN'T damage based, and whenever there was no combat, his characters were useless. furthermore, he never really understood magic, and being DM and a wizard lover, I had to guide him how to play. and he's never really worked out counter-spelling (which I used against him very effectively once... mostly coz they were talking to the dungeon boss and he said "one move and i'll fireball you")

His other problem is a lack of faith in other players. He started with a monk but switched to fighter because the barbarian and archery ranger in the group "wouldn't do enough damage"... partially true for the barbarian but the ranger topped the damage

Kurrel
2010-06-02, 02:59 AM
Wow. Some of those sound like they could end friendships.

Closest I've got is a player who will shoot down everyone else's ideas as "stupid" and over analyze every situation until someone just charges straight into the encounter out of frustration.

When, as sometimes happens, it then goes bad, he will say with satisfaction, "I told you so".

Myou
2010-06-02, 05:26 AM
The chance of rolling at least 1 natural 20 in 10 rolls is actually 40.1%.




Oh hey, someone else got it right. But that should be (1 - (0.95)^10). and is at least 1 natural 20. Which is the probability you stated, but not what you wrote down :smalltongue:

---

Luckily for me its easy to plan around what my most annoying player is likely to do, and be ready for his stupidity. Luckily as well, I tend to game with mature people and don't actually suffer problems.

Can you explain the logic behind that maths?

Chrono22
2010-06-02, 05:50 AM
Well, typically the most annoying players I have are my two closest friends. They can be infuriating, stubborn, bold, and impolite but cunning, correct, artful and convincing simultaneously.

I'd say the worst person I've ever had to DM would be this guy:
so, I'm DMing at Indycon (an anime convention that sprung up last fall), and some new players show up at my table. I explain the rules, and we begin character creation. So, about half an hour later, halfway through character creation and a basic explanation of the rules, this guy shows up. He's extremely fat, he smells, and he has very thick glasses. He sits down and starts unpacking his things. When he notices me staring at him for an explanation, he lets out a bunch of unintelligible noise. I ask him to repeat himself, and once again he makes strange sounds at me. It then dawns on me that his slurring, mumbling, stuttering, and lack of emphasis is how he communicates.
He then tries to pass off a character he brought as his own. Supposedly it was a dwarven cleric, but the sheet was indecipherable. It was also a level higher than the game I was DMing, so I had him make a character. I asked him if he needed help. He said he didn't need help, he was a pro. I shrugged and let him do his thing, and I finished my explanations of the rules and classes.
He interrupts me several times to point out my "mistakes" and to tell the players how things really work. His explanations were flat out wrong. Not only did they contradict the rules, they contradicted basic logic. The other players visibly winced at some of his suggestions- that's got to tell you something.

At this point, I'm thinking this guy has to be mentally challenged (turns out I was wrong- he was just an idiot). So, I chalk it up to a learning experience and proceed with the game. He basically doesn't participate throughout it. That's just creepy, to me. That you go out of your way to join a game, just to sit, watch, and listen to the other people around you.

Well, I don't DM at conventions anymore. I don't find it fun, and I definitely have better things to do than to deal with incompetents like that fellow. It just really puts a damper on my fun when I have to slow things down for one person, and explain ad nauseam to no effect.

vegetalss4
2010-06-02, 06:35 AM
Can you explain the logic behind that maths?

sure.
the change of not getting a natural 20 with one dice roll is 0.95
this means that the odds of not getting one, with 2 dice rolls is 0.95*0.95 = 0.95^2 = 0.9025 (since we need the roll combinations where neither of the rolls give us a 20)
if we then extend this to 10 rolls we get

0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95 = 0,95^10 = 0,598737
as the odds of NOT getting a natural 20, there fore the odds of getting at least one 20 is 1-0,598737 = 0,401263, which then was presented in % and rounded off to get 40,1%

chaos_redefined
2010-06-02, 06:43 AM
Wow. Some of those sound like they could end friendships.

Mine sort-of did, but it was the fact that he kept making excuses for stuff that did it in the end. In the past, he had told people a major secret, and the basic premise of why I ended up being ok with it was that he thought I had told people already (and therefore it wasn't a secret) and it didn't turn out bad. But, with the excuses he was making both in-game and out-of-game at the time, I started to draw suspicion on the fact that he thought I had told people. Best argument in his defense was, essentially, the boy who cried wolf, so I don't speak to him anymore.

Leon
2010-06-02, 07:13 AM
CE: Barbarian Thri-krinn.
DM (ME) ok, you all enter the shady tavern, the barman is a halfling who is...
BTK: A halflingt?
DM yes a halfling, so as I was saying....
BTK: I Rage, charge him and start eating him!
All: What?:smalleek:
BTK: I hate halflings, so I eat him.
DM: Ok.. make a grapple checks
BTK: For what?
DM: to grapple the halfling
BTK: But I don't want to grapple him, I want to eat him.
DM you need to grapple him before you can eat him.
BTK: oh right (pass grapple checks) now I eat him.
ME :smallsigh:

Doesn't know his Thri-Kreen well - they like to eat elves

Totally Guy
2010-06-02, 07:15 AM
He never stops looking at his laptop. And always has a really good reason for using it...

Kesnit
2010-06-02, 08:08 AM
From some nWoD Vampire games.

Mr. Paranoid:
Although we aren't sure, we think he is somewhat paranoid IRL. We do know all of his characters have a touch of paranoia. Paranoia is not a bad think in WoD, but it can get very annoying when taken to extremes. We went through several sessions where the ST was throwing out plot hooks that the party was unable to follow up on because Mr. Paranoid kept telling us to investigate more / it's a trap / this is too easy / etc. Finally I got fed up and just ignored his character and did what I wanted to do. When I found information, I took it to the other non-paranoid character and we started following up on the hook, completely ignoring Mr. Paranoid.

After that session, the ST took Mr. Paranoid aside and asked him to tone it down. He did for one session, then realized his character has no personality if he isn't paranoid, so he rerolled. (We have not played with the rerolled character yet, so I don't know what he'll be like.)


I'm Useless In and Out of Combat:
The DM had to take a break from gaming because of RL. Each of us took a turn running short campaigns until one guy decided to run a nWoD Vampire game. (Different game from above.) Mr. Useless is a major optimizer (or thinks he is) in D&D, so he built a character that he thought would be a combat powerhouse. He built a Gangrel who fought with swords, rather than his claws. On the surface, there is nothing wrong with this. There is no rule that Gangrel HAVE to use Protean, and swordfighting is a valid combat style. Except he didn't take any of the fighting styles with swords. He also dumped Socials, which, again, is not a horrid thing to do. What it did, however, was literally make him a one-trick pony. All he could do was attack with his sword, and he wasn't very good at that, either. Plus, WoD is not combat heavy, and we would go through multiple sessions without seeing combat. He spent a lot of time just sitting at the table, watching us RP. Because, did I mention he is a really bad role-player?


(Before anyone accuses me of using the Stormwind Fallacy, just because it is called a '"fallacy" does not mean it is not true at times. He really was a roll-player who could not role-play.)

Drascin
2010-06-02, 08:15 AM
My most annoying players are simply the guys who sometimes decide to just... not appear. Or call me saying "hey, I won't be going to the game today" twenty minutes before our scheduled start. If it was for important reasons, it wouldn't really bother me - but it's generally because someone else called them to hang out. I ask them if they just don't like the game or find it boring, but no, they insist they love it, and when they ARE there they seem to have plenty of fun.

Apparently the fact that I will keep GMing and the game will be there next week for them is taken completely for granted, which I will admit annoys me to no end, and have said as such. Sigh :smallsigh:.

AvatarZero
2010-06-02, 10:24 AM
I'm always afraid that I'm this person to other people.:smallfrown:

Seconded. I'm also afraid that you're this person to other people. :smallwink:

But seriously, how many of these annoying players actually got told about what they were doing and how it was affecting other people? I'm always worried that the other people at the table will be harbouring some horrible grudge for something I didn't realise I was doing wrong. Then I end up second-guessing myself, not relaxing, and not actually enjoying spending time at the table. Does anyone else feel that way?

AtwasAwamps
2010-06-02, 10:29 AM
I’ve told mine a few times to calm the hell down, from both sides of the table. In games I’m running, I’ve told him flat-out that his interpretations are wrong, that I have references that state he is wrong, and that if he wants to argue rules with me, he’s more than welcome to, but please hold it till after the game and make sure he has a source that he’s sure of before coming to me for the sake of keeping a game going.

When we’re both playing in a game together…well, right now, I’m just making one hell of an effort to get our groups working cohesively. I’ll get to him eventually. Right now I’m more worried about the party rogue and swashbuckler who wander off to take on CR 9 challenges by themselves while the rest of the party drowns to death, which require my paladin/crusader to A) SAVE THE ENTIRE GODDAMN PARTY and then B) RUN AFTER THEM AND SAVE THEIR BUTTS. I’ll get to annoying player ticks once I’ve got them in line.

Boci
2010-06-02, 11:08 AM
Come to think of it, I've got a story, but its about a DM and he's criminally insane, not annoying. Does it still wualify for this thread?

Mystic Muse
2010-06-02, 11:12 AM
He never stops looking at his laptop. And always has a really good reason for using it...

Well, he might have his character sheet on it, or a less legal D&D resource. In which case him looking on his computer makes sense. But I'd guess if that was the case you probably wouldn't be complaining.


Come to think of it, I've got a story, but its about a DM and he's criminally insane, not annoying. Does it still wualify for this thread?

well, other people have posted a worst DM. So go ahead and reveal your horror stories.

LibraryOgre
2010-06-02, 11:30 AM
I'm always afraid that I'm this person to other people.:smallfrown:

I'm not. I know I am at times (like when I was doing everyone's math for them out of impatience).

Saint GoH
2010-06-02, 11:33 AM
He never stops looking at his laptop. And always has a really good reason for using it...

I cannot stand that... Half in, half out of the game. Always asking "Wait what? What happened? Can you say that again?"


NO MORON I ALREADY SAID IT 3 TIMES PAY ATTENTION!

Boci
2010-06-02, 11:36 AM
One of the DMs in my University's role playing society nearly got us shut down after an incident. He told everyone but one player (who was female) to leave them room, then backed her into a corner whilst describing how her character was raped. Naturally he has not been able to run any games since and yes, the girl's boyfriend did kick the living s*** out of him.

Mystic Muse
2010-06-02, 11:37 AM
Seconded. I'm also afraid that you're this person to other people. :smallwink: I shall Strike you down and grind your bones into dust.C'mon. say "If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can ever imagine"



But seriously, how many of these annoying players actually got told about what they were doing and how it was affecting other people? I'm always worried that the other people at the table will be harbouring some horrible grudge for something I didn't realise I was doing wrong. Then I end up second-guessing myself, not relaxing, and not actually enjoying spending time at the table. Does anyone else feel that way?

I told my player several times that what he wanted was completely unbalanced and that I wouldn't be able to deal with it. He eventually listened

VirOath
2010-06-02, 01:55 PM
Well, I know I am at times. Good example is I'm usually one of the last to update their characters, and often just before the session starts. Now, in my defense I'd like to say that our gaming group has 3 DMs and plays twice a week on average, alternating which campaign is being run to allow everyone to play and give people plenty of time to add to the campaign. This also gives a wide variety of DM styles and I believe helps us all improve. And, I'm normally quick about it as I have an idea of what my character is looking for.

And, I'm going to rant a bit here. Sneak Attack Fail:
Also, when the DM tells us how something works, I end up asking if he is sure about that and explain both RAW and RAI. I do believe that GM's Word Is Law, but I'd like them to make informed choices on these matters. Then again, this might be a case of Horrid GM choices, as the cases that I can remember the best was ruling Sneak Attack to only work on targets denied their dex with a house rule that flatfooted only happened by conditions and during a surprise round (Which was nearly impossible to obtain. The GM later said that he thought of sneak attack as written to be OP, as two rogues could sneak up on a character and get a full round of sneak attacks in each and kill anyone outright.)

Druid Fail:
Another case was a DM ruling that Druids could never willing touch any metal, ever, or else lose their druid abilities. At about the time I was actually getting the itch to play a druid no less. I just remembered the ruling for if he throws a pack of druids at us, attacking with Wildshape would be hitting us, hitting our armor, our metal armor. Yup, I'd argue that they just lost all druid powers right in the middle of combat.

Encounter Design Fail:
And just because it annoyed the crap out of me when it happened. I was playing a Sorc, a group of Anti-Caster mobs (insane SR for CR, with the ability to store spells stopped by SR and cast them themselves, WoW RPG with Homebrew really) outnumbered the party. No checks were allowed to see what they were as they were machines (And only the NPC had that knowledge skill), and of course they decided to divide themselves equally among the party, with the extras thankfully going to the meatshields this time (Random rolls for them, "Call out a number!"). So of course, with my lowly 6 Sorc getting high on Init, I decide to hit them with something to slow them down. And of course, I don't get past the 23+ SR on them, and eat my own spell on my next go as well as getting charged. Literally one more round from dropping, I do the only option I have. A nice big illusion to draw attention away from myself. And for my trouble? All of them rush over to charge me at once. My character was dead the moment that encounter hit the field, the damage just hadn't been rolled. And I was avoiding playing a Batman character.
And just general annoyance:
And, to top it off, one of the players that is in our DM cycle has a bad habit of just flat out ignoring me. Talking over me, not listening. Worst case of this was when we ended up arguing for three minutes over the fact that a spell didn't affect me, and I wanted to know how. Got told that I needed to pay more attention, that the AoE buff another player gave made everyone immune. Then, having to explain to him that I wasn't in range of that because I did a flying divebomb charge over 200ft in the first round of combat before anyone else got to act (This was an insanely high powered campaign of his own house rules), and of course everyone at the table was backing me on that. Mind you, I was actually having more fun after he conceded than before as it was an Insanity spell, on a Whirling Frenzy Barbarian.

Yeah, I needed to rant.

LibraryOgre
2010-06-02, 03:10 PM
One of the DMs in my University's role playing society nearly got us shut down after an incident. He told everyone but one player (who was female) to leave them room, then backed her into a corner whilst describing how her character was raped. Naturally he has not been able to run any games since and yes, the girl's boyfriend did kick the living s*** out of him.

Wow. Do you have his name and address so I can kick the living **** out of him?

AtwasAwamps
2010-06-02, 03:15 PM
Wow. Do you have his name and address so I can kick the living **** out of him?

Seconded. And thirded. Look, I got a lot of free time.

Mystic Muse
2010-06-02, 03:19 PM
Seconded. And thirded. Look, I got a lot of free time.

fourthded.

Gametime
2010-06-02, 03:44 PM
He never stops looking at his laptop. And always has a really good reason for using it...

I've got one of those. He's a fine player, usually, although he did make the mistake, last campaign, of thinking that +1 effects to magic weapons like flaming also increased attack and damage by +1. By the time we realized that, he had a +8 weapon with several extra enchantments on it. We all had a good laugh about that.

Anyway, like I said, he's normally fine. Not a great roleplayer, but decent. The problem is that when he gets bored, he'll just completely zone out for minutes at a time. He'll start arranging miniatures into formations, or playing an RTS on his laptop, or something else that is completely unrelated.

Usually, we just let him be confused when he jumps back in. One incident in particular, though, was hilarious.

We were playing Star Wars (Saga Edition, I think), and had just been captured by the Big Bad's Dragon. We were cornered, with no hope of fighting our way out, when a pirate captain NPC literally crashed his ship through the side of the base we were in. In the confusion, we jumped onto the ship and managed to fly off. It was simultaneously the most ridiculous and most awesome thing that has ever happened to us.

Anyway, the captain is helping us to flee when some of the bad guys catch up to us. The captain holds them off, and gets mortally injured in the process. He starts to give a few dying words when the aforementioned player - who has been fiddling with action figures during this dramatic scene - grabs a Jabba the Hutt model, makes a swooping motion towards the captain's miniature, and yells "CHARGE! AWOOHOOHOOHOOHOO!"

We were silent for about a minute before asking him where the %$&# THAT came from. It was the most inexplicable thing he has ever done, and was pretty grating at the time since it ruined the moment of what had been a really tragic scene.

Now, we all think it's hilarious, and AWOOHOOHOOHOOHOO has become our official battle cry.

Myou
2010-06-02, 04:00 PM
sure.
the change of not getting a natural 20 with one dice roll is 0.95
this means that the odds of not getting one, with 2 dice rolls is 0.95*0.95 = 0.95^2 = 0.9025 (since we need the roll combinations where neither of the rolls give us a 20)
if we then extend this to 10 rolls we get

0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95 = 0,95^10 = 0,598737
as the odds of NOT getting a natural 20, there fore the odds of getting at least one 20 is 1-0,598737 = 0,401263, which then was presented in % and rounded off to get 40,1%

Oh, I see where I was confused, using 0.05*0.95^9 gives the odds of a 20 followed by 9 non-20 results. :smallredface:
Thanks.

Boci
2010-06-02, 04:03 PM
Wow. Do you have his name and address so I can kick the living **** out of him?

Seconded. And thirded. Look, I got a lot of free time.

fourthded.

Well with me that makes four of us. I recommend we cover him in tar, throw a load of feathers on him, give him half a minutes head start in the form of him being chucked down the hill at Seaton Park, and then commence hunting down the owlbear that has been terrorizing the locals.

Pechvarry
2010-06-02, 04:25 PM
He never stops looking at his laptop. And always has a really good reason for using it...

Strongly considering unplugging the cable connecting my modem to router on geek days. I think having no Internet but still being able to share character sheets and resources could go far.

Morph Bark
2010-07-11, 02:27 PM
One of my friends insists that Fighters are equal to Wizards. He genuinely believes that you can build a fighter equal to a wizard. It's gotten to the point where our next session will kick off with a showdown between me as a sorceror 20 and him playing a fighter 20. I think I may be looking forward to this too much.

Oh, you can build a Fighter that is equal to a Wizard, but the Fighter will be a really good Fighter and the Wizard will be a lousy Wizard.

Tinydwarfman
2010-07-11, 03:30 PM
Oh, you can build a Fighter that is equal to a Wizard, but the Fighter will be a really good Fighter and the Wizard will be a lousy Wizard.

Oh yeah, just look at all those wizard who only prepare heightened hold portal in their 9th level slots.

On topic: Our worst players is our DM. Has a bit of a temper. But after that, probably this guy who comes every week with his Ipad, requires other people to build competent characters for him, and often has to be alerted to when his turn is. But he is really nice and always plays support character, so he's fine to play with. I actually like building characters for him. I just have to remember not to give him too many option that he could forget about.

Skorj
2010-07-11, 05:18 PM
Oh yeah, just look at all those wizard who only prepare heightened hold portal in their 9th level slots.


If only Gandalf had thought to do that, he wouldn't have needed to tank down that Balrog. :smalltongue:

arrowhen
2010-07-11, 05:41 PM
The one who brought over *twenty* books to my core-only game and went through them one by one asking if he could use this class or that feet... and this after saying how he thought going back to core-only would be a refreshing change of pace.

Mystic Muse
2010-07-11, 05:57 PM
The one who brought over *twenty* books to my core-only game and went through them one by one asking if he could use this class or that feet... and this after saying how he thought going back to core-only would be a refreshing change of pace.

What you hear "It sure would be fun to do a core only game"

What he means. "Hey, everybody besides me should be restricted to only core"

Lhurgyof
2010-07-11, 07:11 PM
Karl... Just, Karl.
He's loud, obnoxious, stubborn as a donkey, has b.o., doesn't know the rules that well, gets pissy easily and ugh. Dx

I mean, I told him, showed him in a dictionary, and showed him online that "BLACKGUARD" is pronounced "BLAGGARD" but he still fight and whines "But that's the real world, this is D&D, mneh mneh mneh" and he gets the other players to agree with him. He's so infuriating. Dx

And I mean, I wasn't trying to shove it down his throat or anything, I had found it out and told the party "Hey guess what I found out, turns out blackguard is pronounced blaggard"
And Karl comes in "Noooo, it's blackguard. It says right there: Black, guard, I thought you were smart, Dean."

I want(ed) to kill him with a rusty spoon.

Lhurgyof
2010-07-11, 07:16 PM
One of the DMs in my University's role playing society nearly got us shut down after an incident. He told everyone but one player (who was female) to leave them room, then backed her into a corner whilst describing how her character was raped. Naturally he has not been able to run any games since and yes, the girl's boyfriend did kick the living s*** out of him.

Thats... just horrid. O.O

Mystic Muse
2010-07-11, 07:19 PM
Thats... just horrid. O.O

Yes. Which is why several other playgrounders offered to kick the **** out of him too. We wouldn't really as that would get us in big trouble but the guy deserves it.

Also, the mispronunciation of Blackguard isn't that bad if he just likes the way it sounds better. The other issues are the ones I'd focus on. Although I imagine you are focusing on those and the blackguard one is just the icing on a very annoying cake.

Lhurgyof
2010-07-11, 07:26 PM
Yes. Which is why several other playgrounders offered to kick the **** out of him too. We wouldn't really as that would get us in big trouble but the guy deserves it.

I sign up too, then. That's just horrible. D:


Also, the mispronunciation of Blackguard isn't that bad if he just likes the way it sounds better. The other issues are the ones I'd focus on. Although I imagine you are focusing on those and the blackguard one is just the icing on a very annoying cake.

Yes, it is the stick that broke the camel's back. And it's not even that it sounds cooler, it's just that he always has to be right, even if he's wrong, and is stubborn beyond stubborn. Basically, he gets everyone else to agree and then Karl's right, no matter what.

But then again, I did kill his character later in the session. The tainted raver that was fighting him grappled him and then held his face down in mud until he suffocated. Nobody even noticed (or cared, more likely) so nobody saved him in time.

EDIT: Oh, and he's the type of player that plays Kender...
I remember I rolled up a character I really liked, a Dray Knight. And so we're in a dungeon and we're walking along and he starts to play his ****ing harmonica for no reason (he was named Billy Joel). So I tell him to stop, because it will alert monsters. But he keeps playing. After a few warnings, I punch him in the face (knocking him out), stash him in a drawer of a room, and break his harmonica. The DM made me change my alignment to True neutral because Karl whined that it was a chaotic act, so I couldn't be a knight anymore, made the character unplayable. I wanted to kill him with a rake.

Hague
2010-07-12, 01:05 AM
Chaotic? Why the hell would that be chaotic? Your knight, a sworn protector, whom has other obligations besides making that one guy happy, punched a guy that he fairly warned (no surprise round, right?) because he was risking the safety of the group. In this case, the group mentality overcame the individual mentality. That's not chaotic in the slightest. Now, breaking the harmonica was probably a chaotic act. His behavior didn't give you the right to destroy his possessions. Stuffing him in the drawer was probably evil, assuming the area is dangerous, but it wasn't chaotic.

HunterOfJello
2010-07-12, 01:12 AM
Player who would always get upset when his character did bad and refused to play anything but a monk. >_>

Rockphed
2010-07-12, 01:48 AM
Well with me that makes four of us. I recommend we cover him in tar, throw a load of feathers on him, give him half a minutes head start in the form of him being chucked down the hill at Seaton Park, and then commence hunting down the owlbear that has been terrorizing the locals.

I'll be your bard! Nothing could possibly be more humiliating than being tarred and feathered while an imbecile sings a jaunty tune in the background!:smallamused:

arrowhen
2010-07-12, 03:32 AM
What you hear "It sure would be fun to do a core only game"

What he means. "Hey, everybody besides me should be restricted to only core"

Sadly, the chargen session where he brought the stack of books he'd already agreed we wouldn't be using was him on his best behavior.

In the first actual game session he'd devolved into the dreaded "just kidding" player, i.e.,:

Idiot Player: I'm going to pick the Fighter's pocket and steal the gem she found.
DM: (heavy sigh.) Fine. Roll Sleight of Hand vs. the Fighter's Spot.
Fighter: If I catch you, you're going to wake up tomorrow morning with my sword sticking out of your face!
Idiot Player: Ha ha! Just kidding!

By the second session he'd sunk even further, making veiled yet unmistakable disparaging comments about the sexual preferences of two of the other players. (A lesbian couple, as if that matters.)

After that, he was invited -- in no uncertain terms -- to never show his face in my home again.

HunterOfJello
2010-07-12, 04:44 AM
Sadly, the chargen session where he brought the stack of books he'd already agreed we wouldn't be using was him on his best behavior.

In the first actual game session he'd devolved into the dreaded "just kidding" player, i.e.,:


That's what the "Everything You Say Counts" rule is for.

Myou
2010-07-12, 04:59 AM
Karl... Just, Karl.
He's loud, obnoxious, stubborn as a donkey, has b.o., doesn't know the rules that well, gets pissy easily and ugh. Dx

I mean, I told him, showed him in a dictionary, and showed him online that "BLACKGUARD" is pronounced "BLAGGARD" but he still fight and whines "But that's the real world, this is D&D, mneh mneh mneh" and he gets the other players to agree with him. He's so infuriating. Dx

And I mean, I wasn't trying to shove it down his throat or anything, I had found it out and told the party "Hey guess what I found out, turns out blackguard is pronounced blaggard"
And Karl comes in "Noooo, it's blackguard. It says right there: Black, guard, I thought you were smart, Dean."

I want(ed) to kill him with a rusty spoon.

Blaggard's a word, Blackguard is, in the context of D&D, a name. So as a name it's distinct from the word and can have it's own pronunciation. Really, it's up to the players and DM - the guy wasn't wrong.

But that doesn't mean he's not annoying for other reasons.

Ricky S
2010-07-12, 08:33 AM
Unfortunately I think I am the annoying player of the group. I get a bit bored sometimes at my fellow PC's taking so long to advance the plot that I do stupid things.

PC1: Ok we need to sneak up on him and knock him out
PC2: Yea ok where should we do this? At the tavern or something?

This discussion goes on for ages

Me: I walk up and attack the character
Dm: ok the character turns around and fire a lightning bolt at you
Me: I attack back while screaming for revenge
Other players: We attack as well.
Dm: No you don't you were arguing about the strategy to attack back at the tavern

It ended up with my character being imprisoned and the other guys going to rescue me. They all died and I managed to escape from the prison. They were so pissed that when they remade their characters they killed mine.

Another time there was a chest at the bottom of pit which was half filled with acid.
Fellow player: I reckon if I was quick enough I could get the contents of the chest. It cant be that damaging.
Me: I push you in!

His character falls in and dies. It is not actually acid but a magical jelly which drains con.

DM: You killed your fellow partymember your alignment changes to CE (from CN)
Other player with a paladin smites me as I am now evil.

There are various other stories like these. It usually just ends up pissing off one person though and making everyone else laugh histerically. I make these sort of stupid mistakes less often now though. I put it down to being a noob before.

Schylerwalker
2010-07-12, 08:45 AM
The problem with the most annoying player in my group is that he's also my best friend. I mean, we've got an ADD kid, somebody who plays over the computer (Though not permanently, thankfully), a shy guy who lets others hog the spotlight, someone who gets bored when there isn't enough combat, and two girls who rarely show up - and when they both do, they can't STFU - any yet it's the guy who I'm best friends with that just annoys the bloody crap outta me.

How messed up is that?

His main problem is that he complains a lot and makes snide comments, especially about combat. Fore example, the party had gotten into a fight with a behir, and I noticed half-way through the fight its truly sickening ability to get half-a-dozen attacks on someone it had grappled. When I pointed this out to the startled character who was grappled by it at the time, the player says, in this incredibly insufferable voice, "Maybe you should check your monsters before placing them."

He always whines about party incompatibility, fights that are too challenging ("Maybe you should have looked up the ECL beforehand"), and overpowered character classes. The most annoying thing about him complaining about overpowered characters (Especially stuff from Tome of Battle and similar things), is that he'll sneak in a really powerful build that uses more-or-less ordinary stuff in broken ways. It's bloody infuriating.

And don't get me started on the time that he brought in a heavily optimized shape-shifting druid, that, half-way though the adventure, decided he'd "had enough of the island" and decided to bug out and escape. Which he managed to do, even with me desperately throwing obstacles in his way. (He then proceeded to brag about escaping my adventure later on). The worst thing about that situation was, without the tank/blaster/healer, and an additional action per round, what should have been a very challenging fight ended up being a TPK! :smallfurious:

Seriously, while I love the guy out of game, I really, really hate gaming with him, but I'd feel terrible saying "Stop playing in my games."

Lhurgyof
2010-07-12, 09:52 AM
Chaotic? Why the hell would that be chaotic? Your knight, a sworn protector, whom has other obligations besides making that one guy happy, punched a guy that he fairly warned (no surprise round, right?) because he was risking the safety of the group. In this case, the group mentality overcame the individual mentality. That's not chaotic in the slightest. Now, breaking the harmonica was probably a chaotic act. His behavior didn't give you the right to destroy his possessions. Stuffing him in the drawer was probably evil, assuming the area is dangerous, but it wasn't chaotic.

Indeed, that's what I argued!
And you're forgetting the fact that he was a Kender. When you're race is known for nothing but thievery, the gloves come off when it starts to endanger you in other ways.
And the room was pretty safe, but I wanted to ditch him and hopefully he wouldn't follow us any more. But of course, the big baby (I mean, he's friggin 20 or something) got his way.


The problem with the most annoying player in my group is that he's also my best friend. I mean, we've got an ADD kid, somebody who plays over the computer (Though not permanently, thankfully), a shy guy who lets others hog the spotlight, someone who gets bored when there isn't enough combat, and two girls who rarely show up - and when they both do, they can't STFU - any yet it's the guy who I'm best friends with that just annoys the bloody crap outta me.

How messed up is that?

His main problem is that he complains a lot and makes snide comments, especially about combat. Fore example, the party had gotten into a fight with a behir, and I noticed half-way through the fight its truly sickening ability to get half-a-dozen attacks on someone it had grappled. When I pointed this out to the startled character who was grappled by it at the time, the player says, in this incredibly insufferable voice, "Maybe you should check your monsters before placing them."

He always whines about party incompatibility, fights that are too challenging ("Maybe you should have looked up the ECL beforehand"), and overpowered character classes. The most annoying thing about him complaining about overpowered characters (Especially stuff from Tome of Battle and similar things), is that he'll sneak in a really powerful build that uses more-or-less ordinary stuff in broken ways. It's bloody infuriating.

And don't get me started on the time that he brought in a heavily optimized shape-shifting druid, that, half-way though the adventure, decided he'd "had enough of the island" and decided to bug out and escape. Which he managed to do, even with me desperately throwing obstacles in his way. (He then proceeded to brag about escaping my adventure later on). The worst thing about that situation was, without the tank/blaster/healer, and an additional action per round, what should have been a very challenging fight ended up being a TPK! :smallfurious:

Seriously, while I love the guy out of game, I really, really hate gaming with him, but I'd feel terrible saying "Stop playing in my games."

Ouchies... Hmm. Well, if he's really your best friend, he should understand if you talk to him. Or just tell him to quit complaining. If he really doesn't like the game that much, he should leave it. O.o

okpokalypse
2010-07-12, 09:58 AM
4 – He’s…well, he’s kind of a bad player and he gives terrible advice and unfortunately, people listen to him. He also has an absolute hard-on for the fighter class. What’s worse is that he hangs out with the group more than me (they all live in the same neighborhood, I live a bit outside of it) so they end up coming to each session with me correcting rules misinterpretations and bad advice when they ask me about certain things.

Player: “So, as a fighter, you basically want to have weapon focus and weapon specialization as early as possible.”
Me: “Actually, to be fair, those feats are fairly weak when you’re playing outside of core, compared to other feats such as…”
Player: “Whatever, I know fighters, man.”

Me advising the person trying to play a melee cleric: “You see, with Divine Metamagic, you can eventually persist Divine Power, which grants you full BAB, more strength, more hitpoints…you’re basically a fighter with powerful cleric spells and better class features.”
Player: “See, I never got that…why not just play a fighter? Then you get bonus feats, too.”
Me: “…Because…you…you get cleric casting?”
Player: “Psh, just dip cleric and buy some wands.”

Player: “Never ban evocation as a wizard, it’s your most powerful school.”


He sounds like a 2nd Edition player who never got caught up with 3rd Edition concepts :).

okpokalypse
2010-07-12, 10:16 AM
His main problem is that he complains a lot and makes snide comments, especially about combat. For example, the party had gotten into a fight with a behir, and I noticed half-way through the fight its truly sickening ability to get half-a-dozen attacks on someone it had grappled. When I pointed this out to the startled character who was grappled by it at the time, the player says, in this incredibly insufferable voice, "Maybe you should check your monsters before placing them."

He always whines about party incompatibility, fights that are too challenging ("Maybe you should have looked up the ECL beforehand")

While said player is an arse about it, he's got a point. As a DM, you really should hide your suprise at things you might not have fully researched unless you want him doing this more (and worse - feeling justified doing so).

I've had a rough run recently with a DM that threw (at a 5-Member, 5th Level Party) an ECL 15+ Encounter (3 L10 Casters, L10 Fighter and a Construct). And that was after a pair of encounters before that which were ECL 6 and ECL 8. We really didn't have a chance. I spoke afterwards with him (respectfully) that we're really not in a position to fight what he's throwing at us and survive. That he needs to scale things a little more reasonably if he wants to have a campaign and not 5 players who're going to start making pun-pun's to survive - cause it was getting close to that...


And don't get me started on the time that he brought in a heavily optimized shape-shifting druid, that, half-way though the adventure, decided he'd "had enough of the island" and decided to bug out and escape. Which he managed to do, even with me desperately throwing obstacles in his way. (He then proceeded to brag about escaping my adventure later on). The worst thing about that situation was, without the tank/blaster/healer, and an additional action per round, what should have been a very challenging fight ended up being a TPK! :smallfurious:

Seriously, while I love the guy out of game, I really, really hate gaming with him, but I'd feel terrible saying "Stop playing in my games."

That antic would have gotten him a first and last warning that abandoning the party in that fashion. If he's going to get "bored" and make his PC leave the game, he may as well leave the group. Period.

However, for the sake of the rest of the party, scale your adventure when a PC does that. Otherwise it just stops being fun for everyone. As the DM, you could have potentially salvaged that with a little tweaking - and left Mr Druid sitting out twiddling his thumbs while the rest of the party had a great time.

In fact, that's exactly what I'd do. Since he left, he has no awareness of what's going on. I'd basically put the rest of the party through a power-levelling session just to spite him for his antics by setting him up to be 2-3 levels lower than the rest of the party...

Provengreil
2010-07-12, 01:03 PM
I'm running a 3 man campaign right now(our 4th stopped being able to come just last session) and fighter really annoys the c**p out of me.

first off, he pretty much decides when to play and when not to, and this will change in the middle of the session. for example, I'm running Red Hand of Doom right now and during the encounter where you learn about the northern roadblocks, he was out in another room shooting at pretend terrorists with an airgun and calling for support while wizard got all the information. later, when he had to explain his presence to the elves of starsong village, he blurts out: "a massive goblin army is coming for you" despite the fact that the Red Hand, had it cared about the elves, would have had to completely change direction and go about 60 miles or so out of it's way. this fact is obvious to anyone who looked at a map.

In combat, he never thinks, and constantly assumes thing retroactively. he usually asks me how he can best move to attack the closest enemy, or else how to get other people healed. Actual example: he is blocking the way into a room, behind him are 2 casters with no spells remaining. there is a hag outside but he cant see it due to invisibility. the following conversation ensued:

Fighter:"i swing at it"
me:"you cant see it"
Fighter:"then i charge it"
me:"what, the wall?"
Fighter:"no, the hag"
me:"you don't see a hag"
Fighter:"i roll a listen check. (fails)...OK i charge this square(moves out of the doorway to charge a random square)"
me:"...fine. you miss"
Fighter:"so where's the hag?"
me:"its now attacking the wizard with no spells(hits the wizard, dropping invis)"
Fighter:"wizard, use your potions"
Wizard: "we have potions?"
Fighter:" I bought like 9 of them in the last town"
Wizard: "good for you, why didn't we know this"
me: "wait, what? when did this happen, did you steal them or pay?"
Fighter:"i bought potions and gave them to him"
me:"was this before or after you got pickpocketed at the front gates for all you cash?"
Fighter: "when did that happen?"
me: "we shouted it to you when you were playing marine."
Fighter:"sorry, i was busy. so I have no potions or money?"
::headdesk::

also, if my PCs aren't easily beating everything, they get pretty dejected. in fact, the best way to make everyone give up for a session is to let one of them die. it really kinda sucks cause I have to hold off and do odd tactics that put them in bad situations that have no real threat to them if I want the session to continue.

okpokalypse
2010-07-12, 01:39 PM
also, if my PCs aren't easily beating everything, they get pretty dejected. in fact, the best way to make everyone give up for a session is to let one of them die. it really kinda sucks cause I have to hold off and do odd tactics that put them in bad situations that have no real threat to them if I want the session to continue.

Well, I won't read into the whole Fighter thing. At least he was trying... How he didn't know he both ddin't have coin nor that he didn't have potions is an odd circumstance.

As to your party not dealing well with challenges - they've got to learn that it's a game and sometimes a PC will fall. It's not the end of the world. I always have a DM-approved 2nd character ready to roll in if something should happen to my primary PC. Hell, it doesn't even need be death. There may be a tangent adventure or RP issue that my PC would leave the party for legitamately. I'm not going to short-hand the party so I've got a roll-in ready to go at all times.

Then again, I play in a relatively open environment. I've had as many as 4 active PCs in a single campaign - all alive and kicking in different parts of the world doing different things. If they ever met, I had one that was "primary" over others and the rest reverted to NPC status and the DM either controlled them, or found a reason for them to no longer be there.

As a DM I always make players roll at least 2 characters to start and tell them to continue to level them up as the game progresses to keep them in line with the active party. When a party member falls, getting them back in usually takes about 30 minutes of time to do so, depending on the circumstances. In "fortuitous" circumstances, where the party's mage fell during a castle seige (they were working their way up through the dungeons) they just happened to free the replacement character not 5 minutes later, and fought one battle to get his items back from the lock-box it was kept in by the warden. Conveinent. And it kept the party balanced and all people involved despite the death.

Provengreil
2010-07-12, 01:49 PM
Well, I won't read into the whole Fighter thing. At least he was trying... How he didn't know he both ddin't have coin nor that he didn't have potions is an odd circumstance.
...
As a DM I always make players roll at least 2 characters to start and tell them to continue to level them up as the game progresses to keep them in line with the active party. ...

That's a good idea, having two characters. Wizard and cleric have decided to shave time off by leveling up the session before they could expect it, so i just have to look over their sheet real quick and make sure they didnt make a mistake. extending that to a second character per player could easily work.

as for fighter, there are two separate problems. one is getting him to pay enough attention that he stores new information, like getting pickpocketed. the other is getting him to translate that he wants to do certain things. shortly after the headdesk bit of that conversation, i looked over his character sheet and he had, in fact, paid for potions(we had long established their price at this particular shop); he just hadn't told anybody. which, of course, was a problem compounded by the fact that he didn't register that he had no cash. it can get quite irritating, and it' made worse by the fact that these things always arise mid-combat, like when he needed the potions he didn't buy to be in wizard's pockets.

Roga
2010-07-12, 01:54 PM
I had one for a long time. He would act like he knew everything, since he had most of the books, but the moment you challenged him he'd fold and say "Well I guess I don't know anything." At which point he was the equivalent of the "melting child." He'd refuse to add up his numbers for anything, since he'd "obviously get them wrong."

He'd argue about the dumbest things and would disagree with a plan merely because he didn't come up with it. Example:
Party consists of a Half-Dragon Warforged (There's a backstory), a Pixie, a Warforged Artificer (He was booted from house Cannith for wasting funds on making the Half-dragon Warforged) and a human sorcerer.

My Artificer was a golem master, so I had a workshop built into a portable hole. To help the group I had a Flesh Golem named Helga. Long story short, travel was a major hurdle, since the Half Dragon could fly (Feats) and the pixie could basically ride on his shoulder. Helga would run tirelessly along the ground, and we had to figure out what to do with the sorcerer.

His idea was for me to make a Harness so he could ride Helga like he was a backpack, but he quickly got annoyed because Helga would follow base instructions to the letter. He would actually start yelling at her, calling her retarded, but would never actually give her an order. We had to explain for 30 mins for him to understand what mindless means. Needless to say he didn't want to be carried anymore.

His solution is to buy wands of fly. He doesn't even want me to make them with a discount. We try to explain why that would be horribly inefficient. I offer to make him an Effigy Hyppogriff, as it would fly tirelessly with the warforged, but he insisted he wanted his wands.

We started writing down every bit of nonsense that came out of his mouth. Some examples:
"How do they know I'm a centaur? I'm wearing a mask!"
"But what about non-magical spells?"
"If I were to take a boulder....and...polymorph it into a pebble....and...put it in a cup...could I lift it?"
"I cast stone shape to make a wall between me and the drow" (We're fighting in underground tunnels, and he just cut himself off from the rest of the party) "Okay, now I cast disintegrate on the wall so I can attack the drow" (That was 2 consecutive rounds, he made the wall, and then destroyed it, wasting 2 spells for no reason)

Fitz10019
2010-07-12, 03:37 PM
sure.
the change of not getting a natural 20 with one dice roll is 0.95
this means that the odds of not getting one, with 2 dice rolls is 0.95*0.95 = 0.95^2 = 0.9025 (since we need the roll combinations where neither of the rolls give us a 20)
if we then extend this to 10 rolls we get

0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95*0,95 = 0,95^10 = 0,598737
as the odds of NOT getting a natural 20, there fore the odds of getting at least one 20 is 1-0,598737 = 0,401263, which then was presented in % and rounded off to get 40,1%

Ah, but those're the odds of rolling a 20 only once in ten tries. You should also consider that 2,3, or 9 20's will come up during those ten tries. So.... 40,2% :smalltongue:

Math_Mage
2010-07-12, 04:22 PM
Ah, but those're the odds of rolling a 20 only once in ten tries. You should also consider that 2,3, or 9 20's will come up during those ten tries. So.... 40,2% :smalltongue:

This is incorrect. The chance of getting exactly one 20 in 10 rolls is (1/20 * (19/20)^9) * 10 = 0.5*(19/20)^9 ~ 31.4%. That is, it's equal to the odds of rolling 20 and then not rolling 20 nine times, multiplied by the number of possible arrangements. As vegetalss4 says, the probability of rolling at least one 20 in 10 rolls is the complement of the probability of rolling no 20 in 10 rolls, or 1 - (19/20)^10 ~ 40.1%.

Roga
2010-07-13, 01:36 AM
Let's worry about math elsewhere, I wanna hear about more bad players. This is like a support group for me :P

Psyx
2010-07-13, 05:03 AM
We started writing down every bit of nonsense that came out of his mouth. Some examples:

Dumbest one I ever heard: Barbarian is standing in a cave, looking at writing on the wall saying 'Beware the East wind'

"Which way is East?"

Party member standing outside points "That way"

"No; I mean which way is East in here!"


He was dumb as a box of rocks sometimes, but funny.

Players with laptops are annoying. Very annoying. iPhones are possibly worse, because if you call a player up on fiddling with one, they invariably try to tell you that they were looking at their dice roller/spell list.

okpokalypse
2010-07-13, 08:23 AM
Players with laptops are annoying. Very annoying. iPhones are possibly worse, because if you call a player up on fiddling with one, they invariably try to tell you that they were looking at their dice roller/spell list.

My entire campaign setting (characters, custom content, maps, house-rule docs, etc..) in on my tablet PC as are all my 3.5 Materials in PDF format. I don't lug 50 lbs of books with me when I play, I use technology. Sorry. I'm even contemplating writing a nice big-display custom die-roller for it...

And I'm also in the process of writing an iPhone character sheet & spell / power list app. I think I'll have it done by the end of the summer. Technology is your friend.

What does it matter if a player is staring into space or surfing a website on an iPhone. If the player is so out of touch one of two things needs to happen. 1) The DM needs to get his character involved or 2) (If he is involved and just not paying attention) Give the player a talking to about being considerate and actually playing the game.

If both of these have been done, then you politely ask him to not play.

Lhurgyof
2010-07-13, 12:42 PM
How about trevor? We're essentially a low-OP group, and roleplaying is quite important in the game, but he makes a friggin' Goliath Barbarian that can deal so much damage that he turns monsters to mush. No backstory, no roleplaying what so ever, pretty much.

Or Dillon's healbot. He makes it so we literally can NOT die. And it takes the fun out of the game. Even if we do die, he can rez us without level loss with that stupid spell. And if he cant do that he can just regular rez us.

Psyx
2010-07-13, 12:48 PM
My entire campaign setting (characters, custom content, maps, house-rule docs, etc..) in on my tablet PC as are all my 3.5 Materials in PDF format. I don't lug 50 lbs of books with me when I play, I use technology. Sorry. I'm even contemplating writing a nice big-display custom die-roller for it...

Fair enough for a GM. I'll bet you don't sit there playing RTS or anything though.
I don't want anyone surfing the web on their phone, because it slows the game down for others, as they have a tendency to still have their nose in it when it comes to their initiative count, or to miss boxed text. It's them putting their time above 6 other people's. I don't put up with it, or any other displacement activity at the table, to be honest. Players spending half the session looking through equipment guides [Chromebooks specifically] is also annoying.

That said, a GM starting to do 'boxed text' and a player who was already talking raising their voice to continue talking over the GM is even worse.

DarkEternal
2010-07-13, 01:23 PM
I am more or less pretty satisfied with my group. When they do annoy me is either by taking advantage of some stupid typo in the books, getting high as kites and not remembering what the hell they need to do, or wanting to "haste" the entire plot to the next encounter or something. Also, sometimes I confess I have my own visions on how certain classes should be played(I know they "could", but in my opinion rangers should not be starting sodding forest fires as a diversion or have friendly chats with the undead that are his favored enemies), but I am at a loss with how to punish them. Sometimes I want to get them to a fight soon as well, but sometimes also it is good to just sit back, look at how they interact with each other and have a good laugh.

Incidentally, the best roleplayer out of them all is the guy who knows the least about the game. He memorizes some stupid arse spells(plays a dwarven chaotic neutral cleric) that he can't use properly or didn't read very well, has a pretty poor knowledge on which feats to choose and generally forgets stuff(forgot to add his hp a few times on level up and such things), but as a roleplaying mad cleric, he's awesome. It fits his character. He goes around in a skirt, with a pirate head on his head and a puffy shirt, cones his beard all the time and plays the mandolin(without knowing to play the mandolin by the way) next to the serious wizard, much this chagrin.

He has ideas about raising undead to have a danceoff with them, thinks about using some alignment changing spell on the before said wizard wih whom he has some sort of a rivalry with(or other cleric to screw him up a bit) which has a casting time of 10 minutes or something and involves drawing symbols on their bodies just for the fun of it and is greedy, witt like over 50 000 gold carried in various bags of holding all over his body(hates to spend a gold on wine/meal/night lodging and tries to get it for free first).

Sliver
2010-07-13, 01:32 PM
have friendly chats with the undead that are his favored enemies

You know that the Favored Enemy class feature does give you social skill related bonuses as well as fighting? 'Favored Enemy' is not only about hate, it's about training and focusing on knowing the group.

DarkEternal
2010-07-13, 03:21 PM
You know that the Favored Enemy class feature does give you social skill related bonuses as well as fighting? 'Favored Enemy' is not only about hate, it's about training and focusing on knowing the group.

I do, but I always gathered those bonuses were there for tactical reasons, to understand more about the enemy before sticking a knife in his back, and for being buddy-buddy with him without said motivation that would end with horrible death.

Khakhan
2010-09-14, 07:13 PM
No more? Crud. I was enjoying this thread.

Dirty n Evil
2010-09-15, 01:50 PM
Okay, I got one from years ago... I sometimes played in this college group, and within this group there was a fellow named Rob. Rob did something that we have since dubbed "Rob-speak".

You see, Rob would never say "I face the orc I'm adjacent to and attack him with my hand axe." Nope. Rob would say, "That orc -" and he would then pantomime the action of hacking with the axe while making a whistling sort of sound as though the axe swinging through the air. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. There were no exceptions to this behavior.

Now, people do this from time to time, it's not a big deal. But the fact that he would do this every single round just made it one of those little things that got under everyone's skin. It was like he was the world's worst mime or something. Now, whenever one of the players in my current group acts similarly one of us will call him out for using too much Rob-speak and he is then mocked for the remainder of the session.

The Glyphstone
2010-09-15, 04:31 PM
Great Modthulhu: That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons, even threads may die.

Unless they're necro'ed.